This story was originally written in Portuguese by Chloé Pinheiro, Silvia Lisboa and Jaqueline Sordi, and published to the website of Revista Questão de Ciência on August 18th, 2022. It appears here with permission.
Hello, how are you?
Today I will put aside the medicine content in order to tell a family story.
It’s the story of how I made Paulo Roberto Dutra get rid of ALZHEIMER’S. Also known as my “Dad.”
Years ago, my father started to show signs of cognitive decline. As old age approached, he had constant memory slips and mental confusion.
It was painful to see my beloved dad in this situation. This was one of the reasons why I delved even deeper into my studies on Alzheimer’s.
After 20 years of experience, I decided to learn more abroad. I was thus the first Brazilian to be awarded the ReCODE Protocol Certificate by the renowned physician Dale Bredesen.
This technique fights Alzheimer’s using natural means.
I applied everything I learned on my father, and with a 4 STEP protocol I succeeded in curing him from Alzheimer’s.
Despite a great deal of medical research, there is still no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Nevertheless, on May 29th, 2023, Jolivi – a São Paulo based content publisher ‘focused on natural and integrative health’ – sent the text above to its 75,000 subscribers in a newsletter bearing the following sentence as its title: ‘How I saved my father from ALZHEIMER’S.’ Signed by the urologist Alain Dutra, who is a self-proclaimed functional, integrative and style (sic) physician, the message – tinged with an intimate and personal tone – discloses the silver bullet: a protocol called ReCODE, created by the American neurologist Dale Bredesen. For only 12 payments of BRL 99.00 each, the reader has access to something that current science still ignores: the (false) cure for Alzheimer’s.
The protocol sold by Jolivi offers a mix of therapies lacking any scientific proof, and others that in certain cases may prove beneficial – even though none of them are able to reverse the condition. As in the email signed by Dutra, the purported remission of a few patients is used to sell false hopes to thousands of families whose loved ones struggle with one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases in Brazil.
In addition to the “End of Alzheimer’s” protocol based on ReCODE, the Jolivi website sells another Alzheimer’s protocol, called “Alzheimer’s-Free Superbrain,” created by the neuroscientist Nelson Annunciato. Both make similar claims: to reverse dementia, you need only adopt a specific diet, exercise and take a number of supplements – some of them sold by a company created by the founders of Jolivi.
People who actually study Alzheimer’s say that these claims are dangerous. ‘So far there is nothing that can reverse this disease. Any material claiming the opposite is neither ethical nor truthful. At most, certain approaches, both pharmacological or not, may slow the disease’s inevitable progress,’ comments Dr. Sonia Brucki, coordinator of the Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology Group of the University of São Paulo (USP) Hospital.
Jolivi not only sells two different cures for Alzheimer’s disease for BRL 970.00 each, it also sends its subscribers free daily newsletters with information about other miracle natural treatments, criticism against the pharmaceutical industry and “reflections” casting doubt on scientifically proved therapies and drugs. The headlines include:
- ‘New plan to clean excess blood sugar in about 30 days;’
- ‘Insulin and metformin [drugs commonly used for treating diabetes] are bad for you;’ and
- ‘The bush that increases the “man’s hormone”,’ where an intake of 200 mg of Malaysian ginseng capsules is recommended to boost testosterone.
A further newsletter starts as follows:
Digital rectal exam? Read THIS before doing it’ and ultimately disavows the main prostate cancer prevention method with the argument that it ‘brings more risks than benefits.
During the pandemic, the Jolivi team released an interview with a doctor who advocated ozone therapy for treating COVID-19, a procedure lacking any scientific proof to control this infection, or any other disease at that. In another video posted on the company’s YouTube channel, which has 1.1 million subscribers, “specialists” claimed that the flu vaccine – one the greatest allies of public health – has no effect.
