A Deadly Intellectual Atmosphere

I’m not at all surprised that quackery, pseudoscience, crackpot science, and outright fraud are not only popular, but “politically correct.” A simple examination of what’s available in stores, through mail order catalogs, from TV “infomercials,” and via the Internet will provide us with a vivid picture of what the public is led to believe is legitimate, accepted, tested, and proven to be legitimate.

You may suffer, as I once did, from the delusion that federal agencies like the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are watching merchants to make sure that the American public is protected. Forget it. These lethargic and essentially powerless bureaucracies simply shuffle papers in their cubicles, let their cumbersome “recorded information” telephone robots frustrate anyone calling in for information, and fire off pre-printed form responses by mail that are received long after the need for information has passed. 

Remember the “Stimulator” device that Lee Merriweather and Evel Knievel were peddling last year via TV? This was a hypodermic-looking black plastic gimmick that buyers would apply to areas of the body where aches and pains gave discomfort. The plunger was depressed, a small quartz piezo-electric crystal was impacted, and a spark of high-voltage electricity was produced at the tip of the device. This action was accompanied by a sharp crackling noise. This was essentially the same as a legitimate device made to ignite gas fires, but packaged differently. 

The electricity was not delivered to the body, it had no effect on the area of pain, and the only effects were that the user felt that New Age “alternative” treatment had been applied, and the sellers of the Stimulator were $79.95 richer. 

Ah, yes, the ever-vigilant FDA closed down this company. They were fined $40,000 and forbidden to continue to offer this bit of quackery to the American public. But this only happened three and one-half-years and tens of millions of dollars after the company started offering this worthless device for sale. Do you really think they cared much that they were shut down? 

Tune in any Saturday or Sunday and scan the channels for similar offerings, and you’ll now come upon the latest in quackery, offered by “Biomagnetics International.” This is a set of plastic magnets that can be applied to painful areas of the body, using velcroed belts and bands, or adhesive patches. As with the Stimulator, endless glowing-eyed testimonials are offered to prove that these flimsy magnets relieve pain. We can rest assured that the FDA will pursue these quacks with the same prompt and vigorous action that they showed in closing down the Stimulator company. That is to say, the promoters will only be allowed a few years of swindling the public; then the mechanism of the FDA will begin to stir, and the field will be cleared for another operator to safely and confidently move in and start some other flummery going. And the Biomagnetics operators will be on the Riviera, happily retired. 

These lethargic and essentially powerless bureaucracies simply shuffle papers in their cubicles.

But don’t think it’s only fly-by-night operators of this sort that are swindling you. Huge pharmaceutical chains like Eckerd Drugs stock and sell useless homeopathic pills to their customers. The Block Drug Company of New Jersey produces NyTol, a recognized and tested sleep aid. But Block Drugs also produce “Natural NyTol,” a homeopathic version of the product, which has zero content. And Eckerd Drugs features this product. Eckerd also sells “Tru-Fit” “MAGNETIX™” magnets, which when worn on the body “perpendicular to the blood flow” will increase the “exchange of nutrient-enriched blood to the injured area” and “influence ions within the cells.” They will also “enhance ion exchange” and “increase the availability of oxygen.” Again, nonsense. Eckerd Drugs must know that this is gobbledygook, yet they sell the products. I note, in passing, that there is a prominent American flag displayed on the MAGNETIX package, and text proudly proclaiming that this useless product was “Designed in the U.S.A,” but a closer look reveals “Made in China” in smaller type. And the modifiers such as “naturally,” “It is said that…,” “believed to…,” “some researchers indicated that…,” and “helps to…” are strewn throughout the claims on the packaging. 

Now, if you’re reading this and tut-tutting that it’s all a shame, but you’ve never seen the bogus commercials nor invested in the products offered, confident that these things aren’t part of your life, listen up. I doubt that there’s one of you who has not had the experience of offering a large-denomination currency bill at a store, and has then watched the clerk either (a) pass it over or through a small box that delivered a beep, (b) flash it under a purplish light, or (c) stroke it with a felt-tip pen, before accepting it. These are spurious systems that claim they can detect counterfeit money. 

