FTC targets Web site touting Clark's remedies.

People come to the United States from all over the world to get better, special and much publicized "world renowned health care."
Yet, the people who live here can't pick the medical care or remedy of their choice. Is it the land of the free and home of the brave?

The FTC is scouring web sites, as detailed below, because they are mandated by the majority of people to continue doing this in the interests of protecting the American people. How soon will it be before we can't even read about Clark's remedies or someone else's in the same interest of protecting the American people??

I want to be able to read both conventional and non conventional or alternative. It is my freedom to choose.


THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS COPIED FROM HOOSIER.COM (The Herald-Times)

February 6, 2003

FTC targets Web site touting Clark's remedies

Former area woman known for alternative medical theories

By Bethany Swaby,
Herald-Times Staff Writer
The Federal Trade Commission has charged the administrators of a Web site touting a version of alternative health practitioner Hulda Clark 's cancer remedies with false advertising.

Clark lived for nearly 30 years in the Bloomington and Nashville area and was well known as a consultant on nutrition and alternative medicine topics.

She now lives in Mexico and consults at a clinic there.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on Jan. 8, names a California-based company, a Swiss company and their owner, David P. Amrein.

Clark is not named directly in the complaint and is not affiliated with the companies, said her attorney, Carlos Negrete.

However, he said she is familiar with Amrein, who Negrete called an avid supporter of Clark. Negrete also said he believed the complaint was filed to harass believers of Clark's alternative healing theories.

"Many commercial interests on the Internet are using my name," Clark said via a faxed statement Wednesday. "I don't see a way to control this because people are being profoundly helped through my health programs and that is impossible, or even unethical, to stop."

The products at issue include a version of Clark's "zapper," a device that purportedly kills disease-causing parasites within the body with electricity, and an herbal remedy that allegedly cleanses the body of parasites.

The complaint says the defendants did not have a reasonable basis to substantiate the claims made in the Web-based advertisements.

Information on the products is included in books Clark has published, and is not patented, Negrete said.

The complaint was filed as part of Operation Cure All, a law enforcement and consumer education effort with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada and several state attorneys general, said Michael Milgrom, an attorney with the FTC's East Central Region.

"Zapping outlandish promises that appeal to health and safety concerns of U.S. consumers is one of our top priorities," said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Unfortunately, questionable products abound on the Web. The FTC, with its partners, will continue the fight to protect consumers from these compelling but deceptive health claims."

Milgrom said the Web site was discovered during regular Internet searches done as part of Operation Cure All.

The FTC's complaint seeks to permanently stop the defendants from violating the Federal Trade Commission Act, possibly award refunds to consumers who might have purchased items from the site and recover the costs of the action.

A pretrial hearing is set for March 14, but could be delayed until the Swiss defendants receive the proper paperwork, Milgrom said.

The complaint is the second filed against a Web-based group selling Clark's "zapper" and other herbal remedies. The first was filed in June 2001 against a Seattle, Wash., couple who were eventually barred from selling the items.

Clark's alternative practices drew notice locally several years ago when she was charged with practicing medicine without a license.

In April 2000, Brown Circuit Judge Judith Stewart dismissed the charge against Clark, ruling a six-year delay in her arrest violated her right to a speedy trial.

The charge, a Class C felony carrying a penalty of two to eight years in prison, grew out of an investigation by the state health department and attorney general's office. According to a court affidavit, Clark told an undercover investigator that he had AIDS and she could cure it.

She was arrested in September 1999 in California, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned about the 1993 Indiana charges.

Reporter Bethany Swaby can be reached at 331-4373 or by e-mail at bswaby@heraldt.com.

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