[Note: The VP of Business Development, David Ciemny, has left a comment of which I responded to. On January 17, 2012 he has promised a response, but has not delivered yet. I have reminded him twice via email and he hasn’t responded to those requests either. I wouldn’t recommend aligning yourself with a company with such irresponsible management.]
Today I’d like to tell you about a scam that I find interesting. I find it so interesting because seemingly intelligent people fall for it. It’s not like the Nigerian Prince scam that we can all joke and laugh about, because it is so ridiculous that no one knows anyone who actually falls for it.
This scam about a fruit juice. Here are a few things about it:
The Juice
There’s a product of blended fruit juices – exotic fruit juices. It comes in a 750ml wine bottle that looks more suited for expensive. That bottle retails for around $50 and the suggested serving size is 2 oz., twice a day. The theory is that it packs a bunch of antioxidants.
The Company
The company has a scientific board of doctors to give the product an air of legitimacy. The company also puts a large focus on its charity contributions in an effort to market the company.
The company touts the patents it has. Many of its customers don’t realize that patents are granted for ridiculous things – things that don’t necessary work.
The Business
The business model is a multi-level marketing one. It is very complex and includes uses a bunch of confusing terminology. Some of this terminology involves distinguishing amongst sales of Personal and Downline creating a point system of PV (Personal Volume) and GV (Group Volume). There are at least 9 “ways to earn money!” marketing designed to nab the suckers who think that more ways to earn money is better.
If a distributor wishes to participate in most of these ways to make money, they are required to purchase a case of 4 bottles each month at a cost of around $140 to them. In this way, the company ensures that everyone involved in the pyramid has subscribed to paying them $140 a month or $1700 a year with the renewal fee to be a distributor each year.
The compensation plan allows for a luxury car bonus. While that sounds great, if a distributor doesn’t maintain the sames level (replacing people who quit after they realize that they aren’t making money), the distributor is on the hook for the car lease themselves – a financial burden that many find out the hard way.
There is an annual get together for all distributors that they have to pay for out their own pocket (traveling costs and hotel are extra). This is big win for the company because they get more income from its distributors who effectively pay for their own brainwashing.
The compensation plan ensures that around 99% of people will never make money in the business. That’s why the constant motivational meetings are necessary.
Did you Guess who the Company is?
If you are familiar with Lazy Man and Money and you probably think I’m writing another article about MonaVie. After all I’ve written enough about MonaVie over at MonaVie Scam to prove that MonaVie is a grossly overpriced product, with little nutritional value, wrapped in a poor business opportunity that appears to be an illegal pyramid scheme, which is itself wrapped in illegal medical claims, supported by nonsensical “scientific” studies, and tied to a fraudulent charity.
[Update: MonaVie appears to have been foreclosed upon according to my reading of the the Salt Lake City Tribune.]However, this is really an article about Jusuru. Don’t be upset, you didn’t really have a way of knowing which juice scam I was referring to. In fact, I almost didn’t write about Jusuru, but a friend convinced me that it was probably worth it to warn consumers before it got along too far. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?
I could have gone into a lot more detail about the individual aspects of Jusuru, but in many cases you may wish to read that MonaVie website and substitute “MonaVie” for “Jusuru” just like you could have with most of this article.
Update: It appears that Vogel was kind enough to find a ton of dirt on Jusuru. Some of the things at that link:
- The President coaching distributors about how to walk the line of making fraudulent medical claims
- The fact that neither of the two people credited with inventing it are scientists
- The previous scammy products they’ve been a part of in the past
- Dr. Brady and Mike Lattuca participating in what sounds to me illegal medical claims about the product.
- … and much much more! See just like MonaVie
Meet the New Juice Scam. Same as the Old Juice Scam. Heed the The Who’s words and you Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Let’s Get into Jusuru for Real
I had presumed that if I showed people how Jusuru is a MonaVie copycat in just about every way, they’d be wise enough to understand that they just said, “Hey look, they are getting people to pay outrageous prices for fruit juice… we can do the same thing.” Clearly there are still a subset of people, likely Jusuru distributors, who aren’t able to make that mental connection.
With that being the case, I thought I’d slowly bring out a few more things about Jusuru:
Resveratrol as a “Star” Ingredient
For one thing, I couldn’t find Jusuru make a clear claim to how much resveratrol is in the product. There do say “one serving size (2 oz) contains the same amount of resveratrol as in four full bottles of red wine” (Source), but not all bottles of red wine contain the same amount of resveratrol, so which four bottles of red wine is Jusuru using? Using this chart below we can see there is a big difference in wines with some having 5 times as much as others:
Four bottles of red wine is 3 liters (a wine bottle is 3/4s of a liter or 750ml), so to have as much resveratrol as 4 bottles of red wine, it could have as little as 3mg per 2 ounces (0.99 * 3 liters) or as much as 15mg per 2 ounces (5.01 * 3 liters) of reseveratrol. I found NutriGold Resveratrol GOLD, 500mg, 120 Capsules on sale for less than $25 (as of this writing: 11/17/2012). A single pill will give you somewhere between 33 and 166 times the amount of resveratrol in a Jusuru serving (depending on their fuzzy claim of the resveratrol in wine and not specifying specific quantities). In any case there are about 12 servings of Jusuru in a bottle, so a single pill is worth anywhere from 3 to nearly 14 bottles of Jusuru. If you want to get your resveratrol, you can either spend $25 for those 120 pills or you can spend $14,400 (3 bottles/per pill * $40/per bottle * 120 pills) to $67,200 (14 bottles/per pill * $40/per bottle * 120 pills) to get it from Jusuru.
However, before you spend the $25, $14,000, or the $67,200 on resveratrol the Mayo Clinic says, “most of the resveratrol in the supplements can’t be absorbed by your body.”
While Jusuru spends a good portion on it’s website marketing resveratrol (Source) as a solution to the French Paradox, more research shows “the authors of a 2003 study concluded that the amount of resveratrol absorbed by drinkers of red wine is small enough that it is unlikely to explain the paradox” and that “some researchers have questioned the validity of this paradox altogether, particularly the connection between natural saturated fat consumption and cardiovascular disease. This view has recently received broad support through the results of the Nurses’ Health Study run by the Women’s Health Initiative. After accumulating approximately 8 years of data on the diet and health of 49,000 post-menopausal American women, the researchers found that the balance of saturated versus unsaturated fats does not affect heart disease risk, while the consumption of trans fat results in significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease.”
It’s also telling how easy Jusuru Canada replaced resveratrol that is in Jusuru’s USA product. From Jusuru Canada’s FAQ (PDF), “The difference between the two is that the Canadian formulation will contain all ingredients except resveratrol, lycium, jujube, and nopal. We have, however, replaced these ingredients with additional mangosteen, which has proven similar anti-inflammatory benefits as resveratrol. This will not change the efficacy of the product in any way. In fact, Jusuru Life Blend’s power comes from BioCell Collagen and antioxidants that are derived from a blend of superfruits.”
It is of note that Jusuru makes the claim that “it will not change the efficacy of the product in any way.” Since there are no clinical trials, the only way they can be sure is by admitting that Jusuru has zero efficacy and hence the change keeps it’s efficacy at zero. Furthermore, if resveratrol can be replaced without changing the efficacy of the product, it is logically not a critical ingredient.
Lastly, it is particularly telling that Jusuru uses the marketing term Superfruit rather than a more scientific term.
In conclusion, I find the following problems with Jusuru’s marketing of resveratrol:
- Reservatrol is not proven to do anything and it may not do anything.
- Most of the reservatrol in supplements can’t be absorbed by the body
- Jusuru’s marketing of reservatrol in tying it with the French Paradox only tells a portion of the story… a portion that my not be related to the French Paradox at all… even if the French Paradox exist… which it might not.
- The amount of resveratrol in Jusuru is so minimal that getting an equivalent amount elsewhere can literally save you tens of thousands of dollars.
- Jusuru itself dismisses the importance of resveratrol by replacing it in some of its juices.
Non-Profit Consumer Advocate Truth in Advertising (TINA) Warn Jusuru
In a letter with a subject of Deceptive Marketing for Jusuru International Opportunity and Products.
TINA continues to state: “Specifically, Jusuru distributors are making a multitude of unsubstantiated disease – treatment claims about Jusuru products, such as being able to treat, cure, or alleviate the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, neuropathy, cancer, psoriasis, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and sciatica.”
TINA also found deceptive income claims and wrote that they’d be warning the FTC unless the issues were corrected to their satisfaction.
You are free to make up your own mind of whether Jusuru is a scam. I let you guess my opinion.
One thing that didn’t make the article was this press release from Jusuru. My favorite phrase from that was:
.
So they got the daughter of someone who was never involved in the juice industry, much less a legend of it. Yikes!
Egads. Has the MLM industry gotten so lazy they can’t even create their very own special kind of scam?? This truly is a copy cat crime.
Keep “outing” these companies Lazy, you are doing a great public service. But seriously, I thought you were talking about Monavie….
Dear Lazy Man,
Since it is basically impossible to get ahold of you directly, I encourage you to contact me directly at our corporate number to discuss what you have written in your “scam” article. Granted, many internet marketers like to generate leads by the word “scam” but in your particular case, your article is completely ignorant, slandering and contains gross inaccuracies. Please contact me directly and we can discuss your concerns in hopes that you may better understand the patents behind our product, the 10 years of R&D and the heart behind our organization.
Kind regards,
David Ciemny
VP of Business Development
888-862-3968
David,
You could use the Contact link at the top of the website that leads here. I get about a dozen emails a day from it, so I know that it works. You didn’t appear to send me one.
As I’m anonymous, I will not be calling you. You have the option to contact me through the above means or we can discuss it in public via these comments. I think that’s probably the most fair.
I encourage you to expound on what you think are gross inaccuracies. If I have anything wrong, please be specific and let me know what it is. I will update the article appropriately.
Finally, please don’t confuse me with an Internet Marketer. I’m a personal finance blogger. There’s no “Internet Marketing” going on at Lazy Man and Money.
Dear Anonymous Lazy Man,
First off, I beg to differ, you ARE an internet marketer, why else would you write an article about our company as a SCAM in an attempt to get leads and drive traffic for your finance business? That, my friend, is internet marketing!
Here are your gross inaccuracies:
1. Our company is not a scam
2. The price of Jusuru is $35 per bottle wholesale (not $45)
3. You mention the “juice” which in theory might look like a bunch of overpriced antioxidants (if it were just a juice), however you failed to mention our active ingredient, BioCell Collagen, which is a proven joint supplement for over 10 years, selling billions of dosages annually through products like Purity, Solgar, Nature’s Way, Doctor’s Best, Vitamin Shoppe, etc. We have the ONLY liquid form of BioCell exclusive to Jusuru. It works. It’s backed by multiple patents. It is worth every penny. You should try it.
4. You fail to mention Resveratrol, of which in one dosage our product contains an equivalent amount to 4 bottles of red wine.
5. The “large focus” on charitable donations is in fact just another page on our website, hardly a “large focus” or even more of a focus than anything else we do.
6. The scientific board is an SOP with any dietary supplement company, validating our research and our product. I don’t see you calling any other retail dietary supplement a scam.
7. While I can appreciate your “patent” comment, your implication is that our patents MAY be “ridiculous”. Anyone with a modicum of insight into our business and patents would know we have the highest absorbable form of collagen and hyaluronic acid on the market with BioCell Collagen. It is unique in the marketplace and truly a world-class supplement.
8. Your comment “if the distributor wishes to participate in these ways to make money, they are required to purchase a case…” is misleading. If you enroll as a distributor for our company, and you sell the product through your replicated website at the retail price of $49.95 per bottle, we send you a 30% commission, simple as that. Get your facts straight Lazy Man!
