Is it acceptable business practice (aka not fraud) to take money from people when an even laymen in the field can detect the level of lies. Rational human beings don't like being tricked, she was a magician of medicinal claims and knew the showmanship requirements.

Extraordinary claims require some kind of data and facts to back the claim, which there was none. There is no evidence to believe they could develop this technology, optimism yes, but evidence no. It was fraud from the start.