Pogue's Supplements

Often times people ask me what supplements I personally use. So, I just thought I would outline a list of them for anyone who was curious. I'm not going to post any studies or references in this articles. If you feel like looking them up, be my guest. If there is something I mention that disagrees with what you know, feel free to post it.

Everyday Supplements

These are supplements I take everyday with each meal.

• Multivitamin: From the Earth (w/o Iron) by Vitamin Shoppe
• Mood Support: Lithium Orotate by GRL
• Digestive Support: Vegetarian Enzyme Complex by FutureBiotics & Ulcetrol by NOW
  
• Probiotics: Ultimate 10 Probiotics by Vitamin Shoppe
• Antioxidants: Radox by Syntrax, R-ALA by Higher Power & NAC by NOW
• Prostate/Cholesterol Support: Beta Sitosterol by Vitamin Shoppe & Saw Palmetto Extract by Vitamin Shoppe
  
• EFA: Triple Strength Omega 3-6-9 by Puritan's Pride

So why did I pick these supplements and why do I use them? The multivitamin, From the Earth, has all organic and natural ingredients and a lot of them at a very low price. You only need 3 tablets a day for the serving size, instead of a bag of pills. It has 1gm of Ester-C and the RDA of all the other vitamins and minerals plus a lot of other ingredients that I like. The lithium orotate is a version of the natural trace mineral lithium, often prescribed in cases of depression, bound to orotate, which has shown in some studies to be more bioavailable than other forms and safer since it isn't as toxic as the other version.

The Vegetarian Enzyme Complex is an enzyme formula meant to be taken before a meal to help digest foods. I have digestive troubles often and so it's helpful for me to take this formula. I've tried others, but I like this one, especially because it contains some lactase. I'm lactose intolerant and some foods have lactose in them that isn't listed. So, this is useful in those situations. Ulcetrol is a patented supplement that is a drug in Japan designed to help with acid reflux disease called PepZin GI. It's a combination of zinc and the amino acid Carnosine which has been shown in some studies to help kill the bacteria, h. Pylori, which is responsible for the disease. It also has calcium carbonate and some other ingredients to help with heartburn. The Probiotics help keep intestinal flora in tact and healthy, along with other benefits.

Syntrax Radox, HP R-ALA, and NAC I take in conjunction as my three main antioxidants. It is best to take antioxidants together to help them from converting to pro-oxidants, a little known occurrence which can happen. I feel Radox is one of the best antioxidants on the market with a great amount of ingredients for the price and in the correct quantities and high potency extracts. HP R-ALA is one of the cheapest on the markets with 100 caps of 200mg R-ALA for only $17. NAC is also a very important ingredient which has many applications, including increasing liver enzymes and glutathione in the lungs. It is actually such a powerful liver restorer it is used in the emergency room to revive patients who have overdosed on NSAIDs such as Tylenol.

I use the Beta Sitosterol and Saw Palmetto for it's positive effects on the prostate. After years of using steroidal substances and antihistamine/decongestant use I have had problems with my prostate. These two supplements help clear up these problems and are very quickly noticeable.

The Puritans Pride Triple Strength Omega 3-6-8 product has a very good EFA profile, which includes fish oil, flax oil, borage oil, and other EFAs to provide you with your daily needs.

Occasional Supplements

These are supplements I take on occasion as the need for them arises.

• Allergy Support: Respir-All by NOW, Quercetin+C (Citrus Free) by Vitamin Shoppe & Vitamin A by NOW
  
• Upset Stomach: Ginger Root by Vitamin Shoppe, Peppermint Gels by NOW, Glutamine powder by Vitamin Shoppe & Stomach Ease tea by Yogi tea
  
• Sugar Control: Tri-Chromium by NOW
• Sleep Help: Snooze in w/ Melatonin by Vitamin Shoppe, Melatonin 3mg by Natrol, GABA by NOW, Relax-All by MRM & L-Theanine by Vitamin Shoppe
• Stimulants: Stimulant X by Anabolic Xtreme, Biotest Spike, Ripped Fuel Extreme w/ ephedra by Twinlab (no longer made)
• Cleansing: Colon Enhancer by Vitamin Shoppe