9. Our company event does not generate “extra” revenue for our company, we charge much less for ticket prices than the actual per-head expense of putting on the event. It is a marketing expense just like the cost of your website. I’m surprised you knock our event, anyone who does finance should know that there are many people (Dave Ramsey, Ray Luccia, etc) who hold financial seminars aimed at marketing their products, creating hype and motivation to better their lives and situations. Why would ANYONE knock this? In today’s world we need hope. You should read some of the comments from people who attend our events, they are amazing.
10. Regarding your comment about 99%, for you to make a statement like that shows your utter lack of knowledge about something you know very little. Way more than “1%” of our reps make money. I suggest you watch this video and talk to me once you have. It’s 10 minutes of your time which will be worth much more than the price of ignorance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FclI8hGQgb4
11. We are NOT “another Monavie”. Your anonymity not withstanding (I will honor this), feel free to contact me directly and I will respect your anonymity, but wish to educate you. Your accusation that we are a SCAM is slanderous and I work very hard at our reputation and for you to make that comparison or accusation is very troubling.
12. Please, either pull your article down or publish this email IF you have the courage to do so, or feel free to edit the article as you promised.
Kind regards and I thank you,
I wrote about your company as a scam, because in about a thousand different ways it is strikingly similar to another scam, MonaVie that I’ve covered extensively. As a personal finance writer, it is my business to help people avoid being ripped off. It’s no different than when you watch Clark Howard and he does the same. Internet marketers aren’t typically anonymous. However, personal finance bloggers who share their net worth and income traditionally are.
1. It is your opinion that your company is not a scam. I obviously have a different opinion. A difference of opinion is not an inaccuracy.
2. “A bottle of Jusuru is $50… The price of $50 per bottle is steep, especially given the economic climate.” (Source) Would you like me to change it to $50? Another article says, “The Jusuru Life Blend comes in 750ml bottles and costs $44.99 each.” Why haven’t you bothered to correct these sources? How is this a gross inaccuracy?
Also later in the article, I mention that autoship is a case of 4 bottles at a $140 giving the reader the information about the wholesale price.
3. Failing to mention anything is not a gross inaccuracy. It is an ommission. I debated mentioning the BioCell Collagen and comparing it to MonaVie’s Wellmune as an additive to the fruit juice blend, but the article got a little long and while that it is indeed another similarity with MonaVie and Jusuru, I didn’t feel it necessary to include every similarity.
4. Again the ommission of Resveratrol is not a gross inaccuracy. I didn’t find this aspect similar to MonaVie, so I decided not to include it. Actually it is somewhat similar to how MonaVie adds glucosomine to MonaVie Active. While on the topic, this Mayo Clinic article says “most of the resveratrol in the supplements can’t be absorbed by your body.” In fact just hours ago it came out that much of the research on Resveratrol may have been faked.
Finally from About.com: “The Linus Pauling Institute has an interesting table that displays the resveratrol levels of various wines, showing that an average glass of red wine will range from 0.2 to 2.0 mg per glass of wine.” There are 4 glasses of wine per bottle, so for your claim of Jusuru having as much Resveratrol as 4 bottles of wine, it only has to have 32mg per 2 ounces. With 12.5 servings (juice isn’t measured in dosages as you attempted) that’s only 400mg per bottle. Here’s a supplement with 180 dosages of 500mgs (more than a whole bottle of Jusuru) each for $35: 500 MG Resveratrol. If I’m looking for Reveratrol, I can get more for 19 cents… a bargain compared to the $35, $45, or $50 price of Jusuru.
5. I wouldn’t say that was a gross inaccuracy. The charity is one of the 7 categories listed at the top with the same value as The Business Opportunity or The Science or About the Company. Go look up IBM or Oracle and see if they put this focus on their charity. I don’t mean to diminish the value of giving back to charity, but comes across as “See we aren’t a scam, we are doing good things!” And again this is a similarity to MonaVie.
6. I haven’t seen any other 750ml bottles of juice sold for $50 in a retail environment. I have been very open with calling many health product sold via MLM a scam. There are many reasons for this such as the placebo effect that allows for a product such as snake oil to be sold successfully. When such products are sold via MLM, distributors tend to attribute medinical effects to the product. I’ve presented a few examples elsewhere on this site (Protandim, MonaVie, come to mind). Since you didn’t say I was inaccurate about anything related to this item, I’ll presume you don’t mean it to be a gross inaccuracy either.
7. I don’t think an implication is a gross inaccuracy. I brought it up because it is similar to MonaVie and even Protandim. You can read the comments from their distributors saying over and over again that because the product is patented it must work as intended. It’s as if people think that the patent actually test the product and certify that it works. My point was to show that this doesn’t happen.
8. Actually that’s just one of the “9 ways to make money” according to the compensation plan on your website. I admit that I should probably clarify that point and will go back and do so. At the same time, it is worth noting that this is where the $50 price for the juice is back in #2. You can’t have it both ways and say that the juice is $35, but then turn around and suggest that someone can make a reasonable business selling it at $50. They might be able to sell a bottle here and there, but any long term customer would just become a distributor for the discounted price. And then it would appear to fall very close to the pyramid scheme guidelines from the FTC, where much of the money is made from sales to other distributors and not direct to the public who are not affiliated with Jusuru.
9. If you go public with all the accounting for the events, I’ll update my article to reflect it. I’m seeing prices that are similar to concerts or baseball games to attend, and clearly those organizations make money, plus they have expensive costs of paying the performers. I’m not sure I take your word that you are losing money on the events.
I’m fairly sure that Dave Ramsey or Ray Lucia aren’t pitching businesses where 99% of people lose money like MLMs (which of course spills ito your next point #10). You are right that people need hope. Forbes wrote an article about hope and MLMs. It’s good reading. The comments from MLM distributors who have attended these meetings are always amazing. Of coures many of the people of Jonestown also spoke highly of it. There’s a lot of motivation, hope, and dreams with MLMs, and the odds of them coming to reality is similar to the lottery.
10. I’ve seen many of Tim Sales’ videos before and each one, like the one you pointed out is full of logical flaws. In this one for example, he’s equating golf with failure and trying to draw a parallel to MLM. Golf is entertainment. No reasonable watches Tiger Woods and thinks that they could just be as good as him. Tom Brady made throwing touchdowns look easy this past weekend, I’m not going to buy a bunch of football gear in an attempt to become the next Tom Brady and suggest that is a wise way for someone to make money. Similarly one shouldn’t do the same with MLM. As for his odds vs. performance poor logic, he neglected to mention this fact. The odds that I can be the next Tom Brady (at 35 with no athletic ability) is not worth pursuing, despite my own ability to perform. The reality is that there are limited positions available for success as a professional QB. This is also true of MLM marketing.
Contrary to what Tim Sales says: MLM Failure is Not a Matter of Effort, it’s a Mathematical Certainty. If you want to take the 10 minutes and lose your ignorance, you’d read that as well as this article: The MLM Gas Station and $8/Gallon Gas
I agree with Tim Sales on one thing. When it comes to MLM, quitting is not the same as failing. Quiting an MLM is actually succeeding, as it prevents a negative occurance, much like smoking. In this case, it is just losing money.
I couldn’t find your income disclosure statement, and sense you reference Tim Sales as being an authority, I don’t believe your claim that “way more than 1%” make money.
11. That is your opinion that you are not another MonaVie. I think my article clearly shows perhaps two dozen ways that you are similar (note: I didn’t count them.) Former MonaVie distributors from the article I wrote, which we’ve have found to have almost no inaccuracies by this point in the list have commented here and thought that I was referring to MonaVie. If you don’t want to be another MonaVie, here’s a tip, stop copying everything about them.
12. I’m not sure that your request for me to take down the article counts as a gross inaccuracy on my part. I have posted your comment though, but given how many mistakes you made in it, you would have probably been best served if I hadn’t. I do want to give you credit for participating in an open forum. It’s something that neither MonaVie nor LifeVantage have had the guts to do. You earn some points in my book with the effort.
I’ve added the words “most of these” in the sentence “If a distributor wishes to participate in most of these ways to make money, they are required to purchase a case of 4 bottles each month at a cost of around $140 to them” to cover the rare case that someone makes money selling a product that can be had for $35 at $50.
I’ve also taken the time to write up a couple thousand words on how wrong that video of Tim Sales is: MLM Scammer Tim Sales on People Failing and Golf.
I highly suggest you make it required reading for your potential Jusuru distributors, especially if you going to spread Tim Sales’ propaganda.
David, clearly you either don’t understand what it means, or you’re trying to re-write the definition of the word marketer to suit your purposes.
See, what you and your ilk does, that’s marketing. Network marketing, to be specific. Multi-level Network Marketing to put a fine point on it. What Lazy here does as a financial blogger is give people money-saving advice. There is nothing being bought or sold here, there’s just a savvy guy with a good head on his shoulders trying to help other folks save a little of their hard-earned cash. Unfortunately you and your ilk run afoul of that goal because your piss-water is quite objectively a waste of money on the consumer side, and because getting involved in selling the crap is a sure-fire way to piss away your money and possibly go into debt. I would suggest that if you don’t want to end up being discussed on So if you find yourself being discussed here, it’s because it’s just a straight-up horrible idea to either buy or sell your fruit-juice.
As for your assertion that your company is not a scam, that’s demonstrably false. Without delving too deeply into other aspects of the business, I’ll simply focus on the fact that network marketing isn’t about the product at all. The product is only the hook used to snare people into jumping onto the MLM bandwagon. To that end -specifically when involving juices- the value of the product is often inflated via the inclusion of ingredients that you people will position as having some sort of magical curative properties in order to justify its exorbitant price. That in itself makes the business a scam. Lazy has already covered the many other reasons why it’s just bad business sense to get involved in MLM, but I think that suffices.
The alleged efficacy of collagen suppliments aside, the fact is that you can buy a far higher dose and cut the fruit-juice out of the equation entirely if that’s something you’re after. I found several retailers online, all offering more than what you can get of it in a bottle of your fruit-juice for well under half the price. The same goes for Resveratrol, which a quick Google search suggests has negligible health benefits if any at all, and which counts slowed healing and stimulating the development of breast cancer amongst its potential adverse effects. Oh, and it shouldn’t be used by women who are pregnant or who are planning on getting pregnant, or hell, by anyone under the age of 18 either.
That you focus on charity at all is just another cog in the MLM wheel. It’s something you folks use to divert attention from the reality of the business by making you appear more altruistic than you actually are. Hell, even if you are heavily involved in charity, it still doesn’t alter the fact that when all is said and done, your business model is a scam that will leave a large percentage of its participants bereft.
As for number 6, Lazy doesn’t call any other dietary supplement a scam because with few exceptions, they aren’t sold on the back of an MLM scam. Also, you may want to watch what you say. Unless you’ve gone through the FDA certification required to have earned that distinction, you’re putting yourself on very shaky legal ground by referring to your overpriced fruit-juice as a dietary suppliment.
Besides that, Lazy has done a great job responding to you. I’m not going to retread that ground, especially since he already said it better than I ever could.
David: “First off, I beg to differ, you ARE an internet marketer, why else would you write an article about our company as a SCAM in an attempt to get leads and drive traffic for your finance business? That, my friend, is internet marketing!”
Nope! That, my “friend”, is an ad hominem attack. Not exactly an auspicious way to set out feigning that your company is reputable and has anything worthwhile to offer consumers.
David: “Here are your gross inaccuracies: 1.Our company is not a scam.”
THAT is your opening defense??? Pathetic! Saying that Jusuru is a scam is far from a “gross inaccuracy”. It’s a spot on assessment. If a company VP is going to go through the trouble of denying that Jusuru is a scam, I would expect a more compelling opening argument than “no it isn’t”.
