Has anyone seen the TV ad for these things? Foot Pads Pretty entertaining. Claim to remove toxins such as asbestos and heavy metals through your feet while you sleep. :dubious:
Are there any site debunking these things? Preparing for questions from my Mom when she sees the ad.
Further research turned up several debunking sites, or at least sites not claiming any benefits.
Mods may close this if desired.
Somebody close to me advocated these things recently. I just searched for specific sites that debunked them - especially Quack Watch and Snopes, but I found nothing specific about how the scam works.
They apparently turn black after use, demonstrating all the toxins removed from your body. My guess is that they probably turn black whether or not they’re on your feet. If you put them on your hands or forehead, they’d do the same thing. Like ear candling.
Anything that claims to “remove toxins” from your body ought to make the needles on your scam meters quivering. I can’t say how the stunt works, but if I were designing it, the numbered pads would have a big load of something that turns black with moisture, and succeeding numbered pads would have less and less. The last pads in the batch would turn a medium grey, to get you to buy the next batch, which would end in white, “proving” the effect.
But the pads aren’t numbered, are they? The website says that an order contains “a two week supply” or 14 pads, and no indication that the pads would have to be used in a certain order.
Specific instructions:
“Simply place ONE PAD on the SOLE of your FOOT (or a targeted body part such as the shoulder or knee) before going to bed. By morning, the pad will have absorbed toxins accumulated in your body, turning the white pad to a shade from gray to black. Use a fresh pad each night until the color on the pad becomes lighter and lighter when removed in the morning.”
The website says you can place them anywhere on your body, they claim the bottom of your feet is the best place because that is where the toxins in your body collect.
Well that makes sense. What with gravity and all.
The amazing thing is that they couldn’t give this product away when it was called “Bubba’s Foot Pads”.
To paraphrase an earlier poster, when you hear any product or service advertised as removing “toxins” from the body, the needle on your scam-meter should shoot into the red zone. You’d have to be really sick to actually have “toxins” accumulating significantly in your body (i.e. kidney or liver failure, sepsis etc.), and then the Magickal Kinoki Pads would be just as useless.
One thing in their favor - the pads are not as unpleasant a remedy for “toxins” as what was popular in the 19th century - when people went to the sanitorium to get high-powered enemas.
Maybe I can create a following for “Power Washing the Toxins Out Of Your Body”.
All I’d need is a raincoat as I already own a power washer. :rolleyes:
This commercial cracks me up EVERY time it’s on TV.
It’s really, really hard for me to believe that people fall for this type of thing.