Selling the Dream by Jane Marie

Author:Jane Marie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2024-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

7 From Prophets to Profiteers

In the spring of 2020, amid the backdrop of panic surrounding the emerging coronavirus pandemic, casual users of social media may have noticed a new type of post appearing in their feeds:

This is to inform us all that the pH for corona virus varies from 5.5 to 8.5…. All we need to do, to beat coronavirus, we need to take more of an alkaline foods that are above the above pH level of the Virus. Some of which are: Lemon… Lime… Tangerine… Orange… #covid

The above is from a real post shared by a distributor for dōTERRA, an extremely popular MLM based in Utah that produces and markets essential oils and proprietary essential oil blends for use in homeopathic remedies and aromatherapy.1 This is purely anecdotal, but chances are if you’ve seen an MLM product on store shelves or at an earth mother’s house, it’s from dōTERRA. Despite its being against company policy to sell its products at traditional retail outlets, you’ll find their oil collections at health spas, crystal shops, and alternative-medicine clinics, adding an air of legitimacy to the brand. But make no mistake, dōTERRA is an MLM.

Although dōTERRA got its start marketing its oils simply as more “pure” than its competitors’, over the past few years distributors have begun making increasingly bold, often downright bogus, claims about their health benefits. The government has taken notice.

Given the difficulty the Amway decision created, the Feds in recent years have gone after MLMs less for being pyramid schemes and more for making false claims. During the Ebola outbreak of 2014, the FTC issued dōTERRA a warning after complaints rolled in that certain distributors were advertising that dōTERRA oils could combat the disease (even though, it should be noted, there is still currently no approved cure for it). “Oregano is effective in inactivating MNV (non-enveloped murine norovirus) within 1 hour of exposure,” wrote one dōTERRA distributor on social media. “Some of the primary uses for oregano include athlete’s foot, candida, canker sores, Ebola virus, intestinal parasites, MRSA, ringworm, staph infection, viral infections, warts, and whooping cough.”2

It might be soothing to think an oil derived from plants you can grow in any home herb garden could cure serious disease, but the suggestion is potentially deadly. Not only might it lead patients to avoid legitimate and successful treatments for the false hope found in a bottle of oily perfume, but the oils can cause serious harm to the body. Over the past twenty years poison control centers across the country have seen a steep rise in calls regarding essential oils. In Tennessee, the number doubled between 2011 and 2016, and most calls were regarding poisonings in children. In 2018, the state of Georgia received a record-breaking one thousand calls involving essential oils.3 Not only can they cause skin irritation, but if ingested, as a lot of essential oil companies recommend, many popular oils, including eucalyptus, tea tree, camphor, thyme, and wintergreen, are toxic to humans. The list of what could

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