David: “2. The price of Jusuru is $35 per bottle wholesale (not $45)”
Ha! You took a page right out of the Monavie playbook by quoting the wholesale price instead of the retail price (which in your case is actually $49.95…pffft!). Is that because you don’t give a crap about whether you have any true retail customers? That’s not where the money lies is it? Retail customers don’t go for $200 starter kits and expensive auto-shipments; they don’t buy meeting tickets, and “motivational training”, and Jusuru tchotkes – that’s you’re real end game.
David: “3. You mention the “juice” which in theory might look like a bunch of overpriced antioxidants (if it were just a juice), however you failed to mention our active ingredient, BioCell Collagen, which is a proven joint supplement for over 10 years, selling billions of dosages annually through products like Purity, Solgar, Nature’s Way, Doctor’s Best, Vitamin Shoppe, etc. We have the ONLY liquid form of BioCell exclusive to Jusuru. It works. It’s backed by multiple patents. It is worth every penny. You should try it.”
Every brand of MLM snakeoil-BS-wonder juice (from Royal Tongan Limu to Monavie to Jusuru and all the rest) claims to have some patented wonder ingredient to justify the extraordinarily high price of the product. You may think you sound original and “sciencey” but in reality you sound like every other snakeoil hawker since the days of patent medicine scams and traveling medicine shows.
You also failed to mention that consuming collagen (your wonder ingredient) has no apparent clinical benefits. It’s not recommended by any reputable health agencies or medical research organizations; it’s not included in any medical treatment guidelines. The FDA doesn’t allow any health claims for oral collagen. Your basic premise for this wonder ingredient is weak and dubious at best. There’s even clinical research (which your website conveniently fails to include among the biased list of “Supporting References”) showing that oral type II collagen is not only ineffective in treating arthritis but can actually cause disease flare ups:
“Our study seems to show that the oral treatment of RA patients with chicken CII is ineffective and results in only small and inconsistent benefits. Furthermore, our results raise the possibility that in a sub-group of patients oral collagen administration, usually considered devoid of harmful effects, may actually induce disease flares.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11072596
And here’s the opinion of Arthritis Research, a nonprofit research and patient advocacy group in the UK:
“…It was hoped that the body could be persuaded to stop destroying its own collagen by giving it by mouth. In fact this did seem to work in animal experiments but it didn’t work so well in adults. The collagen you see advertised now aimed at all types of arthritis is supposed to work differently – by providing nutrition to the lining of the joints – but I’ve seen no scienti?c evidence to support these claims.”
http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/arthritis-information/q-and-a/complementary-therapies-and-supplements/tracey-constance.aspx
David: “4. You fail to mention Resveratrol, of which in one dosage our product contains an equivalent amount to 4 bottles of red wine.”
Lazyman didn’t fail to do anything. His goal was to provide an overview, not a comprehensive analysis of every sketchy ingredient in your product, and he did a fine job. Since you insist on bringing it up, resveratrol is a cheap ingredient. It certainly doesn’t justify a $50 per bottle price tag. Secondly, your bottle label doesn’t list the amount of resveratrol, so what you’re offering consumers is a black box. Third, Monavie also brags about containing resveratrol; thus, again justifying Lazyman’s comparison of Jusuru (an obvious scam) to Monavie (an even more obvious scam). Lastly, on an ounce-for-ounce basis, inexpensive grape juice, without being spiked, offers more useful antioxidants than Monavie (see article by Men’s Journal) and, it would be reasonable to conclude, Jusuru as well.
David: “5. The “large focus” on charitable donations is in fact just another page on our website, hardly a “large focus” or even more of a focus than anything else we do.”
More BS. Lazyman’s comment was entirely justified. He didn’t say it was th only focus; he said it ewas a large focus. Your company’s website devotes a significant amount of coverage of the “charity” (it’s featured on the “Giving Back” page and the “About the Company” page). Furthermore, the use of faux-lanthropy to bait people into an MLM juice scam is far from novel. Monavie did it since day 1 (i.e., The MORE Project). Seemingly every scammy MLM does it — it’s a hallmark. How about focusing on your snakeoil business and staying out of the charity sector altogether? Or if you insist on being “charitable” try not bragging about it and using it as advertising. Just donate and shut up about it, like millions of decent people do everyday.
David: “6. The scientific board is an SOP with any dietary supplement company, validating our research and our product. I don’t see you calling any other retail dietary supplement a scam.”
Paid scientific advisory boards at scammy snakeoil MLM juice companies are used as window dressing to provide the illusion of scientific authority. Monavie does it, and so does every other scammy MLM. If a company — one that wasn’t an MLM juice scam — needed scientific advice regarding their juice, they’d simply pay a scientist as an advisor and never mention the advisors name; no need to because they are legitimate products. Do you see the folks from V8 and Welch’s invoking their illustrious scientific advisors to argue the merits of their juices on blog sites? No. That’s why there’s no need to call your retail counterparts “scams” as you suggested we should (that, and the fact that their products cost about 1/20 as much as MLM juice scam products).
BTW, if you think your scientific advisors have anything to offer, bring them here and they can put their name on the line and try to defend your BS juice by debating with me (someone who doesn’t try to win an argument by wearing my credentials like a badge). Let them earn the paycheck you’re stuffing in their pockets
David: “7. While I can appreciate your “patent” comment, your implication is that our patents MAY be “ridiculous”. Anyone with a modicum of insight into our business and patents would know we have the highest absorbable form of collagen and hyaluronic acid on the market with BioCell Collagen. It is unique in the marketplace and truly a world-class supplement.”
Implication? He was very specific. He said patents are granted to lots of things that don’t work. Very simple, and very true. I don’t know what claims you’re making for your product (yet…but you’re on my radar now, so I will soon enough), but if they go much further than “Jusuru is wet and comes in a bottle” then you’re on thin ice. My guess is that Jusuru is being illegally marketed as a pain reliever, anti-inflammatory, and arthritis remedy. If my suspicion is correct, then you’re full of $hit and breaking the law.
David: “8. Your comment “if the distributor wishes to participate in these ways to make money, they are required to purchase a case…” is misleading. If you enroll as a distributor for our company, and you sell the product through your replicated website at the retail price of $49.95 per bottle, we send you a 30% commission, simple as that. Get your facts straight Lazy Man!”
That’s a fool’s errand if I’ve ever seen one. It’s about as attractive an offer as if I was to say to you that I’ll set you up in the business of selling sand for $50 a pound and I’ll let you keep 30% off every sale you make.
Deciphering your pay plan is like trying to figure out a roadmap in the dark, so don’t blame Lazyman if he missed any of the nuances of your scheme on his first go around. What I saw is that entry level distributors are required to spend $40 upfront for an enrollment package and generate 140 PV, and your enrollment form specifically says that you recommend monthly autoship at $140 a month.
David: “9. Our company event does not generate “extra” revenue for our company, we charge much less for ticket prices than the actual per-head expense of putting on the event. It is a marketing expense just like the cost of your website. I’m surprised you knock our event, anyone who does finance should know that there are many people (Dave Ramsey, Ray Luccia, etc) who hold financial seminars aimed at marketing their products, creating hype and motivation to better their lives and situations. Why would ANYONE knock this? In today’s world we need hope. You should read some of the comments from people who attend our events, they are amazing.”
You’re not supposed to be in the business of selling hope. You’re (at least pretending to be) a company that’s in the business of selling juice to consumers, but what you’re really doing is luring people into a scam so that you can bleed them for every penny you can get. The reality is that what you offer is not training. It’s nothing more than edification of company demigods and use of cult methods to keep distributors on the hook and pouring more money into a losing venture. If I was in the market for hope and motivation, you’d be just about the last jokers on earth I’d turn to.
And if your “training” events aren’t generating a profit for the company directly, they must still be generating a profit for someone. And let me guess who that might be – the kingpins that were given sweetheart deals (break inserts) and the shills you parade on stage as “authorities”.
David: “11. We are NOT “another Monavie”. Your anonymity not withstanding (I will honor this), feel free to contact me directly and I will respect your anonymity, but wish to educate you. Your accusation that we are a SCAM is slanderous and I work very hard at our reputation and for you to make that comparison or accusation is very troubling.”
You are so much “another Monavie” in every possible respect that it makes me laugh to see you toss out such a pathetic weasel-ish denial. If you have any means of educating any of us here, why didn’t you do it in your first post instead of tossing out such pathetic BS? Why try to take the “education” offline? Post it here, or better still, on the Jusuru website where all consumers can see it.
And don’t you dare assume a litigious posture by referring to what was written here as “slander”. You have pointed out no real inaccuracies and you’ve proven yourself utterly incapable of convincing people to draw a conclusion that differs from Layzman’s. At most, you’ll merely trigger the Streisand Effect.
David: “12. Please, either pull your article down or publish this email IF you have the courage to do so, or feel free to edit the article as you promised.”
Have the courage??? Are you kidding? I would think that Lazyman would be elated to post your unintentionally comical letter.
Pull his article??? That’s funny. Maybe Lazyman will be willing to make you a deal and take down this article right after you take down the Jusuru website.
Not like Monavie eh David? Let’s have a look at this Jusuru distributor script titled “Step 2 — Overcoming Objections”
“Is This Like Mona Vie?
We should hope so. They did $36 million last month, and last year, they had 41 people who made over $1,500,000. This is even better; it’s not just a juice. It’s patented and you can’t
get it anywhere else. Can you change your schedule around so you can take a closer look?”
http://irepuniversity.com//images/File/Over%20Coming%20Objections.pdf
Have a look at the rest of the script in that PDF. It’s amazing. I’m going through a bunch of other documents on Jusuru and its principals now, and the more I read the more it’s making my skin crawl. David might end up wishing that he never stirred the pot.
Oh man. This just keeps getting worse. Jusuru is touting some obscure unpublished crap research that allegedly validates Biocell collagen…
http://www.jusuru.com/files/biocell.pdf
…and the work in question was conducted by none other than Alexander Schauss — known best for his close financial association with Monavie, and his bogus PhD from California Coast College.
Add that to the list of about 100 other things that make Jusuru a cookie-cutter clone of Monavie.
This is like a hydra. Cut off the head of one MLM juice scam and two grow back. we’ll keep chopping away just the same.
The gangs all here
David’s first sentence was kind of telling to me: “First off, I beg to differ, you ARE an internet marketer, why else would you write an article about our company as a SCAM in an attempt to get leads and drive traffic for your finance business? ”
Scam MLM companies are the main proponents of this type of internet “marketing”. They do this do try to keep people from seeing real objective views of their operations, kinda like this right here.
This is interesting:
BioCell Collagen is the 2011 winner of the Frost &
Sullivan Award for Best Bone & Joint Health Ingredient
F&S employees claim these awards are purchased http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=67814200
Here’s another article about Frost and Sullivan award winners
http://www.citronresearch.com/index.php/2008/05/27/arthrocare-the-smoking-gun/#more-352
whoops look like one of my posts may have gotten lost in the ether.
BioCell Collagen is the 2011 winner of the Frost &
Sullivan Award for Best Bone & Joint Health Ingredient
These awards are all kinds of fake and bought.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=67814200
http://frostybite.blogspot.com/2009/08/great-awards-rip-off.html
The gang is all here. Thanks for the comments everyone. They are perfect and logical.
Lattimore brings up a good point with MLMs. If you typically search for an MLM and the word scam, you come across distributor sites that have an article about how it is not a scam and that you should get in now.
It has been shown time and again that the product of most MLMs isn’t a juice or a pill, but the paying distributor. Here’s one article in particular: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4086.