The beeping box is simply a tape-recorder playback head that scans across the bill and senses whether the black ink used to print the bill is conductive and magnetic. The ink used by the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving is both conductive and magnetic, so this testing procedure is said to be verifying that the bill came from the federal government, and not from a basement offset printing press. You see, the ink used for offset printing does not have those qualities. But, alas, the toner used in copying machines does have such qualities, and if you prepare a copy of a $100 bill on your Xerox machine, it will test genuine on one of these ubiquitous beepers. Be warned: the U.S. Secret Service frowns on such experimentation. Don’t try this at home. Nor in the office. Please. 

The purple light is simply a 4-watt ultra-violet light that would cost about $20 if purchased through any science shop, but goes for more than $250 when it has been labeled with such names as “Detectit” or “Spectralite” by vendors of fakery. The claim is that a counterfeit bill will show a bright blue-white glow under one of these lights, and the theory behind such a notion is that counterfeiters use cheap re-cycled paper, that has “brighteners” added to it to make it whiter. These chemicals (known as “kumarins”) do, indeed, glow blue-white under ultraviolet light. I cannot imagine any counterfeiter who would use cheap paper; that business has the highest product-to-material value ratio that I can imagine. 

But the hands-down winner here is the felt-tip pen. This one is patented, which indicates to me that the U.S. Patent Office needs a flushing out to eliminate the dummy who granted a patent to such a bit of nonsense. Let me explain. Many of us will recall, from chemistry class, that a solution of iodine (whether in alcohol, aqueous potassium iodide, or other solute) will turn dark blue and even black when a starch suspension is added to it. The wondrous “Smart Money Counterfeit Detector Pen,” is manufactured and sold by “Dri-Mark” company, and the patent number is 5,063,163. It is simply a regular felt-tip marker that delivers a weak solution of iodine. The theory here is that counterfeiters—again—use cheap paper that has starch sizing in its surface. But the patent papers clearly state that if a bill that has been stroked with the pen shows a black mark, that bill is counterfeit. If the bill shows the expected brownish-yellow marking, it is “genuine currency.” Nonsense. Stroke a piece of newsprint with iodine. The mark stays brown. Does that mean you can spend that piece of newspaper? Stroke some genuine currency, and if it shows a black mark, that can be due to the bill having passed through a laundry machine, or having picked up starch from clothing. 

Those who, above all, should have known better were deceived by pseudoscience and refused to listen to those who knew better.

None of these “detectors” works. In fact, those who use such tools are aiding in the circulation of counterfeit currency—an ever-more-serious problem as the counterfeiters get more and more sophisticated in their methods. The reason I spend time and space here discussing the matter with you is that it is an indication of how reluctant federal agencies are to react to consumer complaints about such matters, and also indicates how we are betrayed daily, on unsuspected levels. The response I got from the U.S. Secret Service concerning the silly pen, was that it was “of limited use.” Yeah, like about zero. The Secret Service does not know of one issue of counterfeit money that would be detected by the “Smart Money Counterfeit Detector Pen.” The very few fakes that are printed up on copying machines by juveniles every year constitute a very small and inconsequential fraction of the total product, and just might be prepared with cheap paper and thus show a black mark. Most of the “good” stuff comes from foreign sources—Iran being one—and it’s very classy indeed. None of the systems I’ve described here would or could detect the sophisticated product, some of which probably passes through your hands from time to time, unchallenged. 

Drop into the neighborhood Sharper Image store. Now, they feature a great line of products, many of which I’ve invested in. Fun, techno-classy, and useful items abound there. But recently they took on a line of “laundry balls” that are said to wash clothes without detergent or soap. And the clerks smilingly assure you that the product works. They simply don’t know, and they should, that this is a farce. 

You may recall that I wrote here about the school systems and police departments that invested in phony devices that were said to detect aliens, drugs, firearms and explosives, and even lost golf balls (?) without being powered or tuned in any way. Yes, in our school systems! Those who, above all, should have known better were deceived by pseudoscience and refused to listen to those who knew better. Then what do they teach our kids about the process of critical thinking? 

If we and our kids are bombarded with lies, frauds, fakes, swindles and mythology about the world in which we live, via the advertising media, in our stores, and on television, and even in our schools, is it any surprise at all that we tend to believe that water can be found with a forked stick or a pendulum, that oil wells can be spotted by a sealed-box device in an airplane, and that the CIA was wise to spend $20 million on a project to see if “psychics” could find colonels lost in Libya? 

Get worried. I am.