Friendly Health Expert or One Sick Swindler?

` I don't ask this often, but today I seek the counsel of bloggy friends. I'm a bit freaked about Lou. It's not his demeanor or anything. Nothing is different about the way he acts. Unfortunately, it is more clear than ever the nature of his paranoia about doctors. I've always thought, Lou's attitudes towards medicine seem an awful lot like this crazy informercial health-nut-fraud guy who's been exposed numerous times.
` The guy's name is Kevin Trudeau - whom he mentioned today in agreement with his views. So that's where he gets all this crap from... I'm scared.
` To give you all an idea of what this creep is up to (Trudeau), how about a pretty representative and well-written article by someone else's hand. (What, you don't expect anything from me personally now that I'm too busy to be at my computer much, do you?)

Wait, There's More

Kevin Trudeau's 'Natural Cures,' Swallowed by Millions Without A Prescription

By Libby Copeland

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; Page D01

NEW YORK

On this, our lucky day, Kevin Trudeau is introducing us to his personal electromagnetic chaos eliminator.

Trudeau, who has sold millions of books by touting the curative properties of things such as magnetic toe rings and crocodile protein peptide, believes the sole thing keeping his brain from being "microwaved from the inside out" by cell phones and radio waves is this electromagnetic whatever. We are intrigued.

"Would you like to see this magical device?"

Boy, would we!

A fixture on infomercials before a run-in with the FTC, Kevin Trudeau has a best-selling book, "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About." (By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)

On a publicity tour in the suite of a midtown hotel room, Trudeau unbuttons his fine white dress shirt.

This seems like a good time to note how extremely well-dressed Kevin Trudeau is, in the fine tradition of TV salesmen and televangelists. Over the dress shirt is a butter-colored tie that precisely matches the pocket square tucked into his luxury Brioni suit. He wears alligator shoes. On his left wrist is a Rolex Masterpiece dripping with diamonds, and on his right ring finger is a rock so big a child could choke on it.

Over the years, Trudeau, an ex-con who never went to college or medical school, has been remarkably successful doing infomercials for everything from how to achieve a photographic memory to how to cure your addictions to how to beat cancer by ingesting a particular type of calcium that, as fate would have it, he also happened to sell.

Now he sells the most popular nonfiction book in the country, according to Publishers Weekly. In "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About," Trudeau explains how a massive cabal formed of the federal government, pharmaceutical companies and the media is keeping Americans from living well past 100. He advises everybody to get off prescription drugs, even if they have serious problems like diabetes or blood clots; he reveals how multiple sclerosis can be cured by magnetic mattress pads.

He says sunscreen doesn't prevent skin cancer. Instead (wait for it), sunscreen causes skin cancer.

But back to the microwaved-brain problem. Trudeau parts his shirt and reveals a necklace with a disk of metal hanging on it. Glory of glories! So flimsy, yet so powerful. This is the vaunted electromagnetic chaos eliminator. It is called a Q-Link, and for a while lots of celebrities were supposedly into it, before they joined the Kabbalah bracelet craze.

Beneath the Q-Link is another necklace with a black triangle pendant. This is yet another electromagnetic chaos eliminator, and we stop Trudeau as he's closing his shirt and ask him about it. Trudeau says he's not sure exactly what it's made of or what it does; supposedly it offers some sort of balancing "vibration." He's just trying it out to see if it works, he says, sounding a little sheepish.

Trudeau's publishing company -- which he happens to have founded -- says he's sold 4 million copies of "Natural Cures," many of them through phone orders. While those numbers can't be verified, his sales through traditional outlets have been astonishing -- so far he's spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

For those who want to save their $29.95, here are the secrets to health the government is keeping from you, according to Trudeau:

Get an electromagnetic chaos eliminator. Do some "bioenergetic synchronization." Give yourself some enemas, and then give yourself some more enemas. Wear white, for positive energy. Don't use a microwave or an electric tumble dryer or fluorescent lights or artificial sweeteners; don't dry-clean your clothes or use swimming pools or eat pork. Don't use deodorant (causes cancer) or nonstick cookware (causes cancer) or watch the news (stress alters your body's pH, which can make you get cancer). Remove the metal fillings from your mouth, and you're all set!

