Running on Fumes

Faced with an increasing number of tests showing that the BioPerformance pill is simply naphthalene, the company has taken a new position: The pill is actually made of naphthenates, close cousins of naphthalene. Yet some naphthenates are also toxic, and even if the claim is true, it still doesn't square with the company's own literature.

The documentation BioPerformance offers on its pill is as voluminous as it is suspect. "Lab test" results don't identify either the lab or how the tests were conducted, while the prose portion is a parody of scientific language. Rick Mallinson, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Oklahoma, was left scratching his head after examining one tract. "There's a lot of cut-and-paste of stuff that doesn't say what their performance is," he says. "They're using some very strange phrases like they're looking at very old textbooks." One passage purports to explain that the pill modifies the structure of fuel molecules through "Brownian movement." But Brownian movement is the phenomenon that causes simple diffusion, not any sort of enzymatic reaction. "That's all just gobbledygook as far as I'm concerned," Mallinson says.

Yet amidst the gobbledygook there might be at least a shred of fact: Naphthalene mothballs have been used by motorheads as a homemade octane booster for decades. The practice was common enough that the Discovery Channel program Mythbusters gave it a try in 2004. Though the show's hosts didn't scientifically measure the results, their test engine ran somewhat smoother, and they officially rated the mothball octane booster myth as "plausible." Richard Hoffman, a U.S. Department of Energy scientist, agrees on the agency's Web site: "Yes, mothballs will slightly assist the octane rating of gasoline." But Hoffman also notes, "The ratio of carbon to hydrogen in the molecules makes for a very dirty-burning fuel. Too many mothballs and your engine will load up with carbon deposits--very bad news in the performance department."

So much for BioPerformance's assertion that the pill cuts emissions and cleans the fuel system. Mallinson has grave doubts about the emissions data BioPerformance uses to support that claim. "The fuel you put into the tank, that has some sulfur in it," Mallinson notes. "What went into that tank has to come out. They're saying they decreased the sulfur emissions by 50 percent. Well, where did that sulfur go? You can't make sulfur disappear."

The Better Business Bureau of Dallas began getting a slow but steady flow of complaints not long after BioPerformance began operating in December. The Bureau contacted the company and asked for proof that the claims they were making about their product were true. In response, BioPerformance sent a lab test that came from an identifiable source, a real Mexican government testing facility in Mexico City. According to the document that BioPerformance submitted, one set of readings did indeed show reduced emissions and a 25 percent mileage increase. But that test was a do-over, performed only after the first one showed increased emissions and no mileage gain.

To reiterate: BioPerformance had the chance to provide scientific data to prove its product works, an opportunity to avoid an unsatisfactory rating from the BBB. The only report it could muster offers this conclusion: "The vehicular emissions lab...feels that the tests performed are not sufficient to provide results with regards to the performance of the product."

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"We expected a lot of bad reporting on it because with most good companies, you know, there's going to be some negative publicity," says Donna Ahrlett, a BioPerformance manager from Venus, a tiny town south of Mansfield. She is still an ardent supporter of the company even after seeing a negative report on the fuel pill on WFAA-Channel 8 the night before. "I knew it was coming on. I didn't expect it to come out well since the Exxon company does own that news channel." Ahrlett's assertion would probably come as a surprise to most Belo executives, but she is confident that her source, a fellow BioPerformance manager, wouldn't lead her wrong. "The oil companies are very upset with us," she says as young children squeal in the background. "We are taking money from them and trying to save other people money."

Though Ahrlett has only managed to sell one bottle of the pills so far, she still likes her prospects. She and other BioPerformance faithful no doubt took comfort in the feisty message from Lowell Mims that appeared in place of the company Web site the day after the lawsuit was filed: "We are right now working with OUR Attorneys to vigourously [sic] defend OUR Company. Over the next few days you will be hearing and seeing some negative press. When you are successful in your industry a lot of people take shots at you because they want to obtain the success that the BioPerformance family has created. Just like Amway, Herbalife and Mary Kay we will come out of this challenge stronger than ever!"

A subsequent message forbade distributors to talk to the press, instructing them to refer all inquiries to Clifton Jolley of Advent Communications, "the finest media relations firm in the world." Like Mims, Jolley has made a career out of multilevel marketing companies. A biography posted for an MLM conference where Jolley was speaking is refreshingly honest about his talents: "His skill in crisis intervention and media relations has been credited with rescuing dozens of Advent clients from media scrutiny."

Jolley did not respond to requests for an interview by press time. In fact, phone calls, e-mails, handwritten notes and even impromptu personal visits by the Observer over the course of more than a month were unsuccessful in gaining an interview with either Mims or Romero. Chandler and Holland didn't respond either. According to a former employee of BioPerformance who did not want to be named for fear of losing any chance at recovering back pay, that deafening silence is a familiar sensation for the company's "downline" distributors.