The following Q&A (by Steven Fowkes) was originally published in "Smart Drug News: The Newsletter of the Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute" Vol. 1 No. 10 of December 1992. Make of it what you will. If you have any questions, direct all correspondence to Q&A ATTN: Steven Fowkes: P.O. Box 4029, Menlo Park, California 94026 or call (415) 321-CERI and (415) 323-3864 for FAX messages. Ever forward, David Cosenza <72603.2754@compuserve.com> P.S. The following is republished with permission from the author. -- Question: In the question and answer section of your November 1992 issue (Vol. 1, No. 9) Mr. Dean states, "Personally, I would not purchase anything from the Life Extension Foundation, because of their history of questionable ethical practices." Mr. Fowkes adds, "I also have serious questions about the quality of the Life Extension Foundation's products." Could you please be more specific? I have been a member of the Life Extension Foundation for over a year, and have been using their supplement products extensively. I have no complaints with the quality of the products or the service I have received. The only ethical question raised against the Life Extension Foundation and its founder Saul Kent, as far as I know, are attempts by the FDA to destroy Mr. Kent and his organization. If you have other information, I am most interested in hearing about it. However, your vague reference to improprieties and poor quality seems unprofessional and not up to the level of reporting I have come to expect from Smart Drug News. I was preparing a to renew my subscription when these remarks caught my eye. I am now having second thoughts about it. DW Answer: The Life Extension Foundation's (LEF's) unethical and possibly illegal activities date back ten years. Some of those activities involve unfair business practices, mail fraud, impersonating a Federal agency (the FTC), forging Denham Herman's signature to a phony American Aging Association document, mailing an anonymous "child molester" letter to competitor's customers, plagiarism, and numerous other frauds. These activities have been exposed in articles I have written in *Forefront* -- *Health Investigations* (Vol. 3, No. 2; and Vol. 3, No. 5) which culminated in the formal withdrawal of MegaHealth's recommendation of the Life Extension Foundation in the fall of 1987. Please understand that our regard for Kent and Faloon is *not* based on the FDA's indictment of them. If you've read John Morgenthaler's and my book *STOP the FDA*, you know I would not want to legitimize the FDA's war on health freedom in any way. Frankly, we hope Saul and Bill beat the FDA. I have been secretly providing strategic recommendations to their legal defense team through members of the AIDS underground. In my opinion, Kent and Faloon are not doing anything with FDA-unapproved life- extension and smart drugs that the AIDS buyer's club aren't doing with FDA unapproved AIDS drugs. The FDA's prosecution of Kent and Faloon is blatant "selective enforcement." It certainly meets our definition of harassment. From what I have been able to determine about the Federal case against Kent and Faloon, they are not being charged with any of the unethical and possibly criminal activities about which I reported. The current charges by the FDA involve Kent and Faloon's dealings with the Hauptmann Institute, a mysterious "mail-drop" supplier of overseas drugs who's supposed founder, Dr. Karl Gustav Hauptmann, is unknown professionally *anywhere* in the world. According to my analysis and that of a handwriting expert, the signature of "Dr. Hauptmann," the Vitamin Factory "President," the phony FTC officer, and Saul Kent (on a Project 2000 flyer from LEF) are made by the same person. Although this person was *not* Saul Kent, the Feds believe it was Bill Faloon himself. Hauptmann literature contained a photograph of "Dr. Hauptmann," which tuns out to be a piece of clip-art used by the Nevada Medical Society. The photograph of the "Institute" in Europe is actually a house located in southern California. Hauptmann mailing labels were printed on the same green-and-white striped computer paper used by the Life Extension Foundation for their own mailings, with the same misspellings of names and addresses as on LEF labels and the same print-head defects in the dot matrix pattern. One of the Federal charges is the alleged destruction of printing plates for Hauptmann literature at a Hollywood, Florida printing shop. The Feds call this *obstruction of justice*, but we wonder if this kind of crime is more akin to the century-old English crime "lurking with intent to loom" and its modern US equivalent "*conspiracy* to lurk with intent to loom." The Kent-and-Faloon trial has just begun in Federal Court in Florida. I possess substantial documentation of all of these past unethical activities. The most recent incident involves an LEF-published book which is a word-for-word, paragraph-for-paragraph plagiarism of Ward Dean's and John Morgenthaler's book *Smart Drugs & Nutrients*. Although Faloon was informed of the plagiarism, the plagiarized material has been subsequently reprinted -- without change and without permission. My reservations about the *quality* of LEF products stems from 1) a single analysis of LEF's Life Extension Mix which turned up substantial deficits, 2) reports from several LEF employees about LEF's quality- control procedures (or lack thereof) during the pre-1987 time period, 3) taste tests by myself and others. I do not know whether their past