Whether Tahitian noni fruit is superior to Hawaiian noni fruit may be a matter of taste, but assertions that the Tahitian variety is radioactive has become a matter of cyber law.
In the first claim of Internet libel in Utah, the world's largest distributor of Tahitian noni filed suit in U.S. District Court in Utah last week after its product was labeled unsafe on a popular health-related Web site.Morinda Inc., a Provo-based multilevel marketing company that distributes a food supplement made from the Tahitian noni, a small fruit, said it had been the victim of high-tech "commercial disparagement."
"The heart of what you've got here is a young, fast-growing company with a good, legitimate product that has become the victim of Internet defamation," said Morinda attorney William Fillmore. "Some unscrupulous competitor has chosen to commit Internet fraud against Morinda in a very cowardly manner."
Named as defendants were Access Nevada Inc., an Internet service provider; Health Tech Inc., sponsor of the Health Tech home page; Herb's Herbs of Hawaii,
which sells capsules containing powder extracted from Hawaiian noni; and 10 "John Does."Noni, also called nonu, is a potato-size fruit that has been cultivated by Polynesian cultures and in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean for centuries as a source of food and herbal medicine.
Morinda said it had secured exclusive rights through the Ministry of Agriculture in Tahiti to harvest and export Tahitian noni throughout the world. It uses juice from the fruit in a food supplement sold under the trademark "Tahitian Noni."
The product is a safe, healthy source of noni, Fillmore said. He added that extensive testing by independent laboratories has shown it free from radiation.
However, up until the lawsuit was filed, Health Tech's home page offered a link to a "frightening article" that questioned the safety of Tahitian noni and promoted alternative, Hawaiian sources of the fruit extract, including Herb's Herbs.
Titled "French Polynesia: A Nuclear Paradise in the South Pacific" by "E. Chamberland, M.D., Ph.D," the article suggested that Tahitian noni is unsafe because of the lingering effects of nuclear bomb tests conducted by the French government in the 1960s.
"To this day, the United States has refused to take a stand against the terrible inhumanity committed with impunity by the French in the South Pacific," the article said.
"It may be a curious form of divine justice that tainted Tahitian fruit is now making its way to the U.S., where the sons and daughters of senators and congressmen may unknowingly be irradiating their internal organs with the fallout from some 30 years of nuclear madness."
The author recommended "that all importation of noni fruit from Polynesia should be discontinued." At the same time, he endorsed "several alternatives for excellent certified organic noni that's produced in the United States." Attached were the addresses of Herb's Herbs and another Hawaiian company.
Access Nevada and Health Tech officials could not be reached for comment. But the Health Tech home-page link to the noni topic on Friday informed readers that Health Tech itself had apparently been duped.
"Because this report came from what had always been a very credible information source, we posted it to the Web without a physical verification of the information. It now seems that both our source and us were the victim of some kind of hoax. Apparently Dr. Cumberland (sic) is nonexistent and the information contained in the report was fabricated," Health Tech said. It also apologized to Morinda.
In a telephone interview from his Kula, Hawaii office, Herb's Herbs owner Herbert Moniz told the Deseret News he didn't know who was responsible for the Chamberland article.
"We don't know Chamberland. We cannot control what other people do," Moniz said. "Does Chamberland exist? I don't know."
He also said he has sent letters to all of his distributors warning them not to say anything disparaging about Morinda or Tahitian noni.
"We don't throw stones at nobody," he said. "We love our noni. We believe it's a healing noni. We have great respect for our noni. But the main thing is, if it works for you, liquid or powder, then God bless you."
Fillmore said Morinda intends to pursue the lawsuit despite the actions taken by Moniz and Health Tech because "we want to find out who's behind this defamation."
After months of investigation, Fillmore said Morinda is convinced that Chamberland is the alias of "some unscrupulous competitor" who used the article as a "deceptive vehicle for attacking Morinda and its product."
Hinting at suspects, the suit said, "The veneer of scientific objectivity in which the authors of the false article attempt to cloak their attack becomes transparent when Morinda's Tahitian Noni is attacked by name and defendant Herb's Herbs (its competitor) is identified, again by name, as a source of `safe' and `high quality certified organic noni in capsule form.' "
Morinda said the Internet defendants had provided "legitimacy" and "currency" to the false article by posting it on their Web page and claiming it was "news just in from from medical researcher E. Cham-ber-land, M.D., Ph.D."
According to Fillmore, the lawsuit may alert others to the a growing problem of information superhiwaymen.
"There are evolving laws governing what can and cannot be done, but because it's still in such an evolutionary state, we find ourselves in kind of a frontier," Fillmore said. "This is exactly the kind of thing the business community needs to regulate. At some point, legitimate companies will say, `We can't tolerate this.' "
The article was especially damaging to Morinda because many of its independent distributors use the Internet and specific Web sites to market its product and recruit other distributors, the suit said. Web surfers coming across the article have questioned the safety of the product, the suit said.
"It is impossible to determine the extent to which this material has been copied and distributed via electronic or non-electronic means to others," Morinda said.