Hot dog cure

There's nothing like a good parody to point up the absurdity of a claim.

Of course, when what you're parodying is itself ridiculous, you stand the chance of having your parody sound as plausible as the original claim.  (Which is the basic idea of Poe's Law.)  And that's why it took me about ten minutes to figure out that what Douglas Bevans was doing at Gwyneth Paltrow's "Goop Health Summit" in Vancouver, British Columbia, was a prank.

Bevans was there to sell Hot Dog Water -- which is, unfortunately, exactly what it sounds like.  It's a bottle of water with a hot dog suspended inside.  The product, he says, has innumerable health benefits.  "Our extraction experts have deemed it a miracle product and with reason.  First of all it’s keto-compatible, you can lose weight, look younger, increase vitality for sure, and last but not least, increase brain function."

It's also gluten-free, and "full of sodium and other important electrolytes."  Bevans says not only does he have drinkable hot dog water, but hot dog water lip balm and hot dog water breath spray.

The problem, of course, is that this sounds a great deal like claims Paltrow has actually made, such as "gemstone water," which is like hot dog water only replacing the hot dog with an emerald.  "Although humorous," Bevans says, "Hot Dog Water is not a prank, and people are not being tricked into drinking it.  Rather, in its absurdity, the art performance encourages critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it plays in our purchasing choices."

Well, it'd be nice to think that this'd be the effect, but having written here at Skeptophilia for eight years, I'm perhaps to be excused for thinking that he might be vastly overestimating the human race's capacity for critical thinking.  After all, people buy Quantum Downloadable Medicine (you pay by credit card, then sit in front of your computer as the medicine "downloads directly into your body"), homeopathic water (which is water diluted with water), and arranging your diet based on the phases of the moon (it is called, I shit you not, the "Werewolf Diet").  To me, Hot Dog Water is actually more sensible than any of those, although it pains me to admit it.

I mean, tickets to the Goop Health Summit cost $400 each, and she sold out.  I don't want to think of how much money she made from this event, and that's not even considering the fact that the whole point of the summit is that she's trying to get her products into Canadian markets.  She called it a "mind-expanding day," which apparently means that your mind turns into a gas and then drifts out of your ears.

Because in my opinion, that's the only way you could believe 90% of Paltrow's health claims.

Nevertheless, Paltrow considers the event to be a roaring success, and brags that she "goopified" Stanley Park Pavilion.

Whatever the hell that means.

So I'm not sure I should be encouraged by Bevans's Hot Dog Water stunt.  I mean, I laughed, not least because it reminded me of "hot ham water" from Arrested Development (Lindsay Bluth's one and only attempt to fix dinner -- ham soaked in hot water.  "It's watery," she bragged.  "With a smack of ham.").  But the fact that there are people who probably think Bevans is serious is a little disturbing.

I'd better go get a cup of my favorite health supplement -- "hot bean water."  With extract of the tropical plant Saccharum officinarum.

Better known as coffee with a teaspoon of sugar.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is a wonderful read -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  Henrietta Lacks was the wife of a poor farmer who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951, and underwent an operation to remove the tumor.  The operation was unsuccessful, and Lacks died later that year.

Her tumor cells are still alive.

The doctor who removed the tumor realized their potential for cancer research, and patented them, calling them HeLa cells.  It is no exaggeration to say they've been used in every medical research lab in the world.  The book not only puts a face on the woman whose cells were taken and used without her permission, but considers difficult questions about patient privacy and rights -- and it makes for a fascinating, sometimes disturbing, read.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Viral nonsense

I'm going to issue another plea to please please puhleeeezz check your sources before posting stuff.

This goes double for the viral meme type shit you see every single day on social media.  Most of that stuff -- and I'm not talking about the ones that were created purely for the humor value -- is the result of someone throwing together a few intended-to-be-pithy quotes with a photograph downloaded from the internet, so it's only as accurate as the person who made it.

In other words, not very.

Here's an example that I'm seeing all over the place lately:

Okay, let's take a look at this piece by piece.

1. Tilapia has bones.  Anyone who's ever prepared tilapia for cooking knows this.
2. It is an ordinary fish, with not only bones, but skin.  Note that the photograph of the damn fish right in the image shows that it has skin.
3. You can certainly overcook it, like you can with anything.  Leave it in the oven for three hours, and you'll have fish jerky.
4. Tilapia is found in the wild.  It's native to Africa.  Most tilapia being sold is raised on fish farms, so that part is correct, showing the truth of the old adage that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
5. I'm not even sure what "the Algae & lake plant, or replaced by gmo soy & corn" means.  Maybe they're trying to say that farmed tilapia is sometimes fed genetically-modified soy or corn-based products, which could well be, but is completely irrelevant even if it's true.
6. Eating tilapia is not worse than bacon and hamburgers.  It's low in overall calories and saturated fats, and is a good source of protein.
7. It'd be odd if tilapia were unusually high in dioxins, as dioxins are produced by such activities as burning plastic.  In fact, according to Medical News Today, due to EPA regulations, the amount of dioxins in the environment in the USA is 90% reduced from what it was thirty years ago -- and they recommend eating fish as a way of decreasing the amount of dioxin in your diet.
8. Dioxin "can take up to 11 years to clear?"  Not ten or twelve?  Okay, now you're just pulling this out of your ass.
9. You are not killing your family by serving them tilapia.  For fuck's sake.