I, like many other people, have nasal allergies for which I take OTC antihistamines and sometimes decongestants for. Sometimes when these products don't help to remedy my allergies, I look to alternatives. One of the best I've found is Respir-All by NOW which contains an herbal antihistamine, Quercetin, along with Vitamin C, Zinc, Bromelain and Nettle Root, all of which have been shown to help allergy symptoms. If I still have problems after taking that product, I might take some more of the VS Quercetin+C which has 500mg of quercetin and 1400mg of Vitamin C per serving. Vitamin A is also supposed to help (although I have never really looked into the validity of this) and NOW's product has 25,000iu of it, a huge dose. LEF also recommends B5 which I take sometimes, but I haven't noticed much of a helpful effect.

I also often have upset stomach, due to factors unknown, which I need to see a doctor about soon. The Ginger Root helps after digestion to digest food and calm your stomach, and if you over eat it can help also. The peppermint gels I also read about in a LEF article. They are enteric coated to make it past the stomach into the upper and lower intestines to help with gastrointestinal pain. They do help and your burps have a minty freshness. The Stomach ease tea contains both of these ingredients plus a few more to help with upset stomach and digestive problems, it does help, but I only use it occasionally, mostly because I forget I have it.

The Tri-Chromium product I take if I eat a high sugar treat or meal to help keep my insulin levels in check. I was really looking for a cinnamon product, but cinnamon and chromium is a winning combo for keeping your insulin levels maintained, and the Tri-Chromium product contains a blend of chromium, so depending on your standpoint, you should be getting at least one of the right types. Don't take too much of it in a day as chromium can be toxic (as a minerals can) if overused.

The sleep supplements I use when I can't sleep (obviously) and not nightly. I don't use all of them at once, and try to vary them so as not to grow dependent on them or just one of them. Snooze-In is a very strange product that produces very strange and vivid dreams, which plain melatonin does not. It does knock you out though. GABA works a bit in high doses, but don't expect it to increase GH or anything like that. It's just a simple sleep aid and doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. Relax-All has phenibut in it, a derivative of GABA used in Russia in place of Valium. It works very well to help you relax and fall asleep. It contains several other ingredients, somewhat similar to the Snooze-In product, but with phenibut instead of melatonin. L-Theanine on it's own is a relaxing amino acid that comes from green tea. Always make sure you buy the patented Suntheanine brand, as it has only the L isomer which is what you want. Other brands can sometimes be contaminated with the D isomer, which is what you don't want.

I also take stimulants, but only when I need them, such is if I have a long day or a lot to do. Stimulant X is one of the most powerful stimulants I have ever taken and keeps me up for at least two days normally. Spike is much more tolerable and usually keeps me awake for the day. Spike is now available at your local Walmart in their supplements section, so it's easy to buy since it's not sold widely over the net. I bought mine in a box for $17 for 28 tabs, instead of the normal $30 they charge online, and I also got a neat "Spike Bullet" which is a little keychain holder for a Spike tablet. Since these stimulants work so much better than ephedra, I rarely used any of my ephedra products which I stocked up on before the ban. Ripped Up Extreme was my all time favorite, but both Spike and Stimulant X blow it out of the water.

Colon Enhancer is basically a laxative product that will help you cleanse out your colon using it's main ingredient, Psyllium Husk (it doesn't show on the ingredients for the one I listed, but it's in there). I use the capsules, because I have found most fiber powders, with the exception of Benefiber, to be generally awful. For a standard dose of Colon Enhancer it is 12 capsules which will keep you around the toilet all day. For a maintaince dosage it's 7 caps, which isn't so extreme. It is a good product, but you want to make sure to drink it with a full glass of water so as not to get the capsules of fiber powder expanding in your throat which can cause a choking situation. It's always better to just use a standard fiber product daily than use a product of this type, although it is good to have around when you need it!

You'll notice I don't have any protein powders or creatines listed. Right now I am not training and am not using any types of sports supplements, just the ones listed above. But, regardless, those are my staple supplements which I have been using for sometime now and have had good success with. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them.

