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Robert Barefoot. (Click to viewhis Coral Calcium infomercial.)

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Beat Cancer the Barefoot WayBy Terry Dunkle, DietPower Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Reprinted from the June 2003 issue of DietPower's newsletter, Piping Hot

If you watch TV, you've probably seen one of the

top infomercials in recent years, an interview

with Robert Barefoot about his book, The Calcium

Factor. Barefoot, who describes himself as a

scientist, says cancer can be prevented or reversed

with calcium supplements. This is true, he says,

because lots of people in Okinawa live to be 100

and "never get sick," and for centuries they've been

sprinkling their food with the world's best form of the

mineral: coral calcium.

In fact, says Barefoot, calcium from Okinawan coral works against more than 200

degenerative maladies. "We can wipe out 90 percent of the disease in America in two

years," he says, including "heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's—you name it." He

says he's personally seen people "get out of wheelchairs with multiple sclerosis just

by getting on the coral." Coral calcium, he declares, "will become the nutrient of the

21st century."

If sales are any indication, this may be true. Calcium already accounts for a large

fraction of the $18-billion supplement market. The term "coral calcium" yields 116,000

hits on Google—half of them sites actually retailing the product. (Typical price: $30 to

$40 a month, versus $1 for ordinary calcium.) Many sellers claim that their brand has

been formulated by Barefoot. His name shows up on Google 58,000 times.

Not everyone agrees with Barefoot. Last month, the Council for Responsible Nutrition

(CRN), a trade group representing 70 large supplement companies, urged the

Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration to "end Mr.

Barefoot's highly visible and deceptive marketing campaign for coral calcium, and toprevent Mr. Barefoot from further fraudulent activities."

Is CRN just jealous? Is coral calcium really special? Who's making the big bucks

here? Is any of this illegal? To find out, we checked the scientific evidence, consulted

legal and regulatory sources, and spent an hour on the phone with Barefoot—a rare

accomplishment because he seems to be ducking the press lately. "My business

manager told me not to talk to you," he said from his headquarters in Arizona.

Let's begin with Barefoot's scientific claims, then move on to the legal and financial.

Calcium -- an Investigative Article http://my.dietpower.com/features/coral_ca

30/07/2010



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Scientific Claims

(Except where otherwise noted, Barefoot makes all of these assertions in "A Closer

Look: The Calcium Factor," the infomercial in which he is interviewed by Kevin

Trudeau. It has aired on many cable channels.)

1. Calcium is enormously important to health.

True. Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body, comprising 2 percent of the

average adult's weight. Although it's known chiefly as a building block for bones and

teeth, it also plays a role in blood clotting, muscle contraction, nerve transmission,

and chemical regulation of hundreds of other processes.

2. Most people don't get enough calcium.

True, but they're not "totally deficient," as Barefoot often claims. In 1994 the U.S.

Department of Agriculture pegged the median intake at 865 milligrams for men and

625 milligrams for women. That's lower than the adult Recommended Dietary

Allowance—1000 milligrams through age 50 and 1200 milligrams thereafter—but

when your intake falls a bit short, your body cleverly absorbs a higher percentage of the calcium that you do get, minimizing the problem.

If your intake is severely deficient, however, your body begins borrowing the calcium

stored in your bones. Long-term borrowing can lead to osteoporosis and eventually

"dowager's hump," hip fracture, and premature death.

Osteoporosis is by far the most prevalent calcium-related disease, yet Barefoot never

discusses it in the infomercial—nor did he mention it on the phone with me.

3. Okinawans live longer than Americans.

True, but residents of this Japanese archipelago do not live to 140, as Barefoot has

claimed. (France boasts the oldest well documented age ever achieved: 122, by

Jeanne Louise Calment.) In 1996, average life expectancy in Okinawa was 82,

versus 73 in the United States.

4. Okinawans almost never get cancer.

False. Their cancer rate is lower than ours—but they do get the disease.

Squamous-cell lung cancer, for example, is several times more prevalent in Okinawa

than on the Japanese mainland. Gerontologists attribute the longevity of Okinawans

to a happy combination of diet, exercise, clean environment, good medical care, and a

laid-back lifestyle.

5. Cancer is caused by an oxygen shortage in the cells.

False. Barefoot claims that German scientist Otto Heinrich Warburg (1883-1970) won

two Nobel prizes for proving this in the 1930s and 40s. In fact, Warburg earned his

medals for unraveling the chemistry of cellular energy supply. He believed that cancer

involved an oxygen shortage, but research has since proven him wrong.