Key pt 3 kinda cracked me up
3. Timing, incredible early in opportunity. Market for functional beverages is
experiencing explosive growth. Mona Vie did $1,000,000,000 last year and it’s just a
juice.
http://irepuniversity.com/images/File/Jusuru_iRepApplicationForm_USA_v03.pdf
Monavie should be mass mailing their IDS to everyone with a mailbox. For not being anything like Monavie these guys sure are big fans
My guess is that we’ll never hear from David again. He’ll tuck tail and run.
That’s OK though. I’m in the midst of doing comprehensive background research on Jusuru and I’ll post it here when I’m done. David ain’t going to be too happy…tough $hit…scammer!
BTW, great find on the F&S award Lattimore. Always good to hear from you my friend.
David, you scam-a-rama-ding-dong, you should be vewwy, vewwy afwaid! If I may quote a song that popped into my head as I was reading these comments “who let the dogs out”! You did! Idiot. You should have done your own research by reading the comments on Monavie and how the likes of Lazyman, Vogel & Lattimore have destroyed any shred of credibility Monavie thought it had. You clearly didn’t or you would have just left well enough alone and not posted on this site.
Y’all, have you seen anything showing “all people Christian” being involved with this scam or have they left that tactic out for now?
David sent me an email on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 3:14 PM (PT) that he’ll draft a healthy response to my rebuttal. Hopefully, he’ll be done soon.
Goody, I can’t wait!
I’m talking to the odds-makers in Vegas right now and getting ready to put down a few bets on what type of logical fallacies his response might include. I haven’t found out the betting lines yet, but the favorites are as follows:
1. An ad hominem accusing Lazyman of having some kind of ulterior motive or competing interest.
2. An appeal to ignorance – i.e., we don’t understand the miraculous healing powers of Jusuru because we’re (a) too stupid and (b) pawns of the medical/Pharma conspiracy and would rather see others forego the juice, and suffer and die as a result, just so that we can win this blog debate.
3. An argument from authority – i.e., anything we have said or will say is moot because “Dr. Pete” the chiroquacktor stated how science incontrovertibly proves that Jusuru is the greatest boon to medicine since the discovery of penicillin (and if that’s not enough, the guy who played Doogie Howser’s body double is now a spokesperson for the product).
4. A legal or physical threat.
“4. A legal or physical threat.”
Hopefully he’ll at least change the accusation from slander to libel.
I think David is just stalling. I managed to finish a huge block of very detailed (and damning) research on Jusuru in less time than it’s taken him to draft his rebuttal, which is yet to materialize.
Fortunately David left his phone number, so we can call him. Hmmmm, maybe I’ll SkypeOut him or something.
At the very least, we know that if he doesn’t come back, it essentially confirms that they know that Jusuru is a scam.
Soon, like Monavie, Jusuru will issue an order to all distributors not to post on “negative” sites.
we should all share this everywhere
http://sci-ence.org/comics/2012-01-09-redflags2.jpg
I agree Lattimore that is an awesome post that is applicable to just about every discussion of any MLM Health product.
It’s been more than a week already and we still haven’t seen David’s reply. Wonder why it’s taking so long. Is he chiseling his rebuttal on stone tablets or just bogged down with all those Motel 6 recruitment meetings?
The guy opened a can of worms that he wasn’t prepared to handle. He expected to rebut LM’s article and save face, and instead his effort netted him an encounter with the inimitable force of nature that I like to call Hurricane Vogel, and he ended up walking away from it looking like even more of a schmuck than he did before he opened his fool mouth.
So yeah, I’m not gonna hold my breath while I wait for his response. The guy knows he’s outclassed, and more importantly, he knows that the more that he insists on prodding the beehive, the better the chance he’ll be stung. He won’t be back.
I recently read that cephalopod ink is believed to be toxic to tumor cells. What are the odds that an MLM product will come around eventually with squid ink in it, touting itself as a cure for cancer?
I had sent David an email yesterday reminding him that it has been a week and asking if he can commit to a time for when we can expect a response.
I think he really did just think he was dealing with an Internet Marketer who didn’t know anything about MLMs.
As I predicted, David fled with his tail between his legs. Time for me to share my research. There will be more to come
The Product
The ingredients in Jusuru, according to the bottle label) are blueberry juice, apple juice, strawberry juice, mangosteen (fruit extract and whole fruit), grape juice, acai berry extract, pomegranate juice, goji berry extract, jujube fruit, noni fruit, maqui fruit, nopal (prickly pear) extract. It is also spiked with (a) resveratrol and (b) BioCell Collagen II TF, which is a proprietary blend of hydrolyzed collagen type II, chondroitin sulfate, and hyaluronic acid matrix). The other listed ingredients are citric acid, sodium citrate, pectin, natural flavor and color, xanthan gum, and potassium sorbate.
http://irepuniversity.com/images/File/Jusuru_ProductFactSheet_USA_v01_Sep2011.pdf
Roughly 9 of these fruit juices/extracts are also among the ingredients in Monavie Pulse and/or Monavie M-mun. Nopal (prickly pear) is the hyped ingredient in Nopalea, a juice product marketed by the MLM company Trivita. The other “exotic” ingredients in Jusuru are among those featured in other MLM snakeoil tonics like Tahitian Noni, Himalyan Goji Juice (from fraudster Dr. Earl Mindel), and Xango (mangosteen), which have all been around for years. Like Jusuru, Monavie Pulse also contains added resveratrol.
http://acaiberrycompany.com/PDF/(M)mun_FAQs.pdf
http://www.the-team.biz/files/Top%20FAQs_Pulse.pdf
http://www.trivita.com/Web/US/images/products/labels/3917-label-2-lrg.jpg
http://products.tni.com/united_states/english/nonistore/product/1/134/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Mindell#Relations_with_the_scientific_community
http://rs.xango.com/downloads/xango4.0/xango_juice_faq.pdf
The Jusuru label does not list the amounts of any of the ingredients, and none of the ingredients are USDA-certified organic.
The retail price of Jusuru is $49.95 per 25-ounce bottle. As with almost all MLM snakeoil juice blends, including Monavie and Dallin Larsen’s Royal Tongan Limu, the manufacturer recommends drinking exactly 2 ounces of Jusuru in the morning and 2 ounces in the evening for a total amount of 4 ounces per day. At retail prices, drinking Jusuru would cost $8 per day ($2920 per year) or $5.60 per day ($2044 per year) at the wholesale price of $35 per bottle. Bear in mind that these cost breakdowns do not account for splillage/overpours and that there may be additional charges for shipping and sales tax. Bear in mind that these costs apply to a single consumer; the cost for a family of 4 would be over $8,000 even at the wholesale price.
In contrast with Monavie and the other MLM products described above, the juices in the Jusuru blend are not highlighted as the star ingredients; they are presented as little more than a vehicle to deliver BioCell Collagen II, which is the ingredient featured most prominently in all Jusuru promotional materials and product claims.
For example, the company’s top-ranked distributor Loren Robin says this specifically:
(3:20) – “The juice is just a delivery system to get the Biocell Collagen II in the liquid form into the body in a form that tastes absolutely delicious”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pei3kb-t_ag
Summary: Jusuru does not list ingredient quantities, even of its key ingredients like BCCII and resveratrol, and none of its ingredients are organic. It consists of fruit-based ingredients of unknown quantity, quality, and provenance (i.e. using “extracts” and probably processed concentrated juice syrups and powders shipped from overseas bulk processors). Jusuru also contains preservatives (potassium sorbate). The company asserts that the fruit-based ingredients are basically irrelevant beyond being a liquid carrier for Biocell Collagen II, so that’s where our critical attention should be focused.
As for originality, Jusuru is utterly lacking. It’s basically a bottle of Monavie (a huge ripoff) with some collagen thrown in (basically useless) and sold at an even higher price. Jusuru contains every one of the “exotic” fruit ingredients du jour that have been featured by other dubious MLM fruit juice companies.
Corporate Details
Jusuru HQ is located at 1668 S. Lewis St., Anaheim, CA 92805
Jusuru’s principals include the following people:
Asma Ishaq, President
David Ciemny, VP Sales
David Grijalva, VP of Operations
BioCell Technology, LLC, which markets Biocell Collagen II, is located at:
4695 Macarthur Ct # 1100 Newport Beach, CA 92660
http://www.biocelltechnology.com/
(another address listed for the company is 2931 E La Jolla St, Anaheim, CA, 92806)
Biocell’s website is registered anonymously.
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/biocelltechnology.com
The 3 senior company officers at Biocell are:
Mohammad Ishaq
Suhail Ishaq
Asma Isha (VP of Marketing for Biocell and President of Jusuru).
http://www.corporationwiki.com/California/Newport-Beach/biocell-technology-llc/45931658.aspx
http://www.jusuru.com/files/biocell.pdf
BioCell Collagen II has been issued 4 patents: #6025327, #6323319, #6780841, and #7091180.
In the 2 earliest patents (6025327 filed 08/08/1997 and 6323319 filed 12/02/1999), Ahmed Alkayali is listed as the inventor, with Biocell and Five Continent Enterprise, Inc. listed as the respective assignees.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6025327.html
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6323319/description.html
In the other 2 (6025327 filed 11/13/2001 and 7091180 filed 08/26/2005), Suhail Ishaq is listed as the inventor with Intellipi, LLC and Biocell as the respective assignees.
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6780841/claims.html
http://www.google.com/patents/US7091180
Incidentally, Intellipi is a company that was run by Mohammad Ishaq and sold “oxygenated” drinking water (a scam if ever there was one) under the name Oxysource. The company, which shares the same Anaheim address as Biocell, has not had a functioning website since 2009, but an archived copy is provided below.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090209103044/http://oxysource.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=25
It does not appear that either Suhail Ishaq or Alkayali are scientists. Alkayali’s bio indicates that he is the CEO of Collagen Nutraceuticals in Santa Ana, CA and that he received a degree in International Business Administration from Andalus Private University in Damascus, Syria.
http://www.cancercontrolsociety.com/bio2008/alkayali.htm
http://www.ihealthtube.com/aspx/contributors.aspx?sp=144
Note that the first link above was from a dubious looking cancer seminar; the agenda for the 2008 event (which featured a presentation on collagen by Alkayali) included a veritable smorgasbord of quackery.
http://www.cancercontrolsociety.com/speaker-2008.htm
It seems that there was a fierce legal battle over the patents and control of Biocell between Alkayali and Mohammad Ishaq. Here is a court docket (case #G030887) from an appeal filed by Alkayali.
https://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=bcddi&searchTerm=eCKN.OZWa.aadj.eeaU&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW
Other BioCell Collagen II Products
Ahmad Alkayali and Suhail Ishaq are both marketing BioCell Collagen II supplement brands aside from Jusuru; Kolla II and Health Logics BioCell Collagen II, respectively.
http://www.collagennutra.com/products.htm
http://www.health-logics.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=9
GenSci Regeneration Sciences, Inc and Vitacore also market formulations containing BioCell Collagen II; i.e., Rejuva (notice the wonky looking promo flyer) and FlexCore Joint Support, respectively.
http://www.deannalblanchard.com/samples/Rejuva_Landing_Page.pdf
http://www.nutrasource.com/1-Vita-Core-FlexCore-Joint-Support.aspx
Jusuru promotional materials claim that they have the only liquid form of BioCell Collagen and that this is available exclusively to Jusuru. However, this claim is highly misleading.
First, the claim makes it sound as though some kind of honor was bestowed upon the Jusuru company by being allowed to “exclusively” use BioCell Collagen in their juice product, but since the same family (the Ishaqs) own both Jusuru and BioCell, this “exclusive” deal involves nothing more than passing the ingredient from one Ishaq to another Ishaq.