practices are still in effect today. Although I usually think their newsletter *Life Extension Report* (formerly *Anti-Aging News*) valuable and timely reporting state-of-the- art developments in life-extension research, they have on several occasions made some ludicrous and fallacious assertions which seriously undermine their credibility. The one *faux pas* that most sticks in my mind is their assertion that all iron-containing vitamin supplements are carcinogens. SWF I have been (and continue to be) a member of the Life Extension Foundation (LEF) since it's inception. I am a former member of the foundation's Advisory Board. I believe in the *principals* of the foundation, and support their battle with the FDA. However, I have serious reservations with regard to the ethical standards of the two principals of the foundation, Bill Faloon and Saul Kent. These reservations stem from a long history of questionable tactics and activities. I first became concerned about the quality of LEF products shortly after the introduction if the Life Extension Mix. This product actually tasted great! I knew from past experience that high-potency nutrient formulas taste *terrible*. If you want proof, empty a tablespoon full of Durk and Sandy's *Radical Shield* in a glass of orange juice, and taste it. Add as much sugar as you want. It *still* tastes awful. Dr. Richard Kaufman tried numerous methods to make his powdered formula *Age-Less* palatable, including massive doses of fructose and natural appricot powder. He finally gave up and went back to capsules and powder. Twin Lab's *Maxi-Life* is just *barely* tolerable when mixed in V-8 Juice. I suspected that was on the Life Extension Mix label was *not* what was in the product. My suspicions were subsequently confirmed by the assay described above by Steven Fowkes, and by the reports of a former LEF employee who confided that not only did the products *not* contain dosages as claimed on the label but that few LEF employees consumed LEF products. Instead, they too supplements manufactured by other companies, believed to be reliable (like Twin Labs). After the reprehensible attempt by LEF to destroy Vitamin Research Products as described above, I requested that the foundation remove my name from its Advisory Board. I sent several registered letters and made several phone calls requesting that my name be deleted from the masterhead of their newsletter. For nearly a year, they ignored my requests. It was not until I threatened legal action (and I like lawyers about as much as I like the FDA, DEA and IRS) that they acquiesced and removed my name from their Advisory Board. The most recent example of questionable ethics of LEF in their book, *The Physician's Guide to Life Extension Drugs*. On first reading of their book, I was favorably impressed. Some of the writing in the book was so good that I found myself thinking, "I wish I had written that." Then, I dumbfoundedly realized that I *did* write it. I compared *The Physicians Guide to Life Extension Drugs to Smart Drugs & Nutrients* and found over 40% of their book was copied *word-for-word* from *Smart Drugs & Nutrients*. Even some of the mistakes in our book were included in theirs. I notified the publishers, who informed Bill Faloon of their violation of copyright. Despite this notification, *The Physician's Guide to Life Extension Drugs* has been reprinted and continues to be distributed. This is not only a clear violation of U.S. copyright laws, it is also indicative of sleazy ethics. Again, I support the principals of the foundation and their justifiable battle with the FDA. Support them with a donation if you wish, but I would be leary about trusting my health with their products. WD We have recently heard of an FDA "hit list" of people considered to be conspirators in the promotion of smart-drugs sales in the U.S. Rumor is that we (Fowkes, Dean and Morgenthaler) are on that list, along with Kent and Faloon. We have received one report of an FDA investigator looking for "targets" which might justify all the money wasted in FDA raids over the last few years. The FDA may be worried about their failing "enforcement" image. There is a serious chance that they will loose their entire case against Kent and Faloon. The defense has successfully subpoenaed key members of the AIDS underground who will testify about FDA collaboration in the importation and the sale of unapproved AIDS drugs. They have also subpoenaed FDA Commissioner David Kessler and former Commissioner Frank Young. Kessler is allegedly fighting tooth and nail to avoid having to comply with the subpoena and testify under oath about his involvement. If Kent and Faloon's defense team succeeds in documenting open FDA assistance in violating Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act regulations against importation and sale of unapproved AIDS drugs, the government's case against Kent and Faloon for doing the same thing with smart drugs and life extension drugs should collapse. There is a constitutional prohibition against uneqal enforcement of the law. Regardless of how this case ends, it is clear to us that the FDA is selectively violating both Constitutional law and its own regulations in its senseless campaign to protect Americans from themselves. Although Kent and Faloon are on the right side of their battle with the FDA, it remains to be seen whether they have truly abandoned their past methods of doing business. Until they do so to my satisfaction, I will not recommend their products or services. *Caveat emptor*. SWF