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FTC Attack Upon this Website
Subject: Urgent Message from the Federal Trade Commission Regarding Cancer
Product Advertising on Your Website
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20580
TO: www.hiddencures.com/index.htm
FROM: Federal Trade Commission
RE: Health Claims on Your Website for Cancer Cures and Treatment Products
DATE: August 28, 2007
Deceptive Advertising Claims are Illegal
The staff of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently reviewed your website.
We are sending you this letter to remind you of your obligations under the law.
The FTC protects consumers from unfair or deceptive advertising or marketing
practices that raise health or safety concerns.
The FTC Act prohibits deceptive advertising in any medium, including the
Internet. Under the FTC Act, advertising claims for products and services must
be truthful and not misleading. Health-related claims, like those made about
cancer on your website, must be supported by competent and reliable scientific
evidence – the kind of evidence scientists who are experts in the field would
rely on. It is against the law to make health claims without scientific support,
to exaggerate the benefits of products or services, or to misstate the level of
scientific support you have for your claims. Please note that consumer
testimonials are not proof that your product works. If you make a health claim
through a consumer testimonial, you must have competent and reliable scientific
evidence that your product will have the same benefit for other users.
If your website makes express claims (literally made in the ad) or claims by
implication (made indirectly or by inference) about the benefits of any
cancer-related products or services that are not substantiated by competent and
reliable scientific evidence, or are otherwise deceptive or fraudulent, you must
stop making those claims immediately.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/06/cureall.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/07/chrisenter.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/07/westbot.htm
If
your website contains any untruthful or unsubstantiated claims, you could face
law enforcement action. That could mean:
1. A federal court injunction. Violations of court orders could result in civil
penalties or criminal prosecution.
2. An order to pay consumer refunds.
3. Administrative orders with fines up to $11,000 per violation.
Action Requested
We urge you to review all cancer-related claims on your website. If you don’t
have competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the claims, please
change them immediately or remove them altogether.
FTC investigators have saved your website and will be revisiting it soon. Within
10 business days, please send an email to cancer@ftc.gov describing the actions
you’ve taken or plan to take to address these concerns.
To ensure that your website complies with the FTC Act, we suggest reviewing the
following guidance from the FTC:
1.
Dietary Supplements: An Advertising Guide for Industry
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/dietsupp.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/dietsupp.htm/
2. Frequently Asked Advertising Questions: A Guide for Small Business
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/ad-faqs.htm
3. Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: The Rules of the Road at
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/ruleroad.htm
Please remember that you are responsible for complying with laws enforced by the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in addition to laws enforced by the FTC. The
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) defines a drug, in part, as an
article intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or
prevention of a disease, or to affect the structure or any function of the
body.(1) Drugs that are not generally recognized by qualified, scientific experts
as safe and effective for the uses recommended or suggested in their labeling
are considered to be new drugs.(2) It is illegal to market a new drug in the U.S.
without obtaining prior FDA approval.(3) Violations of the FDCA may result in
seizure of illegal products and an injunction against the manufacturers and
distributors. We have contacted the FDA about claims on your website. Remember,
too, that unfair or deceptive acts or practices also are illegal under many
state laws. The standards under those laws may be different from the FTC Act.
If you are not located in the United States, we have referred the claims on your
website to the consumer protection enforcement agency that has jurisdiction in
your locale.
We look forward to hearing from you.
1 21 U.S.C. § 321(g).
2 21 U.S.C. § 321(p).
3 21 U.S.C. §§ 355 and 331(d).
My Reply
Dear FDA,
In the opening paragraphs of my website's home page, I state that government is
actively suppressing cures for cancer, based on the power of government to
protect you (the reader), and in order to view this information they have to
waive their right to said protection, or are asked to leave. Thus, my visitors
and audience accept the paradigm or philosophy that government is actively
suppressing cures. My audience wants to read what you would construe as false
and misleading statements; whether or not they are true is not relevant. They
want this information, if for no other reason than that you want to suppress it
since government suppression is a marker of a cure. Thus, your power to protect
does not apply to my readers because first, they have waived their right to your
protection, and second, they want to read it after being informed the
information is not approved by government. You have lost the basis of your
power, the protection of society, while the 1st amendment freedom of speech and
press remain.
The US constitution is a grant of power; the government has no power except what
is specifically enumerated, or necessary by implication. The 1st Amendment is a
bar against government making any law abridging the freedom of speech or the
press. The only way the FDA can get around this bar is through its power to
protect society, through its exercise of regulating interstate commerce. My
readers, per the terms of use for my site, have waived the protection of
government, thereby removing any supposed government jurisdiction.
If my readers were not allowed to waive the protection of government, then
contracts which require acceptance of compulsory arbitration in place of a trial
would not be allowed, and the paper I signed when buying a house, waiving my
rights under the Homestead Act, would be unenforceable contracts. But these
contracts are enforceable, which means we have the right to wave our rights. And
if we did not have to right to waive the protection of government, then we would
be wards of state, subject to whatever protection the government might impose
upon us. And that would be tyranny in the guise of protection.
