Saturday, December 26, 2020

Herbalife 1: Science 0 -- How MLM gets away with SLAPPing science again and again

BehindMLM just reported that Herbalife, through legal threats against scientific journal's staff and publisher, has forced a study finding heavy metal in Herbalife products into MIA status (no longer linked or even published, completely missing, as even "retracted" studies stay online). 

This is very discouraging as this is basically SLAPP: strategic lawsuit against public participation. They are threatening to sue in order to BURY some inconvenient truth. When it didn't work against the researchers who wrote the study, they went after the journal and publisher as well, and they caved despite their editorial panel recommending "retain" for the study. And this is AFTER Herbalife stooge scientists failed to challenge the science

But you have to remember, this is Herbalife, who wore down the FTC so it was ONLY fined 200 million back in 2016, and got FTC to dance around the words "pyramid scheme" in the settlement. Given that Herbalife annual revenue is almost 5 billion ($4.89 billion as of 2018), 200 million is an ouchy, not a serious wound. 

If you do not want to see this stand, it's time to engage the Streisand Effect: publicize this censorship attempt. What are they trying to hide that they used legal teams on multiple continents and tried to (and failed) rebuttal via their own scientists (in Brazil)? 


No comments:

Post a Comment