Why We Have Turned Away Most Advertisers
We have had lots of people contact us about advertising. In the overwhelming majority of the cases, we have had to refuse the advertising. We have seen quite a few marketers who did not comprehend what it means to be ethical and honest.
Perhaps half of the solicitations consisted merely of a request for pricing, without revealing any information about them, using throw-away e-mail accounts. The irony of this situation is that they were afraid that we would in-turn market to them, at a later date, if they revealed too much information about themselves.
First Do No Harm
Whenever we are approached for advertising, we turn our research into learning all of the details of whatever it is that the marketer is trying to sell. In about half of these cases, they bail-out of the deal as soon as we begin questioning them; which is never a good sign. Some of them were willing to divulge the ingredients of their supplements, but adamantly refused to publish them publicly. This was completely unacceptable to us, because it meant that they were likely lying about the ingredients.
The cons rely on keeping us ignorant of the details. If some of these people did actually publish the ingredients of their products, then particular ingredients could be verified, and perhaps more importantly, disproven. Moreover, a dishonest marketer could be easily sued or sent to prison for having lied in the ingredients list. Neither we, nor our advertisers, will ever need to hide in the shadows.
From the behavior that we have seen, it appears that a very large portion of the supplements sold exclusively online are fraudulent, and we strongly suspect that some of them even contain toxins. Buyer beware!
Thus, there is sadly an element of truth in the comical movie from the previous article, and remember that all great lies have an element of truth, for it is what makes them so effective.
There are ethical marketers out there, just as there are ethical companies making honest profits, and there are effective alternative treatments to be found within the confusing maze of disinformation. Navigating that maze without giving into the temptation to take the easy path is the challenging part. We know of no others who were able to maintain that policy for long, but a select few have come close. For now, it looks like we are 'it'.
Our peer publications, while putting on their battle paint to show that they are fighting the good fight, nevertheless flee from all politically risky controversies, such as the topic of canola oil, or orally ingested iodine; because they fear the potential backlash. We notice that a few of them are finally back peddling after we called them on it, and posted the scientific data, but the damage has been done, especially to the long term health of their readers. They do not dare be the first to challenge well-established frauds like magnet therapy, detox pads, energy (occult) healing, color or light therapy, oil pulling, or ionic foot detoxification; because they are too concerned about losing a few popularity points. They have the integrity of tele-journalist. To them I preach; you can be honest, or you can be politically correct. Pick one. In our case, the choice is between being marketers, or being journalists. It should be obvious which path we chose.
We pray that our marketing and our articles are always true, and that we never do harm to those who have sought our help. Feel free to read more about our position concerning credibility.