medicine man? www.lifegarden.net

[HILTON]

   i happen to know quite a bit about this guy. he has no native american heritage and i'm pretty sure that he is not really a medicne man. he has this web business and is capitalizing on this claim. does anybody really care? is there some agency that investigates possible false claims?

[Barnaby_McEwan]

Hello and welcome to NAFPS.

Google doesn't seem to have heard of a master herbalist called Joshua Wellwood, who I suggest is imaginary. His achievements certainly are: he could make a good living as an Ayurvedic or TCM doctor if he'd really studied those subjects. Instead someone is hawking expensive tubs of pills in a pyramid schemes:

http://youwillbeshocked.net/scgi-bin/d.cgi/t365/greenlife.html

Can You Really Earn Money?

You sure can! Ultra International's 3x4 force-filled matrix is unlike anything else in the home based business industry.

You simply purchase *Green Life Super Foods for your own personal use and then refer just 3 customers to purchase it directly from the company for their own personal use.

3x4 Matrix Commissions:

You tell 3   3
They tell 3   9
They each tell 3   27
They each tell 3   81
total customers    120
Depending on how much everyone orders your monthly income would be $447.50 - $2,686.50!

 

According to whois.schlund.info, lifegarden.net is registered by one Ryan Rampton:

registrant-firstname:            Ryan
registrant-lastname:             Rampton
registrant-street1:              2403 W 1700 S
registrant-pcode:                84075
registrant-state:                UT
registrant-city:                 Syracuse
registrant-ccode:                US
registrant-phone:                +1.8013096219
registrant-email:                ryan@gtext.us

Rampton operates a photography studio at the same address:

http://ramptonphoto.com/aboutus.html

Maybe Rampton is behind lifegarden.net, maybe he just set up the site for whoever's making the money. However there is no way that this enterprise has anything to do with any respected native person, medicine man or not. There are several prominent frauds in that part of the world, for example James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney (search the forum). Maybe the site's operator paid one of these frauds for some kind of weekend workshop and was told he was a medicine man at the end of it.

What can you tell us about this site and its operator(s)?

[educatedindian]

That's an interesting twist, saying it was your great grandpa that was the white shaman/medicine man/adopted Indian. Such a thing would have been all over the history books. But the only sites I found mentioning Woodcook are the ads for Lifegarden.

There is a site mentioning a photographer named Ryan Rampton living in China taking photos of infants with cleft palates. The site is http://chinaryan.blogspot.com/

Yes, that's the real web address. Stuff this strange you can't make up. Near the bottom you can see Rampton in some of the photos.

Another site mentions him as being a Mormon who did his year of missionary service in Taiwan.
http://www.mission.net/taiwan/kaohsiung/sendemail.php?uID=169800

Of course it's possible there could be two Ryan Ramptons who are photographers. The one Barnaby found is in Syracuse and then South Syracuse Utah, near Salt Lake City. The one I found is in Sandy Utah, closer to Ogden. There looks to be less than an hours drive between the two addresses.

Hard to tell from the photos if they are different people, or the same person at different ages.

The wife of Ryan Rampton (or *one of the* Ryan Ramptons), Jessica Rampton has her own line of nutrition products, with Ryan endorsing them on the site as an "unbiased testimonial".
http://www.upliftnutrition.com/catalog/information.php?info_id=11

Their company is called Uplift Natural Energy, with an angel's halo in their logo!

Actual slogan, "Get The Devil Out Of Your Energy Drink!"

There are agencies that investigate fraudulent medical and pharmaceutical claims about products. The fact that he makes up a false name, a false history about the product and seemingly conceals his true identity would all be of interest to them.

Hilton, do you know of anyone who has been harmed by these products? That's the most important question.

[HILTON]

What type of information would be helpful?   He was investigated by Department of Professional Licensing a year or so ago for handing out business cards that said "DR. JOSHUA C. WOODCOOK" but the investigation fell through because none of his "patients" would cooperate with DOPL.  He is married to Rampton's sister and they live in the same city.  It seems that a lot of the testimonials on the website are friends and family.  Joshuas brother, Bart, is big time into all of the multi level marketing.  Josh's ex wife, who is was married to for about 9 years, never heard of any thing about any Dr. Curry or anything in the whole time they were married.  She knew all of the grandma's, Aunts, etc., and no one else was into herbs.  She never heard about any Native american ancestry, they were told to have had german and scottish background.  I know he doesn't "work" and so he doesn't pay any child support.  He was interested in taking a Chinese Medical course many years back, but unknown if he ever did.  Is any of this helpful?

[Barnaby_McEwan]

Oh, Woodcook. I don't know where I got Wellwood from. Must remember "coffee before computer" next time. These people are selling pills, not ceremonies, and evoking tacky stereotypes about Native people to do it. That's low but it's a bit different from our usual focus.

As I understand things, there is quite rightly no regulatory agency which examines claims about being a medicine man: that would be completely preposterous. This allows unscrupulous people to make unverifiable claims about being a "Native American" this or that, playing on people's ignorance of the way native communities work. If a claim is made about a specific nation then contact that nation's tribal government; there's information on the forum about how to do that. Otherwise I think your best bet is to stay in touch with state or federal regulatory agencies, as appropriate, about the health and marketing claims these people are making.

[educatedindian]

The information you gave us is helpful. It tells us that Woodcook is the person in question and Rampton's name registered on the site doesn't necessarily mean he's otherwise involved, besides having a brother in law who is less than truthful.

Have you or people you know lost money or had their health injured by these products? If so, their testimony to the govt agencies should be enough to get an investigation and hopefully a case built against him. If the injuries or financial losses were bad enough ask a lawyer about a civil case. From what I can tell, the products just seem to be vitamins and altmed mixtures not too different from what's in many health supplements. The main danger might be if they are making false claims and people are not getting proper treatment instead.