I saw a late night TV ad over the weekend for a brand of Japanese detox foot pads. First time I had ever seen of such a thing. The ad claimed the pads would rid you of toxic metals and other bad things in your body. I have a hard time believing this is really possible, but apparently enough people think it’s true to make it worth someone’s time, effort and money to market them in the US.
So is there any real health benefit or is this just another un-regulated product, much like many herbal supplements, which is completely legal to sell but generally thought by medicos to be worthless, but harmless?
Mods: Feel free to move this to IMHO is there is no factual answer.
So how is this not fraud? If I tried to sell a magic pill, even if it was a sugar pill, and advertised that it would make you fly but didn’t wouldn’t that be considered fraudulent or deceptive advertising?
A lot of companies making similar products just rely on the fact that their customers are unlikely to complain. Or if they do get complaints, they rely on the fact that the authorities are generally too busy to track down and punish every one of these companies right away, so they can do a brisk business for a while before finally getting contacted by the FTC or the FDA or the Post Office or whatever agency they’ve ticked off. Sometimes they can just promise to quit, change the name of the business and/or move to a new city, and start up again.
See Cecil’s column on “Make money at home stuffing envelopes!” schemes, particularly the last two paragraphs.
Allowing crap like this is the result of an unholy alliance among left-wing alternative medicine types and right wing health food nuts. It angers me to no end.
And laughed my head off! These pads will remove thallium from your body (for those of you who don’y know, thallium is used in rat poison). I agree, this goes beyond the bounds of reason-the government should close this scam down!
If they had the boilerplate “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease or condition” type text, they’d probably be clear, but I couldn’t find anything like that on their site.
Amusingly, www.kinoki.com takes you to the makers of a competing product called Detoxion, and way down at the very bottom of the page is the disclaimer, so at least one brand of these things is doing it right. Or at least as right as “detoxifying” one’s feet can be.
Dang, I should see if I can get a distribution deal for these. My gullible roommate would be all over something like this! (He could wear the footpads while swallowing the 1,492 herbal supplements he takes every day.)
“Remove Toxins From Your Body” is one of the major buzz-phrases ramping up sales for the supplement industry today (along with “Safe and Natural!” and “They Don’t Want You To Know”.
There’s zero evidence that any foot pad or foot bath will remove “toxins” from your body. They might remove a little dirt, depending on how fastidious the user is about bathing.
Last night I saw an ad for a product that’s supposed to reverse hair loss. It was promoted as being able to remove “toxins” from your scalp. They did actually flash a message on screen about its active ingredient, minoxidil (that message was flashed for what seemed like half a second, and the remainder of the ad was devoted to testimonials and dramatic music).
This thread puts me in mind of the endless spam for (ahem) “male enhancement” pills.
When you think about it, it’s the perfect scam because who in the world would have the ah, “balls” to sue for product failure?
Anytime you hear a claim about “toxins” beware. Ask yourself which “toxins” exactly: heavy metals? Bacteria? Viruses? Fungi? They’re different sizes, and don’t typically come out of the body in the same way. Surely they don’t claim that one obscure telemarketed solution would get rid of all these different toxins, do they?
Anytime someone shows you a filter, bath, pad, or other device covered with disgusting-looking mung and tells you it’s “all the toxins that were in your body,” the best test would be to immediately run the test again. If the process is so effective, it won’t yield nearly as much stuff, right?
Basically, anytime you hear the word “toxins” turn on your BS-meter. Ear candling, colon purging, ionic foot baths, etc. etc. – pretty much all bogus.
well actually in the ad it shows this. they have people wear them over and over and each time it comes out with less stuff on it. i would buy it at a reasonable price though, it seems like a good foot cleaner.
Someone dear to me believes that this is not a scam because the pads become less and less discolored each night. Even though I am certain that this is a scam, I can’t explain how it works.
Any ideas?
Bingo. I saw a product very similar to this in a pharmacy and was annoyed enough to contact the relevant Australian authority. The gist of their response was to sigh and say “we know, we know, but we just don’t have the budget to track down and kill every little scamster like this. Wish we did. Thanks for your call”.