The Quackometer

Just when I thought the Daily Mail was reducing the number of stupid health stories that it was publishing, it comes up with a classic. Once again, the Daily Mail has been duped into advertising quack products.

The story entitled, "Tiny magnet that soothes the misery of menopause" is a full on bit of brainless reporting of a marketing press release issued by a company that makes questionable magnet healing products.

Magnopulse has been recently criticised by the Office of Fair Trading for making baseless claims for its magnet products. It is obviously finding its routes to market a little more difficult now, but who cares if the Daily Mail will uncritically publish stories about you, complete with sales telephone numbers and web addresses.

• magnet + health = quackery


• a study like this without adequate controls will undoubtedly give a positive result to the quack


• Google is great tool for finding out about a company's history


• products that claim to treat all sorts of symptoms are usually quack products


• unpublished trials, that are announced to the press, are usually fishing for favourable write-ups by journalists who wouldn't know whether to stick the magnet down their pants or attach it to their elbow.


• when 'many doctors remain sceptical' there is probably a good reason for it. Finding out why might make your article a little more balanced.

On the other hand, the journalist could be a knowing shill.

Labels: daily mail, magnets

 

Quackery is not just found in 'alternative' medicine and the high street homeopathic practice. Quackery exists wherever claims for health benefits are made that do not stand up to scrutiny. Today I want to look at the claims of a billion dollar business, one of the top 20 household products sellers outside of the US, Clarins. Are they guilty of quackery?

This is a bit of departure for the quackometer as it has not looked into beauty products before. People have been buying over-priced and over-promised products since the dawn of time in order to look younger and feel better. And this really does not concern me. We all like to have a good soak, preen ourselves, spruce up our feathers and feel invigorated and refreshed, smelling nice and being attractive. And we are prepared to pay a pretty penny for the privelidge too. But there appears to be a line that is being crossed regularly now and one particular product shows what that line is very well - Clarins Expertise 3p, or e3p, skin protection spray.

The claims for this spray are quite extraordinary:

An ultra-sheer screen mist containing a pioneering combination of plant extracts capable of protecting the skin from the accelerated-ageing affects of all indoor and outdoor air pollution but most significantly, the affects of Artificial Electromagnetic Waves.

The product works by using a:

Magnetic Defence Complex [which] protects skin from the ageing effects of Artificial Electromagnetic Waves.

It contains ingredients consisting of:

Magnetic Defense Complex (Rhodiola Rosea + Thermus Thermophillus) - [which] Reinforces skin's resistance to the harmful effects of Artificial Electromagnetic Waves.

The product also makes claims about protection from pollution - that is a whole other kettle of fish, so I am just going to stick the the Electromagnetic wave thing.

So, this immediately raises a number of questions? What electromagnetic waves are these? How do they accelerate aging? How does a simple spray block out these waves and how does it tell artificial EM from natural EM? Simple questions and so I fired off an email to Clarins to see what would come back.

Here is the response in full from Lana Mouton, the innocent lamb in PR they get to answer these difficult questions:

Thank you for your interest in Clarins Expertise 3p.

I have attached a press document which I believe answers your questions. I can also tell you that the research behind this product is the subject of a scientific paper written by Dr Lionel de Benetti, Clarins Head of Research & Development with a contribution from Rashid Enamany, President, Eurotest (specialist private laboratory).

A draft of this scientific paper is currently under review by a leading US dermatology publication and so at this moment in time we are unable to forward it to anyone else. However, as soon as this situation changes, I will let you know.

Now, Google is the quackometer's best friend, so a few searches reveal some interesting things. First, the words 'Rashid Enamany' are what is known as a googlewhack, i.e. these are two words that return precisely one page - a unique page with those two words on. Funnily enough, the page is a discussion thread about the absurdity of the e3p product. One of the participants has obviously written to Clarins and received back an almost identical response. My email response is clearly the standard Clarins brush-off when faced with a know-all enquiry about the stupidity of their claims.