6. The shortage happens because your body is too acidic.


30/07/2010





mineral. Coral calcium, he says, is essentially calcium carbonate—the same stuff

used in supplements. "It is no more available to the body than other forms of calcium,"

he says.

When we pressed Barefoot on his total-absorption claim, he said, "Well, the reality is,

it's up to 100 percent. We've documented over 70 percent. And it's absorbed within 20

minutes."

"Totally wrong," said Dr. Heaney when we described this. "They haven't actually

measured the absorption. I don't know of anyone who's done that for coral—at least

not accurately. What they mean is that in 20 minutes, 70 percent of the calcium is

dissolved. That doesn't mean the body's actually absorbed it." He said that in assays

that he's done for fruit-juice companies, some of the best-dissolving calcium turned

out to be the worst-absorbed.

11. Coral calcium also provides important trace minerals.

True, but you probably don't need them. Barefoot makes much of the fact that coral

calcium also contains "yttrium, germanium, and 100 other trace minerals." Most

nutrition experts feel that people get enough of these from their food. (There is noRecommended Dietary Allowance for yttrium or germanium. Yttrium is used chiefly for

strengthening aluminum alloys; germanium for manufacturing computer chips.)

Some of the minerals in coral may even be dangerous. A few years ago, health

authorities discovered that calcium supplements made from dolomite (a rock similar to

limestone) contained lead. Coral-calcium sellers often insist that their products are

tested for lead, but so far we haven't seen any independent tests.

12. Coral calcium provides valuable organisms, too.

False. Barefoot says that the marine microbes in coral calcium take up residence inyour intestines and help to break down your food. "When you eat the coral calcium,

these critters go to work and all of a sudden you take in ten times as much nutrition,"

he told us.

It's true that human digestion is aided by intestinal bacteria, but a) they can't produce

a tenfold improvement (if they did, you'd be overdosed on a lot of nutrients), and b)

the bacteria in your intestines evolved in warm-blooded animals and differ greatly

from marine bacteria. Many of the "critters" in coral calcium probably wouldn't survive

the trip through your stomach. Or if they did, they might harm you—especially if you're

allergic to shellfish.

When we described all of these natural "extras" in coral calcium to Dr. Heaney, he

commented, "You know, there's a name for that stuff. It's called dirt."

13. Cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease; acidosis does.

False. Barefoot claims that cholesterol is just the "goop" that your body uses to seal

"holes that the acid eats in your artery walls." It's true that homocysteine, an amino

acid, may damage artery linings if blood levels get too high, but a) it doesn't "eat

holes" in them (amino acids aren't that powerful), b) high levels may occur only in rare

individuals who've inherited a 1-in-100 gene from both parents, and c) homocysteine's


30/07/2010



role in heart disease is too poorly understood to make such a sweeping

generalization. Most cardiologists would laugh at it.

14. The AMA Journal says calcium supplements prevent cancer.

This is a classic Barefoot exaggeration. His exact words (taken from the infomercial):

"The Journal of the American Medical Association—this year—quoted the Strang

Cancer Research Institute and said that calcium supplements reverse cancer. That's

a quote from the Journal of the AMA. And they quoted how much: they said 1500

milligrams a day is enough to reverse colon cancer. And they said other cancers will

grow back to normal."

Now here's what the Strang study actually said: People who have polyps (sometimes

a precursor to colon cancer) often show abnormally rapid cell growth in their intestinal

linings. When such people were given enough low-fat dairy products to increase their

calcium intake to the Recommended Dietary Allowance of 1200 milligrams per day,

the cell growth changed "toward normal." The study did not use calcium supplements,

nor did it prove that calcium could "reverse" an existing cancer.

15. Taking calcium will make a diet 10 times more likely to succeed.

False. Barefoot made this claim during our phone conversation. When you reduce

your calorie intake, he said, "this lack of nutrients makes you crave food," and taking

calcium cuts the craving by replacing the nutrients.

If "lack of nutrients" really caused food craving, the best solution might be a multi-

vitamin-and-mineral supplement, not a calcium pill. Furthermore, if calcium really

improved weight-loss success by 1000 percent, the news would be running on the

ticker in Times Square.

16. Robert Barefoot is qualified to interpret medical studies.

We don't think so.

Although Barefoot calls himself a scientist, he doesn't have a bachelor's degree in

science—or in any other field. A native of Edmonton, Alberta, he completed a

three-year certificate in chemical research technology at the Northern Alberta Institute

of Technology in 1967. The school seems to specialize in vocational-technical

training—welding, auto-body repair, and the like. According to its website, chemical

engineering technology "deals with the processing of oil, natural gas, and bitumen

into final products such as motor gasoline." Later, Barefoot had a year's training in

geochemistry and worked in the mining and petroleum industries. He holds a patent

on an electrostatic method of extracting metals from ore. But he has no formal

education in organic chemistry or human biochemistry.