Trudeau's "Natural Cures" also references several helpful Web sites. One claims that if you stare into the sun every day while barefoot, you won't need food anymore. Another sells an instrument that looks rather like an index card but which promises to open a "temporal and spatial gate" that "enables an individual's entire etheric system to interface with a very large, complicated, partially automated, predefined healing process."

Lastly, if you have depression, Trudeau writes, stop taking your medication and by all means stop seeing doctors, who can't be trusted. Rather, go for a long stroll outside every day and "look far away as you walk."

If that fails, the book advises you to try Scientology. [For those of you who are not familiar with Scientology, or for that matter are beginning Scientologists, I recommend the hilarious 'Scientology Illustrated'.]

From Kirstie to Mikhail

Trudeau is a remarkable American success story in the grand tradition of traveling salesmen with cure-all potions. He could sell you your own shirt and leave you grateful for the bargain.

When he talks, his hazel eyes get big and he taps his listener on the knee. He claims he knows important people in important places. He says he was just on the phone with Kirstie Alley. He says he met Mikhail Gorbachev, "fascinating guy."

He's a victim. He's a martyr. He's just trying to help his fellow man. He hasn't been sick in 25 years and he's going to stay healthy till 150 and he might run for president one day because "there's 25 million people that would probably vote for me."

He is like a magician; you're watching his hands and all of a sudden there's some confetti and a woman in a bathing suit and when you look back, lo and behold, there's a dove. When you ask Trudeau over and over for proof of his "natural cures," he says his studies are unpublished; he says he doesn't believe in studies; he says the studies are in the book -- but they're not there. They're never there.

Watch the hands.

He does an infomercial with Tammy Faye Bakker Messner and manages to seem utterly reasonable.

He makes the credit-card fraud and larceny he committed in his twenties sound like no big deal.

Trudeau, who now lives in Ojai, Calif., east of Santa Barbara, grew up near Boston. He says his dad was a welder and his mom a housewife. He went to his first Amway meeting at 15, and there learned he wanted to be "financially free." He started a mail-order business, which he says netted him a $1 million profit by the time he was 18.

After high school he sold cars, then joined the seminar circuit, offering techniques to help people improve their memories. It was during this period that he says he got caught up in the fast life and making money. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to depositing $80,000 in worthless checks. In the sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said he impersonated a doctor when he met with bank officials. Trudeau says he served fewer than 30 days.

In 1991, he pleaded guilty to obtaining and fraudulently using 11 credit cards and served close to two years in federal prison.

Trudeau, now 42, has several explanations for his crimes: They were youthful indiscretions and not as bad as they sound, and besides, both were partly the fault of other people, and besides, he has changed. The larceny he explains as a series of math errors compounded by the "mistake" of a bank official. As for why the bank thought he was a doctor, that was just a simple misunderstanding, because he jokingly referred to himself as a "doctor in memory."

He still can't quite believe he was prosecuted. "Give me a break," he says.

The fraud he says he committed because he paid a bill late, which led to American Express giving him a bad credit rating, which just wasn't right. After that, no one would give him a credit card, which was "insane," so he had little choice but to apply for cards with fake Social Security numbers.

According to officials at the time, Trudeau also misappropriated for his own use credit card numbers belonging to customers who'd signed up for his memory improvement courses. The man formerly known as "Mr. Mega Memory" says he doesn't think he did that, but adds that was a "very blurry time in my history with all the stress."

He calls that prosecution "outrageous" and says American Express and the prosecutor had it in for him, rather like he believes the federal government has it in for him now.

"It was a sad day because I remember walking into the courtroom and above the courtroom it says these words which are completely untrue: 'Hall of Justice,' " Trudeau says, relaxing in the hotel suite with fresh fruit and magnetic water nearby. "And I thought, 'This is not the Hall of Justice because this is not justice. This should say 'Hall of the Technicalities of the Law.' Where's the justice? Where's King Solomon? But I said, 'Y'know, I've been focused on making money and what I did was wrong -- even though it wasn't a heinous crime and I could justify it nine different ways.' "

In any case, in prison "everything got reprioritized," and Trudeau says he decided to stop focusing on money. He became buddies with a visiting Lubavitch rabbi. He decided to try out being Jewish (he'd gone to Catholic schools) and found out about "corruption in the Department of Justice" when he had difficulty getting kosher food.

