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For about two years, a STAT investigation has found, The Trump Network sold customized vitamins and scientific testing kits, claiming they would yield health benefits. But according to many outside experts, the network was selling bad science.
Among other claims, The Trump Network asserted that it could use a urine test to recommend customized nutritional supplements, its signature products. It also offered products that purportedly tested for allergies and bone health. But scientists said such claims were never backed up by modern medicine.
“They make an outrageous statement, which is that this testing and supplement regimen, this process, are a necessity for anyone who wants to stay healthy,” said Dr. Pieter Cohen, a general internist at Cambridge Health Alliance and an expert on dietary supplement safety who reviewed some of The Trump Network’s marketing materials at the request of STAT. “That’s quite insane.”
The story of The Trump Network — which was sold in 2012 — is a largely overlooked chapter in the life of the real estate developer turned presidential candidate. An extensive review by STAT — based on interviews with former members of The Trump Network, scientists, and others — shows how the real estate mogul associated himself with a business that has come under scientific scrutiny.
Other Republican presidential candidates have found themselves in similar positions and have come under greater criticism than Trump.
Dr. Ben Carson, another GOP presidential candidate and a former neurosurgeon, has come under fire for giving a series of paid speeches to Mannatech, a Texas-based nutritional supplement company whose claims of medical effectiveness have drawn scrutiny. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, starred in infomercials promoting a “diabetes solution kit,” for which some endocrinologists say there is no scientific support.
Interesting, but old news. The email I received announcing the launch of STAT - a new national publication focused on health from the owners of Boston Globe - included an animated graphic of Trump's head surrounded by pills, which look more like Rx medications than dietary supplements, which are often designed NOT to look like Rx meds. The dietary supplement industry is not the same as the Rx drug industry, and this image, IMHO, tries to tie Trump more to the latter than to the former.