It is not infrequent that the same Jolivi content also appears on the news site Infovital, and both recommend food supplements sold on Vitaminas.com.vc (trade name of Millipharma Produtos Médicos e Farmacêuticos Ltda.). Part of the Jolivi newsletters is dedicated to offering these supplements, which promise to solve anything from joint pain to loss of libido. According to the Decision no. 28/18 of Anvisa (Brazil’s Food and Drug Administration), no food supplement may make claims concerning treatment of diseases or health issues, because these properties are exclusive to drugs. Jolivi and its partner Vitaminas seem to ignore this rule.
What few people know is that Vitaminas and Jolivi are companies founded by a partnership between Empiricus – the controversial investment analysis firm recently taken over by BTG Pactual – and Agora Inc., self-proclaimed largest finance and natural health content publisher in the United States. It was the founder of Agora, Bill Bonner, who taught the founding trio of Empiricus – Caio Mesquita, Felipe Miranda and Rodolfo Amstalden – the persuasive copywriting technique used in the Jolivi newsletters and to which Mesquita attributes the company’s exponential growth since 2014. It was also Bonner who suggested to the trio of financial market economists the creation of Jolivi, called the “Empiricus of Health” by its founders and now ran by Rodolfo’s brother, Daniel Amstalden. Agora made a BRL 500,000 capital subscription to Jolivi on June 28, 2016, as recorded in its articles of association, and holds stock in the company through a holding company based in Cyprus, a tax haven. Its partnership with Millipharma still exists too.
According to information given in a press release issued by the CEO of Jolivi, Daniel Amstalden, the three companies have 46 partners and employees, more than 75,000 subscribers, 12 active health programs – among them, the “End of Alzheimer’s” protocol – and three monthly subscription plans endorsed by so-called specialists. The latest among these endorsements is by Fred Pescatore, an American doctor specialising in nutrition, offering Jolivi readers ‘a quick solution to reverse rapidly progressing dementia.’
After scaring the reader with the possibility of their memory suddenly vanishing, Pescatore claims he holds the secret of a magic solution, among many others that will be disclosed to the reader if he or she subscribes to his protocol for twelve BRL 19.90 payments. The solution is a plant that, according to Pescatore, ‘will rejuvenate your memory in less than 1 HOUR.’ The plant is Melissa officinalis – lemon balm, commonly used for brewing infusions and studied for its calming properties.
To substantiate his claims, Pescatore uses a study evaluating the antistress effects of the plant and a clinical trial involving rodents. This trial never shows any active principle at work, only evidence indicating it might bind to the brain receptors related to cognition. No study is mentioned showing reversal of dementia in one hour – probably because there is no scientific literature supporting that. This is a typical modus operandi of Jolivi and other supplement vendors: extrapolating or distorting results of early studies to promise practical effects. Another tactic clearly employed in the text is sensationalism, forcing urgency, and conspiracy theories. ‘There’s only one way to get your hands on this… News about this “mental miracle” is spreading… and this could make it much harder to find.’
In addition to the monthly reports disclosing this and other “secrets,” every new subscriber gets a BRL 50.00 voucher to redeem on Vitaminas.com.br.
How it all started
The relationship between Empiricus and Agora started in early 2014, in the meeting room of an unassuming commercial building in the Itaim Bibi neighborhood of São Paulo. Staying briefly in town on his way to his ranch in the Argentinean Andes, Bill Bonner stopped by to consolidate the partnership and convince his partners of the power of copywriting.
The economist Rodolfo – nicknamed Dolfo by his partners – a graduate in journalism of Cásper Líbero College in São Paulo, had traveled to the United States to learn sales techniques straight from the source. The suggestion of approaching Agora apparently came from Beatriz Nantes, currently operations director of Empiricus Research and, like Rodolfo, trained in economics and journalism. At that time, the stock market analysis company (which later, like Agora, became a publisher) had gained notoriety for its tongue-in-cheek investment recommendations – one of them said that businessman Eike Batista had ‘a drawer full of relevant information. Every day he picks one of them and has it published’ – but the number of subscribers did not multiply as fast as their jokes.
