Empowerplus officials still waiting for word if search was legal
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Documentary about health supplement airs today on Discovery Health
By SHERRI GALLANT
Lethbridge HeraldOfficials of a southern Alberta company raided by RCMP last summer for records concerning a nutritional supplement are still awaiting a judge's decision on whether the search and seizure, initiated by Health Canada, was legal.
"If the judge rules in our favour, they will have to return everything to us they took that day," says Tony Stephan, co-developer of Empowerplus and co-founder of the non-profit company, Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd., based in Raymond.
"They took nine boxes of files with confidential client information, all our hard drives, our server -- we told them to go ahead, we had nothing to hide."
Stephan and his partner David Hardy believe the raid was a retaliatory move by the federal department, since it came about 30 days after the men filed a lawsuit against Health Canada.
That battle, which accuses the feds of breaching the Constitution, was expected to get to court this month but has been delayed until next fall.
Truehope, a mental health support organization with a staff of 55, provides continuous support to EMpowerplus users through a Raymond call centre and the Internet.
They say -- and research appears to support their claims -- the formula can be used to treat bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism, panic attacks and anxiety, and other illnesses.
Discovery Health Channel's documentary on EMPowerplus, Impossible Cure? will air today at 3 p.m. Mountain Time.
Health Canada ordered RCMP to raid the Raymond office over allegations EMpowerplus was being sold without government approval. Health Canada says vitamin and mineral supplements cannot be promoted as medical treatments without a Drug Identification Number (DIN).
Before DINs can be issued, Health-Canada approved research has to show evidence to back the health claims.
Truehope has its detractors. Two men wrote a book debunking the supplement. These men and others have often shown up at venues near a Truehope event to speak against them. These opponents have been openly sponsored by pharmaceutical firms.
But clinical studies by reputable scientists at major Canadian universities are piling up. Some have even been stopped early, the results are so dramatic. And while the men won't divulge details of some current overseas work until it is published, they say the international research is duplicating Canadian findings.
Treatment is so effective, they say more than half of patients are able to completely abandon psychotropic medications in favour of the nutritional supplement.
In a soon-to-be published study completed at the Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience in Lethbridge, Dr. Bryan Kolb and Celeste Halliwell achieved enhanced tissue recovery in brain-injured rats who were fed EMPowerplus.
"(The investigators) can hardly believe it," Hardy says. "It's significant to us that when you give the body what it needs, it can do some amazing things. The theory that we've introduced to the world is that so much of chronic illness is from deficiencies. The theory of depletion explains everything we see."
This article was reformatted and sent by:
A. Daniel Stephan
Executive Assistant - Anthony Stephan (Co - Founder)
Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd.
Tel - (403) 752-4451 Ext 114
Fax- 1-888-752-7212 ( Attention: Dan Stephan)
Email - [email protected]
website - www.truehope.com
Mailing Address:
PO Box 1254
Cardston, Alberta
Canada, T0K-0K0