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Separating radio fact from fiction

By Scott Barancik, Litigation Nation
Published August 18, 2007

I'm madder than a chimp in an apple tree about radio infomercials.

How gullible and desperate do those weight-melting, ab-toning, libido-tweaking pill shills think we are? Very, judging from an odious pitch I recently heard for Dual Action Cleanse.

The industry has us pegged. We're conditioned to buy almost anything. Despite laws governing such ads, we're pretty much on our own when it comes to separating fact from fiction. It's like the old world of nostrums and liniments never ended.

At the moment my ire is focused on Klee Irwin, a veteran pill peddler whose 30-minute Dual Action Cleanse infomercial on Tampa's WWBA-AM 1040 has me channeling Ed Anger, Weekly World News' columnist known for tongue-in-cheek tirades.

Irwin, a 41-year-old Californian, has hyped dozens of miracle herbs and supplements over the years. It's not always easy. Infomercials succeed by promising quick, painless solutions to common problems. But only federally regulated drugs can legally claim to prevent, mitigate, treat or cure a disease.

He has crossed the line. In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration complained about several Irwin supplements that offered relief from cancer, AIDS, arthritis or depression, and it criticized other claims in 2001. Three years later, the FDA warned him to stop making unsupported claims about a carb-blocking product. But there Irwin was on the local radio as the one and only "guest" on a phony talk show whose scripted callers wanted to know more about Dual Action Cleanse.

The premise is that cruddy eating habits have left the typical American with 10 to 20 pounds of impacted waste in his or her plumbing, a poisoned blood stream and a range of possible ills including depression, migraines, allergies, poor memory and skin problems. The solution, of course, is Dual Action's two-part herbal regimen, which supposedly scrubs our pipes and restores our natural digestive patterns. Irwin's role model is his daughter, whose prodigious stool at age 4, he says, initially frightened him.

Let's hope Irwin is entirely right about Dual Action. The infomercial was the 10th most aired on cable last year. There's little protecting us if he's not:

- Although the Federal Trade Commission regulates dietary-supplement infomercials, it doesn't vet them for accuracy unless there's a complaint. Even then, it can't pursue every one.

- WWBA general manager Brad James says his program manager previews every ad "to make sure that it's sound medical advice ... not some snake oil where it's not approved by the FDA." But that's a lot to ask of a non-expert - and of a business that survives on ads.

- Irwin won't tell you that Dual Action Cleanse has generated 582 complaints nationwide to the Better Business Bureau. He will tell you that actor John Wayne died with 44 pounds of feces in his colon, even though mythbuster Snopes.com called the rumor false.

- When a self-regulatory industry group questioned whether Dual Action Cleanse users could indeed "lose 10 pounds overnight," Cellular Research LLC replied that the word "overnight" should not be read literally.

Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

[Last modified August 17, 2007, 22:26:55]