Then, there's this nonsense that I've seen over and over:

Just out of curiosity, how desperate do you have to be to photoshop Trump into a photograph in order to make him look like a compassionate human being?  I mean, I get that there's not much else you can do.

But still.

If you're curious, the photograph doesn't even come from Hurricane Florence (as the post claims, along with a snarky "You won't see this on the news -- share with everyone!" caption).  It comes from the 2015 flooding in Texas.  Here's the unaltered photo:

I do think it's kind of inadvertently hilarious that when they photoshopped Trump into the picture, they made it look like he's handing the guy a MAGA hat.  "Hey, thanks for being here.  I was expecting more people to show up and applaud me, but I guess the killer flood swept them away.  Here, have a hat."


Then there's latest craze from Gwyneth "Snake Oil" Paltrow's company Goop, which is: "wearable stickers."  Me, I thought all stickers were wearable in the sense that you can stick them to your skin.  Thus the name.

But that's not what she's talking about.  These stickers, which are a "major obsession around Goop HQ," are supposed to "rebalance the energy frequencies in your body."

Whatever the fuck that means.

Here's a photo of a woman with three of them on her arm:

And the sales pitch:

Human bodies operate at an ideal energetic frequency, but everyday stresses and anxiety can throw off our internal balance, depleting our energy reserves and weakening our immune systems.  Body Vibes stickers come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency, allowing them to target imbalances.  While you’re wearing them—close to your heart, on your left shoulder or arm—they’ll fill in the deficiencies in your reserves, creating a calming effect, smoothing out both physical tension and anxiety.  The founders, both aestheticians, also say they help clear skin by reducing inflammation and boosting cell turnover.

Which is nearly "tilapia is killing you" levels of bullshit.  Just to point out one thing -- because even explaining this far is giving Paltrow far more credit than she deserves -- there's no such thing as an "energy frequency" because energy and frequency are two entirely different things.  Saying "energy frequency" is like asking someone what their "weight speed" is.

So I'm begging you.  Do a quick search online before reposting this stuff.  There are a ton of fact-check and skeptical analysis sites where you can at least do a first-order look at whether there's any truth to it.  The only other way to approach this is to comment "THIS IS NONSENSE" every time you see things like this, and that's beginning to feel a little like trying to patch the hole in the Titanic with duct tape.

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This week's recommendation is a classic.

When I was a junior in college, I took a class called Seminar, which had a new focus/topic each semester.  That semester's course was a survey of the Book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.  Hofstadter does a masterful job of tying together three disparate realms -- number theory, the art of M. C. Escher, and the contrapuntal music of J. S. Bach.

It makes for a fascinating journey.  I'll warn you that the sections in the last third of the book that are about number theory and the work of mathematician Kurt Gödel get to be some rough going, and despite my pretty solid background in math, I found them a struggle to understand in places.  But the difficulties are well worth it.  Pick up a copy of what my classmates and I came to refer to lovingly as GEB, and fasten your seatbelt for a hell of a ride.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Snake oil classification

As you may have noted, I have a serious problem with "alternative medicine" manufacturers who put on their bottles of snake oil, "Not intended to treat or cure any medical condition" when right on the bottle (in much larger print) it says that said snake oil will treat and/or cure a medical condition.

The disclaimer, for better or worse, apparently gets them off the hook if they're sued by someone who (for example) took homeopathic one-part-in-a-quintillion dilutions of weasel spit to cure their constipation and found themselves as plugged up as ever.  But it still bugs me, because however you slice it, these products are being touted as medicines, when in fact the vast majority of them are worthless -- and stop people from seeking out legitimate treatments that actually might work.

But now, the infamous "Goop" -- Gwyneth Paltrow's company that suggested, for example, that women with problems in their naughty bits should stick jade eggs into their vaginas (no, I'm not making this up) -- has come up with an even more sophisticated way not to take responsibility for the foolishness they peddle:

They've classified their products and "wellness" suggestions into different categories of foolishness.

I found this out from Dr. Jen Gunter's blog, which is a wonderful source of straight scoop about all things alt-med.  Dr. Gunter has gone all-out in fighting Gwyneth Paltrow's multi-million dollar health scam company, and what she uncovered this time is a doozy.  Here's how Paltrow is now dividing up her health products and recommendations:

• For Your Enjoyment: There probably aren’t going to be peer-reviewed studies about this concept, but it’s fun, and there’s real merit in that.
• Ancient Modality: This practice is nearly as old as time — many find value in it, even if modern-day research hasn’t caught up yet (it’s possible the practice will never attract its attention).
• Speculative but Promising: There’s momentum behind this concept, though it needs more research to elucidate exactly what’s at work.
• Supported by Science: There’s sound science for the value of this concept and the promise of more evidence to come soon that may prove its impact.
• Rigorously Tested: The validity of this concept is pretty much undisputed within the world of M.D.’s, D.O.’s, N.D.’s, and Ph.D.’s.

So they're conveniently leaving themselves an out if someone sues them.  "Ha ha," they can say.  "We labeled this one as 'for your enjoyment!'  There's real merit in the fact that you abandoned your chemotherapy for a coffee enema!  What fun!"

In the "speculative but promising" category, Gunter found such claims as drinking goat's milk to "rid yourself of parasites," and that eating apricots are "energy-shifting" and "transformative," but only if you eat them after three PM.  That's when their "energy-shifting" capacity is highest.

