Saturday, July 27, 2013

FOR THE GLIBERTARIANS

This is what your fairy tale free market ideology produces:
Pitchman in Contempt for Not Paying $37M Fine
CHICAGO July 27, 2013 (AP)

A federal judge has found author and infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau in contempt of court for failing to pay a more than $37 million fine imposed over misleading ads for one of his wildly popular weight-loss books.


The FTC first sued Trudeau in 1998, charging that he made false and unsubstantiated claims in infomercials for hair growth, memory and weight-loss products. In 2003, the agency sued Trudeau for deceptively marketing a calcium product as a cancer cure and a product called Biotape as a pain reliever.

Trudeau paid $2 million in 2004 to settle the FTC's charges and agreed to comply with a court order banning him from infomercials except those that accurately promote books.

Three years later, the judge held Trudeau in civil contempt for misrepresenting some of the facts in an ad for his best-selling weight-loss book, namely that the diet plan was easy and allowed adherents to eat anything they wanted.

After purchasing the book, however, the FTC alleged that consumers discover it "requires severe dieting," daily injections of a prescription drug not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for weight loss and "lifelong dietary restrictions."

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