Some say you can judge an organization by its leadership. If that's the case, those interested in LifeVantage Protandim should take a look at Pro 10 Distributor Nancy Leavitt's illegal testimonial about the product she sells and skin cancer. Here it is on YouTube:

[Note: Mrs. Leavitt's lawyer sent me a DMCA take-down notice for alleged copyright infringement for embedding this video from YouTube.com. I have sent a DMCA counter-notice that the lawyer must initiate legal action against me and settle this in a court of law. It is my understanding that the lawyer must file law suit against me within 10-14 days. That 10-14 day has expired and I have not been notified of any lawsuit. Thus, I'm going to restore the embedded video from YouTube as the feature was designed by Google for the ease of use of the reader.

I apologize for any past inconvenience caused by Mrs. Leavitt and her lawyer. Considering the video's content, I can understand why Nancy Leavitt would want to make it more difficult for you to view it.]

As with all YouTube videos they can be taken down by their respective owners. I suspect the above video will be taken down soon. In the event that happens I made a copy for my records. In fact, there's a note at the bottom of the comments from Matt Leavitt asking that it be removed 9 months ago. That alone should be a major red flag that this product is being marketed illegally. However as it stands on May 31, 2011, this video, that was submitted on February 9th, 2010, has over 4400 page views.

In the video you'll find Nancy Leavitt saying the following:

- 0:13 - "The most important thing to know is that this product works 100% of the time. It's proven, it's documented and it's measurable."
- 0:41 - "I had real achy joints from teaching aerobics for so many years and after just a few weeks of using Protandim that subsided immediately."
- 0:51 - "I was also using some anxiety medication and I noticed all of my symptoms from anxiety started going away..."
- 1:02 - "I no longer struggle with ADD and joint pain is gone."
- 1:10 - "The most profound thing that happened to me, besides having more energy and better sleep... what was really miraculous to me... I've suffered and struggle with skin cancer for years."
- 2:05 - "I was using Protandim and also TrueScience and I've been using the product for 6 weeks and I wanted to wait to have the surgery done because #1 it is obviously expensive and causes different scars and such... after 6 weeks the using Protandim and TrueScience the two spots on my forehead disappeared and the spot on my leg completely disappeared as well. The symptoms of skin cancer... totally gone... it was just a miraculous thing for me."

Nancy Leavitt doesn't waste much time stressing the "most important thing" that the "product works 100% of the time." She fails to define what working is in that statement, but says that it's "proven", "documented", and "measurable".... three things that are impossible to apply to something is only generally defined as "works."

Nancy Leavitt then goes into litany of medical conditions that Protandim has cured as I showed above. With those medical cure condition claims in mind, let's review LifeVantage distributor policies and procedures:

"8.11.2 – Product Claims

No claims, which include personal testimonials, as to therapeutic, curative or beneficial properties of any products offered by LifeVantage may be made except those contained in official LifeVantage materials. In particular, no Independent Distributor may make any claim that LifeVantage products are useful in the cure, treatment, diagnosis, mitigation or prevention of any diseases or signs or symptoms of disease. Not only are such claims violations of LifeVantage policies, but they potentially violate federal and state laws and regulations, including the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and Federal Trade Commission Act."

So there is the evidence that the very top people in LifeVantage break LifeVantage's own rules. As LifeVantage mentions they potentially violate the FDA and FTC's policies. The FTC has released the following guidelines on such testimonies:

• Endorsements must be truthful and not misleading;
• If the advertiser doesn’t have proof that the endorser’s experience represents what consumers will achieve by using the product, the ad must clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected results in the depicted circumstances; and
• If there’s a connection between the endorser and the marketer of the product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed.

This video violates at least the two points. She didn't disclose that she is a paid LifeVantage distributor in the video. She also does not disclose that her results are different from the "generally expected results." It is hard to judge the first own without medical proof. In addition, we already covered how how the FTC feels about the claims Nancy Leavitt made. Specifically that article mentioned:

• products that "claim to be a ‘cure-all’ for several diseases... often are unproven and useless, making promises they can’t fulfill."
• "The reality is that phony miracle products can have dangerous interactions with medicines you’re already taking. They also might cause you to delay or stop medical treatment for your condition…"
• products you should avoid “are promoted with phrases like 'scientific breakthrough,' 'ancient remedy,' or 'miraculous cure,' or scientific-sounding terms like 'thermogenesis'"

So we have Nancy Leavitt hitting all the major points of what the FTC is a scam and fraud. In regard to bullet point #1 above, she definitely calls it a cure-all (works 100%) for several conditions. In regard to bullet point #2 above, she admitted that it stopped her from treating her medical condition (skin cancer). Finally, In regard to bullet point #3 above, we have her claiming twice that Protandim was "miraculous."

A related article notes that MonaVie, another MLM, and their lawyers have made it a point to warn that these claims violate the FTC rules: MonaVie, FTC Guidelines, and Distributor Testimonies.

I haven't even touched the FDA violations here. I'll let someone in the comments get that ball rolling.

Originally posted 2011-05-31 22:13:03.

[Update: It looks like Michelle Skaff has scrubbed her site clean. Seems like an admission of guilt.]

You would think that Michelle Skaff as a LifeVantage Pro 7 distributor and member of the LifeVantage Ownership Circle would know better, but then again this is one of the least surprising findings on this site. Michelle Skaff runs the website, Our Health and Abundance according to the GoDaddy Registry information.

Our Health and Abundance looks to be a repository of conflicting information. It's purpose is clearly to pitch Protandim with the tagline of "Featuring: Testimonials, Doctors, Vets and Pets for Protandim." It includes categories on the sidebar of diseases such as: Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, and Diabetes. However in small letters at the bottom of the page is the disclaimer, "*Products not intended to cure, treat or prevent disease*." This would seem to fall afoul of the FTC's endorsement guidelines where you can not suggest Protandim plays a role in disease and then in small letters negate the whole statement.

When you dig a little further you can see that there are a number of illegal claims on a Protandim testimonial page. There you can find Protandim distributor Don Wheat crediting Protandim helping his throat cancer and Protandim distributor Alithia Rutherford credit Protandim with helping with headaches (though the site categorizes the testimonial under Multiple Sclerosis as well as many other testimonies involving various diseases.

Michelle Skaff's own LinkedIn Page contains illegal claims about Protandim:

"Featured on ABC, NBC, PBS, and in Sanjay Gupta's book, Chasing Life, Protandim is proven to be a scientific breakthrough for our health based on it's ability to activate the powerful survival genes in our bodies that reduce aging, oxidation, inflammation and impact diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and more. It has been researched by LSU, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Colorado and and other leading universities based on it's powerful ability to activate the survival genes within our cells, which are millions of times more powerful then what we might consume externally.. If you are serious about your health, learn about this product and science."

I bolded the parts where she illegally claims that Protandim does impact diseases. However it also worth pointing out that Harvard and MGH have not researched Protandim.

It is quite clear that Michelle Skaff is using testimonials to pitch Protandim as an aid to many, many diseases despite her own disclaimer and LifeVantage's that it isn't intended for such purposes. There's a word in the dictionary for this and it's called fraud.

Originally posted 2011-10-11 16:13:28.

I just received an email from LifeVantage Protandim distributor Peter Davidson. It asked me to go to gotoabcnews.com to learn about something that "could make a significant difference" in my life.

In going to that website, it was big advertisement for Protandim. Clearly a LifeVantage distributor registered the domain with the intention capitalizing on ABC News' trademark for their own business purposes. Clearly this wasn't a website registered by ABC News for their own purposes. The website isn't used for the purpose of discussing ABC News or any other legit use. According to GoDaddy that seems to be Mike Garrard of Macy, Indiana.

It's disappointing, but hardly suprising, that LifeVantage can't keep its distributors from breaking spam law and trademark laws.

Originally posted 2011-09-06 02:08:08.

The following is a closely paraphrased version of the comment and research by Vogel:

The latest jerk who’s illegally promoting Protandim as a disease cure is Pro 6 LifeVantage distributor Stephen West. This [jerk] is particularly dangerous because not only is he fraudulently promoting Protandim as a disease cure but he’s also fraudulently promoting himself as a "doctor" and a "healer". He illegally uses "Dr." in front of his name and claims to have a doctorate in "lymphology" – however no such degree exists and "lymphology" is nothing more than pseudoscientific BS.

Here is his disclaimer regarding the BS mail order degrees he professes to hold. Legit degrees don't require lengthy disclaimers.

Here is one of West’s Protandim promo pages. This page contains some whopping lies about Protandim, such as the following:

“Dr Joe McCord also discovered the Protandim formula and has been nominated for 4 Nobel Prizes in Medicine.”
“It can take six to seven months or longer for some people to really begin to see some of the long term positive effects of Protandim.”

