Unscrupulous people are preying on your insecurities to take your money.
Unscrupulous people are preying on your insecurities to take your money.
By M.J. Ecker
[M.J. Ecker is JackinWorld's founder and editor.]
IT certainly wasn't the first such e-mail I've received and it won't be the last, but it got me pissed off enough to write this JackinWorld article. Someone named "Virginia" from an "herbal affiliate" company wrote to JackinWorld asking if we'd like to advertise "herbal supplements" for "penis enlargement, weight loss, hair loss, breast enlargement, and more," in exchange for a substantial cut of the profits. I told her I was going to pass, although I used slightly stronger language than that.
The "herbal supplement" Internet industry, which began around 2002, is still rapidly expanding, without question because it's so profitable. Now moving beyond the Internet, some of these companies also run "male enhancement" ads on late-night cable TV and in the backs of otherwise respectable magazines. Here's what these companies do: They either manufacture or buy cheap generic pills containing random herbal mixtures, and they market these pills to "cure" any of an array of conditions. The one thing all of these conditions have in common? They're all focal points of human insecurities. Topping the list is penis enlargement or "male enhancement," but as seen in Virginia's letter, there are plenty of others. (I've even seen pills that claim to make short people magically grow taller.) These pills are sold at unbelievable markups – we're talking $50 or more for a bottle of pills that may cost two cents each, at most, to manufacture. The profits are so large, these companies are able to offer lucrative affiliate deals to Web sites willing to advertise them. For instance, Virginia's e-mail offered that for every bottle of pills sold to a JackinWorld visitor, we could earn $36, and for every 4-bottle package, we'd earn $144. How could we say no to that? Simple: Because JackinWorld fights against evil – we don't propagate it. That's why!
Three of the alluring images that flash by on an "herbal affiliate" web page.
I can't tell you how many e-mails I've gotten from teens saying, "I can't afford to buy pills – is there any way I can make my penis bigger without taking pills?" It just kills me that innocent people are giving their money to fraudulent charlatans who will do absolutely anything to make a buck. From JackinWorld's perspective, the worst sites are those that warn about a made-up concept called "overmasturbation," claiming that masturbating too much (by their definition, more than once or twice a week) causes chronic fatigue, hair loss, and other maladies, supposedly backing up the claim with a bunch of physiological jargon that makes no scientific sense when examined closely. Of course, these same sites sell expensive herbal pills to counteract the "fatal consequences of overmasturbation." Are you surprised?
Ask any medical doctor (and no, the lab-coated "doctors" paid to appear on the sites in question do not count), and they'll tell you these herbal pills do absolutely nothing toward the conditions they're marketed to treat. (There are also no negative physical consequences of masturbating 10 or 15 times per week, either – but for JackinWorld readers, that should go without saying.) Unfortunately, the way the U.S. laws are currently set up, there's little the Food & Drug Administration (the government agency that controls the marketing of pharmaceuticals) can do about it. As long as a pill is described as "herbal," a company can make any claim whatsoever about it; it doesn't have to pass any clinical trials and isn't subject to the restrictions that prescription medications are held to in TV commercials, for instance. But that doesn't stop the marketers from making their Web sites, ads, and commercials from looking like those advertising legitimate prescription medications. It's all a part of the lie designed to fool you into shelling over your cash. You're left with nothing, and they're left rolling in your money.
What can you do about this evil? First, by all means, never, ever buy any "herbal" pills that claim to affect anything substantial: change your penis size, weight, breast size, weakness of erection, etc. If the product is targeted at a common human insecurity, that's the dead giveaway right there. Second, report spam e-mails from these companies via a spam-reporting service such as SpamCop. Third, write, e-mail, or call any cable channel, radio station, or publication that runs ads for these products, and tell them you will stop watching or reading unless they change their policy and refuse to advertise obviously fraudulent products. Fourth, write to your U.S. Senator and Congressperson to pass laws restricting herbal-supplement claims. Finally, spread the word. This is a cancer in our society – unscrupulous snake-oil salesmen using a loophole in the law to take innocent people's money by targeting their darkest insecurities. It has to be stopped.
Related resources:
While the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) concerns itself largely with legitimate pharmaceuticals and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) tends to focus on broader health-fraud issues, the following FDA link has some excellent tips for spotting fraudulent claims:
Agencies Team Up in War Against Internet Health Fraud
Here's an MSNBC article on a company that actually got busted for selling "penis pills," complete with ironic ads for a popular erectile-dysfunction medicine:
Anatomy of a Penis Pill Swindle
The most common examples of health fraud, as listed by QuackWatch.com:
Top Health Frauds
