The Grape Cure’s mechanism claim, combining the period’s auto-intoxication doctrine (disease as retained intestinal poison) with an explicitly mystical “cosmic magnetism” said to be absorbed through the grape’s tendrils and leaves, per Brandt’s own book. The Federal Trade Commission’s March 15, 1940 order specifically targeted advertising representations that most diseases originate in the intestine and that grapes dissolve mucus, among other claims, as false (Quackwatch). The American Cancer Society’s and Quackwatch’s reviews found no evidence supporting a mechanism by which grapes clear intestinal toxins or absorb “cosmic magnetism”.