He decided his new mission was to help people. (The Jewish thing didn't last.)

'One of the Best Salespeople'

In prison on the West Coast, Trudeau hooked up with a fellow inmate named Jules Leib, who was in for attempted distribution of cocaine. He gave Leib some self-help books. When they got out, they went into business together, making infomercials and selling health products as distributors for an Amway-type multilevel marketing company called Nutrition for Life. Right away the trouble started.

David Bertrand, the former president of Nutrition for Life, remembers Trudeau listening to motivational tapes "incessantly." He says Trudeau was "brilliant" and "one of the best salespeople I've ever known," and recalls that in 1996 the company nearly tripled its sales in large part because of Trudeau. The man could sell because he seemed to really believe in what he was saying, Bertrand says, but he repeatedly took it too far.

Bertrand says he became concerned that Trudeau was making overly optimistic promises to potential distributors about how much profit they could make. "We had a number of conferences where we asked him to cool it," Bertrand says. "It scared us."

At one point, Bertrand says, he learned that Trudeau had promised free trips to entice people to sign up as distributors. The trips never materialized, there were complaints, and Nutrition for Life had to step in, says Bertrand, and fund a weekend cruise for thousands of people.

"At the time he made the promise he fully intended to comply," Bertrand says. "He always intends to but he kind of gets carried away in his exuberance."

In 1996, the state of Illinois sued Trudeau and Leib, accusing them of operating an illegal pyramid scheme. The men wound up settling with Illinois and seven other states after agreeing to change their tactics. Trudeau and Leib split up, though Leib still speaks fondly of the former "life coach" who introduced him to the magic of multilevel marketing.

"He's probably one of the brightest guys you'll ever meet," says Leib. "He gave me Anthony Robbins's 'Awaken the Giant Within.' " (Later, Leib encourages a reporter to try supplements. "I'm on this great liquid," he says.)

In 1998, Trudeau paid half a million dollars to settle a Federal Trade Commission complaint that several infomercials he helped create were false and misleading. The products included a "hair farming system" that -- according to the infomercial -- was supposed to "finally end baldness in the human race," and "a breakthrough that in 60 seconds can eliminate" addictions, purportedly discovered when a certain "Dr. Callahan" was "studying quantum physics."

In 2003, the FTC came after Trudeau again. The complaint and a separate contempt action centered on two products, one of which, Coral Calcium Supreme, was being billed as a cure for cancer, according to the FTC. Trudeau's guest on the infomercial, a man named Robert Barefoot, went so far as to claim that in cultures that consume a lot of calcium, people are so healthy "they don't even have children until they're in their seventies when they're mature enough to handle kids."

This time, said FTC attorney Heather Hippsley, the settlement was "unprecedented" in its scope. In addition to paying $2 million (in part by handing over his $180,000 Mercedes Benz), Trudeau agreed not to do any more infomercials selling products or services. The only thing he would be permitted to sell on-air was "informational publications," and he has greater leeway with what he can say in those because of his right to free speech.

Hence, the book.

Trudeau points out that his settlements were not admissions of wrongdoing. His attorney, David Bradford, suggests that the terms of the most recent settlement weren't terribly punitive -- indeed, this was a direction Trudeau wanted to take anyway.

"Trudeau had made an independent decision that he really wanted to focus on being an author and consumer advocate," Bradford says.

Still, in his book, Trudeau claims repeatedly that he's the victim of censorship. He likens the government to the Gestapo. He compares himself to Rosa Parks and Gandhi. He says because of "this FTC suppression" he can't recommend specific products to cure his readers' illnesses.

However, he says, readers can join his Web site. For just $9.99 a month or $499 for a lifetime, they can gain access to the special members-only section, and there they can e-mail him and he'll reveal his secrets.

'They Know That I Know'

Trudeau says he has considerable proof of the conspiracy working against the health of the citizens of this nation, but the nation will have to take it on faith. He says there are "government agencies" and "entire industries" that are spending "billions of dollars" to keep people sick so they can continue to make money. He says he has Nobel Prize winners as informants.

"I can't mention their names," he says. "There's a lot of insiders that I know, that are friends of mine, but I can't mention their names because one of the reasons why I was capable of writing this book was I have so many insiders that give me the information. . . . And this is why everyone in Washington is frightened to death, and that's why the government is trying to shut me up. Because they know that I know. They know I've been in the meetings. You know what it's like? It's kind of like I've got the black book with everyone's names. And they know: This guy starts naming names, it's going to be out of control."