How to Rip Streaming Video

In many instances you might see a video streaming on a website that you want to download for whatever reason. For example, I download videos off news broadcast sites sometimes so I can take a few screencaps of it to throw in my blog articles to make it look better, since it's always good to have some images in an article. I also often upload the video to a separate site where users can view it directly without having to view an ad first or going through the site and looking for it (if they didn't post a direct link or something).

However, most sites who stream the video don't want you to download the video onto your hard drive into a format where you can edit it and such, so they encode it with ActiveX or Javascript in an attempt to stifle people from saving it. The question of whether or not this is legal probably has to do with copyright laws, but if you're not claiming the material as your own and linking back to their site I don't see how it would be a problem. It might even be more practical for them as it saves them bandwidth since you are hosting the file for them on another service, instead of forcing them to serve it up.

But, there is a way you can capture any (I haven't come across one where I haven't been able to yet) video with a few tools. These tools do cost money and I haven't come across any freeware equivalent of them yet, but they are good and cheap for what they do, so I think it's a good value and they are extremely easy to use. The two tools I will be talking about today are StreamingStar's URL Helper and HiDownload. In addition to being able to rip streaming video, they should also allow you to do the same for most streaming audio, although some audio can have DRM encryption which prevents you from editing them in the same way as video formats.

URL Helper is a network sniffer that runs with WinPcap to listen to all incoming traffic on your network card and allows you to see how the video file is being sent to you. When it is set up correctly it will show you only the packets that are coming over the network that are URLs and protocols which stream audio and video. Once you see the file you're looking for you can simply right click on it and choose "Download with HiDownload" (it's sister software companion). HiDownload is a tool that allows you to download from protocols such as RTSP and MMS which are commonly used to broadcast streaming video in programs such as Windows Media Player and Real Player.

So now I am going to show you how to setup these programs to catch a video and download it onto your hard drive. The first steps are obviously to install URLHelper and HiDownload. HiDownload doesn't require much configuration, but in some instances it might, depending on the server you're downloading from. URLHelper is a bit different and took me a bit of tweaking to get right. Some network cards work differently from others and require different filters to get it to see the streams just right, but I will show you essentially what you want to do to grab the video and hopefully it should work for you. So, let's find a video to get. I'll pick one from a local news station, wfaa.com.

Like most news stations that broadcast a streaming video clip of a news bit, it often times requires Internet Explorer to play, so we'll be using that to load up the page. First, we'll open up URLHelper and have a look at the options. After installing URLHelper, it will prompt you to install WinPcap if you don't already have it, so you want to install that to, as that is the engine it uses to sniff the network for the packets.

When you first open URLHelper you have a few simple choices at the top, the first being "Select Adapter". I have two choices, a Dialup adapter and my network card. Obviously, since I'm on DSL and not dialup, my network card is the adapter I want to select.


The next place you want to go into is "Options". Under options you have several modes in which the program will listen to traffic. Normally you should do fine with auto-select, but on some machines you may have to choose promiscuous and on some you may have to choose All Broadcast Packets and check the box at the top to "Capture All URLs". So, you may have to play with the settings a bit in order for it to catch the video right. What you will essentially do to find the right mode is keep going back, in your browser, to the page that the streaming video is being played and try to play the video. You should be able to see it show up as a link in URLHelper once you're sniffing the packets which I'll show you next.

Once you have your options set you want to start listening to network traffic and see if you can catch the video. So, you will select "Sniff Network". If you're browsing around other sites you should immediately begin to see URLs show up in the window frame. Just visit any websites and they should show up, along with all the URLs it downloads within that page. If nothing is showing up, something is wrong and you need to go back and fix this. Even if you're doing nothing (ie: your computer is sitting idle - not surfing), often you will see some traffic, such as from Google Toolbar for example, which checks a pages pagerank if you have it set to do so and so forth. But, let's go back to trying to find the video.

We're on the website wfaa.com right now and we'll just pick a story with a video in it and see if we can capture it. Just at random I found a story about a hit and run driver that has a video with it.


Close up of the video link:

Just clicking on the page, we should already see a lot of links showing up in URLHelper. As you can see, it's nothing really special, just links within the web site to graphics, ads, Google Toolbar queries and that kind of thing, so now let's try and spot the video!



