Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know about (Hardcover)

The name "Kevin Trudeau" is probably unfamiliar for most UK readers. Mr Trudeau presented (and owned) two infomercial channels on satellite TV called "Shop America" and a sister channel called "You TV" and did likewise in the US. These infomercials hawked a range of products for improving your golf, your memory, your looks and your health. Most of the claims were harmless (if misleading) but some were downright dangerous. In particular, he sold a line of expensive chalk pills called "Coral Calcium" that he claimed reversed cancer and other life threatening diseases.

The claims were sufficiently misleading (especially those for Coral Calcium) that UK Advertising Standards Authority slapped the channels with £100,000 in fines. But it was nothing compared to what happened to him in the US. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) prosecuted and fined him for a whopping $2 million dollars for hawking Coral Calcium and banned him for life from selling similar products on TV again. This is not the first time he has been in trouble with the FTC or the law either. Past charges levelled against him include credit card fraud, running illegal pyramid schemes, misrepresentation to stockholders and more.. He even served 2 years in prison for passing dud checks while posing as a doctor.

Which brings us to this book. Mr Trudeau is not a doctor, dietician, nutritionist or in any way qualified to offer any kind of medical advice and it shows on every page. He is a salesman with an extremely shady record of using half truths and downright lies to hawk his products.

This book is pitched to play on a "us" and "them" - the FDA and the drug companies who are "conspiring" to keep people sick and to hide cures that work - and Mr Trudeau as a Ralph Nader-esque consumer advocate fighting for "us". In reality Mr Trudeau is what he is, and this book serves as little more than a rant against the FTC and FDA, some common sense advice, a whole bunch of baloney about blood acidity levels and other pseudoscience, and as an extended infomercial for his website. Yes, its an infomercial in book form. It frequently refers you to his site for more info where you'll discover you must pay anything from $10 per month or $500 for "lifetime membership" to see what it says. Judging by this book, the chances are that you'll pay your membership to discover it filled with more nonsense and perhaps even more expensive ways to part with your money.

So in summary take the claims made for this book with a massive grain of salt. Take a time to look through the US Amazon's reviews for this book if you think I'm exaggerating - there are literally hundreds of outraged reviewers to give you a fair impression of this book.

Mr. Trudeau is obviously a highly intelligent man who is undoubtedly to be commended for his detailed research and exposure of the corruption at the heart of the FTC and FDA and a United States government which probably is indeed guilty of aiding and abetting suppression of information and cures, for it's own financial motives.

The question that now troubles me however, is whether the author himself is any more genuine than the very bodies he criticises. For one thing, the book title is entirely misleading. It does not provide any cures for illness whatsoever, but for the most part is just a rant against the medical profession and complicit parties. It's not that I don't find the subject interesting, but had I known that this was to be a political dossier I would have saved my money and given it a miss. Personally, I prefer to see such subjects covered in newspaper features or T.V. documentaries. To make matters worse, I later learn that if I really want to know about the cures discussed, I'm expected to subscribe to Mr. Trudeau's fee paying website!

To offer hope to the afflicted, first in the form of a pricey hardback, (when many like myself are of limited means for health reasons) and then expect them to pay more still, seems pretty low.

In fairness, there were some useful tips along the way, mainly of a preventative nature and a whole chapter dedicated to losing weight (but as I have been a consistent size 10 since the age of 13 this hardly applies to me). There were also numerous recommendations of further books by different authors which Mr. Trudeau quotes to back up his claims, but this too seems to be cheating. Very expensive and/or time consuming.

Please Mr. Trudeau, why don't you rename your book in favour of something more honest and appropriate, suggestion- "The Great Medical Conspiracy"? Or many like myself will feel very let down.

Trudeau does give some useful information about food products, drugs and pharmaceuticals, but much is left in the realm of fuzzy description, and the more full description requires payment or subscription. Trudeau does talk a lot about the bureaucracy of the Food and Drug Administration as well as the Federal Trade Commission, but one has to wonder how things he claims cannot be published in a book form can be publically accessible on a website and not suffer the same kind of legal liability.

If you are interested in the data about the FTC and FDA, this is worthwhile in some respects. However, I must confess that I was disappointed that I did not get the kinds of directly applicable ideas for healthy living that I had hoped for from this book.