Because fruit, apparently, can tell time.

[Image is in the Public Domain]

Gunter, hearteningly, is having none of it.  She writes:

As far as I can tell with the GOOP rating system “enjoyment” means second-hand information from a ghost; “ancient” is code for biologically implausible, but sells well; and “speculative, but promising” is the fringe hypothesis of a naturopath or “Integrative” doctor.  I am pretty sure we won’t see too many “backed by science” posts because there aren’t many complementary products to sell alongside in the GOOP shoppe.

Because, after all, this is all about one thing: money.  Paltrow's quack cures and sham health aids are a multi-million dollar industry, and (as P. T. Barnum famously observed) there's a sucker born every minute.  Not only that, there's the even more unethical side of this; that some of her customers are people who have chronic diseases that are unresponsive even to the best medical care, or who are facing treatments that work but result in dreadful side effects (such as chemo and radiation therapy).  So out of desperation, and buoyed up by a false sense of hope from Paltrow's shtick, they buy what she's selling -- jeopardizing their own health, and in some cases, risking their lives.

If you think I'm overstating my case, check out the site What's the Harm?, which looks at specific instances of "alternative medicine" harming or killing patients.  The website is extensive; their header says they've found evidence of "368,379 people killed, 306,096 injured and over $2,815,931,000 in economic damages."

So I'm unimpressed by Paltrow's new system for classifying nonsense.  The fact is, if you're ill, you should seek out the help of a trained professional, not look for a cure from an actress who figured out that alternative medicine is one hell of a cash cow.  Regardless of how cleverly she markets her snake oil.

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This week's recommended read is Wait, What? And Life's Other Essential Questions by James E. Ryan.  Ryan frames the whole of critical thinking in a fascinating way.  He says we can avoid most of the pitfalls in logic by asking five questions: "What?"  "I wonder..." "Couldn't we at least...?" "How can I help?" and "What truly matters?"  Along the way, he considers examples from history, politics, and science, and encourages you to think about the deep issues -- and not to take anything for granted.

Bee all, end all

Why in the hell are people still listening to Gwyneth Paltrow on health-related matters?

It's a rhetorical question, really.  People still reject the commentary of experts and embrace the opinions of the drastically unqualified in a lot of realms other than medicine.  But when it comes to mistakes that can kill you quickly and painfully, taking bad medical advice really can't be beat.  Which is what a 55-year-old woman found out when she underwent a Paltrow-approved procedure called "bee acupuncture," and proceeded to die of anaphylactic shock.

If you're wondering if "bee acupuncture" can possibly be what it sounds like -- yes, it is.  I didn't know about it, either, until a loyal reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link to an article about it a couple of days ago.  The way it works is a "practitioner" holds a live bee in forceps, and puts it on your skin, squeezing the bee until it gets pissed off and stings you.  In a 2016 article in the New York Times, Paltrow said it's a wonderful therapy:

[G]enerally, I'm open to anything.  I've been stung by bees.  It's a thousands of years old treatment called apitherapy.  People use it to get rid of inflammation and scarring.  It's actually pretty incredible if you research it.  But man, it's painful.

Then she tells us about something called a "sound bath," wherein you lie back and expose your body to "different frequencies" to "achieve a meditative state."  "That may even be too hippie for me," Paltrow said.

But back to the bees.  There's no particularly convincing evidence that acupuncture by itself works; there have been studies that show a higher-than-placebo improvement rate in patients subjected to acupuncture, and some pretty convincing evidence that any improvement is due to endogenous opioids produced in response to someone sticking a needle into your skin.  So I'm still doubtful about the whole thing.

Then you bring bees into the picture, and you add the whole extra frisson of the possibility of dying of an allergic reaction.  If you're curious, the woman who died of anaphylaxis after her bee treatment had been stung before -- this was her twenty-fifth bee acupuncture session -- and never had a problem other than localized swelling.  This time, her blood pressure dropped, she went into shock, started gasping for breath -- and because she wasn't receiving this quasi-medical treatment in a hospital or clinic, had to wait for thirty minutes for the ambulance to arrive.  They treated her with an epi-pen, but the damage was too great.  She lingered in the hospital for a few weeks, but never regained consciousness, and ultimately succumbed to multiple organ failure triggered by the reaction to the venom.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So this brings up my initial question, which is why the hell you'd take the medical advice of a woman whose main qualifications for dispensing such dubious wisdom is being rich enough to start her own "natural health and alternative medicine" company.  There seems to be a huge drift in this country toward distrusting experts (i.e. the people who have actually put in the time to understand the subject in question) and trust instead overconfident laypeople whose stock in trade is folksy "that seems like it should work" anecdote and wacko quack remedies.  In fact, the outcome of the presidential election can be looked at as a rejection of expertise -- replacing people who were career politicians who, whatever else you can say about them, know how government works with people whose philosophy can be summed up as "wing it, hope for the best, and when shit blows up, claim that everything is okay and that it's Obama's fault anyhow."

At this point, I'm beginning to shrug my shoulders when I hear about people who injure themselves after falling for Paltrow's nonsense, and instead simply saying, "Natural selection at work."  It sounds harsh, and I'm normally more compassionate than that, but honestly, I don't see much difference between this and the folks who still take up smoking even though the medical establishment showed that smoking causes lung cancer fifty-odd years ago.  If you're dumb enough to do it anyhow, then you deserve what you get.