I click to play the link and open up the embedded player to watch the broadcast about the story. As soon as I do, a popup window opens with an embedded WMP starts. First, it plays an ad for a local car dealership. As you can see, the screenshot I posted has a blank frame where the video is playing, even though on my screen I see a car. This is specifically designed this way so you cannot take a screenshot of the video that's playing in the player (which is one of our original purposes).



So, we wait until after the ad is played and then watch the video and click back to URLHelper to see if it's captured the stream. And now just shortly after starting the video, the link has appeared in URLHelper. So, I can pause the broadcast and simply download it now with HiDownload.


You can tell this, obviously, because it's the only file with the extension WMV listed in the URLs. Now I can start the download in HiDownload and stop URLHelper from sniffing the network.

Under Download Mode, there are several options. General File Download will work most of the times, however, sometimes you need to drop the list down and change it to Windows Media Stream or one of the other types of formats that you're trying to capture. This "spoofs" to the host that it is actually the player trying to download the file and not a separate program. For some reason, HiDownload was giving me a lot of problems and wasn't downloading the file. The file was simply streamed from an HTTP protocol so I should have been able it with even a downloading program, like FreeDownloadManager. But, it seemed to be picky and wanted it to say it was coming from Windows Media Player, so I had to do that in order to fully download the file. The download hung a few times, so I finally just shut everything down and restarted, opened HiDownload back up and it downloaded perfectly. Probably just some silly Windows error causing it, but a restart is always the first thing to try when there is any kind of problem on your system.


The graphic above is simply a small picture showing that the file is being downloaded.

So now that we have the file, how to take screencaps from it? I use a very nice program called Image Grabber II. It comes in two flavors now, the old version and one built with .NET which is much nicer. So, we can open the file in Image Grabber II and take screen shots of the file very simply. Just use the little camera icon in the bottom to click when you want a shot and then go to file and 'Save Individual Files' and choose a folder. You'll end up with a nice screen shot that is in a small size that fits perfectly into a blog.


If you need to change the dimensions or do some minor cropping, you can use a free tool such as IrfanView, which works very well for this purpose and is freeware, to do so.


If you need to do advanced editing, you will probably want to use something like Photoshop or it's freeware equivalent, GimpShop.

But what about the video, what if you want to convert it to another format? There are many tools for this, such as VirtualDub or paid products, such as BoilSofts, which has many easy to use joiners, splitters, and editors for most popular formats. There is also WinAVI which is a tool that will convert just about any video format to another. But, that is another article.

UPDATE 6/19: I found a couple video editors & convertors that are freeware and open source. They are good and look pretty easy to use, although I haven't thoroughly played with them enough to know.

The video editing software is called Jashaka and seems to be a replacement for types of video editors such as Adobe Premier. The other program is MediaCoder and it can convert just about any type of audio and video into any other type. Most open & closed source formats are build in, and you can download the encoders for Realmedia and Windowsmedia types.

Once you have the video downloaded, you can upload it to a site such as youtube, zippyvideos, or videoegg (which I believe has unlimited storage). I primarily use Zippy.

Well, I hope that helped you in your quest to capture a streaming video. If you liked the article or have any questions or comments, feel free to post them. In upcoming articles I might describe some other methods I use to capture video, such as how to capture it from Youtube, or using simple Firefox plugins. There are also some tools to capture audio which I can discuss as well. So start downloading and good luck!

Introducing Secret Cash Card - A Legit Anonymous Credit Card

Secret Cash Card - A Legit Anonymous Credit Card... is unfortunately what I had posted on my blog for quite some time. I no longer recommend this company to my visitors because of the excessive amounts of complaints I've heard regarding this company and the services they provide.

When I first came in contact with SecretCashCard.com the company was a legitimate service. They provided a virtual anonymous MasterCard to customers who paid a flat one time fee of $39.95 (now $49.95) and the user could then reload the card using the GreenDot Universal MoneyPak. I read about the company and who backed it and emailed and asked to become an affiliate for it. I spoke to the owner, Jerry Klein over the phone and he was very upbeat and sincere about the card and the company. He told me about other companies he was starting to form and everything sounded good. I had been recommending the card to friends and other people and heard no complaints. I received one affiliate payment for referring several people to the card. I also emailed Jerry's partner, Joshua Finer and made numerous suggestions on how services and access to the card might be improved.

