NAFT Countries Cooperate Against Transnational Fraud in Cancer Treatment

On February 6, 2003, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in a law enforcement actions coordinated with the U.S. partners in NAFTA, Canada and Mexico, brought a complaint against Canadian and British corporations and individuals for falsely claiming they could treat cancer by using an electromagnetic device to kill cancer cells. On February 11, 2003, the U.S. District Court issued an injunction prohibiting the false and misleading claims, closing the Web site, and freezing the U.S. assets of the defendants. The injunction ordered the defendant to disable the company’s website, to post a notice of the lawsuit on the website, to suspend the company’s domain names. In addition, the court froze the assets of CSCT, Inc., ordered the repatriation of foreign assets, and expedited the discovery of the existence and location of assets. Simultaneously, Mexican officials in COFPRIS (part of Secretaria de Salud) inspected the clinic in Tijuana and found that the defendants were violating Mexican law by using a treatment in violation. The complaint alleges that the defendants’ have falsely claimed that the “Zoetron Therapy” or “Cell Specific Cancer Therapy” could be used effectively against several types of cancers, including breast, lung, brain, and liver cancers. The claims were that there magnetic therapy works because cancer cells supposedly contain more iron than normal cells. In addition, the claims were that, by using a pulsed magnetic field, their Zoetron Therapy caused this extra and false promoted the Zoetron Therapy as an alternative to traditional cancer therapies, such as chemotherapy, which harm both cancerous and health cells. When consumers left the CSCT clinic and consulted with their health care providers at home, they usually learned that the Zoetron Therapy had not actually bettered their condition. Instead, they learned their condition had deteriorated. The FTC alleged that in some cases the patient’s condition had deteriorated so much that they could not be treated effectively by other means and the patient died soon after leaving the CSCT clinic.