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Monthly Archives: June 2014

“Drain the Swamp”

Says Dr.Oz to the Senate’s Consumer Protection Panel on June 17, 2014, promising to publish a list of specific products he thinks can help America shed pounds and get healthy. “There’s no long term miracle pill out there without diet and exercise,” he now says.

Underwriters will want to seize this list as assurance that their merchants are not marketing products that brought down FTC wrath on Nicholas Scott Congleton, Paul Daniel Pascual, and Bryan Benjamin Walsh, and their various companies selling Pure Green Coffee. (United States district court, Middle district of Florida, Case 8:14-cv-01155).

In a strange coincidence, the above parties began marketing their Pure Green Coffee and related names within weeks of the following April 26, 2012 discussion on the Dr.Oz Show, and featuring this in their promotions:

“Dr. Mehmet Oz proclaimed green coffee extract “the magic weight loss cure for every body type” on his nationally syndicated television talk
show, The Dr. Oz Show. In the episode, Dr. Oz touted a “staggering, newly released study” in which subjects “lost an astounding amount of fat and weight – 17 pounds in 22 weeks – by doing absolutely nothing extra in their day.”

17. The episode included the following discussion of the purported benefits of green coffee extract:

[ON-SCREEN depiction omitted]

[Dr. Oz speaking:] A staggering, newly released study reveals that the coffee bean, in its purest raw form, may hold the secret to weight loss that you’ve been waiting for. The study presented at a meeting of the world’s largest scientific society triggered unprecedented excitement for a weight loss study. It showed women and men who took green coffee extract lost an astounding amount of fat and weight, 17 pounds –

[TEXT ON-SCREEN:]
17 lbs
22 weeks

[Dr. Oz:] –in 22 weeks by doing absolutely nothing extra in their day.

[Guest Dr. Lindsey Duncan speaking:] . . . So, and the medical community, the weight-loss community is all buzzing about this, and here’s why. The recent study that you were talking about earlier, they – the participants took the capsules and they did nothing else, they didn’t exercise, they didn’t change their diet. They actually consumed 2,400 calories a day. They burned only 400 calories. Now, that’s weight gain, not weight loss.

[Dr. Oz:] Yeah.

[Dr. Duncan:] And they lost over 10 percent of their total body weight.

[Dr. Oz:] Ten percent?

[Dr. Duncan:] Ten percent. They lost 16 percent of their total body fat, and they lost about 17 pounds per participant, and they had no side effects, zero side effects.

[Dr. Oz:] And how long did they have to take the pills for?

[Dr. Duncan:] They did it for 12 weeks only.

[Dr. Oz:] That’s remarkable.
***
[Dr. Oz:] So, how much do folks have to take in order to get the benefit?

[TEXT ON-SCREEN:]
THE DR. OZ SHOW
MIRACLE TO BURN FAT FAST
GREEN COFFEE BEAN EXTRACT
TAKE 800MG TWICE PER DAY

[Dr. Duncan:] Eight hundred milligrams twice a day, and you want to take it before meals, about 30 minutes before with a large glass of water.
(Tr. attached as Ex. 1; DVD of video attached as Ex. 2.)

Dr. Oz did not recommend any specific brand of green coffee extract.”

Now, about that “list” . . . . .

Robocallers, Past and Future

“The Federal Trade Commission is taking its fight against robocallers to the upcoming DEFCON by challenging attendees of the conference to build the ultimate “honeypot” that would lure in and identify illegal phone spammers. The FTC said a robocall honeypot is an information system designed to attract robocallers, which can help experts and law enforcementRead More