After about six months or so I started receiving emails from people telling me that they had been ripped off by SecretCashCard (SCC) and that it was fraudulent. I didn't think much of it, since many companies have occasional problems and and I told the people to contact customer support and they should be able to take care of it for them. I also forwarded the emails to Jerry and Josh to see if they could help out. I started to not hear replies from them. I emailed them and tried to make contact with them numerous times over a long period, but received no response. Then, I started checking the stats for my affiliate sales and noticed that although I had accumulated several, I wasn't being paid, and then the amounts that were showed being sold disappeared. So, I started searching around and seeing a large number of complaints all over the web. People on forums, Ripoffreport, and the BBB all had complaints with this company - most of them applied for pay day loans and then received the card without requesting it. They were forced to pay the fee for the card and could not get in communication with the company to cancel it or be reimbursed. I stopped recommending the card to friends and other groups, but I left the issue alone. I was busy and hoped that the situation would resolve itself.

Now, after a long period of inactivity and non-response from SCC, I've decided to remove the post on my blog which talked about the card and recommended it. I believe that although the company and the people who ran it started out with good intentions to provide a legitimate service, somewhere along the road greed got in the way and now they are not a reliable company. I recently checked the Better Business Bureau's report on this company and was started to see that there were over 200 complaints made. Because of this, I have decided to publish the details about the two individuals who ran this company in hopes that anyone who was ripped off by them can have their complaints addressed and their money refunded. I too am a victim of this company. I signed up to sell a service which I believed was trustworthy and receive a small profit for doing so, but instead, people who I recommended the card to and purchased it were left with a basically unusable card and me spending time advertising for a company and was not paid as promised for my time and effort.

Please note that some of the links below contain an addition from anonym.to. This removes the refer of the originating website (my blog). I have done this to try and protect myself from liability issues from releasing the data I have online. Please also be aware that the information posted below is my owned saved data and could be out of date. I collected it some time ago and the persons in question could have changed addresses and phone numbers. I am not accusing anyone of committing fraud, a scam or any type of crime. I am simply making this information (which is available publicly through various search engines) available to those who wish to view it.

---

SCC was originally started as Jerry Klein as a subcompany of another service he provided called Private Date Finder. According to him, this site was started to allow men and women already in relationships the ability to look up other people online for "dates" outside of their relationship and still keep the information private from their partners. SecretCashCard was started to aid this service by allowing the users of Private Date Finder to keep their credit card bills secret. When you bought the card, it also came with software that allowed the user to clear their browser history and cache so as to prevent their partners from discovering what they had been up to. I was offered the chance to also be an affiliate of the date finder service but I declined because I was more interested in offering people the privacy and security of an anonymous credit card. When the service was first started, it was called PrivateICard and was covered in a story by Adult Video News. Although the PrivateICard site now redirects to SCC, it can still be viewed in part on the Internet Archive. The original fee for the service was $9.95. PrivateICard also had an affiliate program that allowed webmasters to sign up and offer the card to their visitors. Here is a copy of the original pitch given to potential "partners":

NEW! PrivateICard (safe online debit card), payout $from 50%, scaled on volume
Description: The first payment card designed for confidential and private online purchases. It's a unique new offer for a FREE virtual Visa debit card and over $200 in benefits including a proprietary patent pending Web based privacy service. Debit card offers are doing very well and they generally require fees and minimum loads in excess of $50, privateIcard requires absolutely no fee or initial load to be issued a Visa card.
Payout: from 50%, scaled on volume
Action required for payout: Sale
Action require payment?: Yes
Desired media: Email, Newsletter, Popups, Banners, Textlinks, Affiliate networks.
Target market: Offer appeals to anyone seeking privacy with online purchases and those with sub-prime credit that need a Visa debit card.
Review creative samples: http://www.privateicard.com/creative/email2.html
Landing page link: http://www.privateicard.com
Partner sign-up site http://www.privateicard.com/partner.html
Contact name: Jerry Klein, First Privacy Financial
Email: jerryklein@cox.net
Phone : 949.388.5530
Fax: 949.388.4421
Comments from Advertiser: This is a member benefit business model with an initial $9.95 to join and compelling values in excess of $200. Launched in early November 04 and over 200,000 virtual debit cards have already been issued. No credit required and card is instantly activated.

