Who Can You Trust?

[Guest guest]

I wonder why it is people seem to think only doctors,

dentists, and Big Pharma could be guilty of endorsing

treatments and substances that not only do not work

but may be harmful.

At least these are regulated to some degree. Think

about what *could* be going on in alternative health

care.

Example: I was using a supplement purchased at health

food store, but readily available on the Internet. I

was not taking the capsule whole. Rather, I opened it

and put it in distilled water. When I bought the next

bottle and opened a capsule there was a *completely*

different substance in it. I spoke to someone at the

manufacturer about it and told her there was a

different substance in the capsule. She sounded as

though she was thinking about what I said then as if

thinking aloud responded: " Maybe the first one had

the wrong substance in it. "

This suggests to me it is not unusual for the wrong

substance to be put into capsules. It also calls into

question exactly what is being put into these

alternative products.

Last night Dateline did one of their investigative

reports where they created a product supposedly to

moisturize the skin from the inside out. What they

put in the capsules was Nestles Quick Coco.

They they found an infomercial producer who was more

than willing to create an infomercial for them,

though, they told him they did not know if the product

would work and had completed no clinical trials on the

product at all. The infomercial producer hired

actresses and an M.D. dermatologist to endorse the

product, none of whom had even tried the product.

Each of these people were filmed giving quite

convincing reports of how wonderful the product is and

how much it helped their skin. Then, they took the

product and the film out to a Mall and after watching

it women said they would pay as much as $100 for a

bottle of it. Dateline, further checked with their

own legal department to see if they could get the

infomercial on television and the overall department

said they would not allow it to air without clinical

trials, but they could not control affiliate stations.

Now, how about the possibility of paid marketers

joining these list(s) and pushing their products?

I do not care how many studies or alleged material is

posted about a particular treatment or substance. It

easy to skew statistical material to make whatever one

is pushing sound right. Even highly trained

statisticians might be fooled. There is more to this

than just finding some study to support anyone's

particular beliefs.

I have no doubt there are people in the professions

that should not be there, people who are incompetent,

immoral, and dangerous. The point is, however, these

kind of people are everywhere and I have no doubt

there are just as many in alternative health care.

Maybe more since there is little if any regulation of

alternative health care.

Personally, I trust myself.

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