Thanks to a local health officer in Colorado I get word that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun an investigation of claims made by my favorite infomercial quacks, the Kinoki Foot Bad folks (see my howl of pain in the post The TV ad that DRIVES ME CRAZY). Here's some of the AP story:
Late night television infomercials seem to have a cheap fix for anything: lose weight, banish cellulite or improve conditions like diabetes, arthritis and insomnia.Or, all of the above.
Ads for Kinoki Foot Pads made exactly that bold claim, saying the pads use secrets of ancient Japanese medicine to cure or lessen many health woes, all for $19.95, plus shipping and handling.
"I think those are too many claims," said Dr. Ka-Kit Hui, director of UCLA's Center for East-West Medicine. (AP)
You think that's too many claims? Well how about just one of their claims. Kinoki Foot Pads will rid your body of asbestos. That's not too many claims. It's just one. Would that be OK?
Dr. Sudha Prathikanti at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco agreed with Hui that the Kinoki claims seemed to be too far-reaching.
"For me, it really doesn't have the kind of backing it needs,'' said Prathikanti. ``This random hodgepodge, it's some kind of Frankenstein medicine."
"This idea of one treatment for everyone, for all conditions really just doesn't make sense," she added.
The claims are too far reaching? You think?
Listen, folks. These claims are not too far reaching. THEY ARE STUPID AND PREPOSTEROUS FRAUDS AND QUACKERY ON ITS FACE. PERIOD.
Don't believe me? Here it is again (since you can never get enough of a bad thing):
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Your typo's drive me nuts revere.
Lea: It's my fault? I thought it was Randy's. Thanks for finding it, though. Will correct.
It has metastasized. I've seen "knock off" pads in a local natural food store. (How do you knock off something that is fraudulent to begin with?) I actually stopped an elderly woman from buying one, she said her chiropractor recommended them. I told her the only thing these pads would do is separate her from her money. She laughed and put the package back on the display rack.
Lea wrote:
Revere, you need to apply a Kinoki pad to your screen before you submit. That way it will suck out all those toxic typos and give you clean and re-invigorated copy.
ABC Had John Stossell the SKEPTIC chew on thesse guys for one segmant of his show last week.
My wife was amazed at what Kinoki is trying to pull! She thought the stuff was some kind of joke when she first heard it.
Stossell's test subjects noticed no change, no whitening of the foot pads, and no medical benefit.
How about that? Who'da thunk?
If people would think about what these products are claiming to do before they buy them the FDA wouldn't have had to shut this company down! No profits would have.