Side note: You don't "discover" a proprietary mixture of ingredients. Also McCord didn't contribute significantly to Protandim by his own admission. Finally Nobel Prize nominations are anonymous and any of thousands of people can nominate any thousands of people.

This comment from West was gobsmacking too; amazingly, West waxes enthusiastically about how it caused loss of appetite…hardly a good thing:

“The first 3 months of being on the product... Missing a meal two or three times a week (or more) went almost un-noticed as I was traveling and very busy. During a lunch break in the middle of a Saturday workshop in Huntington Beach, CA, someone asked me if I was hungry and I said, ‘Not really’ — and it was then that I realized it had been 24 hours since I had eaten anything.”

West then goes on to illegally promote Protandim as a treatment for diabetes:

“One of the new success stories that has come up was someone with Diabetes who noticed a real measurable improvement after 7 months of consistent Protandim use.”

Then he tacitly acknowledges that distributors (like him) are not allowed to promote the product for the treatment of diseases (which he already did) and then tells people to just go ahead and do it anyway using PubMed as the vehicle (promotion using PubMed in this manner is still illegal).

“23 different independent studies by different independent universities began over 5 years ago and now some of them have been published, all on different diseases which names we’ve been told not to disclose on our websites, but we can point you to them so you can discover them for yourself.”

Then the moron basically suggested that people should skip meals and use their food money to buy Protandim instead:

“How much money do you spend each month on food? (After 3 months Dr West noticed that this was paying for Protandim alone.)”

For more insight into the dangerous quack-antics of this piece of human excrement, check out the following pages; be prepared to laugh, and cry.
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Originally posted 2013-05-09 00:36:38.

Christi Baus suggested I take a look at here website about Protandim at Christ Baus. I think she expected it to be a compelling reason to buy the product, but it turns out that there is a lot of misleading information there - some of it seems like outright lies. In case here website has changed, you can see a screenshot of it here.

Let's go into a few of the problems that I found on the site.

Myth: Trump, Kiyosaki, and Buffett support Network Marketing

For one you say that Trump, Kiyosaki, and Buffett support Network Marketing (i.e. the name that MLMers use for MLM because it sounds better, Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, MLMs, and MonaVie

Christi also suggests that people "Get the facts as featured in Wall Street Journal." This is misleading as the link is to an advertisement by the Direct Selling Association that is a lobbyist group for MLM. It is nothing more than informercial in print. It clearly doesn't represent the opinions of any WSJ editors.

Christi Baus' distorted view on illegal pyramid schemes

She had some interesting points about illegal pyramid schemes:

"You must be able to join the business without having to purchase any products what so ever. You can join LifeVantage for only $50."

That $50 option (the starter kit) says that "Note: When ordering a Starter Kit, you must also place an initial product order of 100 PV or more in order to qualify for commissions."

In other words you can not join the business (qualify for commissions) without purchasing product. Also, while it is not stated here, you must continue to purchase product or you will lose the ability to qualify for commissions (i.e. be in the business).

Cristi also said about legit opportunities vs. illegal pyramid schemes,

"You can only be paid when product is purchased by a downline distributor or your own customers."

I did not see this in anything the FTC has written. In fact, the FTC has shut down pyramid schemes when this is the case (JewelWay for example). The FTC wouldn't care if people were paid a bonus of $10,000 for making no sales to any distributors or customers. Of course, businesses don't typically give away $10,000, so this point is never tested, but it is irrelevant.

The third claim Christi makes about MLMs and illegal pyramid schemes is:

"You can not be paid for enrolling people into the business."

This is true, but it extends to further than that. The quote from the FTC is:

"Another sign of a pyramid scheme is if the money you make depends more on recruiting — getting new distributors to pay for the right to participate in the plan — than on sales to the public."

So if the money one makes from one's downline is greater than the amount of product that one makes from sales of the product oneself, it is likely a pyramid scheme.

As it was earlier established, to be in the business one must buy product and thus if one is paid based on that person's initial purchase, one is being paid for enrolling people in the business. The two are interlinked and are one in the same.

Protandim and Pharmaceutical Companies

Christi makes the point that pharmaceutical companies are trying to do what Protandim already does. Ask yourself that if Protandim actually worked, why wouldn't they just buy LifeVantage - it's a publicly traded company penny stock company. It doesn't make sense until you realize that Protandim actually creates free radicals: Cheap Curcumin in Protandim Activates Nrf2 by Stimulating Free Radical Production.

Perhaps the pharmaceutical companies are trying to activate Nrf2 without creating free radicals.

Christi Baus makes the claim of:

"Did you know that the specific combination of herbs, the exact ratio of each one is the reason it works, 1800% more effective than the sum of the parts."

What Christi doesn't mention is that this statement has no scientific proof to it. There is no untainted, unfudged data that Protandim does anything for humans to begin with. There's no data that the exact ratio plays any part. It is worth mentioning that it is illogical as this is not the case with any other natural product. We don't suggest that there's a magic ratio that cake becomes extra healthy.

Christi Baus' "Who to BELIEVE?" section

The first quote that is interesting is:

"Look at the studies that are being released by Harvard, Ohio State U, LSU and the American Heart Association. Go to Pubmed.gov and search for Protandim, all the studies will pop up."

I've been to Pubmed.gov and none of these organizations have released any studies that support Protandim. In the case of Harvard, Ohio State U, and LSU none of these schools endorse Protandim in any way. Go ahead and search Harvard's website for Protandim - there's nothing there. For more about the "Harvard" lie: read: LifeVantage Lies to SEC, Investors, Consumers about “Harvard” Study.

The truth about these schools is that they have one person who may or may not have been paid by LifeVantage to conduct a test and publish a paper. In almost every case LifeVantage's Joe McCord was involved in the study making it anything but biased.

As for the American Heart Association, they published a paper "Chronic Pulmonary Artery Pressure Elevation Is Insufficient to Explain Right Heart Failure", which if you read the conclusion had absolutely nothing to do with Protandim.

Final Thoughts

Christi didn't have much to offer on her website that wasn't already addressed here. Though it is clear that she's trying to throw out big names such as Harvard, Wall Street Journal, Warren Buffett, and Donald Trump to make it seem like they support Protandim. However, just like LifeVantage itself, when you dig a little deeper you find that none of these people or organizations support LifeVantage or Protandim, nor do they stand by the product doing anything at all for the consumer.

Originally posted 2011-12-16 20:06:46.

Somehow, I've been put on a LifeVantage distributor email distribution list. I didn't ask to be, but I guess someone saw that I write about Protandim and put my email on the list and sold it to people. That's the only thing I can think of.

Anyway, I got an interesting email from LifeVantage Distributor Dave Tarr the other day. It said:

"Hello Fellow Life Vantage Distributor,

I hope your your getting younger and feeling great with Protandim and Life Vantage products.

I am a LV distributor in Mexico and though you may find this interesting to help your lifevantage business."

I kept the grammatical error ("your your" instead of just "you're") in there as it is an exact quote. I'm writing about the claim that LifeVantage products play a role in one "getting younger." This is clearly not the case. LifeVantage products do not reverse the aging process like as if the person were Benjamin Button.

At this point, I'm too afraid of further illegal claims to watch the the video his email spam is trying to get people to watch.

Originally posted 2011-08-07 15:41:42.

Brandon Cunningham is a LifeVantage Elite Pro 9 Distributor. One would expect that someone so high in the company to be an upstanding member of the sales organization. After all, if the people at the top are dishonestly scamming people, it's going to spread through the whole organization. This website has found time and again that this is the case. It would take years to go through every distributor's videos and point out all the logical fallacies. Brandon Cunningham is lucky enough to be one of the select few to be featured here. Why, because he's openly trying to suppress critical thinking.

It's with that in mind that I do a little dissecting of this video. Yes it's a long video, but I'll be covering a subset of it... at least in the first publishing of this.

Here are some points where Brandon Cunningham tries to mislead his audience:

I'm going to start at towards the end, because he is asked by the audience how to address the criticism from the Protandim article on Lazy Man.

At the 1:36:25 point, an audience member asks for a "quick comeback for Lazy Man." Before getting to Brandon Cunningham's response, it's worth noting that these salespeople are looking for "quick comebacks", not to legitimately address the legitimate concerns of people who have done their research.

