Mannatech opening in South Africa Soon

[Mandrake]

Well Celia, Ambrotose would be good for dogs in much the same way as humans, by stimulating cellular communication and stimulating correct cell repair and regeneration.

However I am not a vet so I can't give you an answer based on veterinary experience.

I hope this answers your question.

[jpkoster]

Celia Venter-Ambrotose

Hello Celia.

Sorry for the late reply.

I have just got back from Mauritius.

Ambrotose has an amazing effect on animals.

I could send you the double-blind studies on email.

Contact me on info@jpkoster.com

[Dave A]

This is to advise posters in this thread that I have received a take-down notice of the content of this thread from Mannatech, as follows:

7/10/12

TO: (essentially me)

RE: Impermissible Use of Health Claims Attributed to Mannatech Products
http://www.theforumsa.co.za/forums/s...th-Africa-Soon

Dear: (essentially me),


Mannatech, Incorporated (?Mannatech?) has attempted to contact you on two separate occasions seeking your immediate assistance in removing statements from your website (identified above) which violate Mannatech policies in connection with claims about our nutritional products. Our records do not reflect you?ve made the requested changes to your website and contacted the undersigned regarding this matter.

Mannatech demands you immediately remove from your website any statement which (i) states, suggests or implies Mannatech nutritional products prevent, treat or cure disease, (ii) states, suggests or implies Mannatech nutritional products are a substitute for a doctor?s standard of care, and/or (iii) otherwise violates Mannatech?s Associate Policies & Procedures.

Please contact the undersigned at rmershawn@mannatech.com. Because of the serious nature of this issue, failure to contact the undersigned within three (3) business days from the receipt of this letter will result in Mannatech taking additional action to secure your compliance.

The removal of this type of impermissible information from the internet is of great importance to protect Mannatech?s right to conduct business. Mannatech is prepared to take legal action to secure your immediate compliance with this demand, including litigation seeking injunctive relief, damages and attorney?s fees as allowed under Texas law. It is our hope, however, that you now fully appreciate our concerns and will take prompt action to avoid escalating the matter further.

Respectfully,

The Mannatech Legal, Ethics and Compliance Department



Note: Nothing contained in this letter shall be construed as a waiver of any rights Mannatech, Incorporated has at law or in equity, all of which are expressly reserved.

My first response (11th July 2012):

Dear sir/madam,

1. I am unaware of previous attempts to contact myself or The Forum SA in this matter. Please advise how these attempts were made.
2. The Forum SA is a social media website that does not exercise pre-publication control of content published. Primary responsibility for the content of each post rests with the member publishing that post.
3. The Forum SA is guided by the principles of freedom of speech, but also acknowledges that the right to freedom of speech can be legitimately limited. Accordingly I acknowledge that as a moderator, I may be required to exercise post-publication editing, issuing of notices or other adjustments to content published on The Forum SA on occasion. However, any such addition, alteration or removal must be properly justified.
4. In order for me to properly assess your request, please indicate by reply the exact posts (each post is numbered) and contents (please copy and paste) that you wish to have removed, together with the legal foundation or your public interest cause for concern applicable in respect of each removal request.

Assuring you of my best attention.

Yours faithfully

(me).

Next contact from Mannatech:

7/20/12

TO: (essentially me)

RE: Impermissible Use of Health Claims Attributed to Mannatech Products http://www.theforumsa.co.za/forums/s...th-Africa-Soon

Dear: (essentially me),

A few days ago Mannatech, Incorporated ("Mannatech") contacted you requesting your immediate assistance in removing statements from your website (identified above) which violate Mannatech policies in connection with claims about our nutritional products. Our records do not reflect you''ve made the requested changes to your website and contacted the undersigned regarding this matter - this automated letter was generated accordingly.

Mannatech requests you immediately remove from your website any statement which (i) states, suggests or implies Mannatech nutritional products prevent, treat or cure disease, (ii) states, suggests or implies Mannatech nutritional products are a substitute for a doctor?s standard of care, and/or (iii) otherwise violates Mannatech''s Associate Policies & Procedures. We further request that you contact the undersigned at tijohnson@mannatech.com within five (5) business days from the receipt of this letter to (i) confirm the offending statements/representations have been removed from the website and (ii) confirm you will refrain from making such representations in connection with Mannatech nutritional products in the future.

The removal of this type of impermissible information from the internet is of great importance to protect Mannatech''s right to conduct business. Mannatech is prepared, if necessary, to take legal action to secure your immediate compliance with this demand, including litigation seeking injunctive relief, damages and attorney?s fees as allowed under Texas law. It is our hope, however, that you now fully appreciate our concerns and will take prompt action to avoid escalating the matter further.

If you have already complied with the original letter from Mannatech concerning this matter, please disregard this automated letter. You will be contacted regarding the next steps in the compliance process in the near future.

Respectfully,

The Mannatech Legal, Ethics and Compliance Department

Note: Nothing contained in this letter shall be construed as a waiver of any rights Mannatech, Incorporated has at law or in equity, all of which are expressly reserved.

My response (23rd July 2012):

Please find attached email sent on 11th July 2012 requesting specific information in respect of your request.