The audience problem started to change rapidly when the “direct mail guru” stepped in. A Sorbonne graduate, Bill Bonner created in 1978 a publishing empire by applying copywriting techniques first to financial product and natural health catalogues and later to newsletters and reports.
Agora now owns more than 31 different brands in the United States only and exports its business model through partnerships with local companies in 14 countries – Empiricus, Jolivi and Vitaminas among them. His audience, he said in an interview, are people who ‘want to become richer, happier, healthier and more productive. We try to directly reach these emotional cores.’
In another interview, when asked about an Agora newsletter that announced ‘the secret cure for cancer hidden in the Gospel of Matthew,’ he added:
[O]ur customers don’t pay us to be right. And we’re certainly not paid to be timid. Instead, we’re expected only to be diligent and honest, and to explore the unconventional, the often disreputable, and always edgy shades of the idea spectrum. And our customers have the last say. If they don’t like what we offer, they don’t buy.
Invoking individual freedom is Agora’s main strategy to avoid accusations of false advertising. It does not always work. In 2021, several subsidiaries of the holding company were sued for spreading fake news about health and agreed to pay US$2 million in fines to US authorities.
In a column on the MoneyTimes website in 2019, where he describes a meeting with the president of Agora, Caio Mesquita said that at first he did not understand why Bonner insisted on the copywriting method used in more than 300 newsletters and books bearing the Agora imprint. According to Mesquita, the CEO of Agora said that the partnership would succeed only if the partners became experts in that method: ‘It’s all about the copy. It is essential that you master copywriting techniques to develop the business.’
Even without understanding it, the trio decided to follow this commandment. They learned not only to found new companies, such as Jolivi and Millipharma, to increase profits, but also that there are always people willing to pay to know more about ‘the secret cure for cancer hidden in the Gospel of Matthew’ or the ‘inside information about a nuclear disarmament treaty.’ As revealed by Mother Jones, Bonner was the first to capitalise on the strategy dubbed by the historian Rick Perlstein as ‘the monetization of paranoia.’
Empiricus followed suit in Brazil, first advertising and then becoming a partner of the Mare Clausum publishing company, owner of O Antagonista and the Crusoé magazine. In a live broadcast in 2020, Caio Mesquita makes clear that his company was interested in the O Antagonista readership:
What was our interest in O Antagonista? It was their readership, because we sell subscriptions, just like O Antagonista and Crusoé do. Our perception (…) was that we shared people, audience, and values. We believe in private enterprise, in capitalism, in freedom. These are our guiding values, and we sensed that in you too.
In the same video, Diogo Mainardi – one of the owners of O Antagonista – added that a further similarity between Empiricus and O Antagonista is that both are outsiders to the mainstream – a discourse imported from Agora and also used in the Jolivi newsletters.
The growth
The first evidence of the power of copywriting came one year after the meeting with Bill Bonner in São Paulo. On the eve of the 2014 presidential elections, a video narrated by Felipe Miranda made catastrophic predictions for the economy if Dilma Rousseff were to win and serve a second term.
‘With only a modest marketing budget, we made a nation-wide impact and disturbed President Rousseff with the campaign “The End of Brazil.” The outcome: in less than 12 months we doubled our subscriber base and established ourselves as the largest and most relevant financial publisher in the country,’ wrote Caio Mesquita.
That video was actually an adaptation of ‘The End of America,” released in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and containing predictions of an economic collapse during the Obama administration by Stansberry Research, one of Agora’s most controversial investment analysis brands, found guilty at least twice for fraud.
In an interview, Rodolfo Amstalden justified copying the ‘structure’ of the American video as an act of ‘intellectual humility.’ ‘We copied the aggressive digital marketing approach from these guys. Independent research is naturally bound to make pessimistic cases, whether sovereign or corporate, and extremely varied narratives,’ he said. ‘Together with Agora we started to study a lot about behavioural finance, how you activate the emotions of a person.’
