Hilarious: The Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet

[|Zach|]

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/01/03/...ized-bracelet/

Thanks to the How Appealing blog, we are often directed to the scrumptious opinions of Seventh Circuit judge Frank Easterbrook. Today, Judge Easterbrook handed down this gem today. Read it in full. It’s fun. In short, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a trial-court ruling in favor of the FTC, which had brought suit against the makers of the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet.

The defendants were ordered to disgorge more than $16 million in profits from selling the product, which, as Judge Easterbrook pointed out in his opening sentence, Wired recently named one of its top 10 Snake-Oil Gadgets. His second sentence: “The Federal Trade Commission has an even less honorable title for the bracelet’s promotional campaign: fraud.”

A call to a Q-Ray spokesman was not immediately returned.

Other terrific words he uses to describe the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet, which was promoted as a miraculous cure for chronic pain: “poppycock”; “techno-babble”; and “blather.” He writes: “Defendants might as well have said: ‘Beneficent creatures from the 17th Dimension use this bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief, and whisk them off to their homeworld every night to provide help in ways unknown to our science.’”

He spends much of the opinion addressing the Q-Ray company’s defense that the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet is legit because it exhibits the placebo effect. “Like a sugar pill,” Easterbrook writes, “it alleviates symptoms even though there is no apparent medical reason.” Poppycock, he says. “Since the placebo effect can be obtained from sugar pills, charging $200 for a device that is represented as a miracle cure but works no better than a dummy pill is a form of fraud.”

He ends with an opera reference:

Deceit such as the tall tales that defendants told about the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet will lead some consumers to avoid treatments that cost less and do more; the lies will lead others to pay too much for pain relief or otherwise interfere with the matching of remedies to medical conditions. That’s why the placebo effect cannot justify fraud in promoting a product. Doctor Dulcamara was a charlatan who harmed most of his customers even though Nemorino gets the girl at the end of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.

Bravo!

[FAX]

That's funny because I know a person who swears by those things.

FAX

[Fish]

Poppycock you say.......

[Donger]

Wow. Those things cost $150.00?

[kepp]

I'm pretty sure my Mom has one. She falls for all that stuff.

[FAX]

So, when the results derived from a device can be neither understood nor explained by attorneys, pharmaceutical representatives, 2nd year med students, or career bureaucrats, it has to go. Got it.

I'm stocking up on holy water.

FAX

[kepp]

Originally Posted by FAX

So, when the results derived from a device can be neither understood nor explained by attorneys, pharmaceutical representatives, 2nd year med students, or career bureaucrats, it has to go. Got it.

I'm stocking up on holy water.

FAX

The commercials for those things (at least the ones I've seen) claim that it directly creates physical changes that relieve pain when, in reality, it doesn't. The placebo effect is an indirect effect, thus the fraud. At least that's how I saw it.

[chasedude]

Reading this thread made me think of the scene in "Outlaw Josie Wales"

Carpetbagger: Your young friend could use some help.
[holds up a bottle of patent medicine]
Carpetbagger: This is it... one dollar a bottle. It works wonders on wounds.
Josey Wales: Works wonders on just about everything, eh?
Carpetbagger: It can do most anything.
Josey Wales: [spits tobacco juice on the carpetbagger's coat] How is it with stains?

[FAX]

Originally Posted by kepp

The commercials for those things (at least the ones I've seen) claim that it directly creates physical changes that relieve pain when, in reality, it doesn't. The placebo effect is an indirect effect, thus the fraud. At least that's how I saw it.

I have no doubt that the placebo effect is at work here, Mr. kepp. Unquestionably. Still, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" ...

Recently, I read an article about a group of physicians from some major hospitals who travelled to Brazil in order to observe the practices of some local guy down there who is having excellent results with cancer patients and performs invasive surgery sans anesthesia. They also interviewed a lady who had a tumor removed from her back without the use of anesthesia and she said the procedure didn't hurt at all. The guy performed the surgery on her while she was standing. The doctors couldn't explain how he's doing it. But, they unanimously agreed that he's doing it.

Apparently, not everything can be explained.

FAX

[Donger]

Originally Posted by FAX

I have no doubt that the placebo effect is at work here, Mr. kepp. Unquestionably. Still, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" ...

Recently, I read an article about a group of physicians from some major hospitals who travelled to Brazil in order to observe the practices of some local guy down there who is having excellent results with cancer patients and performs invasive surgery sans anesthesia. They also interviewed a lady who had a tumor removed from her back without the use of anesthesia and she said the procedure didn't hurt at all. The guy performed the surgery on her while she was standing. The doctors couldn't explain how he's doing it. But, they unanimously agreed that he's doing it.

Apparently, not everything can be explained.

FAX

I think that's a movie that you are remembering, FAX, with that old Scottish guy playing the main doctor.

[CoMoChief]

Nothing is better than when Mike Rowe was on QVC network advertising/trying to sell bullshit products.

[FAX]

Originally Posted by Donger

I think that's a movie that you are remembering, FAX, with that old Scottish guy playing the main doctor.

No. And please don't make me find the damn article, Mr. Donger. Jeez.

With all the skeptics running around, it's no wonder the aliens haven't made public contact, yet.

FAX

[Donger]

Originally Posted by FAX

No. And please don't make me find the damn article, Mr. Donger. Jeez.

With all the skeptics running around, it's no wonder the aliens haven't made public contact, yet.

FAX

Sean Connery! That's it. Sean Connery.

[Eleazar]

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/1...some-gadg.html

The FTC smacked down Q-Ray's "ionized" bracelet to the tune of $87m after the makers made deceptive advertising claims. The $200 placebo trinkets are still on sale, however — the ad copy just makes vague intimations of "wellness" and the like instead of specific medical claims.

Whether "ionization" even does anything, however, is a moot point. Tested by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at an electron microscopy lab, it found that the thing wasn't ionized at all. Even for true believers, it's a waste of wonga.

[Eleazar]

Other funny ones:

Danie Krugel's DNA search device

Marshall McLuhan may have seen technology as an extension of the human body, but we're not going to fall for this one: former South African cop Danie Krugel's "quantum" box, which he claims can locate anyone on Earth, when primed with a sample of their DNA.


Philip Stein Teslar Watch

Described by Wired's Katie Dean as "a watch powered by snake oil," Teslar watches contains a chip (uh oh) that purports to emit a frequency that "neutralizes the electromagnetic fields" output by cellular telephones, computers and radios.

Most scientists don't think such fields are harmful anyway, but even if they were, a feeble wristwatch wouldn't protect you from the radio waves rattling around every human head on planet Earth.

"There is not a chance in the word that [it] will do anything but lighten your wallet," says John Molder, a professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Here's the blurb, straight from the company's website: "When a Teslar watch is worn on the left wrist, the frequency goes into the triple warmer meridian on the left wrist, and then travels throughout the body, canceling out harmful static caused by electromagnetic fields (ELF) along the way."

This snake oil starts at $600.


MPion MP3 Player

Done listening to the MPion's stash of music? It won't take long, with only 128MB of flash storage on board.

The real feature of this device is is "negative ion generator," which is said to clean pores when you smudge the unit over your face. Yours, for only $170, in Japan.

Even if this thing harmed bacteria, the effect would be more than compensated for by the torrent of them acquired by smooshing the grease from your own hands all over your chops.