The Complete Patient

Should nonprofit organizations in the healthcare arena be exploiting their nonprofit status to rake in big money? Pat Sullivan raises this question on his excellent blog with a critique about Planned Parenthood, and the sizable revenues it generates from abortions. He contends that its pro-abortion stance is driven by the fact that most of its revenues come from performing abortions.

I have long had the same concerns about another nonprofit organization, Life Extension Foundation. It purports to be devoted to research associated with improving health and longevity. But if you join the organization and receive the magazine, as I did for the last couple years, you realize that Life Extension is mostly about selling nutritional supplements. In fact, the organization is obnoxious about pushing supplements. The magazine is relentless in connecting nearly every article, supposedly about new research affecting heart disease or migraines, directly to supplement purchases. Nearly all its mailings to members are pushing supplements.

Based on the FAQs on its web site, it's clear Life Extension believes that supplement sales are merely a vehicle to support its research. I haven't yet been able to do the research to learn how Life Extension's revenues and expenses are divided. But as an outside observer, it looks like a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.