Truehope's day in court, Hulda Clark's appeals win, and a real-time harassment threat — January 25, 2003
This live radio interview captures three separate threads of Dr. Polevoy's work converging in real time, in his own words, on the same broadcast: a criminal case tied to EMPowerplus, a fresh appeals court win in the defamation suit against Hulda Clark's network, and — while the interview was airing — an active, escalating harassment campaign by Truman Tuck, complete with a described $1,500-per-donor fundraising scheme to pursue civil or criminal charges against him.
Warren opened by asking about a man with chronic schizophrenia who had stopped taking his prescribed medication in favor of EMPowerplus (referred to in the interview as "mPower Plus"), a supplement then under RCMP investigation, and had just been found not criminally responsible for a crime committed while off his medication.
Dr. Polevoy explained the case was already featured in Pig Pills, Inc., and noted the man reportedly still wanted to go back on the supplement even after the incident — with an estimated 5,000 people having tried it by that point.
Dr. Polevoy also detailed the "pig pills" origin story — the product's founders' claim that vitamins and minerals used to stop pigs from biting each other's tails and ears could similarly treat bipolar disorder and depression in humans — and noted the research protocol had already been rejected by both Canadian and American review boards on approximately 25–30 separate objections, even as the product remained legally available for sale in Canada.
Dr. Polevoy warned that a coalition including the Canadian Alliance and Bloc Québécois was pushing Bill C-420, natural health product legislation he argued would weaken Health Canada's ability to act on cases like Truehope's. The bill had passed second reading, with committee hearings scheduled over the following months.
Asked for an update on Hulda Clark, Dr. Polevoy recounted her background — a Canadian-born, US-credentialed "cancer researcher" operating a Tijuana clinic using what he described as a fake mail-order naturopathic diploma — and announced that, the week of the interview, a California superior court had ruled in his favor on appeal in the defamation suit against Clark and her network, sending the case back to the lower court to proceed toward damages.
In the interview's second half, Dr. Polevoy described an active harassment campaign then just 24 hours old. Truman Tuck — a repeat, unsuccessful political candidate from Belleville, Ontario, self-described as a "paralegal" though never having attended law school — had begun sending what Dr. Polevoy called "really nasty emails," threatening his medical license over his opposition to Bill C-420.
Dr. Polevoy described Tuck as operating roughly a dozen affiliated websites built on the same template, with a section devoted specifically to attacking him personally. Tuck, working with a Virginia-based operator named John Hamill (whose site promoted itself under a "Freedom of Natural Health" banner), was soliciting $1,500 per donor to fund either a civil suit or a criminal complaint against Dr. Polevoy.
Dr. Polevoy drew a direct line between this campaign and the earlier 2000 CPSO letter-writing campaign organized by Tim Bolen — confirming, live and unprompted, that this was the same Tim Bolen previously discussed on the same program — and noted that Tuck had aligned himself with Leo Reghier, identified on air as Hulda Clark's brother.
A caller from Vancouver raised concerns about weekend paid programming promoting vitamins and supplements on CKNW, prompting Dr. Polevoy to describe his earlier role in the removal of a similar program — Christine McPhee's Touch of Health — from Talk 640 in Toronto, after complaints that the show functioned as unlabeled paid programming rather than genuine health journalism.