To date I have yet to receive a response to this communication from a Mannatech representative.

Please confirm receipt of this notice, and advise when I may expect the specific information required in order for me to assist.

Please also be advised that given the lack of response from Mannatech to date, I have published the content of your notices and my responses in the thread concerned to establish public record of these communications.

(me)

Please note that dates within the correspondence received from Mannatech is in the format mm/dd/yy

[IanF]

Wow an exciting thread.
I see they don't say anything about the business model and commissions paid.
Also if some of the members who posted about Mannatech could tell us if they know about not making medical claims it would help with the other side to this claim.
What are the odds of even getting a reply to this as it may just be a general email sent out to all websites about Mannatech?

[Dave A]

Wow an exciting thread.

Well, it certainly has got my interest now. It poses some absolutely fascinating questions.

[vieome]

Reading through this thread I have found no claims from the people promoting the product in this thread that " implies Mannatech nutritional products prevent, treat or cure disease, (ii) states, suggests or implies Mannatech nutritional products are a substitute for a doctor?s standard of care, and/or (iii) otherwise violates Mannatech?s Associate Policies & Procedures. "

http://www.raysahelian.com/glyconutrients.html

Extract
I start suspecting that there is something not right about the promotion of a product - such as glyconutrients - when the meaning of the word is so ambiguous, and the word is created by a company that sells through multilevel marketing channels. There is little mentioned in the legitimate medical literature regarding the term glyconutrients, yet the internet abounds with websites promoting its virtues.
This article discusses the merits or lack thereof of "glyconutrient" products sold by Mannatech -- and other companies that offer such products for sale -- that supposedly have 'eight essential sugars.' There are many types of sugar compounds -- for instance glucosamine, glycoproteins, glycolipids, fructooligosaccharides, arabinogalactans - that have been shown to have a role to play in health and I have articles on some of these sugar-related substances that review the research. I would rather use these terms rather than the mishmosh term 'glyconutrients.' I am a strong believer in the benefits of various dietary supplements including sugar compounds, I just want to call them by their proper, scientifically accepted names.

[vieome]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannatech

[AndyD]

This is interesting.
One big problem I've always had when checking out any MLM businesses is finding genuine info. You run a standard google search and usually the top 200 or more results returned are the same sales crap that's copy/pasted from the main company website by thousands of different resellers into their own sites and blogs. You've got to then copy and paste swathes of the reoccuring text into a new google search request along with some advanced search operators in order to filter out the rubbish and find some results with genuine discussion about the pros and cons, experiances of real people both good and bad or even complaints about the company. Sometimes the first advanced search still ends up swamped and an even more refined search is necessary.

This obviously means that the genuine info isn't accessible to the average google user and it's struck me on several occasions that this is no accident. I think it's part of the game by MLM companies to make sure that threads that aren't complimentary about the product or business are buried so deep by SEO that they're effectively not there.

Once in a while you'll find a genuine discussion on a well SEO'd forum in a geographical location that's not swamped with resellers blogs. It comes up in the first page of google results.... What then?? Well, if I were the company, the way I'd go about it is to issue take-down notices to that forum on whatever legal grounds might sound feasible. Copyright infringement might work in certain circumstances....medical or safety grounds would work equally well in other instances perhaps....who knows, whatever it takes.

Just a thought from the resident cynic.

[Dave A]

Reading through this thread I have found no claims from the people promoting the product in this thread that " implies Mannatech nutritional products prevent, treat or cure disease, (ii) states, suggests or implies Mannatech nutritional products are a substitute for a doctor?s standard of care, and/or (iii) otherwise violates Mannatech?s Associate Policies & Procedures. "

I'm leaving it up to Mannatech to identify the specific content they deem crosses the line, and to provide specific justification. The posts by Mandrake pose a particularly interesting question and I'm quite curious to hear Mannatech's argument.

Obviously there's a lot of content that shouldn't pose a problem at all, so a total take-down is out of the question.

[Martinco]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannatech

This makes very interesting reading

[Martinco]

Hi Dave,

Anything new on this ?

[Dave A]

Not so far. In fact at this point I believe Mannatech can be categorised as "unresponsive".

[Dave A]

Having received yet another take-down notice, I am trying a different avenue to get a response from Mannatech. The following has been sent to them via their "contact us" form on their website.

I am receiving a steady stream of take-down notices, allegedly from Mannatech. However, no-one has responded to my replies on the issue and the notices keep coming.

Analysis of the notices reveals a number of technical flaws in the sending protocol, so I was wondering whether these mails are actually just spam.

Is there a tijohnson@mannatech.com at Mannatech?
If yes, why is he/she not responding to my emails?

Your assistance or feedback would be much appreciated.

[AndyD]

Given the fact this company has already been through the legal wringer over medical claims, if they're concerns about this thread were genuinely 'Impermissible Use of Health Claims Attributed to Mannatech Products ' I'm pretty sure they'd be more responsive to your inquiries.

I still don't see it, I think it's a brand image protection exercise.

[Dave A]

I think it's a brand image protection exercise.

Well at this rate, they're doing it wrong