Comment and Opinion

Natural Health Direct
It took a few years, but the web site for this bunch of crooks finally disappeared in December 2014.

Zapper zapped! Maybe. (10/7/2010)
On June 24 the Therapeutic Goods Administration ordered an outfit named Natural Health Direct to stop advertising the Hulda Clark Zapper and to display the following notice on the front page of their web site (you can see the ruling here):

Just so the search engines can find it when they index this page, here is what Natural Health Direct are required to say:

RETRACTION

An advertisement for the Zapper product, which we published on this website, should not have been published.

In promoting the Zapper product, we were advertising illegal therapeutic goods in breach of section 42DL(1)(g) of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. We also unlawfully made claims that the product could have therapeutic benefits such as killing bacteria, viruses, and parasites, and could cure diseases.

A complaint about the advertisement was recently upheld by the Complaints Resolution Panel. We provided no evidence to support the claims we made, and the Panel found that the claims were unlawful, misleading, and unverified and breached the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code.

The Panel therefore requested that Natural Health Direct publish this retraction.

The full text of the Panel's determination can be found at: www.tgacrp.com.au/complaints

The order gave Natural Health Direct 14 days to comply. Sixteen days have now passed so I thought I would check on progress and compliance. To nobody's surprise there is no notice on the web site and the advertisement for Hulda's Zapper is still there

One day the government is going to give the TGA the teeth it needs to move beyond requesting that crooks stop promoting quackery and fraud and actually be able to shut these people down, with prison sentences for the offenders if they don't comply with orders. As it is now, charlatans can simply ignore (or even laugh at) orders made by the TGA and the Complaints Resolution Panel. After all, as their lawyers have undoubtedly pointed out, even the form of notice that they are asked to display says that it is only a request, and a request can be politely declined.