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BEVERLY, Mass., Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Donald Barrett, infomercial marketing pioneer and founder of Direct Marketing Concepts, Inc. and ITV Direct, Inc., announced today that he has filed an appeal of last week's decision by a federal judge, ordering him to pay $48.2 million for claims brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The appeal was filed on Friday, August 14, 2009, in the United States District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Much misinformation has been generated about Mr. Barrett and his work in the aftermath of the ruling. In response, Mr. Barrett immediately created www.donaldbarrettblog.com to correct that misinformation and further apprise the public of the real issues swirling around the natural supplements industry.

Mr. Barrett continues to maintain the legal right to promote natural supplements via infomercials and other media. He currently has over 20 infomercials on television that are unaffected by the current ruling, and have gone undisputed by the FTC.

Mr. Barrett's lawyers, Peter Brooks and Christopher Robertson in the Boston office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, call the large judgment legally erroneous. "It is based on a mathematical formula that purports to reimburse allegedly deceived customers. What makes it so disproportionate is that not one single consumer complaint was ever introduced by the FTC to the Court in which a consumer claimed to be misled by the infomercials in question," said Robertson.

"Moreover, the court did not find any of the infomercials to be false or misleading, but only lacking the scientific support that is required before a health claim can be made.

Mr. Robertson further noted that the government allowed one of the subject infomercials to run for 18 months before raising any objection. "Once they did raise an objection, Mr. Barrett voluntarily pulled both infomercials immediately and has not run them since."

The court's ruling only prohibits the two infomercials at issue from airing in their original form. In fact, the Court specifically held that Mr. Barrett could even re-broadcast the two problematic infomercials, if they are edited for content or Mr. Barrett obtained adequate substantiation for any claims that are made.

"Make no mistake about it, I am still very much in business," said Mr. Barrett.

"In 2003, I was unfortunately not aware of the specific measures companies must take to properly substantiate health claims. After we pulled the two infomercials at issue, we have offered since that time to voluntarily deliver extensive substantiation to the FTC for all of our infomercials."

Mr. Barrett's current infomercials provide information on natural supplements including VeggieCal-D(TM), FlexProtex-D(R), and Smoke Remedy. None of these 20-plus infomercials have been challenged by the FTC.

"The FTC has made great efforts to silence criticisms of the government and promotion of educational materials about the benefits of natural dietary supplements," Mr. Barrett continued. "Not a single consumer complaint had been filed about the claims made in our infomercials, but the FTC has worked tirelessly to shut down my businesses, which employed nearly 500 people in the Boston area."

"I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, but it's hard not to surmise that the FTC is being inappropriately supportive of large pharmaceutical companies, if not overtly in cahoots with them," said Mr. Barrett. "We produce educational materials, featuring top natural supplement and alternative medicine experts that directly threaten Big Pharma's choke hold on the American health care system. They've been fighting back as relentlessly as they can."