Brandon Cunningham's response is to use questions or in other words use the loaded question logical fallacy. He then goes into a full fledged ad hominem logical fallacy, attacking the source of the information instead of the validity of it. That Wikipedia article shows that ad hominem is the second worst type of argument in a disagreement after name calling. Brandon Cunningham combines both with his loaded questions about the name "Lazy Man." He then uses another loaded question to put forth an appeal to authority fallacy, suggesting that only a doctor could be reputable. This is ignoring the fact that a doctor, Joe McCord himself admitted that he didn't invent Protandim in a signed document.

Brandon Cunningham says (1:38:10) that he chooses to believe Harvard over "Lazy Man." That would make sense if Harvard had any opinion about Protandim. Instead LifeVantage Lied to SEC, Investors, Consumers about 'Harvard' Study. Here's something to note, no research in the "Harvard" study was conducted at Harvard. Brandon Cunningham is apparently too lazy to do the research and see that he was lied to. Most likely he just doesn't care because to face the truth would cause great internal conflict (see cognitive dissonance) about how he makes a living scamming others.

Brandon Cunningham goes on to point out that "he's done it to 15 companies" and then agrees with an audience member that he gets paid to do it. It's interesting that earlier in the presentation he mentioned that the industry has a ton of snake oil products. The logical conclusion here is that it is to Lazy Man's credit to help consumers steer clear of these companies and snake oil products. The audience member is wrong that Lazy Man gets paid to write these articles. No one is funding the articles, they are like any other article on the site or millions of other websites that depend solely on advertising. However, let's put the cards on the table. On one hand you have an unbiased person exposing a snake oil company and their lies and making the information available to the consumer for free. On the other hand, you have a biased Brandon Cunningham misleading consumers with logical fallacies to sell them snake oil. Which do you want to put your faith in?

At the 1:38:50 mark, Brandon Cunningham continues to ask loaded questions like, "Does he have enzymes in your body that he named like Dr. McCord?" Note that Dr. McCord did not name any enzymes in your body. Not that it matters because McCord isn't responsible for Protandim and destroyed his credibility by lying about it.

Cunningham then continues with the lies. He asks the rhetorical question of "Why are McCord's names on all the studies?" and answers it with "Hello, they have to be!" He goes on to describe how if he was an author of a book and gets a quote from someone else to include in the book he has to include a credit or he would get sued. In scientific papers, appropriate credit for a quote is given in references section. If you read any of the studies on Protandim, you'll see numerous such references. McCord's name appears as an author of the study, which indicates his core participation in the study. Once again Brandon Cunningham is lying to scam the audience.

At 1:40:25, Cunningham says, "If someone makes you feel silly for getting involved in this because of a blog, they just gave you the green light to make them feel silly for saying something stupid to you." Brandon Cunningham, this video of you saying stupid things just gave everyone the green light to make LifeVantage look silly for trying to deflect criticism and not address it.

At 1:40:45, Cunningham responds to a statement of "Dr. McCord is not the inventor" by asking the question, "Really, who is? How do you know that? Prove it. Put it back on them."

The answer is very simple. We know that Paul Myhill is the inventor and not McCord because LifeVantage itself has proved it multiple times. You can read the patent application of Protandim and see that the company listed Paul Myhill and William Driscoll as inventors. You can read LifeVantage's own co-founder Paul Myhill admit that McCord didn't invent it: "Because the core composition came from a very unlikely source – me – we initially decided to hide that fact for marketing purposes and instead rely on the impeccable background of Dr. McCord." Finally, there is the signed admission from McCord that Myhill and Driscoll invented Protandim. That's three sources from LifeVantage, including McCord, itself.

Brandon Cunningham, it has been extensively proven. Your inability to acknowledge it only goes to further prove that you are extremely dim-witted and/or purposely trying to scam people.

At 1:41:05 Cunningham says, "Your job should be to ask them questions... why they haven't done this." Since when is it a product salesman's job to ask a prospective customer questions about what he's selling? That's backwards. Maybe people don't want to do this, because they have a soul and a conscience. Maybe they don't want to make a living scamming others out their money by spreading lies and misleading them as you have done, Brandon Cunningham.

Getting back to the beginning

There's a lot of information in the video (it's two hours long) and this article is long. Nonetheless, I'll jump in a little into the video and point out a few more choose scam quotes from Cunningham.

At 24:15 - "You should be skeptical, because the opposite is gullible. It's not good to be gullible. Ask yourself this... if this is a scam, I guess ABC News is in on the scam. Ever thought of that way? If there is dirt to find, don't you think ABC News has more resources than you with Google... to find dirt? That's their job... to find dirt. It's not what happened."

Much of this misleading talk is explained in The Truth Behind LifeVantage’s ABC Primetime Video. First, the ABC News created the video in 2005, when they had no way evidence that LifeVantage and Dr. Joe McCord were Lying about the Creation of Protandim. It wasn't until years later that LifeVantage employees Paul Myhill and Joe McCord admitted to it. ABC doesn't have the benefit of a time machine to go back and fix a video that they released in 2005. The fact that they haven't been interested in covering Protandim in any way in the last 8 years should tell you something.

Second, ABC's job is get ratings. That includes inspirational and hopeful news pieces. You can tell at the beginning of the ABC video where they are very careful about not saying that it works. They say it's "science possibility", "a potential breakthrough", "down the road"... and that's just in the first 20 seconds of the video.

There was no breakthrough. There's no other media coverage, which is why they are pushing this 8 year old video. To quote Brandon Cunningham, "it's not what happened."

Brandon Cunningham, your logical fallacy is appeal to authority: "You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true." In this case the authority (ABC) did not say something was true, was very careful about stating it wasn't true, and didn't have the benefit of information that was revealed at a later time."

You are busted for scamming the audience about ABC.

At the 24:52, Brandon Cunningham says, "We now have many, many, many universities studying this product and that would mean they are in on the scam."

The truth is that no university is studying Protandim. There's no press release or any communication from any university stating an interest in Protandim. Researchers who are affiliated with universities may have done research, but that is different from the universities themselves stating interest and approving such research. Additionally, Paul Myhill, Inventor of Protandim, Admits Science is for Marketing. Those who read the studies and understand them can tell that they are full of fluff. In fact, Dr. Harriet Hall breaks down the ridiculousness of one "study" in comical detail.

Brandon Cunningham then shows he's completely clueless by misstating pubmed.gov as govmed.gov and then crossing out govmed.gov and making it medmed.gov. This illustrates why MLM is a terrible means of selling health products... the top sales people know how to scam not the "science."

Once he figures out the Pubmed.gov site, he fails to mention that the FDA considers using such a source in selling the product to be illegal in marketing supplements. Specifically the FDA has sent this this warning letter to Nature's Pearl. It specifically states:

"When scientific publications are used commercially by the seller of a product to promote the product to consumers, such publications may become evidence of the product's intended use. For example, under 21 CFR 101.93(g)(2)(iv)(C), a citation of a publication or reference in the labeling of a product is considered a claim about disease treatment or prevention if the citation refers to a disease use, and if, in the context of the labeling as a whole, the citation implies treatment or prevention of a disease."

You can read the warning letter further, but it is clear that Brandon Cunningham is breaking the FDA Act in citing Pubmed in conjunction with marketing Protandim.

At the 26:40 mark, Brandon Cunningham displays his ignorance by citing that Cherry 7-Up has "antioxidant" on it because it contains a minor amount of cherry. The truth is that Cherry 7-Up has "antioxidant" on it because it is fortified with vitamin E, not because it has cherries in it. It took 10 seconds to Google that information form 7ups website. Maybe Cunningham should give researchers using Google and other tools a little more credit.

At the 28:40 mark, Brandon Cunningham makes the point that he hadn't previous heard of Pubmed.gov, because he's not a doctor. That's the point... the information there isn't for the average person to read. For those people, Pubmed gives a guide to what works . Specifically it point out that the best information is clinical trials, which Protandim fails on every account according to ClinicalTrials.gov, a site with the U.S. National Institute of Health. Why isn't Brandon Cunningham addressing this? Because he's trying to scam you.

At the 29:15 mark Brandon Cunningham asks why universities aren't studying his fish oil or multivitamin. He point out that he was typing in name-brands. This is clear lunacy. It's like suggesting that research on milk doesn't apply to Lucerne milk, Land O'Lakes milk, and Hood milk, because the search result didn't come up when looking for specific brands. He then falsely concludes that universities were studying Protandim (again they are not) because it reduces oxidation where his fish oil and multivitamin do not. Actually multivitamins are antioxidants... and are more well studied than Protandim.

Brandon Cunningham, your strawman logical fallacy is busted.