I do not claim that the cures stated on my website are proven to the level of
competent and reliable scientific evidence, but the evidence is sufficient that
any reasonable man would accept that suppression has occurred, and the potential
cures are worth pursuing. You cannot require me to adopt government's standard
of proof, for to do so violates my right to freedom of speech, and the
community's right to know. The government's standard of proof is based on its
intention to suppress, in collusion with the medical industry, and not on any
basis of protection of society. If government was really interested in
suppressing false or mid-leading statements, the law would not be limited to
cures for diseases, but would apply to all aspects of society.
All those on my website who have discovered a potential cancer cure met with
harassment at the hands of government. Does that show any interest by government
for finding a cure? Indeed, I consider harassment to be a marker of a cure
lurking nearby. Neither the government nor the medical industry wants research
done to find a cure; they want to treat disease, which is where the profit is.
If a cure was found, the medical industry's multi-billion dollar profit center
would dry up over night, which is why it will never happen. The government has
suppressed these cures by setting the bar of proof so high that only large
research companies can afford to undertake such research, and made it illegal to
speak or write about it, based on protection of society.
In order for the 1st Amendment to have any efficacy, I must determine the
standard of proof and not the government. I may choose to be casual, anecdotal,
or scientifically rigorous, but that has to be my choice. Otherwise the level of
proof can be set high enough so that no statement can ever be made. All
political dissent can be stifled if government can require and set the level of
proof, as is being done in the case of cancer cures.
Natural law is the law of the universe that governs all of creation from the
smallest particle to the largest galaxy, and does so while harmonizing diverse
interests. Government under natural law should be attempting to harmonize
diverse interests. The method I have chosen perfectly harmonizes government's
interest to protect, while providing un-approved information to those who want
it. I did this through the method of waiver of one's right to protection of
government.
While government can pass laws to protect society from harm, it cannot protect
individuals from harm against their will. Free will is a gift of the Creator,
given to us for the purpose of learning life's lessons. Government cannot
intervene in these lessons, except to protect the morals, health, safety, and
general welfare of society and third persons. When individuals give informed
consent to a moral act such as providing and receiving health care, and it
causes no harm to society or third persons, then government cannot intervene.
Even if the government considers the act to be quackery, that decision must be
between the individuals involved. Otherwise, the will of government will replace
individual will, converting the people into wards of the state, violating the
intent of the Creator that we learn from our decisions. The Supreme Court of
Ohio said:
"Our constitutions are founded upon individualism, and they make prominent the
theory that to the individual should be granted all the rights consistent with
public safety; and our development is chiefly attributable to the firm
establishment and maintenance of those rights by an authorized resort to the
courts for their protection against all hostile legislation which is not
required by considerations of the public health or safety. In the absence of
such considerations those rights are alike immutable; in their presence they
must alike yield." [State v. Gravett, 62 NE 325, 326 (1901)]
Nor can government convert an entire society into wards of the state in order to
protect the incompetent. The law already provides for the care of incompetents;
if you are one, the state will gladly take care of you if you ask. Some people
have rejected the medical paradigm, and pursue alternative approaches. By
suppressing alternative information, government is not protecting these people
but is causing them harm. Those are the type of people interested in my website;
they have a right to read the information, and I have a right to provide it.
There will never be scientific research sufficient to satisfy government's level
of proof for the potential cures I have presented on my website. This is because
it costs millions of dollars to bring a new drug to market. No medical research
company will spend money on a product that cannot be patented. As a hypothetical
example, what if the cure for cancer involved a simple herb? Since an herb is
not patentable, no research company will spend the many millions of dollars
required to produce the level of scientific research the government requires for
"proof". Without such proof, your law will not allow the public to be informed
of this cure, even though anecdotal and similar evidence would suggest to any
reasonable man that it is a potential cure worthy to pursue. This simple example
demonstrates that the law is wrong, and therefore void. No one in society is
required to follow laws in violation of natural law. Your law needs to be
rewritten to accommodate natural cures that are not provable to your standards.
One court said:
"[A]ll acts of legislature apparently contrary to natural right and justice are,
in our laws and must be in the nature of things, considered as void. The laws of
nature are the laws of God; whose authority can be superseded by no power on
earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to him from whose
punishments they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict his
laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey. Such have been the adjudications of
our courts of justice." [Robin v. Hardaway, 1 Jefferson 109, 114 (1772)]
Your power to prevent false and misleading statements is based on protecting
society from harm. Since the medical establishment claims that there is no cure
for cancer, they have given up any supposed jurisdiction over the disease. The
alternative approaches then become a source of hope and potential cure which
government would take away, in violation of our right to pursue safety and
happiness.
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