Note this claim from Jusuru’s pitchman and high-level distributor Allan E. Shugarman: (at the 0:12 mark) “Biocell Collagen II – that’s what make the difference. The product cannot be copied; it cannot imitated…no one else can have it. It’s only found in Jusuru”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mbriH9iKI
This leads to the second point — the ingredient may be licensed for use in only one brand of juice but it’s available in a plethora of other capsule-based supplements being sold under different names by the Ishaq’s and Alkayali. Jusuru says that the juice itself is merely a carrier for the collagen; so in essence, their claim of exclusive access to Biocell Collagen II, even if applied only to juice products, is pretty much a ruse. It’s no more exclusive than if I were to take any one of the various Biocell Collagen II products available and pop a capsule into a glass of grape juice.
Fraudulent Claims
As has long been the tradition with MLM snakeoil juices, Jusuru relies heavily on deceptive and illegal claims of medical benefits to sell their juice and generate interest in the Jusuru “business opportunity”. And like other similar schemes, Jusuru postures as though they understand and respect the relevant Federal regulations, when in fact that too is a ruse.
In this official Jusuru video (posted 7 days ago to Vimeo), Jusuru President Asma Ishaq discusses FDA supplement regulations and the rules distributors must follow to be in compliance with the law. A few relevant quotes follow:
Ishaq (20:25) – “To be successful in this biz long-term you have to make sure that you understand FDA regulations on dietary supplements…(23:10) As an example – arthritis — one of the symptoms of arthritis is pain. You cannot say the word “pain” without being associated to a drug… you cannot use symptoms of a disease to be able to explain your product. So you have to stick to natural states…so for example; “it will help your immune system”, or “it will promote health”, or “it will promote joint health”; “it will promote skin health”, etc… Anything to do with natural states is OK; however, symptoms that have to do with disease are not OK. So I just want to make sure that this is very, very clear…and in any public forum, the most important of the layers is anything in writing; anything documented is really important; anything on a public call or at a public conference, or a trade show – those are the most important venues to make sure that you don’t make disease claims. If you make disease claims, it means you are considered a pharmaceutical drug.”
It’s significant that Ishaq warns distributors mainly to not make claims in public venues where the claims can become part of the permanent record, but tacitly implies that it’s acceptable to make fleeting claims in other more private venues pitches where there would be less chance of recrimination.
So now that we have seen the “official” position of Jusuru, let’s take a top-down look at how the company really operates, starting with the company’s #2 man VP David Ciemny. In this video, Ciemny violates US law by fraudulently promoting Jusuru for the treatment of arthritis. At 14:16 in the video, Ciemny shows a before photo of someone’s gnarled and clearly arthritic hands, and another photo, allegedly taken 8 weeks after this person consumed BCCII, showing the hands having miraculously healed. Ciemny stated that the study the photos came from was conducted by William Judy at the University of Kentucky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WiRCoNnxw
13:44 – “Don’t just take it from me. One of the studies conducted at the University of Kentucky by Dr. William Judy was a clinical trial where participants taking BCC II showed an increase in mobility and decrease in stiffness. The results were so profound that Dr. William Judy gave the product to his OWN MOTHER [NB: speaker’s emphasis] because the control group had seen SUCH a marked improvement before the study was even completed, and it was after only 8 weeks; you can see the before and afters here with an increase in mobility and a decrease in stiffness”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WiRCoNnxw
Even on its surface, this sounds like a snakeoil pitch if ever there was one. Aside from that, control groups in studies don’t receive the test agent, so why would the subjects in this control group experience the benefits Ciemny claimed? Also, the photos don’t show us anything about stiffness or mobility, as Ciemny deceptively claimed; what they show, or more accurately, pretend to show, is marked structural improvement and reduction in inflammation.
But who is this Dr. Judy that Ciemny spoke of and what are the details on this study in which Jusuru allegedly healed these knotted arthritic hands after only 8 weeks? William V. Judy, PhD is a veteran supplement hustler and currently markets CoQ10 supplements.
http://www.nutricell.com/cat/dr-william-judy/
His corporate bio indicates that he has a PhD in Physiology and Biophysics, but it mentions nothing about the University of Kentucky, nor did his name come up when I searched the University’s faculty directory.
http://www.chubbybrain.com/companies/cytomed/people/william-v-judy#axzz1jxyXVndb
A PubMed search for Judy’s name indicates that he is not an active researcher, having published only 3 articles in the past 20 years (2 in 1993 and 1 in 2003), none of which had anything remotely to do with clinical trials on collagen supplements.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=judy%20w
Many of the Jusuru brochures show a list of references under the heading “References Supporting Jusuru Life Blend and its Constituents”. Aside from the fact that list is a poorly thought out pile of garbage (including unpublished junk research and irrelevant studies), the list does not show any publications by Dr. Judy.
http://irepuniversity.com/images/File/Jusuru_ScientificPrespective_v1_10SEP11.pdf
In 2002, Judy was the subject of an FTC investigation, the basis for which was as follows:
“…the defendants had made false and unsubstantiated claims in their advertising of certain purported weight loss products, respectively called “Fat Trapper” and Exercise In A Bottle” Enforma and Grey stipulated to a final order (“2000 Order ) settling the suit which required the defendants, among other things, to pay $10 million in consumer redress…”
http://www.ftc.gov/os/quash/020910anthonyltr.pdf
According to the document above, Judy petitioned to have the civil investigation quashed but his petition was denied. A month later, he appealed the denial but this too was rejected.
http://www.ftc.gov/os/quash/021011confirmanthonyltr.pdf
Judy also runs a 1-man operation called the Southeastern Institute of Biomedical Research, which according to the SIBR website, provides clinical research validation of supplement products.
http://www.sibrresearch.com/index.html
One of the companies Judy/SIBR apparently did research for was Thorne Research, Inc., as indicated in this 2011 press release from Thorne announcing that they had “acquired the exclusive global rights to market QCell, an advanced formulation of CoQ10 (formerly marketed under the brand name QBest)”.
http://www.thorne.com/media/pdfs/PressRelease_8.12.11.pdf
Thorne Research also has a tarnished history – the company was the subject of a 2004 federal enforcement action (Thorne was cited by the FDA for illegal supplement advertising of 13 of their products).
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/EnforcementActivitiesbyFDA/CyberLetters/ucm056680.pdf
In summary, (a) Ciemny used photographs to imply that BCCII, and by extension Jusuru, can heal arthritis; (b) he violated the laws regulating supplement advertising; (c) the study to which he cited to substantiate his illegal claim does not exist (at least not in any valid venue), so he is also guilty of fraudulently representing the product (an FTC violation); and (d) he demonstrated that Asma Ishaq’s warning to distributors to respect FDA regulations was nothing more than lip service.
Dr. Louis P. Brady
Jusuru claims to have an “Industry Expert Panel”. One of the people on that panel is Wayne P. Brady, MD. Brady is (or was) a Florida-based physician who graduated from medical school in 1946. It does not appear that he is still actively practicing medicine.
http://www.risetoenterprise.com/doctorspeakers.html
http://www.jusuru.com/dr_brady.php
http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-louis-brady-3b2wg/office-locations
On the Jusuru website linked above, Brady makes claims about the product that clearly violate US law. For example:
“QUESTION: What are the causes and symptoms of degenerative joint conditions and how can Jusuru Life Blend help?”
BRADY: “Degenerative joint conditions…severe trauma to a joint can cause what is known as ‘acute cartilaginous necrosis’ at any age. The symptoms, well known to any sufferer, are discomfort, swelling and limitation of the range of motion of the affected joint. The anti-inflammatory ability of Jusuru Life Blend reduces discomfort thus increasing the range of motion of the joint and seems to slowly heal and restore the damaged tissue.”
This statement stands in stark contrast with the toothless warning Asma Ishaq gave regarding health claims for Jusuru products. But the picture gets even worse. In this document (a transcript of a national distributor training call from Dec 19, 2011), which features an interview between Brady and the company’s #2 top-ranked distributor Mike Lattuca, Brady makes even more preposterous medical claims, positioning Jusuru as a treatment for degenerative joint diseases and a viable replacement for medications and surgery.
http://irepuniversity.com/images/File/Dr%20%20Louis%20Brady%20call%2012-19-11%20TRANSCRIPT.pdf
BRADY: “…the satisfaction that I receive from a multitude of…this product and the results they receive. I have had no such response from anything I have ever introduced to a patient. The patients are very satisfied. They are able to give up other things they are using and use Jusuru, saving them money and giving them relief.”
QUESTION: “Dr. Brady, over the length of your career has there been, in your opinion, anything like Jusuru that can do what Jusuru continues to prove through the clinical studies?”
BRADY: “Absolutely nothing. I think this is perhaps the most unique product that has been introduced for joint conditions and skin conditions. The thing that has really impressed me about with product is that patients are reporting multiple other improvements other than their joints and their skin. I just marvel at some of the reports from my people that are taking this product have reported to me what it’s done for them. It’s really, for some of them, it’s a life-changing experience.”
QUESTION: “And it continues to be. We continue to see testimonials from folks that we have simply shared this business opportunity with, with the product, that come back with astounding results, playing tennis for the first time in 15 years, golfing without knee braces, being able to avoid surgeries where they’ve shown an increase in regeneration of cartilage. And, Dr. Brady, when you had completed your first full hip replacement surgery had you ever imagined that there would be something that could help regenerate cartilage, ever, so that we could avoid these type of surgeries?”
BRADY: “Absolutely not. And I think that that’s the most unique thing about this. Certainly it is showing that there is cartilage that is being regenerated and replaced and healed by the product, but with the patients we are getting reports from the patients that they’re seeing remarkable changes. I have a young friend of mine who was in my home last night who — about a month before he had a total knee replacement on his left knee, he began taking Jusuru. Before he went in to have the surgery, he didn’t really notice much difference, but since then, he has now been on it for 3 months he is two months post-op and is doing extremely well on his left knee, but his right knee which they were going to operate on has now become asymptomatic. So it makes me wonder if he had started taking it three months before he had his surgery whether he would have needed the surgery at all…”
QUESTION: “Well, you know, it’s funny – not funny ‘haha’, but funny ‘incredible’ how Jusuru can truly help so many people avoid those kinds of incredible surgeries where 60, 70 years ago they were never even considered and now they’re a very routine part of mobility in middle-aged folks. So it has to be something very miraculous for you to see, as a physician, that’s happened during our lifetime.”
BRADY: “It certainly is. I think that as soon as the clinical double-blind studies can be reported and get into the literature, you are going to see this product become I think the Gold standard for the management of degenerative joint conditions. Not only just in osteoarthritis, but also in rheumatoid arthritis as well. I’ve seen some examples of absolutely unbelievable and remarkable improvement in rheumatoid patients who have been on this product for relatively short periods of time.”
Mike Lattuca
Mike Lattuca is Jusrusu’s third highest-ranked distributor (Enterprise level). In addition to being an accessory to the illegal medical claims made by Dr. Brady in the interview transcript above, Lattuca too is guilty of making misleading medical claims about Jusuru.
(01:40) – “When you have a friend that calls you, somebody dear that you’ve shared this opportunity, and more importantly the product with, and they tell you how the discomfort that they’ve experienced for so many years and decades in this case has been completely diminished; really added value to them and their families because they are mobile and more involved with their youngsters too…I called one of my dearest friends who after 20 short days consuming Jusuru Life Blend experienced that the discomfort he had for 2 decades is completely gone. At that point, having alerted me that he would not engage in this business, he did, and he’s since become my biggest business partner in this opportunity today.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJrhNz9_hAE
Lattuca runs a Jusuru website called “iRep University”. The site includes this testimonial flyer filled with claims (presumably from other distributors) alleging that Jusuru can treat and miraculously correct severe joint disorders.
http://jusuru.com/iRepresources/Jusuru%20Testimonials.pdf
Jusuru is a joke My daughter married mike lattuca. He is a joke.