Readers will have to trust that Trudeau knows of a doctor who found a cure for AIDS, and that another doctor "discovered a serum that virtually made cancer tumors vanish in 90 minutes" but "was completely shut down by the FDA." Trudeau never names these doctors. He says "researchers have concluded that speaking the correct form of words and thinking the correct thoughts actually changes a person's DNA," but he never reveals who these researchers are.

Readers will have to take it on faith that Trudeau will soon be putting proceeds from the book and the Web site into nonprofit groups dedicated to teaching natural remedies and suing the government. They'll have to trust that they don't really need medications their doctors have prescribed and that the supplements they're ordering over the Internet will work.

They'll also have to ignore the places where Trudeau stretches the truth: What appears to be a back cover endorsement from a former FDA commissioner is actually a 35-year-old quote. Quotes inside are purportedly from Bill Gates in a television interview, but Trudeau puts more words in Gates's mouth. ("I paraphrased," Trudeau says.)

Trudeau's book appeals to a nation that has been disillusioned by managed health care, by rushed and impersonal doctors, by diseases that didn't use to be diseases except these days everything has a name and a pill to go with it. Ask your doctor if it's right for you.

Those who report success with Trudeau's book say they're discovering that they've been overmedicated. They've cut down on this or that drug for this or that minor problem and discovered they never needed it. They've tried the book's most conservative recommendations -- eating organic foods, taking supplements, cutting out sodas -- and write in to say they've lost weight. Few appear to be curing their muscular dystrophy, or reporting success with magnetic toe rings.

Some people post angry reviews on Amazon.com, saying they feel "ripped off" and "gullible" for buying "Natural Cures."

Some vacillate.

"It's a scary step to take," says Joyce Nuuhiwa, 61, who lives in Honolulu and has Type 2 diabetes. Nuuhiwa has read Trudeau's book, and she's considering quitting both her medications and trying a combination of herbs that Trudeau advises. (He writes in the book that this diabetes "cure" was discovered at the University of Calgary, but officials there say they've never discovered any such thing.)

Nuuhiwa is disappointed by what her doctor said -- that the disease is progressive, that eventually she'll have to be on insulin. She wants to believe the diabetes is reversible, and frankly, she doesn't trust everything doctors tell her. She suspects, for example, that there's already a cure for cancer, that Trudeau is right about the conspiracy. But she's not sure if he's right about her diabetes.

She says there's something "slick" about him that makes her uneasy.

"If I could be assured that he's totally honest I would be diving into this, but this is my life I'm talking about," she says.

He is slick, but somehow likable, too. He curses and does voice imitations. He is attractive, if not handsome, and people say he's popular with the ladies. He says he has a girlfriend who's almost 20 years younger; she's a student and part-time model.

He says he lives out his healthy living convictions. He says he recently got back from an ashram. He says he carries a shower filter with him wherever he goes, to eliminate the fluoride and chlorine he considers poisonous. After a few hours with Trudeau, you think maybe it's not all just a show. Maybe he really believes he's offering cures. Then he says this about that funny-looking necklace he wears, the electromagnetic chaos eliminator:

"If it doesn't work, what's the harm?"

He reveals that when he was young he used to perform magic tricks at kids' birthday parties.

Watch the hands.

"Kevin wouldn't allow us to have Equal in the office," says Janine Contursi, who briefly dated Trudeau in the 1980s and then worked for him in the '90s. She remembers that once, when she worked for him, she threw out her back, and Trudeau spent "thousands of dollars" to send her to an alternative health clinic. There, she was offered tips on positive thinking.

Her back did get better, she says. But it could have been because of the chiropractors.


` Trudeau seriously makes me cringe. Of course, Lou isn't the type of person who would try to force everything Trudeau says on me, but it's somehow unsettling that such an intelligent person could put so much trust in such a weasely salesman.
` The horror... the horror....

` If you think all this is bad, the book doesn't even have his promised 'cures' in it! For those, you need to access his website and pay to have e-mail containing the cures sent to you! These, he promises, are the only documents that contain them!
` ...And yet, the e-mails merely repeat things from his book! There's nothing new in them! In other words, it's a gyp! (And he has access to people's credit card numbers - scary!)

