A believer in organic foods, holistic approach to health and a great many 'natural' treatments, I am forced to recognize that those fields are an example of capitalism at its worst, in that they are replete with crooks that use fear to prey on the ignorant.
Some of my favorite quackery to come from this movement involves drinking ascetic acid to lower the pH in your stomach (every 1st year chemistry student knows it does the opposite), drinking hydrogen peroxide (a well know radical inducer) for assorted ailments, and my favorite ..... properly chewing your water to change its energy patterns before swallowing.
My least favorite, and now convicted, huckster of the natural foods movement, Kevin Trudeau,
is going to prison for, in part, his outrageous health claims.
My first exposure to Trudeau was in 2005 when I read his book, "Natural Cures They don't want you to know about". Trudeau laid out an impossible scenario in which the FDA, the AMA, all doctors, medical insurance companies, the news media and corporate America in general were out to ruin our health because it would make them rich. I read on, waiting for him to enumerate the cures he touted, and finally came across a long list of things he knew how to cure. All I had to do was log onto his web site and for a subscription fee I would gain access to all of the natural cures that were advertised to be in the book. I would also get access to proof of the conspiracy of the hundreds of thousands of people that were out to ruin my health for their profit. Of course I declined signing up. I'd already wasted $25 purchasing and eight hours reading his book, I didn't want this prevaricator to be into me any more than he already was.
Ten years sounds like an awfully long sentence for his crimes, and I can't help but think that the length of his sentence is likely more due to the possibility that he made the wrong Federal judge mad. Either way, he'll be out of our hair (and pockets) for at least a few years. As he's elicited one scam after another for years, it will be interesting to see if he tries to separate his fellow inmates from their money too.