Opinion:

It's clear that Tony Stephan has an amazing ability to convert others into true believers, which results in a truly impressive level of grass-roots Internet marketing, political lobbying, and even publications in respected academic journals.

The most passionate case against TrueHope is clearly the Pig Pills book. I think the authors do themselves a disservice by being so vitriolic. It plays right into the narrative of "unappreciated research into alternative medicine being squashed by drug-company funded establishment".

Fortunately, there is quite a bit of objective material available as well, of which my favorite is the collection of Freedom of Information and ATIP (the Canadian equivalent) files put together by Circare, apparently a legitimate nonprofit which fights unethical human subject research.

The "research" on this product is, in my opinion, not convincing. The most promising study, upon close examination turns out to be "open-label", which means that both doctor and patient knew that they were getting the supplement. Even when the researcher is skeptical, it's well known that this type of trial often produces falsely encouraging results. Until the results are replicated by a better trial (ideally randomized, controlled, and double-blind), it's misleading at best claim, that it "proves" the effectiveness of their product.

The principal researcher, Bonnie Kaplan, is obviously a "true believer". From her Application for Funding:

As explained in the Executive Summary, the entity that will benefit financially the most from a successful demonstration of the efficacy of these supplements is our Provincial Government. A simple look at the economics of even one patient should be convincing. The cost of the supplement ranges from $100-$400/month (depending on dosage). In some cases, the patients whose mental health has normalized on this supplement had previously spent weeks or months as inpatients on psychiatric hospital wards. The potential for savings is staggering.

Let me just conclude by saying that a revolutionary paradigm shift is occurring in the field of mental illness. In the US., the National Institutes of Health are currently commencing clinical trials of nutritional supplements for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Clinical trials are going on in the U.K., Japan, France, and elsewhere. From the preliminary results, it appears that the intervention we are investigating in Alberta has the potential to be far more therapeutic: hence, Alberta could be a major guiding light in this area if we move quickly.

I believe Dr. Kaplan is well-meaning, but these are clearly not the words of a skeptical scientific researcher. In any case, her study on EMPower+ in fibromyalgia turned up negative. Note that this study was double-blind and controlled. In any case, you'd certainly not find out about this negative result from looking at TrueHope's marketing materials. Evaluating the validity of any study in essential before accepting the results.

I'd generally be willing to try a nutritional supplement on the basis that it might help and probably won't hurt. However, EMPower+ is clearly not food, and has some scary stuff in it, at doses pretty close to the acceptable limits. Among the ingredients are toxic metals such as Zinc, Manganese, Vanadium, Boron, and Selenium, all at levels right around the upper tolerable intake. The prospect of giving high doses of this stuff to my child on a daily basis is not appealing.

I have a lot of problems with the lack of answers on the part of Truehope, including their trumpeting of questionable research studies as "proof", their complex corporate structure involving a web of for-profit and nonprofit companies, giving their salespeople the phony title of "Research Assistant", secrecy about their ingredient list ("CNS Proprietary Blend"), and so on. I understand that they need to operate somewhat clandestinely because their business is in violation of Health Canada regulations on supplements, but I just don't trust them. Another reason not to trust them is that the actual contents of the pills don't match the label very well.

When a person takes E.M.Power products they are told to discontinue pharmaceutical medications, even though Bipolar disorder has a mortality rate from suicide of 18%, as well as being a painful and debilitating ilness for the ill person and tremendous difficulty for the entire family. When a person stops taking their psychiatric medications that are based on current state of the art treatments in order to use a treatment that is unproven it can have dire results. Initiating Lithium treatment appears to cause the suicide rate to drop 7 fold compared to the rate before treatment. Likewise, discontinuing Lithium treatment appears to cause a 14 fold increase in suicide rates above the rate when the patient was being treated with Lithium. The Antisuicidal Effects of Lithium