Well I never!
This was broadcast on 31 Dec, 2009 at 21:52 on (Brisbane, Australia) Channel 7 Digital free-to-air T.V.:
I am tickled pink! It’s not often that one sees a piece of quack medicine forced to identify itself as such.
In case you can’t read it clearly, the last part says:
…failed to provide any evidence that the advertised Ease-A-Cold product can shorten colds or reduce the duration of colds.
If only we could get the cosmetics companies as well…as this article in New Scientist says:
…cosmetics companies release very little in the way of trial data. In medical practice, the gold standard for proof of persistent benefit to a patient is the double-blind randomised controlled trial (RCT), published in a peer-reviewed journal. So why do we not see such a well-established methodology used for cosmetics?
The industry faces a dilemma. If a rigorous trial of an anti-ageing cream showed no benefit, no one would buy it. Yet if it really does produce structural changes and permanently reduces wrinkles, the cream could be reclassified as a pharmaceutical agent – which would mean it could no longer be sold to the public unless prescribed by a doctor.
As this article rightly points out:
A businessman’s perspective might be `I can market this product today without a trial, probably make more liberal claims about it, and get millions of dollars-worth of exposure instead’.
I wonder if a retraction like the one above actually has any affect on profits. Or indeed, sales?
In a related observation, I was shopping for a new pillow in the local boxing-day sales, when I came across a beauty: a natural-latex pillow infused with activated charcoal to provide a hygenic sleep environment that can also absorb any harmful electromagnetic radiation that might be passing by.
I paraphrase (I really should have taken a brochure, but I simply couldn’t: I didn’t want to be responsible for contributing even such dross as it to the landfill), but you get the idea.
Such fakery! The Demon-Haunted World remains a scary, confusing place for too many, it seems.