But it does make me wonder how far Paltrow and others like her are going to have to step over the line before the FDA will say, "I don't care if you say 'This product is not intended to treat, cure, or diagnose any medical condition' on the packaging, you're killing people and you fucking well need to stop."  (Okay, the FDA probably wouldn't phrase it like that, which is why I don't work for the FDA.)

In any case, let me make it clear, for anyone still considering buying products from "Goop:" you're doing so at your own risk.  Gwyneth Paltrow is not a medical professional, nor even a well-informed layperson, she's a nut who jumps on any bandwagon that sounds appealing, and markets highly-priced and dubiously effective health aids that have not been rigorously tested for efficacy or safety.

In other words: caveat emptor.  But in this time, the buyer might have to beware of bodily injury or death.

The IV league

At the risk of beating a dead horse, can I implore you to avoid whatever appears on Gwyneth Paltrow's aptly-named site Goop?

I know we've been here before, and frankly, after the episode of the "psychic vampire repellent" she was selling last fall, I thought I was done with her.  But thanks to a reader of Skeptophilia, I am reluctantly forced back to "Goop" to consider the concept of:

"Holistic IV treatments."

You're probably thinking, "This can't mean what it sounds like."  But yes, sadly, it does.  Unsatisfied by taking dubiously-useful alternative health products by mouth, or even squirting them up your ass with what amounts to a turkey baster, now Gwyneth wants you to hook yourself up to an IV so that these products can be introduced directly into your bloodstream.

Yes, I know that last summer a woman died from the effects of having an extract of turmeric (curcumin) delivered into her vein by an IV, ostensibly to treat her eczema.  Yes, I know that there is a good reason why your average bloke off the street isn't allowed to jab a needle into your circulatory system and inject some random compound.

No, this does not appear to bother Gwyneth.

She tells us about lots of places where we can go to get these "natural alternative" IV treatments for everything from migraines to (I shit you not) hangovers.  Why the better "natural alternative" to hangovers is to stop drinking so damn much alcohol, I don't know.  Be that as it may, we are given a smorgasbord to choose from.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

There's the "IV Doc," which has not only "partnered with Goop" but has expanded overseas so "you can now get a refreshment sesh in London or a much-needed hangover fix in Ibiza."  Gwyneth tells us that this one's especially good because it's "managed by physicians," which makes it sound like this is unusual and should put you on notice that the bottom of the barrel here is very, very deep.

Then there's "VIVAMAYR" of London, England and Lake Worth, Australia, which can "reset your digestive system" and also specializes in "oxygen therapy."  "Oxygen therapy," which involves introducing into your body one way or the other a higher concentration of oxygen than you are generally exposed to, is pretty clearly snake oil -- in fact, breathing oxygen-enriched air is, for a healthy individual, fairly dangerous due to oxygen's reactivity with organic materials.  (It is, unsurprisingly, what chemists call a "strong oxidizer," which means that it's good at grabbing electrons away from other molecules -- which in the case of organic compounds, generally makes them fall apart.)

Then there's the amusingly-named "NutriDrip" of New York City, which offers you four different choices of stuff to put in your IV -- under the categories "Immunity," "Toxins," "Beauty," and "Performance."  The word "toxin" immediately sets my teeth on edge, and I challenge you every time you hear someone talk about "detox" or "flushing out toxins" to demand to know one specific toxin that they're referring to.  That's it.  One.  A single compound that your liver and kidneys are incapable of handling, so you need to take purified extract of papaya seeds or some such nonsense to take care of it.

Let me know what they say.

Then there's "IV Vitamin Therapy" of Los Angeles, which not only has various combos of stuff to put into your IV bag, has flat-screen televisions and lots of books to distract you from your infusion of snake oil.   In New York City, however, they have "House Call Aesthetics," which can bring the snake oil right to the comfort of your own home.

There are probably readers who are still on the fence, or who doubt my credentials to make these sorts of criticisms.  As far as the latter, I admit you are right to ask; I'm a biology teacher, not a medical professional.  So perhaps you'll give more weight to Scott Gavura, a pharmacist who has acted as an advisor on new drug development in Ontario, and who wrote the following for the wonderful site Science-based Medicine:

With so many purveyors of vitamin infusions, one would hope the practice was grounded in good science.  But it isn’t, and that shouldn’t be a surprise.  Despite the lack of good evidence, there is a near-obsessive devotion to touting the benefits of intravenous vitamins while railing against the mysterious entities which are blocking The Truth.  But the reality is more mundane.  In the absence of a deficiency, vitamin infusions don’t do much of anything.  To the worried well, intravenous vitamins are going to be a harmless panacea that just succeed in enriching the revenues of the purveyor.

In any case, it's clearly unwise to buy something (literally or figuratively) from someone who has the track record for veracity of Gwyneth Paltrow.  Myself, I'm going to keep taking vitamins the regular way -- from a good diet -- and avoid "Goop's" recommendation to have some random substance injected directly into my bloodstream.  Call me overcautious, but there you are.

The best part of waking up...

Ah, the early morning.  All is quiet, so it's time to put on the coffee, look forward to a nice hot cup of joe.  Because there's nothing better at this time of day than a dark French roast...

... which, I must state for the record, I would prefer to take by mouth.

The reason I have to specify is, unsurprisingly, because of noted scientific researcher Gwyneth Paltrow, who is now selling a device for $135 whereby you can get your morning coffee squirted up your ass instead.

