How business, doctors and journalists prey on your food anxieties I

The aloe king
poited that a Fore%~er Liring distribuuon
point in Hong Kong was so
cro«'ded police had to line up distriburors
on fire escapes . Foreier Li\ing nov
sells its products in 40 countries .
He has parlayed thr cash flood frorn
Fore~er Lning into a pile of assets that
includes a 120,00D-acre ranch north
of Phoenix <strong>and</strong> a string of hotels <strong>and</strong>
resort properties-one is Southfork
Ranch, setting for the ~show Dallas .
Maughan bought Southfork three
vears ago <strong>and</strong> operates it as a catering
hall <strong>and</strong> tourist attraction . He spent
S2 million restoring Robert Louis
Stevenson's home in Western Samoa,
nhere Maughan served as aI'v[ormon
missionare in the earlv 1960s . The
house is run by a foundation created
by Maughan <strong>and</strong> friends .
That aloe has been eood to
Maughan is beyond dispute . <strong>How</strong>
good is it for the people n'ho pav
55 .95 for a tube of his toothpaste?
[n 1992 Fore~er Livin¢ settled
charges brought by the Texas state
attornev general's office <strong>and</strong> took off
the air a Spanish-banguage infomercial
that claimed aloe products could control
diabetes . His wrist slapped,
Maughan is careful to avoid specific
health claims in promotion . Yet in a
recent interview he recited anecdotes
about the supposed therapeutic ef-
Forever tiving Products Internatlonal Pcunder Rex Maughan, with alce plants fects of drinking aloe, about relief for
His wrist slapped, Maughan is wreful to be vague on aloe's health benefits . ulcer sut}crers <strong>and</strong> Eor kidney patients
keeps 48 % of the S 14 .95 retail price of
an aloe gel jug . The manager %rho
recruitedhergetsabonusof 13°,5ofthe
retail price from :ite compmv . The
manager's percentage shrinks as the
salesperson sells more cases ; hokceacr,
the salesperson <strong>and</strong> manager also get
bonuses based on sales from anv new
recruits brought in by the salesperson .
But Maughan adds vet more lavers
ofprofit . The stut7 Fore'er LiN °ingsdls
is p rocessed <strong>and</strong> packaged by :~loe Y'era
of :Arnerica, a second Maughan companv
. This M turn buBs all of its raw
material from .l-taughan's own aloe
%era plantations, which corer 5,000
acres in south Tesas, Mexico <strong>and</strong> tite
Dominican Repttblic .
;A[aughan duints lie moved close to
S I billion f ret-ail N °alue ! worth of titese
supposedhdierapeutic products last
Near . His personal take must ha%-e
becu in the tens of millions of dollars .
Serenteen vearsago Rex Maughan
n'.ts an executiN e at Del Webb Corp .,
the Piioenix-based real estate developer,
when friends dragged him to
seminars pitching muLtile%°el marketing
schemes . Coneerted, Maughan
became a multile%'eI distributor of
gasoline additives but shifted gears
when a friend told him about a firm
that sold aloe juice door-to-door .
itlaughan found a company to make
an aloe juice product <strong>and</strong> invited
friends <strong>and</strong> <strong>business</strong> contacts to a
series of 1veekly organizational meetings
to start building up a sales force,
Noticing that Latin <strong>and</strong>Asian immigrants
were among Forerer Living's
best customers <strong>and</strong> salespeople,
~b[aughan took his products ocerseas .
The companv entcred Japan <strong>and</strong> Ausnaliain
1983, Hong Kong, Tan~an <strong>and</strong>
Mezico soon a$er . The South China
:1larnitq7 Post ne%rspaper recently rewho
needed fewer diah-sis treaunents .
"Our <strong>doctors</strong>," says Maughan, "tell us
aloe vera helps our bodies perform like
they are supposed to ."
J-Saughan is vague about the health
benefits of aloe, but Dr . Victor Herbert
is not. A professor of medicine at
New York's Mount Sinai School of
Medicine <strong>and</strong> coauthor of uhe recent
book TFie Vitamin Pazshcrs, Herbert
says ofaloe : "It's a pure scam . Drinking
aloe gel accomplishes nothing . It
is used by veterinarians to induce
diarrhea in se~'erely constipated horses,
but there is no reason for humans
to drink it ." Bee pollen? "It's dangerous,"
Dr . Herbert says . "It can kill
people who are allergic to it ."
Other <strong>doctors</strong> FoPBes talked with
were less emphatic about aloe, most
conceding there were no studies that
would definiti~elv prove or disprove
some of the claims made for it . That
there are no such reputable studies is
not a problem for Rex NIaughan . =
100
204G573357 Forbes . August 14, 1995
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/agf97d00/pdf