The links are no longer active, but I believe that the email address and phone numbers are still valid. The registration data for privateicard.com now shows up as a proxy domain registration.

SecretCashCard now has a "F" rating on the Los Angeles BBB for having over 200 complaints. You can read some of the complaints here. According to the LA BBB,

Complainants generally allege that they received unauthorized drafts from this company for $49.95 for a product that they did not order or were applying for pay day loans and were subsequently charged for this service which they did not agree to. Some complained that they never received any debit card from the company.

The company generally responds by providing refunds and stating that while applying service such as cash advance loan applications customer legally authorized us to debit his bank account and that they have authorization details including the computer number (IP) etc.

There are also many reports (71 at the time of this posting) on RipOffReport.com for SCC.

The address I have for Private Date Finder, the parent company of SCC, is:

Private Date Finder, LLC.
14 Monarch Bay Plaza , # 301
Monarch Bay , CA 92629
888-394-1053 x 3

This data came from another website (currently offline, but cached in the Internet Archive) called EverPrivate.com. The domain registration data for this site is also now registered by proxy and I am not sure if the above information is still valid. I could find no such company registered in the State of California called Private Date Finder, LLC. The only company registered in the state I could find was First Privacy Financial, LLC.




Another company owned by Mr. Jerry Klein and affiliated with both companies is NothingButResults.com. The information on the contact page corresponds to the WHOIS registration data which is:

KLEIN, JERRY **

23731 Montego Bay
Monarch Beach, CA 92629
US

Domain Name: NOTHINGBUTNETRESULTS.COM

Administrative Contact :
Klein, Jerry
nbnr@pacbell.net
7 MARSEILLE
LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA 92677-5402
US
Phone: 949.415.0411
Fax: 949.415.0441

The other individual involved with SCC was Joshua Finer, who runs a software company called Finer Technologies. The domain, finertechnologies.com, redirects to Software4Parents.com, a site that sells software to assist parents in helping prevent their children from accessing unwanted content on the internet. The WHOIS data for finertechnologies.com and software4parents.com gives the following address:

Finer, Joshua joshua@finertechnologies.com
Finer Technologies, Inc.
101 Parkview Way
Newtown, Pennsylvania 18940
United States
2153967334

Joshua Finer wrote the software that is given away "free" along with the purchase of the SecretCashCard and is also sold as PrivateIZapper, available at privateizapper.com. This site has the same registration data as the two domains listed above, but is registered under the company "First Privacy Financial, LLC".

According to the State of Pennsylvania, Finer Technologies is listed with the current information:

Business Corporation - Domestic - Information

Entity Number: 3008170
Status: Active

Entity Creation Date: 6/1/2001 9:12:53 AM

State of Business.: PA
Principal Office Address: % HAMBURG RUBIN MULLIN MAXWELL CORP
SERVICES INC
PA 0 -0
Mailing Address: No Address

Officers

Name: JOSHUA F FINER
Title: President
Address: 61 PEPPERRELL DR
LANGHORNE PA 19054-0

Where to complain to?

Besides the BBB and RipOffReport.com, there are three other companies behind SecretCashCard. SCC is essentially a PrivaCash card. All of their available products are licensed through MasterCard. Privacash is backed by Key Bank. So, those are the three other companies you could complain to regarding the operation of SCC.

You can contact all three companies and tell them about your experience with the card. If many consumers complain, they can remove licensing rights from the card which would basically put the company out of business. If you received your card from a service that provides payday loans, you probably want to complain to them as well as to the FTC. But, I would recommend you not use payday loan services in the first place. They are very much like modern loan sharks, charging extremely high interest rates and have very shady terms. The only real difference is they have a store front. Read the FTC alert on payday loans for more information.

You can also complain to your attorney general as well as state and consumer protection agencies in PA and CA. Order a free copy of The Consumer Action Guide (or read it online - PDF format), the indexes provide the information for the two links above.

