In marketing we trust

When is science not science? When you read about it in e-mail or see it on TV.  Hyperbole in advertising is universal and the more ludicrous the claim, the less it seems to violate FTC truth in advertising laws at least in terms of enforcement. I'm not talking about the ability of advertisers to distract from facts, like running a Toyota Camry through some kind of  roller coaster contraption to 'prove' that's it's not a boring, soulless transportation appliance for dull people, or inventing "the star safety system" to distract from stories about how people are dying because of it's defects. I'm not even talking about TV ads claiming that after driving a Nissan, the speed of light doesn't seem so fast or showing SUVs beating sports cars on a track.  I'm talking about the level of deceit in the marketing of health and science products and advice -- the kind of pervasive disinformation that makes people believe they can eat double bacon cheeseburgers with impunity as long as they don't eat the bun -- eat chili cheese fries  and lose weight by buying Dr. Oz's magic beans and miracle berries, or put their faith in "the proven science of the glycemic index" as though an index could be science. -- as though that handsome guy in the lab coat were a real scientist and his doctorate not in marketing.

It's about the kind of massive promotion of ideas about gluten and fructose that have no scientific support, about making your brain work better by doing 'exercises' that really doesn't have support from neuroscience as claimed, about getting "grain brain" or removing those mysterious "toxins" from your blood or colon. Never mind none of these "studies" ever appear in professional, peer reviewed journals, but only in advertising. Never mind that what they call "studies" never are more than anecdotes, inventions, gross distortions and deliberate misrepresentations.  You just can't get to the science through the smokescreen of marketing -- and in marketing we trust.

We live in an age of snake oil where all it takes is some actor in a white coat, some diet book salesman posing as a scientist to convince our gullible nation that unhealthy things will make them well, that lethal germs and 'toxins' are lurking under the bed, that green tea or green coffee beans or Doctor Bonkers' Egyptian Oil will let them eat 10,000 calories a day while they stay thin and live forever. The sun will kill you quick, we just know it and even on cloudy days and even wrapping yourself like a Bedouin in wool won't help unless the clothing has extra sun protection chemicals in it. Your kitchen counter of course is a dangerous place that needs to be laved with "anti-bacterial" products lest your family die horribly and everything we touch has to be anti-bacterial. Does it surprise you that SPF 50 doesn't give you twice the protection of SPF 25 -- hell no and while the marketing guys smile we cover ourselves with lead foil and hide in the basement.

UV and Toxins and Germs, oh my! Unless you buy anti-bacterial products you'll be eaten alive by bacteria, no matter that there are more of them inside and all over you than there are people in the world and you wouldn't be healthy otherwise. Anti-bacterial soap, lotion, shampoo, body wash, eye drops, sprays, food, gels, creams, toothpastes -- there are kitchen utensils, toys, bedding, socks, and trash bags -- we're told to be afraid of such things on the food we eat, but we're soaking in it. is it even practical, necessary, healthy or smart to attempt living in a bacteria free bubble? Is that attempt involved with all the allergies everyone seems to have these days?

We never ask what anti-bacterial means, do we?  If cleaning our hands with soap and water removes adequate amounts of bacteria according to real double blind scientific studies, we still want to be righteous and hip and enlightened and we don't bother to ask why some chemical that prevents bacteria from reproducing is needed after the bacteria already has been removed by plain water.  We all feel much better eating "organic" food in the faith based belief that chemicals used by those farmers are safer than the chemicals used by regular farmers and the food is healthier and more nutritious. We obsess about unnamed "toxins" and chemicals and preservatives but we don't ask if long term exposure to the serious toxins in anti-bacterial products might have side effects. But hey, better safe than sorry, right? and if it's on TV it must be true!


There are at least 2000 anti-bacterial products on the market says the FDA.  They're finally going to begin to ask for evidence that they are safe. It's about time. In fact scientists have been pressing for the FDA to remove one chemical, triclosan, that interferes with the thyroid gland in rats, since 1978 even though there is no evidence that soaps containing it are any more effective at preventing disease in your home than washing with plain soap and water. The Government is  finally going to demand evidence of safety and effectiveness and it's about time!