For what it's worth, I'm not making this up, although I sure as hell wish I was.  The device, called the "Implant-O-Rama" (didn't make the name up either, I swear), is basically just a glass bottle with some silicone tubing.  So I can think of a great many other better uses for $135, and that includes using it to start a fire in my wood stove.

It will probably not shock you to hear that this is all in the name of "detoxification."  A coffee enema is supposed to "detoxify your blood," which should only be a concern if your liver and kidneys aren't working properly.  (And if this is the case, you need to see a doctor immediately, not put your morning Starbucks where the sun don't shine.)

[image courtesy of photographer Julius Schorzman and the Wikimedia Commons]

Why coffee, you might be asking?  Why not orange juice or iced tea or Snapple or Mountain Dew?  The answer: I have no fucking clue.  My guess is that Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't know, either.  If you asked her, she'd probably tell you it had to do with the quantum resonant frequencies of your chakras or something.  But we haven't worried about explanations from her before, so why start now?

At this point it will also come as no particular surprise that people have injured themselves administering coffee enemas.  Emergency rooms have reported colon inflammation, perforated rectums, sepsis, and blood electrolyte imbalances from people doing this to themselves, including at least two people who died of the aftereffects.  Then there were a couple of cases where people suffered severe internal burns, since folks who are stupid enough to squirt random liquids up their ass are evidently also stupid enough not to wait until said liquids are cool.

What's wryly funny about all this is the list of things they say a coffee enema can cure.  Implant-O-Rama, says the website, “can mean relief from depression, confusion, general nervous tension, many allergy related symptoms and, most importantly, relief from severe pain.  Coffee enemas lower serum toxins.”

If it gets rid of confusion, you have to wonder why people in the middle of a coffee enema don't suddenly frown and say, "Wait.  Why do I have a tube up my ass?  This is idiotic."

And about relief from severe pain -- I guess getting scalding hot coffee up your backside would take your mind off any pain you're experiencing elsewhere, just as smashing your toe with a hammer makes you temporarily forget you've got a headache.

Then, of course, we have the disclaimer:

The information contained in these pages and on this website is not intended to replace your medical doctor.  This information has not been evaluated or approved by the FDA and is not necessarily based on scientific evidence from any source...  These products are intended to support general well-being and are not intended to treat, diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or cure any condition or disease.

"Not intended to mitigate any condition?"  So what the fuck does "relief from depression etc. etc. etc." mean to you?

The whole thing is kind of maddening, but even more maddening than the idea that hucksters are trying to bilk you out of your hard-earned cash (that, after all, is what hucksters do) is the fact that there are bunches of people just kind of nod and go, "Oh.  Okay."  It apparently never occurs to them to ask how the hell a coffee enema could help you, or even to ask the person making the claim to name one specific toxic substance the body produces that your liver and kidneys are incapable of handling.

So anyway.  My general advice is "just don't."  There's a good reason that the slogan doesn't go, "The best part of waking up is Folger's up your butt."  There's nothing wrong with a good cup of coffee in the morning, but please put it into the correct orifice.

The goop returneth

Last week, I described a new product being offered by Gwyneth Paltrow's "alternative health" (i.e. snake oil) company "Goop," namely a "psychic vampire repellent," the advantage of which is you could never be certain if it was effective or not because it's repelling something that doesn't, technically, exist.

Much to my bafflement, instead of laughing directly in Paltrow's face, a significant portion the public is apparently thrilled by her products, so much so that she just announced that she's launching a magazine, also called "goop" (note the e. e. cummings-esque lower case, presumably meant to give the magazine some kind of frisson of daring and insouciance, an impression that is significantly diminished by the fact that it's the word "goop" we're talking about here).

In the first issue, there is a Q-and-A with (surprise!) Paltrow herself, in which she makes some statements that are so ridiculous that I felt impelled to respond to her point-by-point.  It was also to save you the pain of going to her website, which trust me, is a significant favor.

She starts out with a bang.  When asked how she thought to found the company, she said:

[W]hen my dad got sick, I was twenty-six-years-old, and it was the first time that I contemplated that somebody could have autonomy over their health.  So while he was having radiation and the surgery and everything, and eating through a feeding tube, I thought, “Well, I’m pushing this can of processed protein directly into his stomach,” and I remember thinking, “Is this really healing?  This seems weird.  There’s a bunch of chemicals in this shit.”

Well, the reason they were feeding him "processed protein" is that it would be pretty difficult to give someone, say, a tuna sandwich through a feeding tube.  And her final statement, "there's a bunch of chemicals in this shit," is just face-palmingly stupid.  There's a bunch of chemicals in everything.  Because that's what the universe is made of.  Chemicals.  Some of 'em have scary names and are perfectly safe.  Some are natural, 100% organic, and have short, friendly-sounding names, and can kill you.

Like strychnine, for example.  Tell you what: you consume a teaspoon of all-natural strychnine, and I'll consume a teaspoon of highly processed (2R,3S,4S,5R,6R)-2-(hydroxymethyl)-6-[(2R,3S,4R,5R,6S)-4,5,6-trihydroxy-2-(hydroxymethyl)oxan-3-yl]oxy-oxane-3,4,5-triol, and we'll see who's happier in a half-hour.

For you non-chemistry-types, the latter is the chemical name for starch.

