Firm Devos invested in is hit for misleading claims

A “brain-performance” business backed by Education Secretary Betsy Devos has agreed to stop advertising success rates for children and adults suffering from maladies such as attention deficit disorder, depression and autism after a review found the company could not support the outcomes it was promoting.

The company, Neurocore, which has received more than $5 million from Devos and her husband, Richard Devos Jr., to run “brain performance centers” in Michigan and Florida, lost an appeal before an advertising-industry review board, which found that the company’s claims of curbing and curing a range of afflictions without medication were based on mixed research and unscientific internal studies.

The National Advertising Review Board, an oversight arm of the advertising industry’s self-regulatory body, announced its decision last week.

Neurocore came under scrutiny during Devos’ confirmation process, when she valued her stake in it at $5 million to $25 million. Devos and her husband were chief investors, and she served on the company’s board of directors for seven years, until her nomination. The New York Times found that the company’s claims of treating disorders for more than 10,000 adults through “proven neurofeedback therapy” had been challenged by medical experts and insurance companies.

After being nominated for education secretary, Devos resigned from the board, but in an agreement with the Office of Government Ethics, retained her financial interest in Neurocore. The investment raised ethical concerns for Devos after the company expressed hope that it could