CO-OPTATION by the authorities is the sincerest form of flattery for critics. Feedback is officially “considerably chuffed” that the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has taken up our pastime of extracting the Michael from fruitloop claims (4 June).
Harris Steinman alerts us to an example. Leslie Kenton is promoter of the “Cura Romana” weight-loss programme. Until recently, her website contained repeated references to the controversial slimming aid human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). Did this mean that the Essential Spray, a key part of the Cura Romana programme, contained hCG?
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No, no, not at all. Kenton explained to the ASA in August that: “The Essential Spray used in the… programme did not contain human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), and was physically nothing more than pure water and 25% ethanol… [it] was not a medicinal product or a homeopathic formula, but was a vibrational essence that had itself been energised by several non-material vibrational essences including well-known gem essences.” (See .)
Despite this ingenious defence, the ASA ruled that the Cura Romana website had “strongly implied” that the Essential Spray contained hCG, and that it promoted an unlicensed medicine. The ASA said that Kenton should not make claims that were incompatible with good nutritional practice.
Since the ruling Kenton has . It now says, much as she spun it at the ASA, that the spray has “been transformed from an hCG-based homeopathic… into a complex vibrational essence via a unique proprietary process similar to the way flower essences are created”. So is it now ingredient-free?
Meanwhile, we discover in the list of rulings on that in Liverpool, UK, had been advertising a distinctly non-homeopathic nostrum: “Digital Thermal Imaging (DITI)… detecting breast abnormalities a full 8-10 years before a mammogram.” The person who complained to the ASA “challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that DITI could detect the early signs of breast cancer”.
The ASA showed on 19 October that it had the measure of such claims, challenging on its own initiative “whether the ad was irresponsible, because it could discourage women from attending routine screenings for a condition for which medical supervision should be sought”.
The ASA ruled against the clinic on both points. As far as we can tell, has now disappeared.
Defying Isaac Newton and other great minds, a notice outside a gym seen by Adrian Somerfield in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, exhorted passers-by to: “Drop upstairs for details.”
Is pulling earlobes good for the brain?
WHILE on the topic of homeopathy – we just can’t leave it alone, can we? – reader John Riedel suggests we look at the Australian Homeopathy Plus website and in particular at . This describes: “A quick and easy exercise [that] improves poor memory, lack of concentration… and emotional instability.”
A video demonstrates the exercise, which consists of holding your earlobes (right ear with left hand, left ear with right hand) and doing squats. We found it very funny to watch, so thank you, John – though what holding one’s earlobes like this has to do with improving memory and concentration we cannot say. Come to that, what has it got to do with homeopathy?
A PRESS release emanating from Consolidated PR told Jeremy Condliffe about a UK schools’ competition to “win the lesson of a lifetime with TV science star”. Jeremy immediately passed the information on to Feedback.
Last year, the press release said, thousands of schools competed to win a “Big Bang” lesson from TV pundit Brian Cox. Now, once again: “Brian Cox is on a mission to turn one lucky school class into budding astrologers as he returns for The Big Bang Lesson: Take 2.”
This press release was quoted at length on until someone noticed the howler and corrected “astrologers” to “astronomers”.
“ARE they using quantum materials?” Jacob Tougaard wonders. In the instructions for his new Canon Pixma MP282 printer, Jacob noted that he should remove the protective materials it came wrapped in. Then came this warning: “The tape and protective materials may differ in shape and position from what they actually are.”
FINALLY, the two blocks of Mainland butter New Zealander Michael Strawson bought in his local New World supermarket had different labels. One said it was “Unsalted”, the other identified itself as “Natural”.
“So the food industry in New Zealand defines ‘natural’ as meaning ‘with added salt’,” Michael observes. “No wonder we have so much of the stuff in our diet.”