Speaking of woo...

...I find it rather amazing that after all these months I'm still getting a steady, constant stream of traffic, probably at least a couple of dozen visits a day, to this old post from Your Friday Dose of Woo, all coming from this discussion on the JREF forums.

That forum must get a lot of traffic. Who knew there'd be such interest in Kinoki "detox" footpads?

More like this

Recently (at least in Florida) there have been commercials for those on the Discovery Health channel- that might have something to do with the interest.

By ironpoptart (not verified) on 29 Dec 2007 #permalink

That forum must get a lot of traffic.

Yep, it does.

You should have a peek, you'd be a welcome visitor there

A coworker of mine got hooked on these scam treatments, even after seeing the water turn rust coloured with just the electrolytic plates. I think the general concept of detoxification is very attractive to some people, especially if the treatment is painless and doesn't involve weird diets. The scam artist pushed the blood pH angle and also displayed in her office little specimen vials of parasites that she claimed to have found in the footbath water. I tried to point him to the QuackWatch article on Detox footbaths, but he felt that his "therapist" was on the level because she seemed sincere and did not appear to be making a lot of money. Apparently, there was more rationalization than ionization going on.

As a JREF member, I endorse Mongrel's comment. The JREF forum is more broad-based and rough-and-tumble (i.e., troll-infested) than ScienceBlogs, but it tends to be very entertaining. Also, it relies on forum members to provide technical/expert advice for its woo busting, so your occasional participation would indeed be welcome. And if you find the time, you should check out the next Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM 6) in Las Vegas in June 2008. Last year, TAM 5 was great.

I'm a JREF member, and I often link to Orac's blog on there (though not on this occasion). There's lots of members with sound scientific/medical knowledge on there, so Orac would feel very welcome!

Holy crap! I had forgotten about it but I know someone in asheville NC (hotbed of wooness by the way) that has one of these. We were up there a few NYEs ago and needless to say over indulged in all sorts of extra curricular activities. The next morning on the way out of town we went to a friend of a friend's house and she offered to do this treatment (for a nominal fee of course). The disgusting color of the water along with the constant woo suppoerting comments of the person administering the foot bath to my with almost had me rolling on the floor. I tucked it away to look this up but forgot.

I can't wait to show this to the wife.