Another appalling thing about her statement is that she apparently thinks that her highly scientific analysis of the situation ("there's chemicals in this shit") outweighs the knowledge of all the medical specialists who were, at the time, attempting to save her dad's life.  To me that speaks to a colossal ego issue, on top of simple ignorance.

Then she waxes rhapsodic about a "colon cleanse" she did that made her realize that alt-nutrition stuff was real:

So I was very amped up on the idea of seeing it through to completion.  My best friend did it with me and she ate a banana on the second day, and I was like, “You f%$ked it up.  All results are off.”  I felt very toxic and sluggish and nauseous on the second day, and by the third day I started to feel really good.  And in the book, some people do it for seven days, ten days, thirty days. I was like, “I’m good with the three-day introductory cleanse.”  And I remember the next day, I was like, “Oh wow, I just did this cleanse and I feel so much better, so I can have a beer and a cigarette now, right?”  It was the nineties...  But I do remember feeling that that’s where I caught the bug.  And then the Alejandro Junger cleanse was really instrumental in terms of explaining to me that, especially as detox goes, our bodies are designed to detoxify us, but they were built and designed before fire retardants and PCBs and plastic, so we have a much, much more difficult time, and the body needs some support, which is why cleanses can help.

Which fails to explain why our life expectancy and quality of health is higher now than at any time in recorded history, including back when we were living in a non-fire-retardant world for which our bodies were "built and designed," and had yet to hear about things like "colon cleanses."  Life back then was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, "nasty, poor, brutish, and short," and a significant fraction of people never made it past childhood because of what are now completely preventable diseases.

Oh, wait, many of those diseases are prevented with vaccines, and vaccines contain chemicals.  My bad.

She then goes on to rail a bit against people like me who demand pesky stuff like evidence before I buy into something.  This, Paltrow says, is just thinly-disguised sexism:

I really do think that the most dangerous piece of the pushback is that somewhere the inherent message is, women shouldn’t be asking questions.  So that really bothers me.  I feel it’s part of my mission to say, “We are allowed to ask any question we want to ask.  You might not like the answer, or the answer might be triggering for you.  But we are allowed to ask the question and we are allowed to decide for ourselves what works and what doesn’t work...  They don’t want women asking too many questions. It’s a very misogynistic response.

Funny thing is, we do have a way of asking questions and finding answers, which turn out to be true whether we like them or not: it's called "science."  It gives the same answers whether you're male or female, young or old, and is equally irrespective of race, religion, and ethnic origin.  A great many of we scientist-types would love it if there were more women and minorities in science, and have repeated and loudly decried both the barriers that have kept them out for years, and the terrible waste of talent that represents.

Oh, and "Goop's" anti-vampire sprays and supplements designed to use gem stone energies to realign the frequency of your chakras are not science, because there is not a single shred of evidence that they work, or are even describing anything real.

Sorry, Gwyneth, if that was "triggering for you."

She ends by talking about her vision for what her company is accomplishing:

Our mission is to have a space where curious women can come.  We are creating an opportunity for curiosity and conversation to live...  So, we know that the world follows the consciousness of women.  So we’re just trying to create this environment where, really, women again, can just feel okay about getting close to themselves and working from that place.

Hmm.  Seems to me her mission is to sell completely worthless "alt-med" crap to gullible people in order to make money.

You know, it really doesn't matter to me whether she actually believes what she's saying, or if she is coldly and calculatedly ripping off people who don't understand science.  Her company is selling useless health aids and nutritional supplements wrapped in cosmic-sounding pseudoscience, and in the process hoodwinking people with actual treatable medical conditions into thinking that they can fix their problem by drinking Water Activated With Essence of Sapphire.  So I keep hoping that people will recognize "Goop" for what it is -- yet another in the long, long line of Patent Cure Peddlers.

And that it will, in short order, pass into well-deserved oblivion.

Vampire-B-Gon

Yesterday I found something so amazingly ridiculous that at first I thought it was a joke.

Sadly, it is not.

I told some friends about it, and said, "This is so idiotic that I considered writing about it on Skeptophilia, but I honestly can't think of anything to say about it except 'What the fuck?'"

My friends did not concur.  If this didn't make the cut for the topic of a post, they said, there was something wrong with my selection criteria.

So I bowed to the pressure  And to my pals I say: I hope you're all satisfied with what you've done.

*heavy sigh*

And that is why I am here today to tell you about:

Psychic Vampire Repellent.

Yes, I'm serious.  Worse still, this stuff is sold by Gwyneth Paltrow's undeservedly famous company "Goop," which peddles alt-med nonsense of all sorts, such as "Aromatic Irritability Treatment."  But even so... vampire repellent?

Let's hear what the website has to say about it:

A spray-able elixir we can all get behind, this protective mist uses a combination of gem healing and deeply aromatic therapeutic oils, reported to banish bad vibes (and shield you from the people who may be causing them). Fans spray generously around their heads to safeguard their auras.

Yes!  Spray it on your head to safeguard your aura!  Then you can squirt CheezWhiz up your nose to keep yourself from inhaling evil spirits!

The bottle tells you even more:

A unique and complex blend of sonically tuned gem elixirs, including black tourmaline, ruby, lapis lazuli, onyx, and garnet; oils of rosemary, juniper, and lavender; and reiki-charged crystals.

One of the many questions I have about this is: how the hell do you "sonically tune" a gem?  Do you carve little bits off it until it plays an A above middle C when you hit it with a hammer?  Then there's the issue of "gem elixirs," which you apparently make by soaking rocks in water in the hopes that their essential quantum frequency vibrations will be transferred to the water or something.