So, what is this Eurotest 'independent laboratory' all about and who is their President, the googlewack, Rashid Enamany? Again, Google draws a blank. There is a company called Eurotest, but it appears to look after the testing electrical appliances. I'm not sure if they would stretch to testing the biological effects of EM radiation. Quite remarkably, this laboratory and their president do not appear to exist on the web. How they manage that these days is beyond me. Even my cat has a web page.

So, what of Dr Lionel de Benetti's press release about the findings behind the product that will lead to a 'scientific paper', presumably co-authored with the googlewack? (Who will no longer be a googlewack then, as his name will be on a published paper. 'Eminent' is not a word that springs to mind.)

The contents of the press release is an interview with Dr Benetti entitled, "On the science behind the creation of Expertise 3P Screen Mist". Now, I guess Dr Benetti is too busy running the billion Euro Clarins operations these days to be too worried about the nitty-gritty science, because there is really little science in this interview at all.

Now, Dr Benetti does make it clear he only talking about the EM that radiated from electrical equipment, such as mobile phones, televisions and other household stuff. Good. So, no claims are being made about x-rays or ultraviolet (which is a shame, since then e3p could then be a good sunblock.) He explains the inspiration for the product came from the startling fact that these rays could travel through thick concrete walls! For this reason 'it seemed obvious to us to study their effects on our skin.' Think about it - straight through concrete - what the hell is it doing to our skin? Er, probably going straight through too with absolutely no effect whatsoever. But let us not let basic physics get in the way of some product development.

And so this piece of pseudoscientific rhetoric is the driving force behind offering this product. But how did Dr Benetti's team choose the ingredients Rhodiola Rosea and Thermus Thermophillus as the stuff that would reinforce the skins resistance? Well Thermus Thermophillus is supposedly found at the bottom of the sea where extreme temperatures and pressures are found. So if it can survive there, it surely can protect us against the EM dangers of toasters and fridges? It is a well known fact that the bottom of the sea is littered with discarded mobile phones from passing passenger ships and so only the hardiest organisms survive.

Now there is lots of gobbledegook on the press-release about DNA, free-radicals and cellular renewal, but it appears that the crucial experiment was performed by exposing skins cells to mobile phone radiation in the presence of this unique 'magnetic defense complex'. And guess what? 'Their structures hardly changed.' Proof indeed. Funnily, I too can provide some substances that will result in unchanged skin structure in the presence of a mobile phone. My cat produces about 100ml a day. But I doubt the good Doctor would want to spray it on his face.

So, what is going on here? Well it looks like an age-old quacks trick. Convince your mark that they are exposed to a non-existent health problem and then provide them with the cure that will prevent the worst from happening. When nothing too bad happens to them you can say, "see, it works!' (c.f. allergy testing, qlink pendants, dietary vitamin shortfalls.)

As the press-release says itself,

several studies have been conducted which have produced contradictory opinions. Personally, I think that there is no need to be alarmed when it comes to the effects on our health.'

But the following 'science' in the release and talk of radiation so powerful that it can go through concrete walls, plants the seeds of fear. The actual spray itself could not possibly claim to create a barrier to these rays - and the press-release is careful to avoid making direct claims. The only way to shield your head from the EM from mobile phones would be to wrap it completely in a conducting shield, such a tin-foil layer. But that is not going to improve the cosmetic appearance of most people, with a few noticeable exceptions.

The actual proposed mechanism of the spray appears to be more about mopping up free-radicals, but again, just how many free-radicals are produced by our EM environment and what harm these do is also not made clear.

Much of cosmetic advertising appears to work in similar ways: descriptions of problems from your environment that you may not have been aware off and may not even exist; hints and suggestions of benefit from a product, but nothing too direct; complex sciencey stuff to lend an air of legitimacy; and the fear that doing nothing is not an option. Hence a $1 moisturiser can be sold for $100 as long as it has some probiotic pentachromic DNA nutricles in it.

