During last night's Republican presidential debate, moderator Carl Quintanilla asked Ben Carson about his association with the nutritional supplement company Mannatech.
Quintanilla: "There is a company called Mannatech, a maker of nutritional supplements, with which you had a 10-year relationship. They offered claims that they could cure autism, cancer. They paid $7 million to settle a deceptive marketing lawsuit in Texas. And yet your involvement continued. Why?"
Carson: "Well, that's easy to answer. I didn't have an involvement with them. That is total propaganda. And that is what happens in our society. Total propaganda."
what eye thynk: Benefit of the doubt and all, I'm still thinking so far, so good at this point.
Carson continued: "I did a couple of speeches for them, I do speeches for other people, they were paid speeches. It is absolutely absurd to say that I had any kind of relationship with them. Do I take the product? Yes, I think it's a good product."
He began losing me here. Doing "a couple of speeches for them" sounds like he had at least some kind of relationship--it wasn't a one-shot and out deal. At the very least, it made me curious. So...
The Truth:
The obvious next step was to see if those "paid speeches" were recorded anywhere and what they said: Voila!
I found a one minute video, (well someone else found it--I just found what they found. Ain't the Internet great?) that seems to put "lie" to Mr. Carson's claim of innocent non-involvement.
For those who can't watch video, it says:
First screen, text: "Presidential candidate Ben Carson's campaign said he was a paid speaker for Mannatech, a company that makes nutritional supplements. The campaign said he was not a paid endorser of the company, which faced legal problems over claims that its supplements cure cancer and other diseases."
Next screen, text: "But in another potential lie, highlighted in this excerpt from a 2011 speech at a Mannatech event, Mr. Carson says the company helped fund an endowed position honoring him at Johns Hopkins Medicine."
This is followed by video of Mr. Carson with a microphone in hand. His words:
"It's been a few years since I was here before, and you, uh, may remember that, uh, I said, you know, of all the various honors and accolades that I've gotten, almost all of them--but the one thing I didn't have was an endowed chair. Well, three years ago, I had an endowed chair bestowed upon me and, uh, it requires $2.5 million to do an endowed chair. And I'm proud to say that part of that $2.5 million came from Mannatech."
Final screen, text: "Carson's campaign and Mannatech say there was no contribution. Johns Hopkins Medicine says its policy is not to comment on donors."
You can watch the video here
The speech is dated 2011. Mr. Carson says his endowed chair was created three years earlier which would put it in 2008, right in the middle of the state of Texas' lawsuit against Mannatech. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, then State Attorney General Greg Abbott "claimed the company made or allowed associates to make 'illegal' market claims that its products could cure or treat cancer, autism, Down Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and many other serious ills."
Remember, Ben Carson is a doctor with an actual M.D. behind his name. And he admits to ingesting the product: "Yes, I think it's a good product," which makes me wonder which disease he believes he is treating himself for. Cancer? Cystic fibrosis? Down Syndrome?
Mr. Carson comes across as a mild-mannered, polite man; but there is a homeopathic philosophy that it's the quiet ones you really need to be on guard against. Or, as Thomas Clay of AmericanNewsX wrote, "Tell me with whom you walk and I will tell you who you are."
M'eye Verdict:
The real question is, which Ben Carson statement is the lie? Either he and his campaign are lying that he had no relatioship with Mannatech or Mr. Carson was lying during his recorded speech that the nutritional supplement company had at least partially funding an endowed chair in his name. Was there involvement or no? Did money exchange hands for an endowed chair or no? They can't both be true.
I may not be able to identify the lie, but there obviously is a lie. For that, Ben Carson earns 4 Gops. I was going to give him a fifth one simply for being stupid enough to actually ingest this c**p. But then, given his record on the issue, that might be a lie too...or maybe it's the truth...or...
Which is the best explanation I can come up with for deciding that Mr. Carson deserves 4 1/2 out of 5 Gops.
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