Of course, as one of my friends pointed out, there's no doubt that if you use it, you won't be troubled by vampires.  "I bet if I buy some and use it faithfully, no psychic vampires will come near me.  I BET," she said.  "I've been using my anti-alien candles and there've been no extraterrestrials keepin' me up at night, no sir."

And I can't argue with that.

Me, I think there's a whole untapped market out there.  If Gwyneth can become rich selling people spray to keep away beings that don't exist, there's no reason why I can't jump on the bandwagon.  I bet anti-Bengal-tiger spray would be a big seller here in upstate New York.  I can guarantee that it'd be 100% effective.  Unfortunately, we've already been beaten to the punch on the Bigfoot angle; just a couple of weeks ago a woman in North Carolina announced she was selling a spray called "Bigfoot Juice," although apparently the point here was not to keep Bigfoots away, it was to lure them in.  "Will attract any Sasquatch within a mile and a half radius!", the sales pitch states.

Why you would want to attract Sasquatches, I have no idea.

But even so, that still leaves a lot of possibilities.  My friend already has her anti-alien candles, so that one's out.  How about NoGhost Strips, for people who are sick of living in haunted houses?  Or CurseAway, if you think you're the victim of evil voodoo?  The possibilities are endless.

I don't see that Gwyneth has trademarked any of these, so I think we're good.  On the other hand, she already has "Moon Juice Sex Dust," which is "designed to ignite and excite sexual energy in and out of the bedroom," "Turn Back Time" age-reversal tonic, and "Chill Child Kid Calming Mist," which contains "cleansing sea salt."

Actually, I wouldn't mind having a bottle of the last one.  There are three girls in my study hall this year who talk and giggle constantly, and I would love to run up to them and spray all three of them directly in the face with Magic Salt Water, yelling, "Chill, Child!  Chill!" and laughing maniacally.

Nah, better not.  Not only would it most likely not work, I'm guessing their parents would object, as would my principal.  He'd probably make me double my dose of "Aromatic Irritability Treatment" for the rest of the school year.

The sticker price

Once again, famed medical professional Gwyneth Paltrow is promoting the latest be-all-and-end-all for your health, to wit: "Body Vibes stickers."

These are silver-dollar-sized stickers that you stick on your body to "rebalance the energy frequency in your body."  Whatever the fuck that means.  But the pseudoscience technobabble doesn't end there:

The concept: Human bodies operate at an ideal energetic frequency, but everyday stresses and anxiety can throw off our internal balance, depleting our energy reserves and weakening our immune systems.  Body Vibes stickers come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency, allowing them to target imbalances.  While you’re wearing them—close to your heart, on your left shoulder or arm—they’ll fill in the deficiencies in your reserves, creating a calming effect, smoothing out both physical tension and anxiety.  The founders, both aestheticians, also say they help clear skin by reducing inflammation and boosting cell turnover.

The stickers, Paltrow tells us, are made of "the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits so they can monitor an astronaut’s vitals."  But herein lies the problem.  Because once you make an easily-verified statement -- i.e., veer away from vague, hand-waving bullshit about imbalanced energy frequencies -- you've kind of sealed your own fate.

And it didn't take long for NASA to respond.

Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist in NASA's human research division, was unequivocal.  "Wow," Shelhamer said.  "What a load of BS this is...  Astronauts do not have any conductive carbon material lining the spacesuits.  Not only is the whole premise snake oil, the logic doesn’t even hold up.  If they promote healing, why do they leave marks on the skin when they are removed?"

This, of course, has exactly zero impact on the alt-med crowd, who absolutely hate it when people bring up pesky stuff like "facts" and "science" and "peer review."  Richard Eaton, founder of AlphaBioCentrix, which developed the stickers, was undeterred by NASA's skepticism.  "Without going into a long explanation about the research and development of this technology, it comes down to this," Eaton said.  "I found a way to tap into the human body’s bio-frequency, which the body is receptive to outside energy signatures.  Most of the research that has been collected is confidential and is held as company private information."

Oh, no, please, Mr. Eaton.  Do give me your long explanation of the research and development.  Define such terms as "bio-frequency" and "energy signatures" using scientifically valid language.  Show me how you can "pre-program" a fucking sticker to "target imbalances."  Give me some well-controlled research showing that the things actually work through something more than the placebo effect.

Until then, don't pretend that what you're hawking is anything more than a convenient way to make money from the gullible and ignorant.

Speaking of which, did I mention that "Body Vibes" stickers cost $120 per pack of 24?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Just as a contrast, let's look at some actual science having to do with stuff you stick on your body, which coincidentally just appeared over at New Scientist yesterday.  Joseph Wang, of the University of California-San Diego, has just published research on a new technology -- a small, flexible square that you can stick on your skin, and which will generate enough power to run a mobile device, using chemicals from your sweat.

It's a biofuel cell -- a power-generating device that runs on organic chemicals broken down by enzymes in the material.  Mirella DiLorenzo, of the University of Bath, was impressed by Wang's creation.  "The most exciting application is wearable sensors that can monitor health conditions, then sweat could generate enough power for a Bluetooth connection so that the results could be read straight from a smartphone," DiLorenzo said.  "This is an amazing proof-of-concept work.  The applications will come quickly in the near future."