Around the 37:00 minute mark, Cunningham states that at GNC, Protandim was selling at one bottle every other month. That's proof-positive that there's no demand behind the product without people making illegal medical claims like those that Cunningham has done. Cunningham then goes on to say that LifeVantage is traded on the Nasdaq and that you don't get there if you are a scam. It's worth noting that Enron was a much, much, bigger company at something nearing $100 billion dollars... and it was a scam. It's worth noting that Bernie Madoff's $50 billion pyramid scheme was busted. Billionaire Bill Ackman has put a billion dollars of his own money, enough to buy LifeVantage four times over, into showing that Herbalife, another publicly traded MLM, is a scam.

Clearly Brandon Cunningham is mistaken in assuming that something on the Nasdaq can not be a scam.

I could go on and I may update this article with more coverage. However, as you can tell, I've covered about 15 minutes of the video and exposed numerous misleading information, including outright lies, from Brandon Cunningham. No one with even moderate intelligence should believe what Cunningham is saying in this presentation.

I found it interesting that Nick Bello decided to put out a press release announcing his joining of LifeVantage. Considering that there is no barrier to joining LifeVantage, this is similar to someone putting out a press release that they ate a sandwich. It certainly isn't "Breaking News!" as he describes it.

In the press release he points to the ABC video attempting to let it speak for itself. He omits The Truth Behind LifeVantage’s ABC Primetime Video.

He's also quoted as saying:

“With a product like Protandim that has been proven by science through 15 different peer-reviewed studies, when people start taking the product, they keep taking it, and it is very affordable.”

Actually proven by science, according to the National Institute of Health requires clinical trials and systematic reviews. There's only been two clinical trials. The first had a done of procedural errors that are elsewhere explained on this site and the second showed negative results. There have been no systematic reviews.

And people don't continue taking the product. In a LifeVantage Conference Call, they revealed that 95% of preferred customers quit taking it every year. You can read more with the cited information here: LifeVantage Reveals How Terrible the Business Opportunity Is

As for it being "very affordable", it's is a terrible value with about $1.50 worth of ingredients in every bottle as shown in this Protandim article. It is much more affordable to buy the ingredients separately.

Bello then adds, “LifeVantage has grown at an amazing rate with no hype. It is the best kept secret in the industry.” That is further misleading as it one of the few publicly traded MLM companies. As such it's not a "secret" in any kind of way. As far as growing at an amazing rate with no hype, what do you call Donny Osmond breaking the FTC's celebrity endorsement guidelines on Dr. Phil? And then he followed it up with a repeated breaking of the FTC guidelines on another talk show.

Why must Nick Bello feel the need to spam the Internet with self-promotional press releases? It's yet another reason to hate MLM. You don't see other supplement company employees putting out press releases about them joining the company.

Final Thought: I really don't like to call out people personally, but these people deserve it. Why let them continue their scamming ways unchecked?

This article is from a comment left by Vogel. I've done some light editing for presentation purposes.

Just came across this idiotic newsletter (PDF) in which Protandim distributor Bill Henderson makes the following illegal marketing claims, positioning the product as a cure for cancer:

“We have been studying Protandim for quite a while now. Physical results from those utilizing this all-natural substance seem to be both extensive and profound. While we make no claims for cancer cure (only the human immune system cures cancer), we know of several who are stating that this is the only thing they changed in their lives and their cancer is gone…Protandim is a combination of milk thistle, bacopa, ashwagandha root, green tea leaf, and turmeric. Now, many of you know that each one of these naturally occurring substances is very ‘anti-cancer’ all by itself. It appears, however, that the synergism produced by combining these within a specific formula, is nothing short of amazing. Yeah, I’d call that spectacular! Protandim can’t hurt anyone and appears to help just about everyone – regardless of the physical challenge. We are now recommending it to cancer patients – although we would discourage anyone from relying on this alone to heal their cancer.”

Notice the typical backhanded attempt to deny that he is in fact making a disease cure claim; i.e., “I’m not saying Protandim cures cancer; I’m just saying that Protandim cures cancer.”

The newsletter also states that Henderson is connected with a dubious organization called the American Anti-Cancer Institute (AACI).

“Bill is a very active member of the AACI Advisory Board and one of the best cancer coaches this side of the equator. Bill also recommends Protandim and has done his homework on it. Actually, he is so enamored with it that he markets it – but does not profit from that marketing. He is now donating all the profits from this venture to the AACI. Bless your heart, Bill! And, no, we did not solicit this and already recommended this product before Bill made his decision. We would promote this product regardless. Just so you all know – there is noconflict of interest here. If you wish to acquire this product – and we think everyone should – either find a distributor near you or go to Bill’s website. We all benefit this way. Many of you are now wondering, ‘What on earth is bacopa?’ Look it up!”

The AACI is a travesty of an organization that promotes fraudulent cancer treatments like alkaline water and products from the MLM Reliv.

Curious how LifeVantage views Bill’s illegal marketing initiatives? Those that know the company won’t be surprised to learn that they congratulated Bill and gave him an award.

The following article is largely written by Vogel via a the comment here. I've attempted to format the comment to fit with the website. The title is my own and it represents what I think is a fair and accurate description of the information in the article.

I was just going over an old video by Protandim shill Alice Reed and was struck by a claim which I have heard repeated often in Protandim sales pitches; i.e., that our bodies normally produce 13 sextillion free radicals per day and that Protandim causes the neutralization of free radicals at a rate of 1 million radicals per second. Sounds impressive right?

02:52 – “Our body makes 13 sextillion free radicals a day – that 13 with 26 zeros after it”

Note: She’s actually wrong here. A sextillion would be 21 zeros (U.S. definition) or 36 zeros (UK definition), but let’s take her at face value. The number (which written as an exponent corresponds to 1.3 x 10e27) would look like this:

13,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

03:17 – “When we are young we have a set of genes that is working for us combating a million free radicals per second for us and thus neutralizing the free radical damage – because what happens is that when your free radical damage is high and your antioxidants are low, that difference is called oxidative stress [Note: that’s actually not an accurate definition of oxidative stress; it is when free radical production exceeds their deactivation by endogenous antioxidants; “damage” is not part of the definition]

05:00 – “Protandim is a NRF2 activator; it is not an antioxidant; it is a natural product that tells your DNA to make your god-given antioxidants at the tune of 1 million per second”

One million free radicals per second sure sounds like a lot right? How many free radicals would be neutralized by Protandim per day? That number would look like this:

1,000,000,000 radicals x 60 (sec/min) x 60 (min/h) x 24 (h/day)
= 1,000,000,000 radicals x 86,400 (sec/day)
= 86,400,000,000 radicals/day (written exponentially, this would be 8.64 x 10e10; i.e.10 zeros)

Still sounds like a lot of free radicals neutralized per day right? But if we express this as a percentage of the 13 sextillion radicals that Walker claims our bodies produce daily, it corresponds to this:

0.000000000000007%

That’s 7 quadrillionth of one percent. To call that insignificant would be a vast understatement. To get a sense of scale, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that the volume of all the water on our planet is roughly 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. The amount of free radicals neutralized by Protandim would be akin to using a one-gallon milk container to bail out 25,000 gallons of water from all the water in the earth’s oceans and lakes -- an imperceptible amount.

So there you have it; yet another LifeVantage fairy tale gets destroyed. If we take their claim at face value, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the product's effect on free radicals is extremely insignificant.

Update: I also forgot to comment on another of her statements; namely:

“Protandim is a NRF2 activator; it is not an antioxidant”

The second part of that sentence is patently untrue. There are numerous in vitro studies in cell-free systems (hence, lacking NRF) showing that green tea polyphenols and curcumin act as antioxidants.

[The following is a guest post by Vogel. It was originally a comment here and republished here with his permission. I've done some editing for formatting. Like most scandalous LifeVantage videos, I expect them to pull this down soon. So if you get a notice that the video has been deleted or is otherwise not playable, it is a tacit admission that they don't want you to the shenanigans that go at a meeting from a high ranking LifeVantage distributor.]

I found a new video on YouTube featuring Pro 8 distributor Christa Harris(a self-described formerly broke missionary) giving a presentation to LifeVantage distributors and prospects at the Executive Plaza Hotel in Coquitlam BC.

A careful analysis of her presentation provides a fascinating, albeit disturbing, glimpse into the blueprint that’s used to scam people in LifeVantage’s pyramid scheme. She opens as follows:

00:41 -- "It’s now – get in fast – because some of you will just make money cuz you’re getting in. Get in early!”

In other words, financial success is determined simply by when you join the pyramid scheme; a classic red flag

00:52 -- “You’re going to have seasons of your life that you’re like “none of my friends will listen to me; none of my family will listen to me” and you’re going to get frustrated because those are the people you care about; you care about their futures -- just give it some time…LifeVantage shouldn't change your relationship with them...does that make sense? You’re still going to love them"

She makes it clear throughout the presentation, that the primary recruitment effort should be aimed at friends and family

01:20 -- "It’s an incredible gift. The opportunity is Canada right now is an unbelievable gift, so see it for what it is -- present it as that."