The campaign was the subject of a lawsuit filed by PT (Brazil’s Labour Party) against Empiricus at the Superior Electoral Court, which was dismissed.
The sister company of Empiricus in the U.S., Stansberry Research, was condemned by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC decided that the Stransberry newsletters contained
nothing more than unsubstantiated speculation and outright lies fabricated to coax investors into paying Agora (or its subsidiaries) for subscriptions of purported inside information.
Empiricus also accumulates fines imposed by the Association of Capital Market Investment Analysis and Professionals (APIMED), by CVM (the Brazilian SEC) and by Procon-SP (São Paulo Bureau of Consumer Protection) for issuing analyses with profit guarantees, such as the famous Bettina case, which earned the group a very expensive fine.
The Brazilian company followed the recommendations by Agora even when defending itself before the official bodies. It claimed it was not an analysis company anymore, but an investment content publisher, in addition to a news website. But the claim was not accepted. In the case of Jolivi, the same case is made: they are not physicians and do not recommend treatments; they only publish health content.
Empiricus only changed its position two years ago, when it was acquired by BTG, the largest investment bank of Latin America. Jolivi, however, was left out of the deal and is no longer a part of Empiricus. Caio Mesquita left the “Health Empiricus” in June 2021, and Felipe Miranda had sold his share soon after the company was founded. Only Rodolfo Amstalden is still a partner: he manages the business and is the majority shareholder of both Jolivi and Millipharma. All three of them refused to give an interview.
Pseudoscience is good business
In thousands of newsletters, videos, and podcasts, Jolivi warns against drugs and promises to cure a variety of diseases with supplements – and among them are vitamins marketed by Millipharma. The list includes eyesight issues (‘He threw away his glasses and now discloses a natural secret to cure cataracts’), prostate (‘The lean prostate supplement combo’), and chronic pain (‘A technique that can remove 90% to 100% of your chronic pain in just 10 minutes a day’), among others.
Using data scraping techniques, we analysed the reach of this material. 1.5 million people follow the three companies in social media. Their YouTube videos have more than 52 million views. The health issues most frequently mentioned in the channel are pain (499 videos), cancer (415), diabetes (411) and Alzheimer’s disease (289).
The newsletters employ a more aggressive and direct tone. The ranking of the most cited diseases is practically the same, but an analysis of 1,220 e-mails sent by the company reveals an excessive use of the words “cure” (149 newsletters), “reverse”/”reversal” (292) and “supplements” (472).
We purchased two protocols offered by the company: “Alzheimer’s-Free Superbrain,” by the obstetrician and PhD in biomedicine Nelson Annunciato, and “Diabetes Protocol” by the surgeon Naif Thadeu, each selling for BRL 970.00. We soon started receiving innumerous WhatsApp message and calls offering discounts on the Vitaminas.com.vc website. The sender’s profile picture combines the logos of both companies.
Jolivi did not disclose what is their revenue from the sale of vitamins and other supplements. Hence there is no way to find out what they actually earn. We can, however, estimate their turnover by calculating their sales of content. If each of their 75,000 subscribers bought at least one protocol, averaging at BRL 970.00, their total sales would be BRL 71 million.
“Reversing” Alzheimer’s
Dr. Dale Bredesen, the inspiration for “The End of Alzheimer’s,” has authored controversial books where he claims (with no evidence to support it) that it is possible to reverse the disease and sells the ReCODE protocol for over US$ 1,300. In his latest work, “The First Survivors of Alzheimer’s,” seven patients give personal accounts about their cure. Jolivi follows the same line, using the father of Dr. Alain Dutra – an urologist who last year spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines based on messenger RNA that was unmasked by the Comprova Project – and the mother of Nelson Annunciato, PhD in biomedicine, as subjects of the purported cure.