According to Clarins latest company reports, the founder of the company, Jacques Courtin-Clarins, decided to “take beauty seriously” and developed a 'unique philosophy':

Develop a dialogue with women to satisfy their desires for well-being and respect them by offering a range of the best plant-based skin care products distinguished by their innovation and effectiveness.

What I would really like to ask Clarins is how marketing a product like e3p is developing a respectful dialogue with women? Are you taking 'beauty seriously' with this product or is it some sort of French post-modernist joke on us all? Does inventing problems from EM radiation class as innovation? And are you ever going to publish anything in a peer-reviewed journal with the mysterious Rashid Enamany where we can judge the effectiveness of the product for ourselves?

Labels: cosmetics, electromagnetic quackery

 

It pains me to write this, but I have a nasty feeling that Kate Winslet might have been to visit a quack. I guess I ought to be careful as she has just won a 'substantial' settlement from Grazia magazine after they printed outrageous allegations that she had been to visit a 'diet doctor'.

Now to be fair to Kate, she has been outspoken, and rightly so, over the media's obsession with stick-thin models and actresses. The thought that she was overly concerned with her weight might make her look like a hypocrite. The magazine has now fully accepted that she went to the clinic over a 'neck problem'.

What has been missed out by the press is that this clinic is The Chinese Healing Institute on Wilshire Blvd. Santa Monica (9 Canards). The clinic appears to specialise in acupuncture and 'herbology'. I wonder just how that neck problem was treated? I really hope it was one of Dr Pan's special massages.

Dear Kate. I love you. I love your work, and I wished we had married. And I also support your stand on weight issues. But, how about taking a stand on other aspects of clear thinking about health and science?

Labels: celebrity quackery

 

A press release today from the Economic and Social Research Council talks about recent research on how the public evaluates the information on health websites. The concluding message is simple:

Labels: boots the chemist, NHS, pseudoscience

 

I'm going to stick my neck out here. I could be horribly wrong. But that is science; come up with a hypothesis, see if it fits with evidence from the real world. If so, create a powerful explanatory theory, if not, then shut the hell up.

This contaminated petrol thing. For non-UK readers, thousands of motorists have been reporting their cars breaking down due to dodgy fuel. What has this got to do with quackery? Well, I would like to suggest that the thinking that leads to a belief in quackery is behind this.

Specifically, what I propose that the cause of this countrywide crisis is - nothing. That's it. Nothing happened. There is no story. There is no contaminated fuel. It is a mass delusion.

But there are reports of contaminated fuel being found, tens of thousands of angry motorists, a complete shortage of critical oxygen sensors broken by the dodgy fuel. Surely everyone cannot be wrong?

Well, let me paint another picture. Just as thousands can be wrong about homeopathy, so thousands could be wrong about the fuel crisis. And to repeat. Everything here I say could be rubbish. Let's see what transpires.

So, let's start with a back of the envelope calculation. In the past ten years, I can remember one occasion when I have had a spluttery engine and a dodgy fuel line. I think it was dirty fuel and it was quite difficult to diagnose and fix. If this is typical, say one problem like this every ten years, then how many motorists per day will have similar engine problems? Let's be generous, and remember this is a rough calculation, let's say my experience is typical of one problem every ten to fifteen years, then I can expect one problem every 5000 motoring days (or so.) With 50-60 million people in the UK and roughly a car per person (maybe a bit less), then we can expect about 50 million divided by 5000 problems per day - that works out at about 10,000 fuel issues per day. These could be the result of dirt in the lines, broken electronics or a drunken kid peeing in your tank. Doesn't matter. When the car starts spluttering, you have no idea what caused it - it could be anything. You place your faith in the mechanic to diagnose and correct it.