` Correction/Update: This was true at first, but then he published a second, expanded edition of his book, which does list the 'cures' he claims to have.
` For more information and numerous links to mostly the numerous examples of Kevin Trudeau's untrustworthy nature (lack of qualification, crimes and false endorsements), please see the Wikipedia article.

` If you can stand the horror. Oh, and give me any advice that pops into your head. I'd appreciate it.

Taking your chances without medical science...

` ...Not a very good idea.
` I've been thinking about something to do with my last post. In order to set it up, it would help you to read an excerpt which I had edited out (for length, of course!) which demonstrates one of my reservations:


` That's the way of science - it is generally trustworthy (yes, even medical science). On top of that, medical science is something everyone needs to be up to speed on how to stay healthy and to be treated for severe or threatening illnesses. Normally, this is how the 'gullible public' comes into direct (often uncomfortably intimate) contact with it.
` Unfortunately, people who are familiarizing the public with real medicine are generally confused with those who are promoting quackery when in the mass media.
` And, when you think about it, individual doctors are the ones who talk to your face - they know they could potentially sell you anything they wanted to sell you, especially if they are very warm and pleasant. On the other hand, you may have a doctor who doesn't seem to have much respect for you, and yet will not pull that kind of crud on you because they know it's wrong and they think you're too dumb to know that.
` Though I don't think most doctors easily fall for quackery, it's hard to tell who will try that stuff on you - you cannot judge a doctor's trustworthiness by their personality or charisma.

` In fact, some of the more weasely doctors may try to talk you into things which may be known to work, but that they know are probably not neccesary for you: They may also try to sell you something which just doesn't work at all. It may even harm you! Why? Selfishness, I guess: Usually it's something along the lines of making more money and all that stupidity.
` The truth is; medical science is something everyone needs some of, gullible or not, so no matter who you are, you could actually face very real deception. In other words, it tends to be part of life, and it is important to be able to deal with it.
` The easiest way is knowing what is a myth and what is not.


` Unfortunately, I know some people who are so paranoid about doctors-in-general that they said they wouldn't even consider seeing one for themselves or even their children if they knew they had cancer! I said; "You'd probably just die."
` The response? 'No you wouldn't, because Nature is the way. If you die, you die. What's more, eating organic foods and seeing a naturopath - even though they do charge an arm and a leg - are all one really needs to be healthy.'
` Sorry. Naturopathy is not medicine - though a little bit of it is based on medicine. Not the same thing. I don't care if someone they knew didn't go to a doctor for cancer treatment and got over it anyway. It is a known medical fact that people occasionally get over these things on their own, though it is also a known medical fact that in general, no matter what someone does, the cancer will eventually sap them until they die.
` Doctors will tell you that the body is capable of healing itself on many accounts, though dressing wounds and administering antibiotics are still beneficial in these cases to ensure that everything heals properly and more quickly. They will also tell you that your body has limits, and that you may suffer and die or else live in constant pain if you refuse treatment for brain cancer, ruptured organs, or liver parasites.
` On the other hand, naturopaths say that the body can heal practically anything in the world on its own, and they use this excuse to give their characteristically superficial care. The main forte of a naturopath is to be warmer and fuzzier than a lot of doctors in order to gain the trust of patients and drain their wallets.

` Similarly, if one of them had Alzheimer's - and they know what it does to people - they said that reversing the symptoms by injecting brain cells into their head to fill in the gaping holes already in their brain would be unethical.
` Yes, even if it means you will lose your memories, your personality, your ability to communicate with words, develop the crying, pooping mentality of a baby, and eventually starve to death when you're a vegetable and 'forget' how to swallow.
` Well, that's their idealism - as long as they keep their 'ethics' to themselves. I know that medical science is often quite unethical, and many studies are pointless. Every time I see something like;

Nicotine Normalizes Increased Prefrontal Cortical Dopamine D₁ Receptor Binding and Decreased Working Memory Performance Produced by Repeated Pretreatment with MK-801: A PET Study in Conscious Monkeys

` I think; "Those poor monkeys! Do they really need to do these studies?" Okay, so they found that 'acute nicotine normalizes MK-801-induced PFC abnormality of D<sub>1</sub>R in PFC'... so what, it could mean that PFC abnormality in humans could be treated with nicotine? Is that it? What is that, anyway?
` Stupid or not, I agree that many animal experiments are pointless and/or cruel. Luckily, our society is slowly improving animal welfare. In fact, the most intelligent lab animals such as apes and dolphins may one day have rights - in about a hundred years.
` As far as preventing superfluous experiments from taking place, I know that a robot has been invented that may help with this problem for some. Who knows what kinds of efficiency techniques they'll use in the future?