Barefoot also seems to lack familiarity with basic medical terms. In both the

infomercial and our telephone conversation, for example, he referred to the pineal

gland as the "penal gland" and the hypothalamus as the "hypothymus." No one who

has read much about these parts of the brain or discussed them with experts should

be mispronouncing their names. (We also wonder about a guy who says "pitcher"

instead of "picture.")


30/07/2010



Similarly, the footnotes in Barefoot's book seem to give equal credence to

peer-reviewed medical studies, magazine articles, and publications by notorious

cancer quacks—including Max Gerson, who treated patients with coffee enemas, and

Mary Ruth Swope, M.D., who sold them powdered grass.

(Barefoot's book does have a medical co-author: the late Carl M. Reich, M.D., who,

according to Barefoot, treated many cancer patients with calcium. Reich's medical

license was revoked by the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1986.)

Finally, Barefoot does not reason like a scientist. Instead of considering all the

evidence on a question, he seems to select only the facts that support his

preconceptions. In addition, he frequently misinterprets the facts in convenient ways.

That's not a scientist; it's a salesman.

Financial and Legal Claims

1. Barefoot isn't making a lot of money from Coral Calcium.

He says he isn't.

"People think, 'You must be making a killing from that infomercial,'" Barefoot told us,

"but I'm not. Kevin Trudeau has made hundreds of millions of dollars from coral

calcium. I've been paid less than one percent of that—and I've had to use it all for

lawyers and taxes. Last month alone, I paid one lawyer $140,000."

Kevin Trudeau is the man who interviews Barefoot in the infomercial. He's not a

journalist—he's a marketer who specializes in infomercials that masquerade as talk

shows. (Sometimes he plays the host, sometimes the guest.)

In his video with Barefoot, T rudeau gives an 800 number that sells coral calcium—not

Barefoot's book. Nevertheless, says Barefoot, "there's lots of ways to make money."

His own company, Deonna Enterprises, "is selling The Calcium Factor all over the

world. It's being translated into Russian—they've invited me to Moscow. And the

Chinese—they love Bob Barefoot, and they love coral calcium, too."

In recent months, The Calcium Factor has ranked among the top 500 books sold by

Amazon.com. When we ask Barefoot how many copies were in print, he answered,

"'Hard to say. There's a group in Canada mass-producing and pumping it illegally into

the U.S. I have a lawsuit against them. Oh, it's a hot seller."

2. Barefoot isn't doing anything unlawful.

You be the judge.

First, look at the company he keeps. Kevin Trudeau is not just a marketer; he's a

convicted felon. In the early 1990s he served time in a federal penitentiary for

credit-card fraud. He also pleaded guilty to state charges for depositing $80,000 in

worthless checks at a bank in Massachusetts. And in 1998 he paid $500,000 in a

consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for making false

advertising claims in infomercials.

(When we asked Barefoot whether he knew about Trudeau's criminal history before


30/07/2010



agreeing to do the infomercial, he replied, "I didn't meet him until five minutes before

the shooting.")

Lately, however, Barefoot and Trudeau seem to be having a falling out. Barefoot told

me that he had filed suit against Trudeau to pull the latest infomercial off the air "for

being noncompliant. I want them to change some words so they'll be compliant." He

explained that he was concerned about "things people at the Washington Post have

been telling me." The Post ran a story the month before my interview implying that

Trudeau's infomercial might now be under FTC scrutiny. Barefoot told me that

Trudeau had "finally agreed to reshoot the show." (We have not yet confirmed this

with Trudeau—he hasn't responded to repeated requests for an interview.)

After our phone conversation with Barefoot, we put the question of legality before

Stephen Barrett, M.D., a retired psychiatrist in Philadelphia who runs a nonprofit

website called Quackwatch and is vice president of the National Council Against

Health Fraud. Dr. Barrett has helped the Council file many suits against firms selling

questionable products. For coral calcium, he said, "it depends on what is being sold

and who owns it."

Barefoot's books, tapes, and speeches are protected by the First Amendment, of course. But if he is selling coral calcium itself, he could be prosecuted for "marketing

an unapproved drug," said Dr. Barrett. Reason: supplements are perfectly legal when

sold without therapeutic claims. But when a supplement is claimed to prevent or cure

a disease, it is legally considered a drug and can't be sold until it is approved as "safe

and effective" by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In the infomercial, Barefoot clearly argues that coral calcium cures cancer and

prevents a host of other diseases. "Under federal law," Dr. Barrett explained, "those

are drug claims."