Finally, I also recommend an article I wrote myself on situations like these that has helped many people in coming to a resolution for customer problems. Pogue's Blog: "How To Resolve Complaints and Get your Money"

---

In the meantime, if you are looking for an private credit card, PrivaCash offers the same services as SCC, usually at little or no cost. It acts as a reloadable debit card that you put money into and all information is kept private. Be aware that there are lots of people out there that claim to sell anonymous credit or debit cards. Some do and some are legitimate, however, there are also many scammers out there.

If you know of any other legitimate anonymous or private credit or debit cards please let me know or post a comment. Also, if you find any errors on this page or want to post your experience with this company, feel free to do the same.

Dr. James Shortt Convicted and Delicensed

Dr. James Shortt, an MD in South Carolina, who dispensed anabolic steroids and growth hormone to his patients has been convicted of conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids and delicensed by the South Carolina Medical Board. Dr. Shortt ran a longevity clinic and promoted anabolic steroids and growth hormone as a way to treat many injuries and ailments. On his homepage he has an article entitled "Steroid Use vs. Abuse". Recently many doctors who have promoted the use of steroids and other unconventional methods of medicine have come under a great deal of scrutiny in the national wide steroid scare.

Dr. Michael C. Scally, a Harvard Medical School graduate, is being pursued by the medical board of Texas for his use of anabolic steroids in treatment of conditions which would be considered "off-label" by the FDA - basically meaning using steroids to treat conditions of which they are not commonly prescribed for.

Unfortunately for Dr. Shortt, he also used another controversial treatment of chelation therapy, where hydrogen peroxide is given to patients intravenously. This apparently lead to the death of two of his patients who are now suing him. Chelation therapy is looked upon as quackery by many in the medical community.

Dr. Stephen Barrett who runs Quackwatch had the following comments:

In March 2006, James Michael Shortt, M.D.,
http://www.drshortt.com/bio.html who practiced "longevity medicine"
in Greenville, South Carolina, pled guilty to conspiracy to
distribute anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. Press reports
indicate that some of the recipients were professional football
players. Shortt's plea agreement states that over a six-year period,
he unlawfully conspired with others to distribute and dispense
testosterone, stanozolol [Winstrol], nandrolone [Deca Durabolin],
fluoxymesterone [Halotestin] and oxymetholone [Anadrol].
Based on this admission, the South Carolina Board revoked his
license and fined him $10,000, the largest fine it is permitted
to impose. Shortt's criminal indictment
http://www.casewatch.org/doj/shortt/indictment.shtml and plea
agreement http://www.casewatch.org/doj/shortt/plea.pdf are posted on
Casewatch. Shortt is also being sued by the survivors of two patients
he treated with hydrogen peroxide. One had multiple sclerosis.
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/shortt.html The other had prostate
cancer. http://www.casewatch.org/mal/shortt/bate.shtml

Great Deal on 1GB USB Pen Drive - $22 + S/H

There's a great deal going on now for a USB pen drive made by KingMax. It's 1GB and is running for only $22 (plus shipping) at newegg.com. The drive is tiny, about an inch long and comes with a small key chain and wrist band.

Comparable USB flash drives often cost close to $100 for this size so get it while you can! It was available on another vendor last week for only $20 but they raised the price to $30 before I had a chance to buy it.

This drive works on any computer (PC/Mac) with a USB port and is 2.0 compatible. Just plug it in and the system will detect it. Great for school, work or just about anything. Get it while you can!

KINGMAX 1GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) - Retail at Newegg.com

If you're looking for a secure USB flash drive check out StealthSurfer. It's has a built in browser and email client, along with Anonymizer and other features so you can safely surf and check your email on public computers without having to worry about wireless eavesdropping or keyloggers.

MLB player Jason Grimsley rolls on hGH source

The Smoking Gun is reporting that MLB player Jason Grimsley turned informant after receiving a controlled delivery for a kit of human growth hormone. He apparently not only turned in the person who sold him the kit, but some players he knew of that used hGH, anabolic steroids and amphetamines.