In other words, lie outright and present it as a gift instead of telling them that they’re expected to pay more than $3500 in their first year alone for this "gift", as she reveals later on in the presentation.

02:06 -- "Did anyone put on their top 10 list of things that they wanted to do with their life was multilevel marketing (crowd erupts in laughter). Sorry it wasn't on our list. I was scared I was nervous I wasn't convinced I could do it, yah?"

At almost every MLM pitch meeting, the presenters joke about how at first they immediately became skeptical and suspicious about the "opportunity" as soon as they heard the word MLM mentioned, because MLM has such a horrid reputation...but THIS one (the latest MLM du jour)...is always different from those "other" notorious MLMs

02:38 -- "We didn't have any money...and we weren't the healthiest people around. Y’know we sort of ate what we could afford. We were probably skinnier then (Christa giggles and crowd laughs on cue).

A common feature of MLM con artists is that they have a history of being broke and unhealthy, and yet ironically, they later reinvent themselves as authorities on financial success and wellness.

At around the 07:00 mark she drones on about how she used to have anxiety about not being able to pay bills, and then about finding "your why" (08:15).

"Your 'why' make you cry", she says. "Your 'why' builds emotion inside of you...that’s bigger than paying my debt. So find your why, because when you get told no by your best friend who you thought trusted you and they will not even watch the ABC Primetime investigative report? Seriously? Your just want to question their friendship don’t you? It’s a bummer!”

How appalling! This clearly shows why MLMs wreak havoc on personal relationships. Recruits are thought to put their faith in the pyramid scheme/cult above all else, including friends and family. Bummer indeed!

She presents a slide titled "Getting Started" showing the startup expenditures that new distributors are expected to make: this includes the Vantage Pack (which sells for $630) + $200 monthly autoship + approximately $500 for a meeting pass. Total first year costs (not including other "business" expenditures) amounts to $3530.

The meeting then had a few moments of unintended comedy, where people in the audience complained about not getting access to LFVN "university", the meeting pass offer being revoked, etc.

18:45 -- "The two biggest things we see in failing in LifeVantage is that you talk too much.”

She then mocks distributors by pointing out how they sound like buffoons when they try to talk about SOD, glutathione, and “working at the cellular level."

20:43 -- "Please whatever you do, don’t lose your whole database because you’re so excited about this. Let some other people do this for you and with you...Invite to 3-way phone calls; invite to see the ABC Primetime -- there’s a new website we like -- anewsreport.com or abusinessreport.com -- we like it...it has great third party...You want to invite people to see this, but don’t invite people to see this without setting up a three-way phone call with someone in your team...They’re going to be nervous, for Pete’s sake it’s multilevel marketing. CLUE IN! We were all nervous; we all thought we were going to lose our money."

In other words, the distributors role is essentially that of a stringer; the con-mans foot soldier who finds the rubes on the street and then lines them up so that they can be fleeced by the ringleader. To make matters worse, the sites she’s directing distributors to use for sales pitches both contain unauthorized copies of ABCs copyrighted material. Not coincidentally, both of the sites are registered anonymously (see this and this), so as to evade liability.

23:16 -- "You better edify that person. 'She’s my friend...she’s making a, lot of money – you better listen'."

Yes indeed, say as little as possible aside from constantly kissing your upline’s arse.

23:30 -- "This is my friend; she used to not sleep well. She’s been on the product for two weeks. She’s sleeping through the night like a baby...Sleeping is a great way to introduce this to people"

In other words, a great way to introduce people to Protandim is to lie to them and violate US law by promoting it as an unapproved sleep aid.

24:08 -- "We don’t EVER just introduce the product; we don’t EVER just introduce the product – we do the whole shabang to every single person we know. You don’t know; we weren’t going to be network marketers; if the whole thing hadn’t been introduced to us we wouldn’t be standing here, OK?"

This a clear admission that retail sales of the product are a distant concern; it is only about recruitment. Do not simply try to sell the product; always recruit everyone to become a distributor. Also, notice that again she makes a veiled reference to the terrible reputation of MLM.

25:52 -- "How many of you are grateful that you were invited to this meeting; how many of you are grateful you that enrolled in LifeVantage? [One person, probably her husband Mark, unenthusiastically mumbles 'oh yeah'; the rest laugh at her] We aren’t different; we aren't different; we’re all the same; we’re all so grateful; you’re going to find people that are going to thank you for the rest of your lives – the rest of your lives."

Not surprisingly, no one felt compelled to express their gratitude for the opportunity to be fleeced for $3500.

26:17 -- "Fifteen presentations a month. The people who present make the money."

31:52 -- "It may be a long time before you make some good money. If you want it fast... you get in, you get 10 people; you get in 20 people; you work like crazy, you need 30-40 people to go to the top, put in your mind now 30-40 distributors in your back office to go the top, to become an elite distributor."

This makes it crystal clear that the path to success that they are proposing involves distributor recruitment alone – is anymore evidence needed to conclude that this is an effing pyramid scheme?

Summary

Harris is selling false hope in a business opportunity that she portrays as a solid strategy for earning money and solving one’s financial woes (when in fact, the company’s Income Disclosure Statement says the exact opposite). That opportunity, she contends, should be considered a gift, but in fact it’s a gift that you have to pay $3600 for. I would consider that a gift too -- a very large one -- but from the distributor to LifeVantage and to Christa.

The opportunity that Christa describes fits all of the classic definitions of a product-based pyramid scheme: i.e., tapping friends and family; focusing entirely on recruitment rather than retail sales; huge upfront expenses; coercive tactics such as the 3-way gang-up phone-call and emotional blackmail ("find your why"); success being determined by when one joins the pyramid; expected edification of the ringleaders; false product claims; and unrealistic representations about the probability of financial success.

The cherry on top is that Christa, like all other LifeVantage distributors are encouraged to do, directs her downline and new prospects to illegal anonymous websites that are ripping off ABCs intellectual property.

[Editor's Note: This post relies heavily on the research by Vogel and Strangely from Strangely Perfect. This research has been previously published here, here, and here. We'll rely mostly on specific quotes from those researchers with some formatting edits for clarity.]

Vogel starts us off:

"A new website promoting Protandim just went up today. It’s noteworthy because it is operated by >Rebecca L. Glasser, a 56-year-old physician from Grand Junction, Colorado who happens to be a Protandim distributor. She is misleadingly implying that Protandim can prevent diseases:

'Free radicals are linked to thousands of diseases and cancers. What if we could reduce free radicals or what’s called oxidative stress by an average of 40%. What would that mean as far as preventive medicine?'

Allow me to answer that. NOTHING!!! Protandim prevents nothing. It doesn’t even reliably lower oxidative stress, as was shown in the only well-designed clinical trial of the product conducted to date. [Burnham EL, McCord JM, Bose S, Brown LA, House R, Moss M, Gaydos J. Protandim does not influence alveolar epithelial permeability or intrapulmonary oxidative stress in human subjects with alcohol use disorders. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2012 Apr 1;302(7):L688-99]

Her entire website appears to be designed to fool people into thinking that Protandim, by virtue of some effect it is claimed to have on NRF2 and oxidative stress, can prevent or alleviate diseases. She has entries referring to rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. There’s even a repost of that idiotic video about Cassie the dog, allegedly demonstrating that the lame dog was magically healed by taking Protandim. The idiocy of that video is astounding.

I can’t imagine how desperate this person must be to stoop so low. She should set fire to her medical license."

It is worth noting that LifeVantage itself has said that Protandim is not intended to prevent disease.

Strangely ups the research to another level, with some humor in brackets:

"Queer goings-on might explain Glasser, if it’s the same one.

On 20 Nov 2012 we see that a Dr. Rebecca Glasser resigned from parkway Plastic Surgery in Jacksonville Fla.

On 25 Nov 2012 (five days later) the first post on Glasser’s free blogspot site pops out...

Unfortunately we all seemed to have missed the [not] riveting discussion between Glasser & King. The promo for the chat call bears repetition for it’s sheer funniness.

'Several years ago, [9 years and counting with nothing since!] the dietary supplement, Protandim, was featured on ABC Primetime by investigative reporter John Quinones. Since that time, Protandim has become one of the most researched nutraceutical products, [no it hasn't] having 15 peer reviewed studies published on the National Institute of Health database (Pubmed.Gov).[only 15? like dah?]