Trudeau, on the other hand, makes no claims in the infomercial—in fact, he displaysgreat skepticism. "But that's just your opinion!" he objects at one point, and at

another, "Well, then, how come doctors aren't telling their patients?" Trudeau may be

professing doubt in order to enhance the pitch's credibility. ("While thinking they're

watching actual programming," he told Brill's Content in 1999, "viewers allow

themselves to be persuaded. That's what we want to do. That's our idea. We don't

want to look like an infomercial.") But he may also be trying to side-step his $500,000

agreement with the FTC, which promised he would no longer make unsubstantiated

claims in infomercials.

Something devilishly clever seems to be going on here. Barefoot is making the drug

claims, but Trudeau is selling the coral. Unless there's a financial connection between

the two parties, it would seem that, legally speaking, neither is "marketing an

unapproved drug."

But is there a connection? To find out, I phoned 800-987-8181, the number that

appears at the end of the infomercial. As expected, I got Trudeau's company, Shop

America. After a message saying that my call might be monitored or recorded, a live

operator came on the line. (I know her real name, but let's call her Jill.) She said yes,

she could sell me coral calcium.

"But if I buy it from you, will my purchase benefit Mr. Barefoot?" I asked. I told Jill I had


30/07/2010



seen the TV show and thought Mr. Barefoot was performing a wonderful service to

America. "Does Mr. Barefoot own Shop America? Is he the company president, or

something?"

Jill said no, she thought the president was Mr. Trudeau. "But Mr. Barefoot is—well, let

me check for you," she said. The line went silent for nearly a minute. Then she came

back and said, "Sir? Yes, Mr. Barefoot actually makes the product for us. He puts in

all the ingredients, and then he gives us authorization so we can sell it under his

name. So yes, he will benefit."

Jill also said that coral calcium was selling "so fast we can't keep up with the orders.

We've had to add a whole department, just to handle the calls."

"A whole department? You mean, like, a hundred people?" I asked.

"Yes—and we still can't keep up."

I told her I had to go just then, but might call back later to place an order.

In Dr. Barrett's judgment, even if Barefoot doesn't have an ownership position in ShopAmerica, he might be prosecuted for "conspiracy to defraud the FDA" if he receives a

royalty or commission from sales of coral calcium. Barefoot's remark that he was "paid

less than one percent" of Trudeau's take, along with Jill's description of Barefoot's

relationship with Shop America, makes me wonder.

At the end of our phone talk, Barefoot was in a jovial mood. "My secretary's in here

holding up a pitcher of me behind bars," he said. "She says that's where I'm going

because of this interview!"

Stay tuned.

To comment on this article, click here.

NEWS UPDATE

On June 10, 2003—five days after we published this story—the Federal Trade

Commission (FTC) formally charged Robert Barefoot, Kevin Trudeau, and their

companies with making false and unsubstantiated claims about the health benefits

of coral calcium. The agency said it will ask a federal court to freeze the assets of

both parties and order restitution to consumers who purchased their product, Coral

Calcium Supreme. In addition, the FTC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

sent warning letters to websites that sell coral calcium. Click for details.

On the same day, ConsumerLab announced that tests of Coral Calcium Supreme

revealed 2.5 micrograms of lead per gram. This isn't enough to pose a health threat,

except perhaps to a developing child when taken by a woman who is pregnant or

breastfeeding. But it does exceed the 1.5-microgram level that requires a warning

label in California. (The product has no such label.) Click for details.

In January 2004, shortly before going to trial on the FTC charges, Robert Barefoot


30/07/2010



agreed to a permanent injunction against making claims that Coral Calcium can

cure cancer, heart disease, and other serious maladies. He also agreed to recall any

product packaging that makes such claims, notify distributors about the FTC action,

and forfeit al l of his royalties from the Coral Calcium infomercial.

As for Kevin Trudeau, in September 2004 he agreed to pay $2 million to settle

charges of false medical claims—not only for coral calcium, but also for Biotape, a

product said to relieve severe pain. The settlement banned him from appearing in,

producing, or disseminating infomercials that advertise any product, service, or

program and from claiming that any product, program, or service can cure, treat, or

prevent any disease or provide health benefits.

There was only one hitch: The ban exempts infomercials for books, newsletters, and

other "informational publications." And so today, Trudeau is back on TV with another

phony talk show pushing a $19.95 book, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want

You to Know About, whose claims are as absurd as those made for Coral Calcium.

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Coral Calcium -- an Investi