` Really, if scientists are sickening, vivisecting, neglecting and otherwise making animals miserable, just for our benefit, I don't think that's right. On the other hand, I also don't think that the billions of people (and their pets!) who would benefit now and for millenia in the future need to suffer from illnesses and injuries we are now struggling with.
` Could you imagine if no one knew how to curb Polio and smallpox, or if there was no way to help someone who's had a severe heart attack? Not only would there be more suffering from illnesses (when we know now there does not have to be), but we would also be much less enlightened about the way our bodies work.
` I know that in developed countries, a great deal of people are able to get medical treatment when they need it - even homeless people who don't have government insurance are not turned down in an emergency. In developing nations, the only treatments for most people may be folk medicine, which is often not even helpful at all. However, it is not unusual for charitable medical teams to give vaccines or even simple cataract surgery for people in isolated villages.
` Someday, though, those nations may be as developed as this one is now and the people in them will have more chances for life and well-being. This would probably also help most of nature have more chances for life and well-being:
` The populations of developing countries are increasing exponentially through reproduction, partly because of the scarcity of birth control, and partly because the only way one can hope to have a living family is to have twenty children. In developed nations, population increase through reproduction is actually stabilized and in some cases, reversed.
` Also, by that time, we probably won't have so many problems with pollution, so even though these people will have access to transportation and electricity, they probably will not be contributing to global warming. And, if less people are crowded into oversized jungle villages, they will no longer need more firewood than nature can provide (which causes deforestation), plus, there will be fewer people who would shoot endangered species for a profit.
` So, introducing technology and medical science to those places could be, in the end, good for the planet. We just have to handle everything we can properly, because industrialization can be a real bloodbath. The truth is, we humans are in the middle of this now, and I think that the only way to improve our future - and even the planet's - is to go through, rather than back to the beginning.

` But, instead of accepting the possibility of working with the situation in the world, my friends would rather believe that the future is literally going to be like Nineteen Eight-Four and reject medicine in favor of apathy. This is known as 'the hippie way'.

` In addition, these hippies stated that if their beloved offspring were mentally challenged and a doctor demonstrated to them that some kind of injection would clear up this disadvantage in a week, they wouldn't do it. They'd rather choose to have a retarded child.
` Yes, they would rather that someone else be mentally handicapped, even if it could easily be changed by a treatment that has already been developed!
` You know, it's not fun to be mentally retarded: You would be denied a higher quality of life and may not learn many wonderful things or have a love life, etc. It can really suck, yes, and many people do have to accept it as reality, but I think that if it can be avoided, I don't think that one should deny their child opportunities in life to realize all their potentials.
` To do otherwise is considered child neglect and is therefore illegal. I'd say, rightly so. To sacrifice someone else's health for your own ideals isn't exactly 'noble' in my book. But perhaps if it actually happened to them, they would change their tune.
` Really, a lot of things have pressed them to seek genuine medical treatment. In fact, Mrs. Hippie is considering getting her tubes tied so she doesn't have to take birth control when she doesn't want any more children. It seems that they only go to a real doctor when it's most convenient for them.
` I think being inconsistent is also a hippie thing.

` Anyway, I think that if people want to get better, putting their faith into non-medicine isn't the way. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that quacks often treat the person as if they are an individual and not just a body. Yes, I know that it is wrong to disregard people's feelings - that is what the medical science of psychology can tell anyone.
` That is why hospitals employ people who specifically make rounds to cheer everyone up, bringing with them encouragement and entertainment and even animals. The world of medicine is slowly changing in order to embrace the fact that treating people in a 'mechanical' way can really compound a person's suffering, and can even cause mistakes.
` We know this. Suffering is bad, and painkillers are not enough. But 'alternative medicine' that doesn't help runs rampant nevertheless. Especially around here. It is therefore unsurprising that a friend of mine is learning about how to be an acupuncturist.
` Though acupuncture has some interesting implications for pain treatment, and therefore may be considered medicinal, most acupuncture treatments don't seem to do anything when scientifically studied.
` In the future, don't be surprised if I continue writing about the topic of quackery and 'alternative medicine'. If my posts reach no one, fine, but I like putting this information out there anyway.

