FreeLife

 

 

   In 1995, cofounders Ray Faltinsky and Kevin Fournier, along with a group of investors including Anson Beard of Morgan Stanley/Dean Witter, launched FreeLife International as a direct sales company based on Ray Faltinsky's prior research on that business model.As FreeLife grew, it was listed in 2000 in Inc. 500's List of Fastest Growing Businesses. FreeLife has since grown to include operations in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Brunei, Canada, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Hong Kong, Macau, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Singapore, St. Kitts/Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Martin/St. Maarten, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, and the United States.

 

Products

FreeLife’s product line initially consisted of nutritional supplements, weight loss products, shampoo and personal care products. FreeLife has since changed its product lines, and now focuses on a juice made from goji (Lycium barbarum) and sold under the product name Himalayan Goji Juice, and a newer product named GoChi.
FreeLife operates as an international multi-level marketing company where sale of a consumer products take place person-to-person, away from a fixed retail location, or also known as a direct selling company. These products are marketed to customers by independent salespeople who are paid commissions on their sales and the sales of their downline. The company requires those marketing its products to follow certain guidelines set by the company.
Freelife International is a member of the Direct Selling Association (DSA).^. The DSA is the national trade association of the leading firms that manufacture and distribute goods and services sold directly to consumers

 

Anticancer claims

 

FreeLife's former spokesperson, Earl Mindell, has made several unfounded claims about health benefits of the company's brand of goji juice, including that it has anticancer and anti-aging properties. Mindell's involvement with FreeLife was subject of a CBC hidden camera investigation in January 2007, questioning the unsupported anticancer properties of Himalayan Goji Juice and validity of Mindell's Ph.D. qualification (which was later proved invalid and removed from Mindell's biography on the FreeLife website).
Claims that undetermined constituents of goji may have a beneficial effect on cancer derive from preliminary evidence of cancer cell inhibition in vitro (i.e. in a dish) There is no scientific evidence such effects occur in vivo (i.e. when consumed). H. Leon Bradlow, coauthor of a study that Mindell cites as support for this anticancer claim,says that his original research does not, in fact, prove that goji has any anticancer properties.