Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said on Sunday that he was proud that his company had helped to sell Bible-based cancer cures and sketchy programs to "reverse" diabetes.
As The New York Times reported earlier this year, Huckabee had raised funds pushing dubious diabetes treatments and cancer cures prior to announcing his 2016 presidential run. But "the American Diabetes Association and the Canadian Diabetes Association caution against treatments like the one peddled by the company Mr. Huckabee represents," the paper noted.
On Sunday, the Republican candidate insisted to CBS host Bob Schieffer that the diabetes treatment had been "about the healthy eating, watching the kinds of foods one takes in."
"You know, I don't have to defend everything that I've ever done," Huckabee shrugged. "I'm not doing those infomercials obviously now as a candidate for president."
"But if that's worse thing that somebody can say to me, that I advocated for people that have diabetes, to do something to reverse and stop the incredible pain of that then I'm going to be a heck of a good president."
"I have diabetes," Schieffer pointed out. "But you were also selling pills of some sort, were you not?"
"No, no! That's a misnomer," Huckabee insisted. "One of the elements of the plan was dietary supplements, but it's not the fundamental thing. The fundamental thing is always, as you and I both know, it's exercise, it's good eating habits, it's maintaining sugar levels. It's not eating a bunch of junk food."