Those applications could include monitoring an athlete's performance by tracking lactate levels in the sweat -- which is an indication of how hard the muscles are working.

See the difference, here?  We have, on the one hand, Paltrow and Eaton babbling about quantum bio-energetic frequency vibrations as if anything they said made sense; and on the other, Wang and DiLorenzo talking about actual experimental science, producing a measurable and replicable effect, and based on a solid understanding of biochemistry.

The problem is that actual research just isn't as sexy as alt-med, which can claim any damn thing it wants without the need for verification.  You want to claim that smearing peanut butter on your face will cure your anxiety by resynchronizing your chakras and changing the color of your aura?  No problem!  No one can challenge you, because what you're claiming is that a useless remedy will fix something that almost certainly doesn't exist, which even if it does, is apparently invisible for some reason to every piece of scientific equipment available.  I.e., you're making an inherently unverifiable statement.

But I wish more people would turn to the actual science when they have questions, rather than unscientific charlatans like Gwyneth Paltrow.  Because not only are the victims of these scams wasting their money, they're not seeking effective care for actual medical conditions.

And that crosses the line from just being a bunch of harmless bullshit to being truly dangerous.

Imaginary cure-alls

If yesterday's post, about enhancing your diet by consuming rotten meat, was not enough, today we have:  buying expensive vitamins to combat a disease that doesn't, technically, exist.

It will probably come as no surprise to those of you who keep abreast of health news to find out that this is the brainchild of that renowned medical researcher, Gwyneth Paltrow.

And this is hardly Paltrow's first bizarre idea.  She was, you may recall, the person who recommended "vaginal steaming" for women to improve the health of their hoo-has.  This time, though, in partnership with one Dr. Alejandro Junger, she's peddling vitamin supplements to combat something she calls "adrenal fatigue:"

When Gwyneth Paltrow started showing signs of adrenal fatigue—feeling completely depleted of energy, with dark under-eye circles and brain fog—she turned to her trusted friend and physician, Alejandro Junger, MD. He knew exactly what her body needed because it was something he had experienced himself years ago. 

“Adrenal fatigue is a world epidemic that’s not tested by Western doctors until it’s so extreme that it requires hospitalization—but there’s a whole spectrum of intensity to get there, which is where most people fall,” Dr. Junger says. 

Since there was no established protocol for the condition, he developed one himself—and it came in handy years later, when Paltrow came to him for advice. “She tried this formula herself,” Dr. Junger adds. 

Now, Paltrow’s sharing a way to prevent or treat adrenal fatigue more broadly with today’s launch of Goop Wellness, a supplement line created by the star-turned-lifestyle tastemaker—and the MDs she’s personally worked closely with.

Well, the reason there's "no established protocol for the condition" is because the condition doesn't exist.  In a paper in the Journal of Endocrine Disorders whose title should win the "World's Bluntest Title for an Academic Paper" award -- "Adrenal Fatigue Does Not Exist: A Systematic Review" -- Flavio Cadegiani and Claudio Kater, of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo Department of Medicine, were pretty unequivocal:

The term “adrenal fatigue” (“AF”) has been used by some doctors, healthcare providers, and the general media to describe an alleged condition caused by chronic exposure to stressful situations.  Despite this, “AF” has not been recognized by any Endocrinology society, who claim there is no hard evidence for the existence.

And after a thorough review of the available evidence, Cadegiani and Kater concluded the following:

To our knowledge, this is the first systematic review made by endocrinologists to examine a possible correlation between the HPA axis and a purported “adrenal fatigue” and other conditions associated with fatigue, exhaustion or burnout.  So far, there is no proof or demonstration of the existence of “AF”...  This systematic review proves that there is no substantiation that “adrenal fatigue” is an actual medical condition.  Therefore, adrenal fatigue is still a myth.

But a little thing like a peer-reviewed paper based on evidence never stops anyone like Paltrow, who is happy to sell you her vitamin supplements to combat your nonexistent adrenal fatigue, for $90 per month.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

To make up for the fact that she has zero scientific credibility, she's done the next best thing: given her supplements cutesy names.  Thus you can choose from "Why Am I So Effing Tired," "High School Genes," "The Mother Load," and (I kid you not) "Balls in the Air."

To me, that last one sounds like a completely different medical problem, and one that probably is worth a visit to a doctor.  But maybe I'm misinterpreting.

On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't take anything for granted.  Paltrow herself says that "High School Genes" almost got named "FUPA Blaster," where "FUPA" stands for "fat upper pubic area."

The whole thing brings up something that is a never-ending source of puzzlement for me; why we tend to trust celebrities more than trained scientists on topics of health and medicine.  Myself, if I'm going to spend $90 a month on a medical supplement, I want it to be (1) for a legitimate medical condition, and (2) a treatment that will resolve the symptoms of said medical condition.  Here, on the other hand, we have useless vitamin tablets being sold at great cost to treat an imaginary disorder.

Worst of all, the symptoms that Paltrow calls "adrenal fatigue" -- low energy, poor sleep, "brain fog" -- could well be the harbingers of something far more serious.  And if you choose to self-medicate with expensive celebrity vitamins instead, you might well fail to seek out help from a trained medical professional.

And lest you think that people would never do something that stupid, allow me to point out that just last week a woman in California died after being given an intravenous injection of turmeric to combat her eczema.

So caveat emptor, as usual.  Not to mention cavete Paltrowam.