Pop the phrase "blue-green algae" into the AltaVista search engine and you will generate 3,000 hits. Not too surprising -- blue-green algae, one of nature's simplest and sturdiest life forms, exists everywhere there is fresh water. But the particular strain of blue-green algae blooming across the Net is known primarily by one name -- "Super Blue Green Algae" -- and found in only one place -- Klamath Lake. During the summer of 1997, some 11 companies were reported to be harvesting algae from Klamath Lake. But one company, Cell Tech, is far and away the largest, claiming $200 million worth of sales in 1996. Cell Tech has trademarked the phrase "Super Blue Green Algae" -- and Cell Tech distributors market the food with relentless vigor. Cell Tech operates according to the principles of "multilevel marketing" -- a business strategy in which distributors purchase a product at a discount, and then market that product directly to consumers, who are in turn encouraged to become distributors themselves. "Amway you can eat" is how one observer described it, and it is a tactic that adapts naturally to the Net. Hundreds of Cell Tech distributors maintain Web pages, and their missives regularly appear in e-mail boxes, bulletin boards and newsgroups touting both the wonderful benefits of consuming blue-green algae and the amazing financial opportunities of the algae business. "Go-getters can realistically achieve $5,000-$15,000 a month in solid long residual income within two years," wrote one distributor in a direct e-mail advertisement. "Much more is possible, there are no limits." Cell Tech itself is no stranger to the Net. The company operates its own Web site, and declares that it reviews all distributor Web pages to ensure that they conform to its advertising guidelines. Cell Tech, which markets blue-green algae as a food, is prohibited by FDA regulations from making specific health claims, forcing a vague gauziness upon Cell Tech proclamations about Super Blue Green Algae. The algae, I would read again and again on Web page after Web page, makes people feel better because there is a "synergy to the variety of ingredients" that extends beyond "simple quantitative biochemistry." There was nothing vague or gauzy, however, about the first thing that I saw on Cell Tech's home page. In big, bold letters at the center of the page ran the headline: "Cell Tech's response to misinformation on the Internet." Algae salespeople aren't the only algae enthusiasts in cyberspace; phycology -- the science of algae studies -- thrives on the Net. There are Web site clearinghouses for all kinds of algae-related information. Top phycologists trade tips and discuss the latest research developments in mailing lists -- Algae-L, Diatom, Phycotoxins. Amateurs and entrepreneurs engage in algae flame wars in Usenet newsgroups like misc.health.alternative and sci.med.nutrition. There is even a virtual storefront for a commercial toxic algae exterminator, not to mention a map of Klamath Lake -- or the excerpted musings of one William Barry, author of the blue-green algae primer "The Astonishing, Magnificent, Delightful Algae." After a few hours of surfing I knew that the scientific name for Super Blue Green Algae is Aphanizomenon flos-aquae. I had also located the world's premier specialists in toxic algae issues -- Wright State University's Wayne Carmichael and Woods Hole Laboratories' Donald Anderson. I had been informed that Super Blue Green Algae was related to other forms of algae currently marketed as health foods, like spirulina and chlorella. And I had discovered that a significant number of health professionals regarded algae eaters as hopeless dupes. At a site called Quackwatch, I discovered that Victor Kollman, the brother of Cell Tech founder Daryl Kollman, had been forced by the FDA to shut down a company that sold Klamath algae in the mid-'80s. Victor Kollman apparently had broken the rules about making therapeutic claims. And, according to Quackwatch, Cell Tech's distributors were no better, claiming that blue-green algae could cure everything from Attention Deficit Disorder to AIDS. "Consumers of SBGA report that they have much more physical energy throughout the day without extreme highs or lows," one distributor posted to Usenet. "They report improved memory, mental clarity and focus; improved digestion, control of appetite and cravings, and heightened immune functions. They report relief from fatigue, hypoglycemia, PMS, anxiety and depression." At HealthWatch, I learned that Carmichael had written an article in Scientific American in 1995 noting that "toxic blooms" of harmful algae often occurred in the same places where Aphanizomenon flos-aquae flourished -- and that screening methods to separate good and bad algae were inadequate. And perhaps most damagingly, a Usenet-published synopsis of an article in the March Self magazine quoted none other than alternative-medicine guru Andrew Weil declaring that there wasn't "a shred of evidence to support the health claims" of Cell Tech distributors. But Cell Tech's response to "misinformation" dealt with none of these issues. Sure, through Cell Tech's "fax on demand" service, one could obtain voluminous responses to critical articles in Self, Consumer Reports, the Vegetarian Times and the National Council Against Health Fraud. But on its home page, it chose to address two particular claims at a level of detail somewhat forbidding to the layman's eyes. First, it denied the charge that Super Blue Green Algae potentially contained a dangerous neurotoxin referred to as "anatoxin-a." Second, it ridiculed the claim that anatoxin-a, which some scientists consider a "cocaine analog," might be the reason so many devoted algae eaters testified to its energy-boosting benefits. Why had Cell Tech chosen to respond so publicly to those particular accusations? What was the story behind the story? I had combed the Net, but couldn't answer that question. And the more I learned about algae online, the murkier the picture got: The anti-quack forces made a compelling case against Cell Tech, but some of their rhetoric was as off-putting as the obviously self-aggrandizing patter of the Cell Tech distributors. They lumped together all forms of "alternative" medicine as nonsense and myth and delighted in smearing the algae as "pond scum." Stephen Barrett, a psychologist who maintained the Quackwatch site, told me he appreciated publishing on the Internet because it gave him a chance to put out his version of the "unmediated" truth. But I was finding it hard to force a Net full of unmediated ranting into a clear picture. The Net could only take me so far. I had to go deeper. I had to pick up the telephone.
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