‘In this kind of situation, it is not even possible to know if these people had a confirmed diagnosis,’ explains neurologist Elisa Resende of the Minas Gerais University Hospital and vice-coordinator of the Scientific Department of Cognitive Neurology and Aging of the Brazilian Academy of Neurology (ABN). Any personal account of healing has no value as scientific proof before it is reviewed by other researchers and published in a journal.
At the request of the Revista Questão de Ciência and Veja Saúde magazines, specialists in some of the disease “curable” by the Jolivi protocols analyzed the material. Little scientific support was found, amid a series of half-truths.
‘It is doubtless that lifestyle changes and general health measures play a significant role in maintaining cognitive functions, as observed in several studies. This is what we advise all people to do, including patients with Alzheimer’s,’ explains the neurologist Sonia Brucki. ‘But these actions do not cure the disease, they only mitigate its symptoms and may slow down the progression of the disease, which has many aspects still unexplained,’ she adds.
As it turns out, the material analysed carries over some findings about prevention to the treatment of the disease. For example, it is known that type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease, and that type 2 diabetes usually manifests itself after years of consuming too many calories, especially from refined carbohydrates, although the role of fats is gaining prominence.
Nelson Annunciato, the author of the “Alzheimer’s-Free Superbrain,” proposes that the reader adopts the ketogenic diet, which practically excludes carbohydrates altogether. He promises that this reduces the accumulation of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain (one of the physiological mechanisms of the disease) by up to 25% – a claim that has never even been tested in clinical studies. ‘Even the latest drugs, which decrease beta-amyloid levels, are not able to reverse symptoms,’ Resende points out.
The printed book sent to subscribers has a chapter devoted to ‘protagonists in the reversal of Alzheimer’s,’ Annunciato states that two of them, coconut oil and omega-3 fats, help reverse the symptoms for various reasons. One of them is that the disease is related to a ‘healthy fat deficiency.’ ‘This theory is under discussion, but it still has not been proved. Several studies involving omega-3 supplements have been undertaken, but they presented contradictory results and showed no relevant effects on symptoms,’ Resende comments. Regarding coconut oil, Brucki adds: ‘There are no studies of good quality and with robust results justifying the use of coconut oil.’
Imminent danger
The “Diabetes Protocol” is signed by Dr. Naif Thadeu, a plastic surgeon who promises on the Jolivi YouTube channel to reverse type 2 diabetes, another incurable disease, in 21 days. At the end of the protocol comes a surprise: the doctor claims that he is also able to reverse type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition affecting mainly children and adolescents. To achieve this, the subscriber receives a series of e-books prescribing behaviours such as following a ketogenic diet and practicing intermittent fasting (both also recommended against Alzheimer’s), as well as a supplement guide citing more than 15 substances, most of them untested against diabetes.
On several occasions, Thadeu treats type 1 and type 2 diabetes as the same thing. In one of the subscriber exclusive videos, he claims that ‘individuals suffering from type 1 diabetes may perfectly reverse their condition’ and that ‘in his clinical practice [he] deal[s] with many individuals with type 1 diabetes who need neither insulin nor medication to control blood sugar levels.’
Endocrinologist Carlos Eduardo Barra Couri, researcher at USP in Ribeirão Preto, singles out this passage as the most dangerous in the protocol. ‘Type 1 diabetes is a lethal disease if the patient does not take insulin, and the protocol prescribes an alternate treatment with vitamin D megadoses and psychiatric drugs used for alcoholism,’ he comments.
Another problem indicated by the specialists is the recommendation of generic treatments. Naif Thadeu makes suggestions both on dosing and frequency of supplements, and he also attacks drugs prescribed by specialists in diabetes.
