Complaint Review: Alive and Well Health Emporium

 For more than a decade the Alive and Well Health Emporium in Kahului, Maui, has been defrauding the sick and the worried well with fraudulent claims about its products. The store runs a new hour-long radio infomercial each week and repeats it several times on different stations so that one is broadcast almost every day. The commercials are produced by the store owners Dennis and Mona Jones, who have no credentials in any health-related field.

In these commercials the owners of the store make utterly fantastic claims about their products curing every disease under the sun. You name it and they have cured it: diabetes, obesity, stage 4 breast cancer; epilepsy, arthritis, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, heart disease, and even HIV/AIDS. They make these claims via fabricated testimonials. The recipients of the miracles never speak for themselves and are never named. Nor do their doctors, always unnamed, ever write up the miracles in medical journals or appear in the ads to vouch for the stories.

The store first came to my attention when a young immigrant mother told me about her experience. She has a 7-year-old daughter with a severe seizure disorder. She heard one of the infomercials and decided to give the store a try. The Joneses offer "free nutrition consultations" which consist of a private high-pressure sales pitch for a "custom-designed" nutritional program certain to help with whatever health challenge one might be having. After one of these sessions people rarely leave the store with less than a couple hundred dollars of herbs, vitamins, minerals and various pseudo-nutrients. This mother spent almost $300, hoping she could wean the child off of anti-seizure medications. But the pills and potions provided no relief whatsoever.

The Joneses tell their audience and customers who come into the store that hypertension medications are worthless and dangerous (in fact, they are inexpensive, proven life savers with no side effects whatsoever in the vast majority of those who take them), that statins will kill them, that they should avoid all the standard cancer treatments including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, and that children and adults alike should avoid all vaccinations.

For more than a decade the Joneses have been violating state and federal anti-fraud laws as well as state and federal food and drug laws, but the state refuses to investigate my complaints against them, apparently because it enjoys the substantial tax revenues generated by the store.

The County of Maui goes even further. For years I have attempted to demonstrate on the public sidewalk near the store. Several times the Joneses have gone to court to stop me, but five different judges ruled my demonstrations lawful and my signs and flyers protected speech. The Joneses refuse to accept that and have repeatedly come out of the store onto the sidewalk to harass and assault me. They have stolen my flyers, damaged my signs and threatened to kill me.

One of the assaults, by the store's 320-pound security guard, on the public sidewalk was witnessed by two police officers. They refused to make an arrest and the county refused to prosecute even though I was very seriously injured, sustained four rib fractures and a shredded rotator cuff that required a 5-hour surgery and left me disabled and in pain for 17 months. When I sued the store in civil court, the two police witnesses refused to testify truthfully. One claimed he couldn't recall the incident and the other evaded service of the subpoena to testify.

What we have here is a massive, durable consumer health fraud, brazenly criminal in nature, that is allowed, aided, abetted and encouraged by the local government.