Online Medical Frauds and Fake Cures: What's Going On?
I first began looking into a group Web sites under the umbrella of Flu-Fighter Laboratories when a reader asked me what I thought of the product being sold at migrainecure.com. As I read the site, I found more and more content there that was plagiarized and blatant misrepresentation. The first thing to catch my eye was a photo of a woman holding a bottle of their product with the caption, "Merle Goldstein, MD Chicago, IL." Now, I've met Dr. Merle Diamond, and that photo certainly was not of her. She was also liberally quoted on that page. When I contacted Dr. Diamond, she was shocked and very unhappy. She knew nothing of the site or their product... Soon, I discovered that I wasn't the only person looking into these sites and reporting them to governmental agencies. Now, prosecutors in Florida are going through the courts to try to shut them down, permanently. Feature article.
Check back for updates on this story. In the meantime, exercise caution when looking at sites that promise a cure or a treatment that's too good to be true. If it seems that way, it probably is. Keep this in mind -- if someone actually had a cure for these diseases, we'd be seeing it on the news, not just on slick Web sites. If sites list doctors who endorse their products or reprint journal articles, the doctors and articles should be easy to find elsewhere. Be careful; be safe.
Comments
Thank you so much for posting this article. Btw, I set up a link to your site on my blog. I hope that's ok. It's just htat I get so much information and helpful advice from your site, I thought it might help others, too. :) Take care,
Jessi
Posted by: migrainepal
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January 5, 2006 01:50 PM