  

Regulation is bad for business

One of the favorite targets of libertarians and "smaller government" arguments is the FDA. The market should, could and would preserve us from tainted, unsafe and worthless products, just the way it didn't in the 19th century. Perhaps there's some truth to that, but the store window where the idea is sold doesn't contain a display of all the poisoned, sickened and fleeced consumers waiting to be redeemed or resurrected while the market forces grind on in the darkness of unregulated capitalism.

Of course the FDA, or what remains of it after years of Republican misrule can't do much better it seems and the free press that's supposed to be an agent of illumination in a libertarian utopia doesn't care to try. Witness today at CNN.com an article telling us that products widely being sold as steroid free, body-building aids do actually contain dangerous synthetic steroids and can, in several ways, kill you. Thanks CNN.

Of course prominently displayed on the home page is a photo of a grotesquely, steroidal male torso which links to an ad for the very things the FDA is telling people to avoid like the plague they apparently are. "Safe, natural, legal!" Never mind that little liver failure thing.

The solution is clear. We really need to get rid of the FDA and that damned government regulation - bad for business, don't you know.

Attack of the killer tomatoes

I found out about the salmonella scare early this week; sitting in front of the TV while eating a take-out sub sandwich loaded with nice, juicy tomatoes. I guess I've lucked out, since I didn't get sick, but it's hard to forget that "oh shit" feeling you get as the potentially lethal food slides down the throat. I have no statistics to back it up, but the number of food scares seems to be far larger than it once was, and now that one hardly ever knows where the stuff comes from, how it's been processed and handled, or who handled it -- a bit of fear is probably justified. Tainted spinach, peanut butter, ground beef and even medicines like Heparin have made headlines of late. Where's the FDA? Inspections have declined as the number of producers has increased, according to the GAO.

The GAO, commenting yesterday on the FDA's new plan to focus on the riskiest food products says it really can't be evaluated because the agency has revealed nothing about how this plan would be carried out. Perhaps, like Dick Cheney, the FDA will take their case for keeping essential knowledge about what we pay for a secret all the way to the Supreme Court. Perhaps not. All we have been told so far is that it's a "strategic vision."

I hate to belabor the subject of creeping deregulation and crawling chaos. There are far too many examples, and some of them deadly examples, of the results of turning over responsibility for public safety and even national security to for-profit groups and depending on the kindness of corporations. Besides, I'm starting to feel a little queasy.

Meanwhile we still don't know where the killer tomatoes are coming from.

Dogs, snakes and the FDA

If the FDA is here to make sure the things we ingest are safe, they're still not in the business of making sure we have access to things that might save our lives, but that the Drug companies don't feel like producing for one reason or another; like profitability.

I thought I saw a Coral Snake warming itself in the morning sun last month; coiled up on the table next to the hammock on my patio. It wasn't, I decided after checking my old Boy Scout manual, but it can be hard to tell. Others haven't been quite as lucky, like the boy bitten near here last Tuesday. He survived, but only because of the few vials of antivenin remaining in Florida hospitals that were rushed to him. About 40 coral snake bites are reported in Florida every year, partly because so many residents "ain't from around here" and don't watch where they step or take care when retrieving golf balls.

There are about 80 bites from this deadly snake in the country every year, but that's not enough for a drug company to make a profit on, and so it just isn't made any more and the government doesn't get involved to the extent of making sure its constituents have a source of many drugs and treatments for ailments not common enough to be profitable. That would smell too much like Socialism.

Certainly the one manufacturer in Mexico could supply the need, but they're in Mexico and the FDA is usually quick to tell us that they can't assure us of the safety of foreign drugs even if they come from places like Canada. We can however be fairly certain that the snakes have no such scruples and that if you're bitten, you're probably dead. Of course if you're a dog, the FDA doesn't care if Mexican products are used, so perhaps if you're so unlucky as to be struck, you can find a veterinarian willing to risk his license to save your life.

Maybe this is one more example of how markets are self regulating at our cost and our peril. We do have billions to spend on preventing people from using harmless things, but when it comes to saving American lives, the government and the snakes are on the same side.