I love my Science and I laugh at my Wackmobiles...

` Ah, I just love it when science triumphs over inaccurate ideas. It seems today that the effectiveness of Viagra has stopped a lot of Chinese men from taking traditional medicine for their erectile dysfunction, according to a Nature News article.
` This may bode well for the trade of some animal parts. As for the rest of the animals' parts, being used for other things... well...
` Stop licking my hands, feline terror! I daresay you're widely considered an aphrodesiac and a cure for cancer in another country!

When Viagra first emerged as a powerful drug in the world of pharmaceuticals, many speculated that it might help to protect certain animals. In 2002, William von Hippel, a psychologist from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his brother Frank von Hippel, a biologist from the University of Alaska in Anchorage, reported that the trade in both seal penises and reindeer velvet had gone down¹.

` The idea is, the more Western Medicine is introduced, the more animals will be safe from being chopped up and used for pointless remedies in the long run. There is now evidence that Viagra may be among them... slowly, now...

` Hooray! I wonder if Kent Hovid hates Viagra, too? If he does, he may also secretly use it! Okay, I just have to calm down... deep breaths...

` Ha haaaa! Darn it! It's just that... he's so easy to make fun of! Just for the hell of it, though, I think I'll post more Kent Hovind quotes - not only does he not understand many, many basic scientific facts and principles about physics, biology, etc. (as I thoroughly demonstrated at the end of my last post), but he's also into the whole 'killing people' thing as punishment for all kinds of things...
` This is so rich! Like chocolate. Only funnier.

You see, people don't understand capital punishment is a great deterrent. Especially if it is public and you take your kids down and you watch someone get stoned [.....] and your kid says, "Daddy, what did they do?." "Oh, he was a bad person. He did this, this, this." You're going to impress on that little kid - he's never going to do that.

The threat of stoning if someone is not a virgin, I mean, if girls had that today they would be much less likely to be promiscuous. How many problems are caused in our society simply because of the immorality we have?

Hovind: If I was God I would have killed everybody
Assistant: Several times
Hovind: Several times (laughter) a long time ago. I wouldn't put up with them, man. You, (gun shot) you're out of here. So you guys can be very thankful I'm not God. I'm very thankful I'm not God

` Clearly, that's partly because this self-righteous, paranoid nutjob fears everyone who is not exactly like him...

I told you about the Philippines - the Muslims - they had an insurrection a hundred years ago. Some Muslims were attacking, you know, people over there, yeah. And so they captured 50 of these guys - the American general did - and he tied them all up to poles. Right in front of 'em he slaughtered a couple of pigs and dipped all the bullets into the pig blood and shot 49 of them with bullets dipped in pig blood. [.....] [According to Muslims] if you taste a pig or touch a pig or if you eat pig meat, man, you're damned forever, you have no chance of going to Heaven. So they dipped their bullets in pig blood - shot all these guys - dumped them in a hole and poured the pigs guts all over the top of them. And then let the 50th guy go. And we never had any trouble out of the Muslims there. [laughter]

...... for those who say, "God is cruel by killing the infants of Sodom and Gomorrah," let's follow this through now. Suppose that God knows that city [sic] is full of diseases - including the children - because of their just horrible practices with all sorts of things they were doing. Incest and homosexuality and things filled that society with diseases. God's people are going to move into this area. God says, "I want you to kill the whole population for their own good and for your good so this disease is wiped out off the Earth." Then the guy is a smart god to command the execution. It's like me pulling weeds out of my flower garden.

` And if it were up to him, as we know, he'd just weed everybody out!
` On top of this, he's also loves to subscribe to the silliest little notions...

Listener's letter: [.....] Do you think it feasible UFO sightings could be demons? This could be an explanation for the Rapture. Ergo, it would be easy for them to deceive the public.

Hovind: Yes, Kay, I think you are right on target. I think that may be one of the reasons why there's so much hype about UFO's. It's psychological conditioning for when the Rapture takes place.

