The Closet Extrovert

“The con man’s game is always the same: sensing what the gull most wants to be true.”
- Stephen Metcalf, in his Slate article The Death of Literary Theory (via Ann Althouse)

Disclaimer: Please don’t misconstrue the following as an attack on natural remedies or alternative medicine treatments, or an attempt to dispute conspiracy theories about the big pharmaceutical companies. It is an editorial rant about ethics and reflects an admittedly biased opinion based on available research. I have not read the book being referenced, but only because I refuse to give money to someone I believe to be a charlatan. I’m aware that I can probably borrow a copy from the local library, but in truth I don’t have the the time or desire to spend dissecting the specific contents of the book itself, especially after reading this synopsis.

I got hooked a while back by a discussion thread on an alternative medicine blog that I stumbled across one day which mentioned Kevin Trudeau’s book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About. I decided to do a little research about him and was disturbed by what I discovered. I had seen snippets of Trudeau’s infomercial promoting the book on television occasionally but never paid much attention to them due to an intrinsic distrust of anyone going to too much effort to sell me something. In this case, I believe that distrust is not misplaced.

I also believe that Kevin Trudeau is not the anti-”big pharm” activist with special knowledge to impart that he claims to be. He’s just an opportunistic con artist using his mastery of persuasion techniques and people’s increasing distrust of pharmaceutical companies to prey upon them. His primary goal isn’t altruism, it’s making as much money possible without regard for how he does it. His past activities reveal that he is willing to sell just about anything that he can create a good sales pitch for. According to what I’ve read, he has been willing to lie, cheat and steal to line his pockets and appears to have no sense of ethics whatsoever. This guy should go into politics.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose for a moment that Kevin Trudeau is actually a completely honest, ethical and credible consumer advocate instead of a very sophisticated “confidence man”. Even so, why would you trust your health to someone with no medical or scientific training / experience (he does, however, have a criminal record that includes a 2 year jail term), someone who has never supplied any substantial evidence to back up his claims, without even taking the time to check him out? As far as I’m concerned, this guy’s behavior is as despicable as any pharmaceutical company’s could be.

I’m not asking you or anyone else to just take my word for it, though. I just want to encourage you to go look at the information that’s out there about Kevin Trudeau and his background, and then make up your own mind.

So why am I writing this? Mainly because I dislike it when people are taken advantage of, whether due to gullibility, lack of information, disinformation, or sheer stupidity. I want to help make people aware that controversy about Trudeau’s motives and methods does exist, and to encourage them to look at any information they come across, regardless of the source or the subject, with a discerning eye. In other words, “Think for yourself and question authority” (usually but not definitively attributed to Timothy Leary).

I often wish that more people would exercise their ability to think critically, that they would question what people tell them or what they read before believing it. However, even highly intelligent people can be fooled by a good con artist! As the magicians’ saying goes… “deception requires cooperation”. People are more likely to believe a lie if it is presented along with some truths, and Trudeau certainly seems to use this to his advantage. There’s also Hitler’s famous “Big Lie” theory, which states that people will believe a colossal lie sooner than a little one, and if it is repeated frequently enough, eventually people tend to believe that it’s at least partly true.

Kevin Trudeau’s biggest lie is that his book doesn’t contain any secrets at all. A plethora of information about natural remedies and alternative medicine is freely available on the internet and in books by other people who are more credible than he is.