Maryland Businessman Pleads Guilty to Selling Aloe Vera Compounds as AIDS, Cancer Remedies

U.S. District Court Judge William Nickerson has sentenced businessman Allen Hoffman to 46 months in prison and ordered him to pay $222,506 in restitution for selling aloe vera compounds as a treatment for AIDS, cancer and other auto-immune diseases, according to an FDA release. Hoffman, who also falsely claimed to have a doctoral degree, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of "introduction of an unapproved new drug into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud the public." Hoffman sold the aloe products to more than 3,000 people through his companies, Baltimore-based T-Up Inc., and Hanover, Pa.-based Astec Biologics, Inc., charging cancer patients up to $18,000 for a two-week treatment of intravenous aloe (FDA release, 12/5).