This is not a juice!!! Yes it has the super fruits in it but it is not a juice! It contains biocell Collagen plus many other awesome ingredients!
Breanna Davis,
Have you read the comments? Maybe you’d find that Biocell Collagen isn’t scientifically proven to do anything. More importantly, why does the VP of the company continue to elude the questions? He engaged in this forum to provide the truth and then disappeared when it was shown that he was scamming people. Please contact him and tell him to return debate the company’s product publicly.
If he refuses, it obvious that this is a scam. Wait… he’s already refused so we know it is a scam.
Lazyman, I found your site after reading claims that this product was a “fountain of youth” and that it could restore collagen to joints, treat arthritis, reduce cellulite, tighten loose skin, etc etc, all with before and after photos. Knowing a thing or two about the biological mechanisms of aging, it seemed to me that even if this product did attend to anti-oxidant levels, and even if it did restore collagen etc, it would still not even touch the many thousands of other processes that add up to human aging. In other words I felt than any benefit had to be pretty much insignificant and that the results claimed were either placebo or in response to other factors.
However so far I haven’t really seen anything about the company model that worries me except that the profit margins aren’t very big (possibly because the product is overpriced but also because how much profit can you squeeze into a single bottle of anything?)
As an analyst this is definitely not a business I’d buy into because the ROI is too small, it’s more a job than a business, and I can’t see any sustainability or longevity, but I can’t fault the leveraged model in general (it’s certainly not a pyramid. In looking at businesses with this model, people simply need to apply the same level of analysis (due diligence) to this type of business as they would if they were purchasing a million-dollar traditional business. Give it to a qualified analyst to check out and and stop taking silly risks with their time and their money. I think most professionals would recommend against Jusrusu.
If the annual seminar is about inspiring and educating I don’t have a problem with that either. I wouldn’t have a problem if they made a profit on it provided the value was there.
If this product is snake-oil (which I believe it is), it’s no different to the snake-oil one sees crammed into every pharmacy and health food store in the nation. No different to those scammy “wrinkle creams” one sees advertised daily on television and in magazines.
I’m as committed as anyone to attacking fake claims, but I’m not going to go for the throat of a company just because it uses the MLM model.
Jusrusu is no more a scam than a million other products out there that people buy every day. You’d have to shut the whole health and beauty industry down to be rid of them.
Christine,
It looks like you are approaching it from a traditional standpoint. It is smart to realize that you can’t get rich selling product bottle by bottle. This is why they go with the multi-level approach. The idea is that if you recruit enough people who recruit enough people, you can get rich. However, all those people need to sell product to people outside the network. Otherwise, it is likely a pyramid scheme. In just about every MLM that I’ve looked at these sales aren’t being made (there’s too much work for too little profit). Learn more about MLMs Vs. Pyramid Schemes here.
What makes you say that it certainly not a pyramid?
As for the educating and inspiring seminar, cult experts do have a problem with it:
In that context it doesn’t seem very appropriate.
You seem to only be stuck on the health aspect of the scam and not the MLM part of it. I hope the article showed that it is a copycat of MonaVie. Combine health products with MLM and you get a bunch of people making illegal health claims. It has happened for dozens of products out there. I suggest that Jusuru be put on the shelves without the illegal health claims that come from paid distributors experiencing, at best a placebo effect, and at worst lying to line their pockets. If the product is viable it will sell.
You need to get a pinterest… search jusuru there….
I have an invite waiting. I haven’t signed up. Been a bit busy fighting a bunch of other MLMs.
WTF, there’s a Jusuru Pet Blend now? Seriously? They beat Protandim by months in getting into the pet scam product business.
“Placebo effect “I dont think so..My 10 year old cat has hip issues and no longer could jump up on bed and walked funny , After the Pet blend, he now ,no longer walks funny and jumps on bed and his coat is shiney and thick..As for the Jurusu drink , after 4 months the large brown spot on my face is gone ,brown spots on the back of my hands are gone , my dry eye situation is cleared up , and my terribly dry skin is hydrated & healthy looking..Placebo ,Lazy Man , Not on your life.Every so often a marvelous product hits the market that works,I think you are doing a DIS service to your readers.MLM is what it is..But I committed to the product for 3 months & if I didnt see improvment in that time ,I would no longer spend the money for it.I am well pleased with the rusults from Jusuru as nothing else I tried over time worked for the above issues.I have worked for 47 years with health and nutrition services and I am not a novice in the field.
Animals are susceptible to the placebo effect too.
If you truly new anything about health and human services, you’d know why it is important that products are clinically proven to work in multiple randomized, placebo-controlled trials. Here’s a link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0005079/
I’m not so much impressed by the alleged healing properties of the…pet blend, whatever the hell that is, as I am very much troubled by the possibility that your cat is very ill, and you’re doing it a disservice by not taking it into a vet to be checked out. In fact you remind me of those bad Christians who would sooner let their kids die than medicate them because they’ve stupidly convinced themselves that God hates Tylenol and prayer cures all.
Listen, a bad coat is a sign of any number of possible ailments, not limited to but including feline diabetes. It also sounds like your cat has hip dysplasia, though weak legs can also be a sign of feline diabetes. Whatever is wrong with it, I urge you to take your cat in to a vet for diagnosis and treatment as soon as humanly possible. You’re not doing it any favors by giving it a feline placebo.
Of course that’s assuming of course that your cat even exists, or that it really ever had the problems you described if it does. I’m betting that chances are better that he’s a construct of your imagination, meant to tug at our heartstrings and make us less likely to take notice of the fact that you’re speaking from your anus as adeptly as if it were a second mouth.
Seriously, it’s very difficult to give you people the benefit of the doubt, being that you’re either engaging in self-deception because admitting you got taken for a fool is too embarrassing even if you’re only admitting it to yourself, or because you need to perpetuate the lies in order to sell the product, since without them it has absolutely no qualities that make it worth the asking-price. You really would be better off not wasting your time doing any of it on sites like this though. You’re never going to convince anyone here that your magic hoodoo juice somehow trumps both logic and science both, so stop wasting your time.
Cyberxion ………….Since Obviously noone could possibly know anything but you , To call someone a lier that you know nothing about ,and that’s what you did..It would be a total waste of time to pursure any conversation with someone as intelligent as you perceive yourself to be…And by the way , I have an excellant vet !
Bobbie, Cyberxion has a long history of great highly logical comments on this site. There’s much more known about him than you.
Shove the false indignity up your bum sideways Bobbie. You’re the one who described problems in your cat that very strongly suggest that it may have feline diabetes and hip dysplasia, and who claims to have cured it by feeding it Jusuru Pet Blend of all things.
Given what we know about MLM products and their complete lack of efficacy as the cure-alls that people like you claim that they are, that means that you either made up the story about your cat in the hopes that it would make readers more amenable to the possibility that the crap that you’re peddling is the real deal, or your cat really does exist and you’re watching it slowly die while you delude yourself into believing that the crap you’re feeding it is actually doing it some good, just so that you don’t have to entertain the possibility that you may have been taken for a ride.
Regardless of which of the two motivated your cat tale, neither of them speak well of you as a human-being. So please cry some more and see if I give a siit. You only have yourself to blame for the cold reception you’ve received here, and if you don’t want to be treated like a moron and a liar it’s as simple as not acting like a moron and lying to us!
Attn. Mike Latucca. I made some comments about you and your business.I hear your product works for some and prior to meeting you I had severe elbow pain. I used your product Jusuru and My pain in my elbow is gone for now. And the comments I made about you I am truly sorry for. Dad
Glad your elbow is better. If you were my Dad, you’d know how to spell my last name.. Please do not post further.
For all of you on here that are claiming positive results, it would be prudent at this juncture to actually post factual results, rather than simple typed words. As you have seen and read on the prior postings, there are actual links to their claims. You have not shown any such proof. All we need are actual before, durring and after/present time pictures or videos as a start. The second link should be to your doctor/vet diagnosis on the before, durring and after/present conditions.
Heck, I could tell you that I walked on the moon before anyone else did, and that I make a million dollars a month. But it would all be hog wash and you know it.
Show proof or go home and continue to be suckered into something else on the internets…
Lazyman, I know you believe in what you are doing, and I respect that, but you have ignored one very scientific element. I am a licensed health care provider, a college professor and a published author. I have a very extensive background in science and health. I am not currently involved in selling anything nor am I affiliated with any MLM company, but during the long course of my career (30 years) I have seen any number of excellent natural health products that are marketed through the MLM vehicle. I have known many people (myself included) who tried to make money that way and were unsuccessful, but I have also known some who have done very well; some of them exceptionally well.
When I taught college courses I admonished my pupils to always exercise ‘open minded skepticism’. In other words, never reject or embrace anything without scientifically investigating it.
I don’t know if Jusuru is a good product or not, but I intend to find out. My interest has been piqued. And my investigation will involve much more than just reading the ingredients or comparing the product with another product that I don’t believe in. And if someone can show me anecdotal evidence that the product helped them (or even their pet), I will take that into account and add it to the overall picture, as I’m sure you would if you spoke to enough people who told you they had used the product and had seen no benefit.
Again, Lazyman, I’m sure you’re sincere, but sincerity without a scientific approach to the issue impresses me very little.
One last comment: To cry ‘placebo effect’ every time someone claims results from a product, just because the product is natural and you have no faith in natural things, is a huge cop-out and demonstrates closed mindedness, (especially when the patient involved is an animal). I wish you all the best, Lazyman, I’m sure you and I could be great friends and have some rousing and stimulating arguments. Alas, we are anonymous.
Dr.CMC
Curtis Curtis,
You make a strong argument from authority, by claiming that you are very qualified. I tried to look up Curtis Curtis and I couldn’t find any information on one existing. I’m not saying that you are lying, but if your information is accurate, perhaps you can give us the information about where you are professor and a link to what you’ve published.
As for you having seen any number of excellent natural health products marketed through MLM, please provide a list. I haven’t found any. I would be interested in looking into those that you have found.
Curtis Curtis said,
In other words, you’ve established what can be found in any MLM disclosure statement… more than 99+% fail due to the compensation plan (not because they were unsuccessful in any way) and less than 1% do well or exceptionally well. You’ve managed to cover every possible scenario and it would be accurate to say the same thing about those who play the lottery.
Curtis Curtis said,
That’s fair, but we have a process in the United States where one can show that product works by doing the necessary clinical trials and presenting the results to the FDA for approval with any condition. There’s really no need for skepticism, when we have established techniques for proving whether a product works.
Curtis Curtis said,
If you were a true health professional, you’d be aware of the placebo effect and realize that with MLM there’s the added factor of cognitive dissonance. This would lead you, or a read medical professional, to discount such anecdotal evidence and instead evaluate the proven clinical trials.
Curtis Curtis said,
Your scientific approach is lacking and fails to impress me.
Curtis Curtis said,
I’m not “crying placebo effect”, it’s a well known fact that “they seem to have an effect in about 1 out of 3 patients” (Source: American Cancer Society). With the cognitive dissonance of MLM, it is probably a lot higher than that. I have a lot of faith in natural things. Here’s a list of many proven ones. I don’t see Jurusu on that list anywhere.
Curtis Curtis said,
Ahh, I had wish I read the part about you being anonymous in the beginning, because then I wouldn’t have spent the time trying to look up “Curtis Curtis.” If you are going to remain anonymous we can’t trust that you are telling the truth that you are even a health professional.
I’m interested in buying Jusuru.. Can someone help me??
Unfortunately we can’t help you Sara. They simply don’t want to sell their product it seems. I haven’t seen it any grocery store. I don’t see any on Amazon either. There’s a bottle on Ebay that you bid on.