` UFOs? Demons? If you think that is weird, don't stop reading now!

The Greek word translated "mark" literally means "etching." Computer microchips have information etched into silicon. Microchips may play an important part in the mark of the beast. One example of technology is the UPC, or bar code. IBM developed the bar code in 1972. The black and white lines stand for numbers and letters in binary code. By the way, the two skinny lines at the beginning, middle, and end of every barcode are the same as "6" in binary code: 666. Under some bar codes you may see an F or H printed sideways, which may stand for forehead and hand. As far as financial transactions, four people have called me from Arkansas and Missouri to report seeing customers at the grocery store pay for purchases by scanning their hand.

` Wow. His insanity never ceases to amaze me...

On August 6, a grand jury hears former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, reported to testify that she and President carried on a sexual affair. On August 7 two U.S. Embassies in Africa are bombed, steering the news headlines away from the Lewinsky affair. The attacks are later blamed on Osama bin Laden. Why would bin Laden time these attacks to divert attention away from the Clinton affair? This has never been explained.

` *Wheeze* I'm suffocating in laughter! If you think that's rich...

Maybe the purpose of the space program [NASA] is to prepare the world for Big Brother - the New World Order.

` He's very into this kind of thing, you see...

I have heard that the cable TV system is going to be set up where not only can you watch the TV, the TV can watch you to monitor what is in your room. Kinda like Orwell's 1984. Big Brother is watching, course in our case it will be Big Sister [Ma Bell] [.....] I'd suspect the technology is here where the TV can watch you, even if you have it shut off, your TV can watch you to see what is going on.

` And, of course, we cannot help but notice his self-righteous insanity...

I am not in trouble with the IRS; they are in trouble with me! They broke the law and I am suing them for it.

` ...Just because he won't pay his taxes.

I have been complaining for the past couple of weeks about the nude art in the Pensacola airport gift shop. The owner called me and said, "You're the only person that has complained." I said to him, "Six nude women in the shape of a skull? That's not art, that's pornography!" The man at the airport has done nothing about it. The police have done nothing about it. If people don't stand up for what is right, corruption will take over. It's always been that way.

` Oh, no! And to think so many men (and horrible, sinful lesbians!) must be getting off to... a skull-shape made up of naked-woman shapes... in public!
` Also... I just don't get what a lot of his other attitudes about sex are...

A simple trick you can do. Suppose someone is getting married and going off on their honeymoon, you can pull out the coil wire [of the car engine]. Stick a door bell wire under there, pull it back, bring the door bell wire through the fire wall, and weave it through the fabric of the seat. They get in there all excited going on their honeymoon, you know, hit the key. Bam!! Ohh, ahh. Ha, ha, ha. I can give you lots more ideas but we’ll stop there.

` This is also kind of telling about just what he thinks he is...

Among the thousands of calls, letters and emails we receive every week there is normally at lease [sic] one chiding me for the way I call names and make fun of various ideas or people in my seminar. While we do reach many thousands for the Lord we certainly do not want to do anything unscriptural or displeasing to God. Is it right to use personal attacks and name calling in my seminar? How did Jesus and the prophets handle their detractors? Even a quick search of the scriptures will show that it is not always wrong to use various tactics to get the attention of sinners, wayward saints and wicked politicians. Here are just a few of the hundreds of examples found in scripture:

` Okay, I'm pretty sure that talk like this would have gotten Hovind burned at the stake a few centuries ago.
` Hear that, Hovind? How do you like them morals? He reminds me so much of my psychotic dad! And his personal confrontationality is no exception:

By the way kids, if you go to a secular school and you ask your teacher to debate me and they won't, send me their name, what they teach, what school they teach at, and when they refused. We are keeping a list, we just started two weeks ago on our web site, of teachers who refuse to debate.

` Oh yes, he wants to just go face-to-face with everyone, which is what makes him such an annoying jerk. Alas:

If nobody’s irritated at you you’re not a good Christian.

` I think that's enough for now. *Sigh.* I promise that tonight, I'll have something with a lot of fun, paleontological stuff on it. That's always been my favorite subject!
` As it is, I need to to off to a concert at the moment. Yes, it's those Russians Hovid seems to despise so much! The Russian State Chorus, with some classical music! Later!