The Truth About Hoodia, 60 Minutes, and the BBC Reports
I’ve been researching and writing about hoodia supplements for over a year now and I can’t believe I haven’t written an article about hoodia, 60 minutes, and the BBC reports. What sparked my interest in finally writing this story was because I was fed up with all the bogus 60 minutes and BBC endorsements of specific hoodia diet pills.
It is all too common to see the words, “Endorsed by” or “As featured on” and then see the CBS 60 Minutes logo and the BBC logo on websites that are promoting or selling hoodia supplements. This makes people who are shopping for hoodia supplements believe that the products on these websites have been endorsed by 60 Minutes and the BBC. The truth is these two media companies never mentioned a specific hoodia diet pill, tested or endorsed one.
Leslie Stahl, a 60 Minutes reporter, featured a story on hoodia on November 21, 2004. Ms. Stahl traveled to the Kalahari Desert, where the hoodia gordonii plant is grown in the wild, and actually ate a small piece of the plant. She said after eating the plant she noticed a marked appetite suppressant quality. She said she wasn’t hungry all day. Ms. Stahl concluded that natural hoodia probably worked as an appetite suppressant.
That’s all she said about hoodia. 60 minutes did not endorse any specific hoodia supplement. The CBS program didn’t even feature a hoodia supplement to begin with! You would never know this unless you actually read the transcripts of the 60 minutes program yourself. Unfortunately, all too many hoodia sellers have capitalized on this story and have twisted it to their advantage to sell more of their products.
In regards to the BBC, they did a documentary on hoodia in 2003. BBC correspondent, Tom Mangold, also took a trip to the Kalahari Desert to test the hoodia gordonii plant on his own appetite. Mangold and his camera man both took a small piece of the hoodia plant and ate it. They both reported they, “did not even think about food” for the remainder of the day. What was even more amazing about their report was they said they weren’t hungry for breakfast the following day and their appetite at lunch was still virtually nonexistent.
Just like the hoodia 60 Minutes report, Mangold’s BBC report did not involve the testing of any hoodia products and it did not endorse a particular hoodia diet pill. The reports by Stahl and Mangold were on the plant itself, not supplements. Neither tried a hoodia product or mentioned a specific brand of hoodia supplement.
The next time you visit a website promoting or selling a hoodia supplement that claims their product was featured or endorsed by 60 Minutes and the BBC, immediately click to another website. Any company that is willing to misrepresent a media story so that it works to their advantage so they can sell more of their products obviously isn’t honest. If they aren’t willing to be honest about something as simple as the media coverage of hoodia on 60 Minutes and the BBC, how honest do you really think they are about the quality and authenticity of the product they are selling?