Hello again Lazyman, and best wishes. I’d like to address some of your comments, starting with the one about my anonymity. I thought that was understood, given the fact that Lazy Man surely is not the name on your birth certificate. And above these comments we find names like Mike and Dad and Jeremiah, Cyberexion,Duck in a tub: hardly revelations of true identity. At this point, I’m not inclined to reveal more than I have, about myself, as I didn’t make the claims regarding my profesional credentials in order to establish myself as an authoritative voice, but rather to clarify the position whence my viewpoint originates. You can believe me or not as you choose.
We are in agreement that most people who try to make it in an MLM business fail. (I certainly did) I was not defending the MLM industry, merely stating that it is possible to succeed in it. I know people who have.
You said:
“If you were a true health professional, you’d be aware of the placebo effect and realize that with MLM there’s the added factor of cognitive dissonance. This would lead you, or a read medical professional, to discount such anecdotal evidence and instead evaluate the proven clinical trials.”
So, you really don’t believe I’m a true health professional. Well, no matter. More to the point is the inference that I am not aware of the placebo effect or “the added factor of cognitive dissonance.”
Of course I am aware of these factors, but I stand by my original statement:
“And if someone can show me anecdotal evidence that the product helped them (or even their pet), I will take that into account and add it to the overall picture, as I’m sure you would if you spoke to enough people who told you they had used the product and had seen no benefit.”
Lazy Man, anecdotal evidence should not be ignored, just categorized as what it is. Anecdotal evidence has been the germinal motivator in countless scientific endeavors, many of which have had enormous impact on our world. As I write this there are pharmaceutical scientists all over the world who are working on research that began with anecdotal evidence. There are numerous examples of this; I will give you one: Valium came out of research that resulted in scientists isolating and extracting a substance from the herb valerian, which was/is known anecdotally, to induce relaxation.
Any scientist who completely disregards anecdotal evidence is a fool. Conversely, any scientist who gives it more credence than it deserves is also a fool.
You said: I’m not “crying placebo effect”, it’s a well known fact that “they seem to have an effect in about 1 out of 3 patients”
Au contraire,Lazy Man, you did indeed cry placebo effect. Go back to 40 and 44 and read what you wrote.
Now please don’t get the idea that I don’t believe in placebo effect, Lazy Man, I certainly do, it exists just as much in the natural realm as in allopathic medicine, but it is a cop-out and incredibly narrow minded to simply cry “placebo effect” every time someone claims positive results from something that doesn’t fit your mainstream paradigm. It’s simply not scientific. Nor, I freely admit, would it be scientific to accept every anecdote of positive results as being proof positive of the veracity of something you hope is true.
In response to my suggestion that open minded skepticism is the correct scientific way to approach things, you replied:
That’s fair, but we have a process in the United States where one can show that product works by doing the necessary clinical trials and presenting the results to the FDA for approval with any condition. There’s really no need for skepticism, when we have established techniques for proving whether a product works.
Lazy Man, you are too intelligent to have used this fatuous argument. You do yourself a great injustice. Come on, really???? You can’t be that naive.
Moreover, just when I thought we had the beginning of a beautiful relationship, you had to invoke two of the gods of mainstream mediocrity: the American Cancer Society; one of the most corrupt and ineffectual organizations that has ever existed, and the FDA; THE most corrupt and ineffectual organization ever to pollute the earth.
Around the world there are millions of scientists doing valid, ground-breaking research in the natural realm. Not only are they disinclined to tackle the warehouse full of paperwork. or jump through the myriad hoops required for approval from an agency they look upon as a joke; approval that would be, in most cases, irrelevant. They simply don’t have (or refuse to waste)the millions of dollars and years of time it would take to do so.
Now tell me Lazy Man, do you truly believe that only FDA approved products and therapies are valid? That’s mainstream thinking in its most prosaic form, and I believe you’re smarter than that. the mainstream mentality never made the world a better place and it never will.
Once again I wish you the best Lazy Man, and goodby. I fear this is an exercise in futility and I am morally opposed to useless expenditures of my extremely limited time. Call it cowardice (as I’m sure you will), but I’ll not be visiting this site again.
Dr. C
Thanks for coming back “Dr. C”,
Dr. C said,
You’ll notice that Dad, Mike, Cyberxion, me (as Lazy Man), and Duck in a Tub are not making any arguments from authority.
Anonymity is fine in this forum, but you can’t claim anonymity and then go on to say that you are a doctor (signed your name as Dr. CMC) as well as “a licensed health care provider, a college professor and a published author.” That is most certainly making a point of professional credentials in an attempt to establish yourself as an authoritative voice. None of the above “clarifies the position whence your viewpoint originates.” It’s not like you are college professor teaching Jusuru 101.
Dr. C said,
No one argues that isn’t possible to succeed in MLM. There are clearly a few people who make money. There are also people who are successful winning the lottery. Buying a bunch of lottery tickets is clearly not a good business plan. For more about why being in an MLM is an exceptionally horrendous idea, besides the fact that you have 99.9% chance of losing money, is this summary of The Business of MLM.
Dr. C said,
Actually, I was able to do a little background on you from the email address you left behind and I know the exact kind of “health professional” you are. As we’ve repeated seen with the comments in my MonaVie and Protandim posts, I had more health expertise as a pharmacy technician in high school.
If you were aware of the placebo effect you wouldn’t stand by your original statement. Your statement ignores that anecdotal evidence should not be taken into account due to the placebo effect. You simply can’t claim to understand the placebo effect and then make statements that flies in the face of it.
Dr. C said,
Anecdotal evidence should be ignored, when proven scientific methods for determining effectiveness are available as we have with clinical trials. There’s no need to put any credence in anecdotal evidence in light of the placebo effect and the lack of clinical trials. Anecdotal evidence is particularly flawed in products sold via MLM as the financial motivation could lead towards increased placebo effect and/or outright falsification of the anecdotal evidence.
So as you say “any scientist who gives [anecdotal evidence] more credence than it deserves is a fool.” In this case, it deserves zero credence, and you would be classifying yourself as a fool to take it into account.
Dr. C said,
That wasn’t “crying” placebo effect, it was stating the placebo effect as the most likely cause due to lack of other proven evidence such as clinical trials. If you had studied the number of MLM superjuices that are claimed to be medical cures, you’d understand that at best it is placebo effect and at worst it is distributors committing fraud. There’s no scientific basis to the distribution method actually curing medical conditions, but if you’ve studied dozens of MLM juices, you’d come to either that conclusion or placebo effect.
Dr. C said,
Ahhh yes, allopathic medicine. Here’s a little something on that from Wikipedia: “Allopathic medicine is an expression commonly used by homeopaths and proponents of other forms of alternative medicine to refer to mainstream medical use of pharmacologically active agents or physical interventions to treat or suppress symptoms or pathophysiologic processes of diseases or conditions. The expression was coined in 1810 by the creator of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843). Never accepted as a mainstream scientific term, it was adopted by alternative medicine advocates to refer pejoratively to mainstream medicine.”
It’s good that you got the mention of the homeopath term that isn’t accepted as “being a mainstream scientific term.” Since you use the homeopathic term, let’s remind people that: “Within the medical community homeopathy is generally considered quackery.” For those not familiar with quackery it is the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices.
Now that we’ve established that you come from a viewpoint of quackery, let’s get to the rest of the point.
Scientifically, it is very logical and not a cop-out or incredibly narrow-minded to claim “placebo effect” when someone claims something helped them. Since we know that the placebo effect does impact a rather significant percentage of people, especially in MLM superjuices, it should be considered, via Occam’s Razor, the best explanation for such claims. It would be very close-minded and illogical to believe that all these superjuices represent potential medical cures and any juice bought in a grocery store does not.
You are being narrow-minded to not accept the internationally scientifically proven method of clinical trials to show something works. The burden of proof is on Jusuru to get the clinical trials done to prove the product works, so that no one has to rely on anecdotal evidence and no one can claim it is the placebo effect.
Dr. C said,
Thanks for calling me intelligent, now actually disprove the point I made rather than just calling me naive and moving on.
Dr. C said,
Create your blogs with the proof of either of this and send me the link. This is just illegal defamation not based on anything more than conspiracy theories. If either organization was so corrupt and there was a better solution available, other countries where the ACS and FDA have no jurisdiction would have presented those cures.
Dr. C said,
And yet there are FDA approved natural cures here. You’d think out of the “millions of scientists” there would certainly be more. Also considering the billions of dollars to be made from cures it would hardly be considered a waste to invest a few million dollars and a few years of time. Imagine the money Jusuru could make if it were actually approved to help people in some way! Aside from the making of billions of dollars, it would be worth it alone just to help cure people.
Dr. C said,
I truly believe that FDA approved products have passed the burden of extensively, clinically, proving that they are more effective than a placebo. This is scientifically better than the alternative that Jusuru has provided, which is exactly zero helpful evidence. I would hope you would be smarter than taking something completely biased and unproven over unbiased and proven.
The mainstream science is exactly why many people don’t die of polio or tuberculous and many other medical conditions, which makes the world a much better place in my opinion.
Dr. C said,
Yes, arguing against proven science as you have is an exercise in futility as you’ve found. It is quite wise of you to quit while you are behind before you further embarrass yourself.
Lazyman I don’t know how you have the patience to keep countering the fallacies and twisted logic presented by supporters of these snake oil products.
I have nothing against MLM as a business model. I believe it is an excellent model, and providing that standard due diligence is applied (as one would in a traditional business) then distributors using that model can enjoy success. Dud businesses don’t work, regardless of the business model.
That being said, I want to address a point which your latest debater made, regarding MLM company’s seeming unwillingness to conduct proper research.
I have noted that almost all MLM companies which claim a benefit for their product, do not have the research to back those claims. On investigation, I find that there are no studies, that the studies stated are not relevant to the claims made, or that the studies in fact show the reverse of the claims made. In some cases the study has been done by a backwater university that has no credibility in the field, by scientists no-one has ever heard of.
This is deliberate fraud.
On the other hand there are MLM companies which do engage in full-blown scientific research, who continue to partner with scientists around the world who are regarded as elite in their various fields.
If some can do this, and place their clinical evidence in the public domain (one company told me they’d only send me their clinicals if I described my qualifications as well as a reason for viewing them!) then so can the others, if they’re serious.
I appreciate that the FDA is insisting that companies put up or shut up, with Nature’s Pearl the latest to be slapped and told to behave over its ridiculous anti-cancer claims.
Thanks Christine,
The email I get from people saying how helpful the articles are helps me quite a bit.
You are right about the deliberate fraud.
As far as the MLMs that engage in full-blown scientific research who partner with elite scientists I would be interested in finding out who these are. I have looked into some 50-60 MLMs and I haven’t come across one yet.
So are you being intentionally obtuse here, or are you, a man who claims to be both a college professor and a published author, really having this much trouble understanding such a simple concept?
You see, when one trots out his credentials, when he does it as a preamble to a long-winded post that relies heavily upon those credentials, and when he does so anonymously, it tends to foster the perception that he’s only doing it in order to create the illusion that you are an authority on the subject. That’s something that we’ve seen people do all too frequently over the years since Lazy began to cover health-juice scams, and they do it because they expect that it will lead people of lesser knowledge and/or authority to be more accepting of what they say and less likely to question it.
So Curtis, it doesn’t really matter why you did it. If you’re going to presume to speak from a position of implied authority, and if you’re going to launch into a ridiculous screed that relies heavily on that illusionary authority for credibility, then the onus is on you to legitimize your credentials. You simply do not have the luxury of remaining anonymous. Not if you want to be taken seriously. That you appear to be reluctant to provide us with even a small shred of the proof that Lazy requested of you only confirms what we already knew about you. You’re a fake and a liar.