‘Any recommendation of this kind should be individual, as there are variations in dosing according to gender, age, and comorbidity. A generic dose may bring risks,’ comments the nutritionist Natasha Albuquerque, preceptor at the Multiprofessional Residency in Diabetes Care at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). In addition to supplements lacking evidence, Thadeu recommends herbal medicines contraindicated for diabetes patients. ‘Momordica charantia and berberine can lead to hypoglycemia in these patients,’ Albuquerque points out.
Finally, another risk is the diet plan proposed by Thadeu, which practically eliminates all carbohydrates. In the first days, only raw vegetables and fruit are allowed. ‘A sudden change like this can cause ketoacidosis, a potentially fatal condition,’ Couri warns. In this condition, the organism produces an excess of ketones as a result of obtaining energy in the absence of glucose.
Exploring doubt
Jolivi’s course of action resembles those of other companies and entities created by physicians who gained notoriety during the COVID-19 pandemic and profited by promoting distrust of vaccines and endorsing treatments with no scientific proof.
‘These groups have a pattern. They harness the population’s distrust of the big pharma, throw in conspiracy theories such as the one saying that “Bill Gates wants to create a new form of population control” and mix it all together in a text that makes sense, is persuasive, and is shared by people you know. In the end, all they want is to sell a solution or a “natural,” “alternate” therapy. They profit from misinformation,’ described Fabio Malini, professor at the Espírito Santo Federal University and researcher on data science.
In a questionnaire sent to their press office, we asked the Empiricus trio and Daniel Amstalden, CEO of Jolivi, about the diabetes and Alzheimer’s reversal protocols. Only Amstalden answered. He replied that all free and paid content offered by Jolivi is based on technical literature published by reliable institutions. ‘All products, marketing campaigns, videos or sales letters always list the supporting research either in the text itself or in the footnotes. This is the backbone of our work. We never publish anything that is not supported by technical literature,’ he answered.
Regarding the health conditions mentioned in the questions, Amstalden sent links to five scientific papers. The CEO of Jolivi guaranteed that ‘the research that supports our content suggests remission or slowing down of disease progression, as well as improvement of symptoms for some conditions. These are exactly the same terms (slowing down, improvement of symptoms, remission etc.) used in our content.’
Actually, a quick glance at the Jolivi content reveals that they also adopt more aggressive terms whose meaning goes beyond those in the scientific studies, such as ‘reversal,’ ‘end of diabetes’ and ‘end of Alzheimer’s.’
Of all papers sent by Amstalden, only one is a randomised clinical study (i.e., based on the comparison of two or more therapies, with rigorous selection of participants and random assignment between groups), and none of them supports what is claimed in the texts. (Read his full reply here, in its original Portuguese).
Legal loopholes
The Jolivi material was sent to specialists in consumer protection law and health law, and medical authorities.
Lawyer Victor Durigan, Coordinator of Institutional Relations at Instituto Vero, explains that any professional who promises full efficacy for any treatment, disavows traditional treatments and/or offers other kinds of treatments may be prosecuted for charlatanism and faith healing – both federal crimes. Charlatanism is promoting any infallible cure; faith healing is prescribing, applying, or administering substances and treatments. ‘They are similar to swindling,’ says Durigan. ‘It is worth remembering that disinformation or spreading deceitful mass information is not yet officially defined as a crime,’ he explains.
Furthermore, the participation of medical doctors in these protocols may break at least three articles of the Code of Medical Ethics. They are part of Chapter XIII, about medical advertising:
- Article 112. Publicizing information on medical matters in a sensational, promotional, or untruthful manner.
- Article 113. Publicizing outside the medical community a treatment process or discovery whose scientific value is not yet expressly recognized by a competent authority.
- Article 114. Examining, diagnosing, or prescribing through any means of mass communication.
Agora and a physician were sued in the U.S. in 2001 because of a protocol that promised to reverse diabetes. The judge decided that consumers were harmed and that the advertisement was misleading, and sentenced the company to pay US$2 million in fines. The language of that protocol is very similar to what Jolivi offers in Brazil, although the supplements are different from the Brazilian version.
