There’s two things in particular I enjoy about the world wide web, the creativity, and the wealth of information available.

When exploited, these two facets can be easily manipulated, and what appears to be an attractive looking service with credible information backing it up, is nothing more than some pretty pictures tacked together, some colouring in, and misleading or blatantly false information plastered across. It’s tacky, it’s dishonest, and worst of all folks are making a fortune ripping you off.

Couple this with the health sector, and we get Quackery.

Introducing Don Lapre and “The Greatest Vitamin in the World”

Our American friends might recognise more about this individual, and his infomercial background. Luckily, we in New Zealand weren’t subjected to the horror, though we did see plenty of Kevin Trudeau...which quite frankly, we are still bitter about.

One of Don Lapre’s more recent business ventures, is “The Greatest Vitamin in the World”. It goes back some years, and unfortunately they were not designed with your body’s nutrition in mind. They are ultimately designed to sell more websites to unsuspecting people who view it as a legitimate home business, and though we block a number of these sites already in SiteHound even today more websites are still popping up.

It’s a scam

This is a scam, short and simple. The claims are outrageous, and the figures don’t add up. Some worthwhile reading.

CBS News Article from 2004

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/04/eveningnews/consumer/main621213.shtml

The very excellent QuackWatch article.

http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/lapre.html

I could honestly go on page after page, citing references all over the world wide web. But my advice, if you want the best read, check out QuackWatch.

But wait, there’s more

And it is not just websites selling vitamins that are involved in this. There is clear and well badly thought out pattern of social engineering occurring as well. With all the accurate information out there that discredits Don Lapre and “The Greatest Vitamin in the World”, another campaign of misinformation, fake blogs and misleading “discussions” is also evident.

If you have the stomach, take a look at a few examples below of some fake blog postings.

So, do you feel ill yet ?

I certainly do, and with the developing trend of blogging, and people able to voice their randomly subjective opinions (note to self...people in glass houses) we just cannot believe what we read and see. I urge anyone who has come across this randomly subjective blog post, to always try err on the side of caution and watch out for quackery and fraud in all its forms.

I wonder if I can find something for my nausea......ah, here we go....The Perfect Pill....only $39.95....