With that out of the way, the crux of your argument appears to be that we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss anecdotes, but you’re conflating the dismissal of unverified claims made about a product in the face of a lack of scientific evidence that would those claims efficacy with the dismissal of anecdotes as a potential launching-point for scientific studies. Which of course you appear to be doing under the assumption that such studies would turn out favorable and a given anecdote would be legitimized, which isn’t an assured outcome by any measure.
The thing is, the latter is something we’ve never done, and it’s primarily due to the fact that it’s not even remotely relevant. We don’t care why a given study is launched, as long as it is properly executed. So…if I had to go out on a limb and venture a guess as to why you’d bring it up at all, dismissing of course the possibility that you’re just that stupid, I’d say that it’s just a pointless non-sequitur that you pulled out of your rear-end to obscure the real issue we have with testimonials here. That of course being that it’s never a good idea to rely on unverified, wholly anonymous claims as to the efficacy of a mere fruit-juice instead of hard science, especially when those anecdotes are generally shared by folks who have a monetary interest in making people believe whatever will help them sell the stuff to them the most effectively.
So yeah, what’s your angle anyway, “Curtis”? I don’t buy your cover story, and your arguments seem too stupid for me to buy that they’re not motivated by some unstated ulterior motive. So why are you really here? Do you care to speak candidly with us for once and tell us truthfully what your stake in this matter is, or should I expect that if you bother to respond at all you’ll treat us to more of the same bullcrap we’ve endured from you since the start?
Hi Lazyman
We can all do with support, especially when we’re assailed from all quarters by people who don’t understand the difference between a testimonial and a randomised, controlled, double-blind crossover trial, carried out by scientists actually qualified to do the work, and which has been peer reviewed and published.
I never, ever want to sound like I’m pitching, and I believe that if I named the company and their research colleagues it would sound like a pitch.
I would say, just be assured that there is at least one MLM out there doing really excellent work, and it probably doesn’t exist in isolation.
Let’s just continue calling the snake oil merchants for what they are, and pointing out the obvious flaws in those overblown claims.
And of course since MLM is so easy to get into, people with no business experience need an incredible level of protection against selecting a scam or dud business.
Let’s not be assured that there is at least one MLM doing excellent work until we find one. I’ve looked into some 50 or 60 now and I haven’t seen any. That includes Nu Skin that you seem to be pitching on your 2-percenters.com website.
I just found out about this drink jusuru, and my first thoughts were: Who will be stupid enough to spend that much on fruit juice–this company is tripping.
The bottle should cost maybe 10 dollars tops per bottle then you wouldn’t have to force people to sell it for you, they would spread the word for free if it was a good product that people can afford. I know when I find a great product, that is cost affective, I recommend it like crazy to all my friends and for no commission.
Jusuru, your scheme (be it scam or not) is flawed. Your prices are too high and no one is gonna take that risk unless they are stupid or desperate. Me and my husband make a local health drink, we sell it to our neighbours for 3-4 dollars a liter and a half bottle. All our friends sell it for us as it’s so good and cheap and delicious. We don’t even ask them too. We also give away free bottles to really sick people and we have no website. :-P But that’s just me! Be blessed everyone and be healthy.
Babyblue.,
Jusuru isn’t looking to looking to sell the product to consumers. They are trying to convince people that there’s a “business opportunity” in recruiting others to sell the juice. In order to participate in that “opportunity” the people have to buy the juice. It’s priced so high because they want to profit off these people as much as possible.
If they were really interested in selling a fair product at a fair price, you’d see it on the grocery store shelves. They’ll never do this because they know that no one would pay some $40+ for 25 ounces of juice without attaching the string of the business opportunity.
Wellll,
I really dont care what Lazyman or anyone else who is bashing Jusuru has to say!
Why
Because NO ONE solicitated me with this product –
I solicitated IT!! and its cause I have seen MULTIPLE results and rather quickly with the Canadian product with MY OWN EYES!! Not pics, not videos – actual friends and family are LIVE testimonials. So what I would suggest to any and all is that before you speak of a product in a negative way, is that you at least give it a shot to prove itself BEFORE badmouthing something you dont even know about!! VIVE JUSURU!!!!!
Thanks Ghislaine,
See Health MLM Scam: Testimonials are Pointless
As I pointed out in the article, this product is a MonaVie copy-cat. Years ago, I wrote The Problem with the “Try MonaVie” Argument. The same applies logic for Jusuru.
Like an optical illusion, you shouldn’t trust your perception.
You just touched the tip of the iceberg with the new juice scam jusuru. keep looking you will be amazed at all the wrong going on there.
Anyone who increases their nutrition significantly will notice improvements in their health, and often people will notice quite dramatic improvements.
Some people will be conned into taking nutritional supplementation that does not actually have clinical studies supporting it.
Some people will take expensive supplementation, and some people will stick to cheap stuff.
I guess that nutrient dense juices have an advantage over pills or capsules, in that at least they are digested :-) Many cheap supplements pass through the digestive tract completely intact.
I just wish people would demand proper clinical evidence before buying into this stuff, and realise that testimonials carry no weight.
Many juices are just sugar and not helpful. Watch the video from HBO’s Weight of a Nation (done with government health agencies) in the section of “Juice in general is not healthy” at my MonaVie Scam post
Many juices, both on the shelf and provided by MLM companies, are low-quality and/or full of sugar.
Human bodies are designed to digest fruit, including fibre, and drinking fruit juice instead of water simply doesn’t make sense.
However if a juice is genuinely nutrient dense, and IF it not something taken to quench the thirst, but is a proven nutricential, with validated clinicals to support any claims made, then it may provide a valid alternative to taking capsules (for example) as a nutritional supplement.
I cannot find such evidence for Jusuru and it appears the company makes no effort to provide it. Therefore I presume that the evidence does not exist.
Companies which have evidence tout that fact loudly. It is never a secret :-)
Christine,
Some companies like MonaVie (who I purposely compared Jusuru to) have made the claim that they are nutrient dense and have touted their “validated” clinical evidence loudly. Problem is that when you read the clinical evidence it comes up empty, even to the average layperson. They never prove that it better than eating fruits and vegetables and it is always more expensive. I would bet against Jusuru coming out with their own clinical evidence in a year just like other companies have.
I know you are in Nu Skin and probably believe that there is such a thing as a proven “nutricential”, but just stop. We don’t need Nu Skin’s made up words like “nutricential” pretending to be valid clinical terms.
I have been drinking Jusuru for about 6 weeks. I am not an internet marketer nor do I intend to be one. I was suffering from chronic pain in my knees and nerve pain up and down my right leg which supposedly came from some herniated discs in my lumbar spine. After trying many supplements with no noticeable improvement I decided to give Jusuru a try, purchasing it from a friend. Much to my surprise, the pain is gone. I started to notice some changes after my first case. It is true that the price is high, but what is the cost of chronic pain. I do not have anything to say about the business opportunity, but can vouch for the unusually quick effectiveness of the product which may be due to its anti inflammatory effect.
Stan Troy,
We’ve seen these claims for every MLM health product out there, and never any regular product like Ocean Spray or anything else. See Health MLM Scam: Testimonials are Pointless
I don’t see any clinical evidence pointing to Jusuru working as a anti-inflammatory.
I am not here to pitch or tout, but to contribute where possible to discussion which exposes invalid claims, and at the same time raises the industry profile. Because it is an industry which I believe has a lot going for it, even though it is absolutely not suitable for everyone.
The word “nutricential” has been around for a long time and I don’t think anyone can lay claim to it.
We do know that nutrition is crucial to optimum health and that very few people get adequate nutrition from their diets.
The well-known “nurses’ study” (a longitudinal study of almost 122,000 nurses) showed that multi-vitamin supplementation had no effect on cancer rates at 5 years. However at 15 years there was a 75% reduction in cancer rates compared to the rest of the group.
Supplementation is a choice, because people do have free choice, and although we might like to think that the man in the street has the ability to tell the difference between a cheap supplement that passes through the digestive system undissolved, the reality is that most people aren’t sophisticated enough or knowledgeable enough to be able to do their own research.
For those people who choose to supplement, I think we have a duty to ensure, to the best of our ability, that they know whether what they are taking is actually better than anything they can get into their diet, or not.
This forum is a part of that conversation, and even if all that it achieves is to save the odd person who comes here to research, then that’s a good thing.
If you do a search for “nutricential” almost every mention is for Nu Skin, which is ironically the company you’ve associated yourself with in the URLs that you’ve added previously. It is not some kind of clinical term that any nutritionist would use. As best I can tell it seems the “ential” part is marketing as in “essential.”
I’ve covered supplementation in MLM of the Week: Youngevity – Scam or Not? and cite many reputable sources that show that there’s no clear evidence that multi-vitamin supplementation helps with anything other than vitamin-deficiency diseases (scurvy for example) and the FDA listings here (calcium helping with osteoporosis for example).
There’s is virtually no difference in supplements. As long as they bear the USP Verified symbol, we know that it has been independently verified by a non-profit, unbiased organization as being pure… which is the highest quality possible. It’s upsetting that every MLM distributor has to continue to cause fear, uncertainty, and doubt, about supplement quality to justify the overpriced nature of their products.
The nurses’ study which I quoted is, as far as I’m aware, the only longitudinal study where vitamin use has been included as a variable.
Because of the sheer size of this study (nearly 122,000 women) I think it is entirely understandable that some people choose to take seriously the data which shows a 75% decrease in cancer cases compared to those not supplementing.
At the same time I understand not everyone cares about this stuff.
There may be little or no difference in the purity of a variety of supplements. However the bioavailability does differ markedly. The ability to dissolve is a factor in bioavailability and also differs markedly.
There is no point purchasing products which do not dissolve because they’ve been manufactured with cheap coatings or casings.
Christine,
Can you provide a reputable source to your claims. The closest I could find is this
If that is what you are referring to, it is hardly a reduction of all cancer cases by 75%, just one specific type.
What is more notable his this article which explains that the same study (and an additional one) also showed taking multivitamins increased risk of disease such as for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In addition it points out:
Boom, the value of vitamin supplementation is busted for most individuals by the most respected of organizations. For some 99% of people in 99% of situations the best move is to save the money.
Please link us to any comprehensive studies of many common brands of vitamin bioavailability. Also please link us to information about the costs of and effectiveness of the coatings that are used in these brands.
Lazyman you’re right, it’s always possible to quote conflicting studies.
This is how people come to completely different conclusions, and for those without a background or training in clinical research, the task of assessing for validity is very tough if not impossible.
For a closer view of the “nurses study” as well as many others showing the correlation between supplementation and reduction of occurrences of a variety of diseases and disorders, a good starting point may be http://www.optimal.co.nz/health_studies.html.
Actually, I was quoting an article about the same Nurse’s Study (unless you want to claim it is a different “Nurse’s Study”).
The sources I cited, American Cancer Society and National Institutes of Health, have the extensive background and training in evaluating the clinical research and their conclusions make it very easy for people to assess the validity of multivitamins.
Since you made it clear that people without a background in training or clinical research are at a disadvantage in assessing validity of such claims, it doesn’t make any sense to go read “Optimal.co.nz’s” information, especially when that page doesn’t have a physical address or a phone number (just a contact form) and has “thin-content” on Life Insurance. It certainly doesn’t appear that this website is run by anyone with a background in clinical research.
I noticed that you haven’t provided the information on bioavailability that you cited as an important factor earlier. While on that topic, I presume that the Nurses’ Study also has detailed information on the bioavailability of all the supplements that every person took. If they do not, then we can conclude one of two things:
1) The Nurses’ Study is invalid since the nurses’ failed to set a proper control for the bioavailability of the multivitamin.
2) The people running the Nurses’ Study knew going in that bioavailability was not a key variable to standardize.
In case #1, the study is invalid. In case #2, consumers can safely discount the importance of bioavailability.