Protandim is clinically proven [clinical proven? shurely shome mishtake?] to reduce Oxidative Stress by an average of 40%!'

Please join us for a conference call with Dr. Rebecca Glasser to discuss the science of Protandim and why fighting Oxidative Stress is one of the most important things you can do for your body! [no it isn't. Vogel just answered that one above]

I’ve highlighted the laughable bits for their sheer incongruity and fibiness.

So, if it is the same woman, she’s gone from plastic surgery to flogging snake oil in one fell swoop. There must be more to this."

Vogel comes back with a little more information:

"Excellent investigative work there Strangely. I wasn’t aware that she had resigned from Parkway Plastic Surgery or that she had been doing “science calls” for the company. One can only imagine what would have led her to leave a plastic surgery practice and become a Protandim shill. It’s unusual to say the least. I would assume that it was a combination of poor professional performance on her part and inducement from LifeVantage; e.g., giving her an existing downline (break insertion) and/or under the table cash payment (as was the case with Burke Hedges). It’s especially odd that Glasser would bail on her practice in 2012 given that, according to Healthgrades, she only became board certified in plastic surgery in 2011. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she received below average ratings from her patients with respect to level of trust in decision making, ability to explain medical conditions, and time spent with patients.

I was appalled at the typical misstatements that Glasser is making about Protandim. For instance the misleading claim with respect to research on Protandim — '15 peer reviewed studies published on the National Institute of Health database (Pubmed.Gov)' – when in fact, PubMed is not a publisher; it is a database/repository. It’s like finding a book on the shelf of the NY Public Library and then turning around and saying that the NY Public Library published the book. It’s another fraudulent attempt to lend credibility to the product by implying that somehow it is endorsed by the NIH or that research on Protandim was conducted under the Institute’s auspices.

Her claim that Protandim is 'clinically proven to reduce Oxidative Stress by an average of 40%!' is also deceptive. As has been pointed out previously, Protandim shills misleadingly use the term 'clinically proven' instead of simply saying something accurate and reasonable like 'a study showed...', but more importantly, the fact remains that the clinical proof that Protandim doesn’t lower oxidative stress...

[Burnham EL, McCord JM, Bose S, Brown LA, House R, Moss M, Gaydos J. Protandim does not influence alveolar epithelial permeability or intrapulmonary oxidative stress in human subjects with alcohol use disorders. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2012 Apr 1;302(7):L688-99.]

... is far stronger (i.e., more recent data, better-deigned study) than the evidence showing that it does lowers oxidative stress…

[Nelson SK, Bose SK, Grunwald GK, Myhill P, McCord JM. The induction of human superoxide dismutase and catalase in vivo: a fundamentally new approach to antioxidant therapy. Free Radic Biol Med. 2006 Jan 15;40(2):341-7.]

It should also be pointed out that the failure of Protandim to lower oxidative stress in the well-designed 2012 study was not due to the shorter timeframe (7 days) of administration (as alleged by LifeVantage apologists/whitewashers), because the 2006 study showed that the antioxidant effect was near maximal within a comparable timeframe (5 to 12 days as stated in the article on p. 345) and that was at only half the dose (675 mg vs 1350 mg) used in the 2012 study.

Clearly, Protandim shills like Glasser are conveniently ignoring (or more likely actively suppressing) negative results from the company’s own research, and misleading consumers yet again.

Once again and for the record — Protandim is clinically proven to not work!"

Editor's Note: I usually don't like to point out individual distributors and make an example of them. However, people involved in MLM are "very, very open to suggestion" (in my opinion brainwashed) and can easily read these statements as: "a doctor is recommending Protandim... it must prevent disease like she says!" Thus it becomes important to show that some doctors are human and may be brainwashed and/or financially motivated to present research that sells product while ignoring more more compelling research that contradicts it.

[Editor's Note: The following is from a guest point by Vogel... including the title. Some very minor editing has taken place for readability (mostly to associate links with link text).]

We previously came across Nancy Leavitt, a PRO 10 (top level) Protandim distributor [Editor's Note: She says she's in the "Pro 10 Team" which may be the name of a company or organization and not representative of her current LifeVantage rank], in connection with illegal marketing claims she made back in 2010 alleging that the product cures skin cancer.

I just found yet another Protandim promotional video featuring Leavitt and it is a real doozy – chock full of falsehoods, misleading statements, deception, and illegal claims. Apparently she learned nothing after she was previously called out for scamming people, nor, apparently, did the company take any remedial action whatsoever. This video is so onerous that it warrants a detailed expose.

20:45 – Leavitt: “The FDA says that our product is the only product – the only nutraceutical or pharmaceutical – that is proven to reduce oxidative stress between 40 and 70 percent, 100% of the time on 100% of mammals – that is a powerful statement.”

[Note: Powerful perhaps but it’s a shameless lie. The FDA has never said anything at all about Protandim and they certainly never said what Leavitt claims they did. The product and its associated marketing claims have never even been submitted to the FDA for evaluation, because in accordance with US law (DSHEA – see link below) there is no requirement or regulatory mechanism for pre-approval of supplement marketing claims. This loophole in DSHEA enables supplement manufacturers to get away with claiming all sorts of crazy things about their products, which they often get away with unless the wrong people get wind of it and an overburdened eventually FDA cracks down. So, while Leavitt’s statement may be a powerful one, it most assuredly has not been vetted and is not supported by the FDA. Furthermore, to imply that Protandim can do things that no other pharmaceutical product or nutraceutical product can do; well that just crazy talk. In fact, even her 100% claim is BS; the second and only properly run clinical trial on the product showed that it reduced oxidative stress 0% of the time – it had no significant effect whatsoever]

Leavitt: “So what I’m saying is, if you put the correlation together, oxidative stress is the root cause of over 200 diseases, which we know it is, and we know that Protandim is proven through peer reviewed published clinicals to reduce that between 40 and 70 percent, 100% of the time in all mammals – yes, that means your horses and dogs etc., we have got a product on our hands.”

[Note: What Leavitt is saying, implicitly, is that Protandim can treat diseases (over 200 of the in fact); she’s just doing it in a roundabout way, but that makes it no less illegal. Furthermore, not only has Protandim not been shown in ‘clinicals’ to reduce oxidative stress 100% in all mammals, it’s never even been studied in any mammalian species other than humans (i.e., only 2 ‘clinicals’ have been conducted) and rodents (in vivo/in vitro nonclinical studies). In other words, everything she said about the ‘clinicals’ was false/misleading]

Leavitt: “So some people say ‘so what it’s on PubMed’. Well listen, most people will make claims that their natural products are on PubMed but they’re not. You can maybe type in an ingredient where studies come up but not the name of a product. This is what grabs me... There is no way I’m going to sit on the sidelines and watch this company got to a billion dollars without me.”

[Note: Here Leavitt makes yet another blatantly false statement. There are scads of natural products that have studies on PubMed. In fact there are even scads of so-called ‘natural’ MLM products on PubMed. For example, the MLM scam supplement ‘Juice Plus’ claims that their ‘natural’ product is on PubMed, and in fact it has even more studies on PubMed than Protandim does (their inception and presentation involving the same devious mechanisms that LifeVantage employs).]

22:10 – Leavitt: “I know many many friends and doctors today that are in my organization, my network that say without a doubt hands down this product will make more impact in the world when it comes to health than any, any pharmaceutical, any nutraceutical, any food, ever ever produced out in the marketplace. So it’s powerful; it’s a powerful business opportunity.

[Note: Clearly, if anyone actually said that, it would qualify as one of the stupidest, most ill-founded statements ever uttered. Protandim has never even been shown to have the slightest impact on health, let alone more of an impact than any pharmaceutical or food. Nonetheless, anonymous shills on the internet are literally claiming that Protandim is the greatest breakthrough since penicillin.]

22:30 – Leavitt: “So sometimes I have skeptics once in a while say to me – ‘well you know PubMed, what’s the deal with that? Well I’ll tell you what the deal is – it’s the gold standard.”

[Note: It’s not the gold standard of anything. PubMed is a repository database; in essence, nothing more than a digital filing cabinet to archive every study published in pretty much every published biomedical journal, including some pretty awful ones that are seldom read and which have negligible impact.

Leavitt: “Do you know that I could go home right now and I could go to my kitchen sink and I could throw out a study of the little germs going on in my kitchen sink and I could say I have a clinical on that, alright? Did you know I could do that?”

[Note: This statement amazed me on several levels. First, she can’t go to her kitchen sink and do a study on the germs she finds there and expect to ever have the study published. It’s preposterous to suggest otherwise. Secondly what she sloppily refers to as a ‘clinical’ refers to a ‘clinical trial’, which by definition is a study conducted in humans. So even if she could get her ridiculous kitchen sink germ study published, it wouldn’t be a ‘clinical’.]