The report is in the form of an affidavit filed by IRS agent Jeff Novitzky who also headed the BALCO investigation. In it, Grimsley details how he had used steroids, GH and amphetamines throughout his career. He is said to have used Deca Durabolin (nandrolone deconate) for recovery after surgery, the same reason he claims to have used GH on multiple occasions.

Grimsley also discusses how purportedly all major league club houses had pots of coffee for players labeled as "leaded" and "unleaded" with the "leaded" coffee being laced with amphetamines.

In the affidavit he also discusses his use of Clenbuterol and prohormone 1-AD. It is an interesting read to learn how authorities busted him because he was apparently paying for the drugs by check through his own checking account and intercepted his most recent purchase of a growth hormone kit of Serostim. Growth hormone itself is not on the federal list of scheduled anabolic steroids, but it is scheduled in some states as such. However, it is against the law to possess, purchase, or sell it without a prescription and can also be considered an adulterated drug, apparently according to the affidavit. Most amateur bodybuilders don't use growth hormone because of it's high cost and low value as a muscle builder, although it has some benefits as a topical fat loss agent.

Pitcher Spills Steroid, Speed Secrets - June 7, 2006

FTC takes action against Klein Becker again - makers of Leptoprin & Cutting Gel

Klein Becker, et al. has been fined by the FTC $3 million for "making questionable weight-loss and fat-loss claims to peddle skin gels and diet supplements". Klein Becker is run by three individuals, Dennis Gay, Daniel B. Mowrey and Mitchell K. Friedlander, under a variety of different company names. They are well known for selling their bogus supplements such as the infamous "Cutting Gel" which claims to be a topical fat loss product and contains little more than caffeine, and their outrageous overpriced $150 Leptoprin which is compromised of low doses of Guggulsterones, HCA, L-Tyrosine, Aspirin and some other minerals and herbs.

The FTC has obtained a $3 million dollar settlement with sellers who allegedly violated federal law by making questionable weight-loss and fat-loss claims for skin gels and diet supplements. The settlement bars the marketers from making unsubstantiated claims in the future and from misrepresenting studies or endorsements.

This is not the first time the company(s) have come under scrutiny by government agencies. Action has been taken by them in the past by the FTC for make unsubstantiated claims against their supplement line.

On June 15, 2004, the Commission filed the Complaint in this matter, alleging, inter alia,
that Basic Research LLC and other related individuals and companies (collectively, "Respondents") marketed numerous dietary supplements with unsubstantiated claims for fat loss and/or weight loss, and falsely represented that some of these products were clinically proven to be effective, in violation of Sections 5(a) and 12 of the Federal Trade Commission Act ("FTC Act"), 15 U.S.C. §§ 45(a) and (52). The facts pertinent to this Motion for Summary Decision are set forth in the attached Statement of Material Facts as to which There is No Genuine Dispute. Source

Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch comments:

The case is especially significant because Friedlander is one of the most egregious mail-order health scammers of all time. During the early 1980s, doing business as the Robertson-Taylor Company and at least six other companies, he took in tens of millions of dollars for fraudulent weight-loss aids, hair restorers, sexual stimulants, impotence cures, arthritis remedies, and other vitamin products. [Shearing the suckers. Consumer Reports Feb 1986, pp 87-92] The U.S. Postal service ended these promotions with a series of cease-and-desist orders. http://www.casewatch.org/usps/rt.shtml

Unfortunately, this action is merely a settlement on the part of the company and doesn't mean that they admit to have violated any laws, so their fraudulent advertisements will still be shown on TV and all the other mediums that were used previously. This is extremely common with companies who promote bogus health care and supplement products and does not seem to hinder them in the slightest way. I believe that the television stations who air these ads should take a stand on their own and stop allowing blatantlytently fraudulent ads to be displayed on their channels. Laws should be enacted that allow agencies like the FTC to pursue action against the parties that display these ads as well as for the ads themselves. In situations such as this, it is hard to boycott such companies such as television networks, who determine ratings based on only a certain category of people (i.e.: people who have Nielsen boxes installed in their homes). Perhaps a petition of some kind should be created or letters written to legislative representatives to help further this cause.

Major Weight-Loss Marketers Pay $3 Million