Feel free to insert your own numbers here. As I say, this is finger-in-the-air-stuff. Where does this leave us? Well the next thing I want to propose is this: the critical part that ran out of stock was some sort of oxygen sensor. Now, anyone who has had to get a spare part on a high end car knows that garages have to order off for them. The actual UK stock of a part that rarely fails may be just a hand-full, a dozen or so at most. Every day a random different amount will be ordered. Maybe one day, a random fluctuation means that quite a few more than normal are required. Suddenly we have a shortage and someone will be wondering if there is a reason for this!

Next, the AA or RAC get informed and before you know it, someone at the media. The media asks for people to report if they too are having problems due to suspect contaminated fuel and that vast pool of ten thousand people with fuel problems that day put two-and-two together. Mechanics get pressurised to replace oxygen sensors - just to be on the safe side. Maybe a few unscrupulous ones say they need replacing when they have no evidence that this is the problem.

The flood-gates open. The media goes berserk. The news at 9 o'clock on BBC are reporting a national crisis. More and more people report their symptoms.

And remember, nothing has actually happened.

So what evidence supports this chain of events. Firstly, the patterns of reported problems appears to be uniform across the country, or more specifically, the higher the population density, the higher the reports. If there really was contamination, then you would expect reports to be highly localised? Secondly, reports come from petrol and diesel users. Reports of symptoms are not consistent with some driver even blaming their flat batteries on the problem. Funnily enough, some are predicting class action law suits involving 10,000 people. Exactly as I might predict.

But what of the contradictory evidence? Well, contaminated fuel has been found with an excess of silicone (or silicon, depending on the report). Does that sway me? Well, I do not abandon my hypothesis just yet. It is well known phenomenon that when you go looking for problems, you find them. Compare this with Chernobyl where thousands of health problems were found after the explosion at the nuclear plant. Years later, the UN report that the vast majority of these problems already existed in the Ukraine. The doctors sent in were surveying a poor, ignored, rural population with poor access to health services under the soviets . No wonder the problems found were huge. And so there is no clear link so far that this batch of faulty fuel can explain all the problems reported. It could have nothing to do with it. As with all science, we should wait for repeat tests and independent confirmation before jumping to conclusions.

So what has this to do with quackery? Well the same dodgy thinking that leads to people believing that homeopathy works could explain the fuel crisis. People need explanations in their life. They also need to feel some control over their lives. Cars these days are like our bodies. Largely unfathomable. There is nothing to do under the bonnet but fill the windscreen washer bottle. Your car breaks down and a man in a white coat with a laptop is required to diagnose the problem before a new 'black box' is ordered to correct the fault. Modern medicine also means that the illnesses we suffer from require complex interventions from doctors who do things that we barely understand.

The contaminated fuel was an easy explanation for people whose cars broke down that day, just as 'misaligned chakras' is an easily explanation when you are feeling run down. People were sure that it was contaminated fuel when they had no real reason to hold that belief just as people believe that their reiki session 'works' when their pain may be getting better anyway. Underpeforming children can get better grades by taking Omega 3 pills. AIDS patients in poor countries just need vitamin C tablets.

Car Quackery does look as if it is quite rife. Just as people buy vitamin supplements from the Holfords of this world in order to achieve 'optimum health', so people buy fuel supplements from shops like Halfords in order to achieve 'optimum efficiency'. Magnets to wrap around your fuel pipes, detoxing liquids to add to your fuel - all the quackery is here! How do these people know their fuel efficiency is 5% better? Are they not subject to the same biases, delusions and wishful thinking that the person who takes homeopathy is prone too? Are they just driving with a lighter foot after becomeing more self-conscious of their fuel usage? Sounds like the need for a blinded trial to me.

As I said, I may be wrong. But I hope you would agree that a huge percentage of those who think they have had contaminated fuel problems may well have fooled themselves. Read the anecdotes of people sent in to various newspapers and news-sites. Look how heartfelt and genuine they feel. Just like any testimony on a quack's web page.

Delusions?