Leavitt: Did you know there are clinicals out there everywhere? So let me tell you something – peer reviewed published clinicals, third-party funded, OK? Protandim/LifeVantage isn’t the one funding these studies, OK? Outside organizations like the National Institute of Health; like the American Cancer Society; like LSU, Harvard, Ohio State -- we have over 30 universities and organizations around the world currently studying Protandim and its effects. And so this is a powerful thing. Only 15% of peer-review published clinical are ever published on PubMed.gov – only 15% -- and we have 10 on Protandim alone.

[Note: Virtually everything she says here is wrong. First, LifeVantage was responsible for both imitating and funding the studies of Protandim. Second, the NIH, ACS, and Harvard never studied Protandim. Third, there never were 30 universities studying the product. Third, PubMed is not a publisher, and in fact 100% of published peer-reviewed studies are automatically listed on PubMed, as long as they appear in any one of the database’s 5,669 indexed Medline journals or part of their extended archive of entries from 25,000 different journals)...

...Lastly, the only studies that would qualify as ‘clinicals’ (using LifeVantage moron parlance), meaning studies in humans, were both conducted by McCord’s group at U Colorado. In other words, there never a single ‘clinical’ on Protandim that involved the NIH, ACS, LSU, Harvard, or OSU.]

23:42 – Leavitt: “OK so skepticals out there, let me address you. Do you think Ohio state would knock on Dr. Joe’s door and say ‘we want to study the product, we want to study the research you that you put into this – we want to study, we want to dissect it, we want to take it apart, and we’re going to fund it; we’re going to fund the money to conduct this study. Dr Joe says ‘sure’.”

[Note: No, us ‘skepticals’ know that Ohio State didn’t knock on ‘Dr. Joe’s’ door or say any of those things. It was the other way around -- Joe picked up the phone and offered some colleague at OSU money, research support, manuscript writing assistance, lab assays, and support seeking new grants unrelated to Protandim. That’s what’s listed in his job description (see SEC 10-K filing), so if he didn’t do those things, it would have been dereliction of his duties. Source of LifeVantage paying for studies.]

Leavitt: “Ohio State goes to who? The National Institute of Health and the American heart Association and both of them raise the money – get the money – to fund this study of Ohio State. And it not just Ohio State, this is many, many universities. Do you think that they would do that on just anything? I don’t think so.”

[Note: We know that this is all false. Those researchers at OSU did not go to NIH and AHA to ask for grant money to study Protandim. Two of them (Zwier and Gooch) had 5 old grants from those agencies (2 from AHA and 3 from NIH) for research unrelated to Protandim and then they arbitrarily diverted leftover funds to conduct research for LifeVantage to support the company’s marketing initiatives (e.g., in this case, illegally marketing Protandim for heart failure). This all seems to have been a deliberate attempt on behalf of the principal’s to fabricate an illusory connection between Protandim and NIH/AHA, and to deceive consumers into believing that the product caught the interest and received the blessing of those agencies...

...The final piece of damning evidence that shatters the claims about the NIH grants is that the OSU researcher who received the grants (Zwier) was required to report the publication of any studies that arose as a reulst of the NIHs funding, as per the original grant proposal. Conspicuously, Zwier apparently failed to report the publication of the Protandim study in connection with any of those 3 NIH grants, even though he listed a dozens of other studies -- legitimate ones -- that were published as a result of the grants. That’s a nail in the coffin. (Source 1, Source 2, and Source 3)

Leavitt: “In fact Ohio State’s studies, one of them came out and said it prevents heart failure. And I’m not making any claims.”

[Note: Except she just did make a claim, and it was a false and misleading one. First, OSU (or at least some mid-level researchers at OSU, not the university itself) did only one ‘study’, not multiple ‘studies’ as Leavitt stated, and it was a test tube study (in isolated veins cultured outside the body and bathed with supra-physiological doses of a concentrated ethanol extract of Protandim for 14 days); it was not a human (i.e. clinical) study. Second, the study in question (PDF) did not say that Protandim prevents heart failure; in fact, it didn’t say that it prevents anything; it didn’t even mention heart failure. (Source: Joddar B, Reen RK, Firstenberg MS, Varadharaj S, McCord JM, Zweier JL, Gooch KJ. Protandim attenuates intimal hyperplasia in human saphenous veins cultured ex vivo via a catalase-dependent pathway. Free Radic Biol Med. 2011 Mar 15;50(6):700-9)

Leavitt: “In fact I would just like to throw out there that we do not make any claims that this product cures, treats, prevents or mitigates any disease. But what I'm telling you is to go to the peer reviewed published clinicals on PubMed.gov and read the abstracts. LSU has one that says that it breaks the link in cycle of skin cancer. That’s LSU saying that.”

So Nancy makes ‘a claim’ (i.e., an illegal medicinal claim about heart failure) and then immediately lies by saying that she’s not making a claim, then she reiterates that she’s not making a claim, and then she makes yet another claim (about skin cancer) – it’s like a double-decker claim-denial sandwich. She’s promoting the product for the prevention/treatment of heart failure and skin cancer and deceiving people into believing that the claims are is supported by research from OSU and backed by the NIH and AHA.

[The following is a guest post from Vogel based on a comment left here. I've done some light formatting for readability.

Yet more video evidence of a LifeVantage distributor delivering a sales pitch that contains blatantly illegal and misleading disease therapy claims, as well as a variety of other statements that violate the company’s lip-service compliance policies.

Kristie Rosser (distributor ID# 946335) is a nurse practitioner and ‘certified holistic health coach’ who runs a company called Optimal Wellness in American Fork, Utah.

According to LifeVantage's Big Blue Calendar, she’s also a featured speaker at recruitment pitch meetings. In fact, she’s scheduled to speak tomorrow night in American Fork

Her name came up in a previous discussion about another video featuring Alice Reed which she had on YouTube with false/misleading promotional claims.

The latest video was uploaded to YouTube on June 17, 2014. Below are key excerpts:

0:10 – “After working with sick people for over 13 years, I decided that it was time for me to find a new way to treat my patients, because I was noticing that as I worked with them, we were treating symptoms; we weren’t really treating the cause of disease, and if I could find the cause if their inflammation and the cause of their disease I could not only make them feel better but I could change their quality of life…I really work on improving quality of life.”

01:12 – “Tonight what I’d like to talk to you about is Protandim. Protandim is a medical breakthrough. It is one of the most amazing things that I get to see and I get to share with you right now. There are very few breakthroughs that we get to see in our lifetime and this is one of them.”

01:47 – “This is groundbreaking medical technology. This is also something that is scientifically proven. Universities have come to LifeVantage and said can we please study your product; very rare that that happens. Usually people are begging for someone to study their product and people are very interested in this and what it can do in your body…Also it is backed by science and research.”

04:19 – “So picture oxidative stress as being a free radical attack and your body has all these free radicals that bombard the body; billions of them attacking daily. This causes inflammation and inflammation causes disease. When you look at disease in the body, it really is that simple. If you can remove inflammation, you can remove oxidative stress -- the body wouldn’t age; the cells wouldn’t die.”

04:39 – “Your body makes over 13 sextillion free radicals…that’s 13 with 27 zeros after it…If your body cant buffer that assault, inflammation is the result, and if you get inflammation you know that that’s going to cause disease.”

Note that the slide she shows on screen at this point says “Inflammation and Oxidative Stress”, “Who Do You Know”, with a list of diseases including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and anemia.

05:34 – “When you’re looking at this list, all of these things have in one thing in common and the ne things they have in common is inflammation. So once inflammation is calm an oxidative stress is reduced, your quality o life is improved. Because ultimately inflammation, at the end of the day, changes your quality of life.”

The next part of Rosser’s talk focuses on the association of inflammation and diseases, setting up Protandim as the remedy for oxidative stress/inflammation/diseases.

09:10 – “It will eliminate your free radicals at a rate of 1 million free radical, or 1 million antioxidants per free radical every second and that’s pretty cool. That’s so cool. That’s why you feel better. You just don’t have any more of that nasty stuff goin’ on.

10:09 – “Because it’s the superhero of antioxidants it literally makes your quality of life better.”

10:15 – “The ingredients on this are just pure and great. Patients that I see a lot have autoimmune disease so they’re very careful about what they put in their body. They have to be careful that their not taking things that are going to have binders or fillers or all sorts of garbage in them; and this is a very pure product.”

‘Garbage’ like metal shards perhaps? Pure my arse!