However, Jolivi claims to be a company selling not treatments, but content. ‘We always advise our readers and subscribers to never interrupt their current treatment and to discuss our publications with their health care professionals,’ Amstalden affirms.
On its website and in some health protocols, the company disclaims any responsibility for the treatments and supplements recommended in its newsletters, videos, and protocols. ‘Information contained in this newsletter is published solely for informational purposes and should not be deemed personal medical advice,’ says a footnote in several of the company’s newsletters and materials.
Lawyer Marina Paulelli of the Health Program of the Brazilian Consumer Protection Institute (IDEC) says that this disclaimer does not exempt the company from liability for failures in the services or products it sells. If the product is a promise, as in this case, failure in curing may be considered a product failure.
Paulelli also emphasises that all advertising and publicity must be truthful and not mislead the consumer or be abusive, which occurs when the content appeals to sensitive or emotional issues – a key attribute of the copywriting technique used by Jolivi. ‘This emotional aspect is especially important to determine if there is abuse in the information about health products and treatments. Legitimate, safe, and verified information is a basic right, but there are also ethical rules and specific regulations in this area that must be followed,’ she says.
On the conflicts of interest involved in recommending Millipharma vitamin supplements, Daniel Amstalden claims that ‘the suggestions of taking supplements made by the health professional do not indicate any specific brand or product,’ but he affirms that he founded Millipharma ‘so our subscribers and readers may purchase high-quality products with active ingredients approved by Anvisa.’
His answer is not wholly true. Although many passages emphasise the vitamin or substance contained in the supplement, in at least 351 newsletters there is direct reference to products on Vitaminas.com.vc.
The e-commerce website adopts a more moderate tone, using phrases such as ‘health improvement’ or ‘good for your heart.’ The newsletters, however, guarantee the supplements’ efficacy against diseases and conditions, which is unlawful according to the Anvisa rules. Anvisa informed our team that there are two ongoing investigations on Millipharma.
Regarding the claimed benefits, Amstalden affirms that ‘all content about dietary supplements is extracted from the same technical literature supporting our editorial content.’ In an interview by e-mail, Anvisa informed that it only monitors product advertisement. The promotion of treatment-related content, with no direct relation to advertisement, does not fall within the agency’s scope. The agency also explains that investigation about non-compliant advertisement of supplements usually originates from third-party reports or active search.
Our team tried several times to contact medical bodies such as the Brazilian Medical Association (AMB), the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM) and the São Paulo Medical Association (APM). At the time of writing, no reply was given on the actions of the physicians working as advisors for Jolivi and Vitaminas. We also tried to reach Agora by e-mail to clarify the reasons behind the partnership with Empiricus in Brazil, but no reply was received so far. Dr. Alain Dutra, Dr. Nelson Annunciato and Dr. Naif Thadeu were contacted at the e-mail informed on their professional websites, but without success.
The case presented in this story is a good example of how the market of false natural therapies works. Imbued with a maverick, “against the mainstream” ideology, Jolivi and hundreds of other companies shed doubt on medical treatments supported by studies and several years of use, leading their customers to abandon them and run risks in search of a definitive solution for chronic or incurable diseases. Through these companies’ strong digital presence, either by e-mail or social media, many Brazilians buy it.
Credits
- Research: Jaqueline Sordi, Silvia Lisboa & Chloé Pinheiro.
- Text: Silvia Lisboa & Chloé Pinheiro.
- Editing: Diogo Sponchiato, Jaqueline Sordi & Carlos Orsi.
- Additional editing: Michael Marshall
- Data science: Álvaro Justen.
This story was originally a product of the partnership between the Revista Questão de Ciência and Veja Saúde magazines, and is reprinted here with permission. It was supported by the Disarming Disinformation program of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and funded by the Instituto Serrapilheira. This program is a three-year global effort funded mainly by the Scripps Howard Fund.
