In July, I reported on the possibility that
alternative medicine may have led to death in the case of Jordan Ramsey in Vancouver. Ramsay murdered his father and severely injured his mother while in a schizophrenic psychotic state. He had stopped his prescription medication at that time in favour of a vitamin product,
Empowerplus ® (EMP), being touted as an alternative treatment for prescription medication. The real culprit, however, may actually be Health Canada, which seems to have been unable to enforce the law.
The key question is why this product is still being sold in Canada.
Section Three of the Canadian Food and Drug Act stipulates that companies cannot make treatment, preventative or cure claims for food, drug, cosmetics or devices for conditions like acute psychotic conditions and depression as set out in Schedule A without preapproval. Truehope/Synergy has been doing so for years with no scientifically reliable proof for their claims.
Strikingly, their own expert witness does not think Empowerplus® health claims have been proven and, in fact, they have not. And, Dr. Philip Long of Vancouver stated a few years earlier that this "is a total medical fraud. There is absolutely no scientifically sound (double blind, randomized) clinical trial that has shown this vitamin mixture to be effecti
On May 11, 2007, Health Canada sent a letter warning the company to stop instructing people to go off psychiatric meds. Later in
December 2007 Health Canada wrote Truehope/Synergy Group directing them to stop representing that Empowerplus® is safe for pregnant women, as was done in the company's presentation to the
North Peace Tribal Council. Truehope/Synergy responded
with a letter in which they asserted Health Canada's accusations against them are false and that they are compliant with applicable law and regulation.
In an article in the
Ottawa Citizen in 2003
now on a mental health website, it was estimated that with 3,000 customers at that time, Hardy and Stephan were grossing $500,000 a month. Stephan disagreed and said, "It's more like $300,000 and a lot of the money goes to pay the 55 'support' workers who operate the phones." But, according to an interview that Stephan gave to
Alternative Mental Health in the U.S., the research assistants (mostly former patients), work for expenses only.
Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a well-known research psychiatrist who is executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, told the
Citizen that, "In the more than 30 years I have been studying mental illnesses, there have always been some people who have made a good living treating people with schizophrenia with various vitamin mixtures,"
Someone needs to explain to Canadians and to
LeeAnn Ramsay, the sister of the murdered man, what happened. As of this moment, according to Health Canada, Empowerplus® is still not authorized for sale in Canada because of the health claims associated with the product. Yet we need to know why it is still for sale now.
Why is Health Canada Still Allowing Quack Medicine to be Sold to Dangerous Psychotics?Â*|Â*Marvin Ross