At the 12:15 mark, Rosser crosses the legal line and makes a bunch of false curative claims about Protandim (including one she bases on a gingivitis study that doesn’t exist). The slide in the background at this point says:

“Peer Reviewed Studies
Protandim: 16 peer reviewed studies
- Skin cancer: breaks the cycle of melanoma skin cancer
- Heart disease: preserves heart function and heart cells
- Vascular study: reduces clotting in blood vessels
- Gingivitis study: reduces gum disease (heart disease)”

12:15 – “These peer reviewed studies are really exciting, and I love to read these studies because they inspire me. I’m so glad that this product is out there for us to use. The studies that I like the best and I’ve kind of highlighted here are these. There are very few things out there -- in fact I can’t think of one -- that stops cancer cells from reproducing themselves. This one has the ability to break the cancer cycle in melanoma, which is a skin cancer and it’s of the leading causes of death in America; it’s one of our most common cancers.

For heart disease, it protects the heart, and it protects the heart cells so incredibly well that we have seen patients tell us that when they’ve gone in for different heart procedures, doctors are amazed at how clean their stents are. And it’s because the Protandim keeps the stents clean; there’s no inflammation; there’s no oxidative stress formation; there’s no plaque formation; none of that occurs.

It reduces clotting in blood vessels. This is very important; people with varicose veins and people who have very specific clotting disorders.

And then also, dentists are loving how it reduced the swelling in people’s gums…ultimately it will prevent heart disease because we all know that heart disease starts in the mouth.

These facts are not opinions; these are all scientific studies. And they’re very exciting and you can find them all online.”

So let’s compare Kristie’s pitch with the sham regulations in LifeVantage’s compliance training document “To Say or Not to Say”, which was published in 2013.

1. The first part of the compliance policies that the company specifies (referring to Section 8.10 of Policies & Procedures: Unauthorized Claims and Actions”) is:

“No claims, which include personal testimonials, as to therapeutic, curative or beneficial properties of any products offered by LifeVantage may be made except those contained in official LifeVantage materials. In particular, no Independent Distributor may make any claim that LifeVantage products are useful in the cure, treatment, diagnosis, mitigation or prevention of any diseases or signs or symptoms of disease. Not only are such claims violations of LifeVantage policies, but they potentially violate federal and state laws and regulations, including the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and Federal Trade Commission Act.”

Rosser clearly violated that one.

2. Moving on, the product claims section has this Q & A:

“Q: What if a study about oxidative stress supports more than a structure/function claim?

A: You cannot use claims that are beyond structure/function in the promotion or advertising of Protandim even if a study appears to support that claim. For example, a recent study discusses how the right chamber of the heart becomes severely stressed under the condition of pulmonary artery hypertension. The arteries going from the heart to the lungs also narrow, creating much resistance. In the study, Protandim almost completely prevented damage to the right heart. Although the information is accurate, the claims go beyond structure/function, and we cannot use these claims when promoting Protandim because Protandim is a dietary supplement and not a drug.”

Rosser violated that one too.

Next, Rosser violated the following from LifeVantage’s list of ‘unacceptable’ claims (I use quotation marks ironically because they clearly do accept these claims and worse):

3. “Oxidative stress is linked to many diseases and even cancer!”
4. Protandim can fight 1 million free radicals per second, every second.

And lastly, she failed to provide the required FDA disclaimer. LifeVantage states:

“Please note, however, that these or other claims regarding Protandim must be accompanied with the following FDA disclaimer: ‘These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease’.”

According to LifeVantage, the company and Rosser share legal liability for these illegal and misleading claims.

We know for a fact that LifeVantage reads this site, so they can consider themselves duly warned. The authorities are watching and the clock is ticking. Let’s see whether the company does the right thing and promptly terminates Rosser or whether they’ll do what they usually do, which is essentially nothing – i.e., scrub/whitewash, pretend that it never happened, and go back to business as usual.

[The following is a guest post from Vogel based on a comment left here. I've done some light formatting for readability.]

I was just reviewing a few of the claims that LifeVantage lists as “unacceptable” in their compliance document entitled “To Say or Not to Say”, specifically the following:

“Unacceptable Claims:

Protandim works in all mammals 100% of the time.

Protandim works 100% of the time.

Protandim works in all mammals.

Protandim is proven to lower oxidative stress by 40-70% or 40-80%”

The compliance document also states:

“Making impermissible claims regarding our products or potential earnings may result in disciplinary actions against you, including the termination of your distributorship.”

I did a Google search for “Protandim” + “100%” + “mammals” and found that virtually every hit that came up was a distributor violating the company’s toothless window-dressing compliance policy. The following are some examples; the list is by no means exhaustive:

David Perk (ID# 258144)
“Protandim has been clinically proven to work on all mammals”

Kenneth Gyure (ID# 138558)
Protandim is the ONLY known phytonutrient that is clinically proven to reduce oxidative stress by 40-70% in all mammals 100% of the time.

Cindy F. Loader (ID# 310891)
“Protandim The ONLY supplement for reducing oxidative stress 40 to 70% at the cellular level in all mammals 100% of the time! Takes care of 1 million free radicals per second on-going!”

Debbie (Saraina) Hancock, MA, VRC (ID# 379988)
“Protandim works on 100% of all mammals, 100% of the time (this statement is approved by the FDA).”

Corey L Francis, DC (ID# 298886)
“Protandim will decrease your level of Oxidative Stress by anywhere from 40 to 70 percent. It is guaranteed 100% effective 100% of the time in mammals, and if you are reading this, you are a mammal.”

Margaret Sanchez (ID# 195171)
“Protandim is the only all natural dietary supplement (a Nrf2 Activator) which is 100% effective in reducing Oxidative Stress in mammals 100% of the time.”

Dr. Jeffrey Parham, DC / Wellness Rhythms Partnering LLC (ID# 577844)
“Protandim is clinically proven to reduce oxidative stress 40-70% within 120 days for all mammals tested 100% of the time.”

Debbie Miles/Share The Good (ID# 256407)
“Works 100% of the time for 100% of mammals.”

Mary Fortune/Shanti Wellness Day Spa (ID#415652)
“Reducing Oxidative Stress by an average of 40% in 30 days for all mammals 100% of the time."

Sally J Aschim and Rick Aschim (ID#234582)
“PROTANDIM, the Nrf2 synergizer, has been scientifically proven to work on 100% of all mammals 100% of the time.”

Linda Anderson (ID# 220539)
“There is one common cause to over 200 diseases in our bodies and there is only one natural product that is scientifically proven to reduce this cause 40% to 70% and more in 100% of all mammals (human beings and animals) 100% of the time.”

We know that LifeVantage follows this site closely, so I am here by issuing the company’s compliance department their marching orders for the next few days – i.e., begin revoking these distributorships immediately.

I found it interesting that Nick Bello decided to put out a press release announcing his joining of LifeVantage. Considering that there is no barrier to joining LifeVantage, this is similar to someone putting out a press release that they ate a sandwich. It certainly isn't "Breaking News!" as he describes it.

In the press release he points to the ABC video attempting to let it speak for itself. He omits The Truth Behind LifeVantage’s ABC Primetime Video.

He's also quoted as saying:

“With a product like Protandim that has been proven by science through 15 different peer-reviewed studies, when people start taking the product, they keep taking it, and it is very affordable.”

Actually proven by science, according to the National Institute of Health requires clinical trials and systematic reviews. There's only been two clinical trials. The first had a done of procedural errors that are elsewhere explained on this site and the second showed negative results. There have been no systematic reviews.

And people don't continue taking the product. In a LifeVantage Conference Call, they revealed that 95% of preferred customers quit taking it every year. You can read more with the cited information here: LifeVantage Reveals How Terrible the Business Opportunity Is

As for it being "very affordable", it's is a terrible value with about $1.50 worth of ingredients in every bottle as shown in this Protandim article. It is much more affordable to buy the ingredients separately.

Bello then adds, “LifeVantage has grown at an amazing rate with no hype. It is the best kept secret in the industry.” That is further misleading as it one of the few publicly traded MLM companies. As such it's not a "secret" in any kind of way. As far as growing at an amazing rate with no hype, what do you call Donny Osmond breaking the FTC's celebrity endorsement guidelines on Dr. Phil? And then he followed it up with a repeated breaking of the FTC guidelines on another talk show.

Why must Nick Bello feel the need to spam the Internet with self-promotional press releases? It's yet another reason to hate MLM. You don't see other supplement company employees putting out press releases about them joining the company.

Final Thought: I really don't like to call out people personally, but these people deserve it. Why let them continue their scamming ways unchecked?

Originally posted 2013-09-20 16:58:27.