When Brian Mohr, owner of Nutrimart Nutrition - a retail vitamin store in San Diego, California - first received a letter from Usana Health Sciences Inc. demanding that he contact Barry Minkow, co-founder of the Fraud Discovery Institute (FDI), and immediately insist that Minkow remove the YouTube video which compared the prices of Nutrimart's products to the Usana Health Pak 100 (TM), he was shocked. "Usana told me that my employee misrepresented to the public that the daily vitamin packs that we sell for substantially less than Usana's products were really not comparable at all because our products, although less expensive, were inferior," said Mohr.
"The only one guilty of misrepresentation is Usana," said Manfred Kroger, Professor Emeritus of Food Science at Pennsylvania State University and current Associate Editor for the Journal of Food Science and the Scientific Editor for Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety. Professor Kroger was brought in by FDI to examine the products compared in the original YouTube video, and his findings, now posted on the FDI Web site ">, indicate that "neither Nutrimart nor Mr. Minkow should be accused of misrepresentation, but Usana should be when it attempts to justify the substantially higher price and superiority of their products through pseudoscience and innuendo appealing to some scientific criteria which do not exist."
However, the Usana intimidation had only just begun as Mohr went on to explain in the video. "After receiving the threat letter from Usana and calling the company, its in-house counsel called me back and left a voicemail message (also now available in the FDI Web site) stating that the company had changed its mind about its approach, and rather than me going to Minkow demanding that the YouTube video containing the price comparisons be taken down, Usana instead asked me to sign a letter prepared by the company stating that my employee was manipulated by Minkow into the price comparison, because Minkow supposedly did not disclose the context in which the video would be used. Usana is going to be really surprised to learn from this new YouTube video that I was the employee and the person in the original video," said Mohr.
"Desperate people and desperate companies do desperate things," said Minkow. "For a publicly traded company to lie and bully a local retail store for doing nothing more than being proud both of the quality and the value of the products it sells is simply deplorable."
Also on the newly released YouTube is San Diego air traffic controller Doug Boelter who, only two days earlier had attended the Usana "Super Saturday" opportunity meeting held at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Diego, where medical advisory board member Dr. Ladd McNamara explicitly stated that the 75 percent savings presented on the company Web site and in the opportunity meetings was savings off the cost of the products - Usana's founder, Dr. Wentz, chose the multi level marketing approach for his products over traditional retailing; in traditional retailing the price of the product would be prohibitive because of the costs associated with that method which would in turn force Usana to cut back on quality, which Dr. Wentz refused to do.
Instead, and according to Boelter's account of the explanation, multi level marketing reduces by 75 percent the cost of the product, by eliminating the typical national distributor, wholesaler, and other middle men. According to Boelter, who is preparing an affidavit to the SEC stating what he and his wife heard first-hand at the meeting, this will once and for all settle the Usana diversion and ambiguity surrounding the 75 percent savings which the company represents to potential distributors is off of the cost of the products
In the original FDI report, the contention was that this 75 percent savings was evidence of an untenable business model. "Despite arguments to the contrary that Usana never meant that this alleged 75 percent savings was savings realized off of the product price, the evidence is conclusive that this is exactly what they say and what we represented in our original report," said Minkow. "The reality, however, is much worse because the 75 percent is neither saved off of the hopelessly overpriced product - as evidenced by Professor Kroger - nor is it seen in compensation to the thousands of Usana distributors who never earn a dime in from their Usana distributorships."
(Source : http://newsblaze.com/story/2007052209200200001.ew/topstory.html)
"Click here for the lab test report showing USANA have 1000 times the Lead allowed as ensure:"
