The Quackometer

You may remember in January that I reported how dawn raids had been conducted on the house of a man selling a quack remedy called Triamazon. Well, today the BBC report that Andrew Harris of Sale, near Manchester, was 'convicted under the Cancer Act of 1939 of taking part in the publication of adverts offering to treat people for cancer.'
Clearly, Harris believes some sort of miscariage of justice has taken place and his human rights have been abused. Quite what rights have been trampled upon is not clear. Telephone numbers and email addresses are still on the site asking for people to contact him. The rest of the site is still up with all the old claims being made (see here). I am not a legal expert, but my best guess would be that this would be in breach of the conditions of discharge.

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Update

The Manchester Evening News reports an interview with Harris...

"I would like to see the drug made be available to all cancer patients and discrimination against alternative medicine ended. I have been branded a charlatan for no reason. The case has ruined my life."

Labels: triamazon

 

After yesterday's raids by the MHRA on suspect dodgy pill sellers and their 'Internet Day of Action', perhaps one of the largest profiteers from such schemes will get away with it.

Google has been quite happy to take money from triamazon.com to show adverts for the site and the hugely overpriced food supplement pretending to be a miracle cancer cure.

This is despite the fact that Google has a clear policy that it will not do such things. As part of its advertising terms it says that it will not take adverts for:

Miracle Cures
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of miracle cures, such as 'Cure cancer overnight!'

Furthermore, by taking money for such adverts, Google will be in contravention of the Cancer Act of 1939 which says,

No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement—

containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof

People do get prosecuted under the terms of this Act. Trading Standards have a duty to enforce it. However, as Trading Standards tend to be highly fragmented across local councils, none of them appear to want to take on the Google giant. I believe Westminster Trading Standards as their UK address is given as,

Google UK Ltd
Belgrave House
76 Buckingham Palace Road
London
SW1W 9TQ
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)20-7031-3000
Fax: +44 (0)20-7031-3001

However, Westminster undoubtedly have many higher priorities making sure dodgy plumbers do not rip off senile old ladies who live on Buckingham Palace Road.

I have complained to Google before about similar issues and also to Trading Standards. Ignored, so far. Google should be policing their own noble 'do no evil' terms, and if they cannot they should be prosecuted where they flout the law. Perhaps the MHRA, as part of their Internet day of action, could tackle one of the largest advertisers on the web. Google has the power to make or break such companies. The MHRA ought to be concerned.

Labels: Google, regulation, triamazon

 

You know, I do not believe that most of the people that feature on this site are fraudsters. No, the truth is far worse than that - most homeopaths, reiki practitioners and herbalists actually believe what they say and that makes then particularly dangerous. But there are people whose motives are particularly hard to believe are just plain deluded. I fear 2008 is going to feature quite a number of more 'interesting' cases.

I have been keeping an eye on Andrew Harris and his site http://www.triamazon.com/ for six months or more. He also uses a site called http://www.thiskillscancer.com/. Apaprently, Triamazon is a,

NATURAL SCIENCE PROVEN SAFE NON-TOXIC product that is effective against many cancers and is also far superior to chemotherapy as it does not harm healthy cells.

Harris sells 'half a course' of 100 pills of Triamazon for about £250 a bottle from his home in Altrincham. He says,

Skeptics please see... The official independent "Research White Paper" on the proven effectiveness of selected Acetogenins, by clicking on this link below... http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/2003/pdf/7502x0259.pdf

Clicking through to this paper reveals information about the synthesis of acetogenins. Nothing about clinical efficacy. The Alliance for Natural Health issued a warning saying that the pill was Graviola (Annona muricata). You can buy Graviola tubs for about £20 or less if you look.

Just about every day I have been getting Google alerts for triamazon as it has been advertised around the web on bulletin boards, chat rooms and in press releases. Typically, such messages say things like:

Andrew Harris an ex-cancer patient exposes the big pharma industry cover-up of a natural cancer killing miracle with astounding incriminating conclusive independent evidence available via a direct link to pubmed archives on his website. Andrew is the founder of www.thiskillscancer.com His strong entrepreneurial background in business, marketing, research and management is combined with his personal experiences in having gone through 14 lots of conventional toxic combination chemotherapy to actually surviving cancer through an alternative natural, non toxic, immune system boosting, cancer killing miracle.

Leaving aside the issue of whether triamazon can do anything for cancer, advertising cancer cures is illegal in the UK under the Cancer Act of 1939. Trading Standards are tasked with upholding this act and have been aware of Triamazon for many months now. Indeed, Andrew Harris has been aware of it too as his web site has, at times, appeared with a disclaimer that his site was intended for doctors only - an attempt to wriggle out of the Cancer Act's glare. It was not fooling anyone.

Yesterday, at 7.30 am a house in Sale was visited by Trading Standards, the MRHA and the Police and the raid seized 'quantities of an unregistered drug called Triamazon' and a 48 year old was arrested. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have teamed up with police to take part in a number of dawn raids around the country as part of an 'Internet day of action'.

It has been slow, but it is good to see that existing legislation can deal with some of the worst sorts of quackery out there. Taking money from desperate and scared people in exchange for worthless pills, has to rank amongst some of the lowest scams imaginable.


If you see similar sorts of things on the web, the Consumer Direct site is a pretty good place to start.

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The Mirror Now Cover this too:

Police swoop on cruel internet cancer "cure" pill conmen

Labels: regulation, triamazon