Avoid health scams. Demand proof. Get your money's worth.

This is great information - but it also applies to any other medical condition, too. The media is filled with hundreds of weight loss scams around New Year’s, when people are resolving to lose weight. The internet, and even the local newspaper and magazines are rife with thousands of so-called ‘cures’, ‘treatments’, pills, elixers, homeopathic treatments and more that are designed to do nothing more than take your money.

They can sound and look so very real, but remember that extraordinary claims always require extraordinary proof. So, start questioning and asking more of those claims. Legitimate firms will welcome your inquiries. The scam firms will resist giving you straight answers to simple questions.

Remember that people who are sick, are often very frightened and want to reach out for help from any source. They are vulnerable to great sounding claims for ‘cures’ or ‘treatments’ that could actually harm them.

Here are some concepts you need to keep in mind as a health care consumer:

Anecdotes are not a substitute for real science.

Stories told in advertising by ‘average’ people claiming cures or success are 99.99% bogus. Unless their stories are part of a larger, reputable scientific study that has been published and peer reviewed - and have been put into proper context, and weighted for other possible causative factors - they are utterly meaningless. These type stories are geared to appeal to your emotions, hopes and fears - not your rational decision-making processes.

Scientific language and words don’t equal scientific fact

People who write advertising copy for newspapers, magazines, flyers in the vitamin store, and online sources (anything with a dot.com) are very, very clever. They know how to get you sucked in and believing that the quoted sources are credible. All it takes is practice and a medical dictionary, and you can sound like you know what you’re talking about.

Reputable vendors and healthcare providers use simple language, and avoid unnecessary ‘jargon’, in order to help people truly understand a treatment or cure. If there are words you have to ‘look up’ or concepts you just don’t understand, then you might want to question the source. That doesn’t make you stupid. Only when you unquestioningly accept what you don’t understand, can we assume you’re short on brains.

Heresy doesn’t equal brilliance or accuracy

They laughed at Copernicus! They laughed at the Wright Brothers! Uh, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. So what? Yes, there have been a few unconventional geniuses who gave us brilliant mechanical or scientific contributions. There was also Rube Goldberg that gave us inventions that were silly, unnecessary and utterly useless. Posing as a poor ‘misunderstood’ genius is another common ploy scam artists use to convince you to play along.

Corellation does not equal causation

In other words, just because one thing (such as a supposed cure) happens after a person got a treatment or took a ‘medicine’, you can’t just conclude the two things are related. If you were pitching baseball, and got two homeruns, and was wearing red underpants that day - should you assume that red underpants caused the homeruns? Maybe you’re a more skillful ball player than that. Maybe it was simply coincidence. Gamblers are particularly prone to this type of logical fallacy. B. F. Skinner proved in the laboratory that people have an inherent need to seek out relationships between events - and often ‘find’ them even when they don’t exist.

Snake oil hucksters know this, and capitalize on it by helping you to ‘see’ relationships between a ‘cure’, ‘treatment’, ‘pill’ or weight loss miracle and hoped for success.

‘Natural’ is a completely meaningless term

Ironically, people really seem to believe that ‘organic’ is the meaningless word. Use of the word ‘organic’ is bound by law, and people who use it to market their products must abide by strict FDA rules. Actually, ‘natural’ carries no legal definition. Arsenic is a ‘naturally occuring’ substance. It’s also deadly. Beware of products that tout themselves as ‘natural’. Somebody is trying to divert your attention with that word - perhaps from noticing that the product is naturally worthless.

Here are five questions to ask any doctor, medical provider or person wishing to sell you cures, treatments or medications:

1. Does this product work? Can you show me the scientific research to support its effectiveness?
2. What are the possible risks, side effects and benefits in my specific case?
3. Will it interfere with my current treatment plan? Will it have negative interactions with medications I now take?
4. Has this product proven to be safe? (Then check with the FDA yourself)
5. Can we talk about other treatments, medicines or products that might be just as effective in reducing my symptoms?

 At the end of the day, you are responsible for doing your own ‘homework’ when it comes to medical or health claims. Remember that nobody else has as much at stake in your own health and survival as you do. Here are some additional resources:

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

MedLinePlus at the National Institutes of Health

HealthFinder.gov

Food and Drug Administration

American Cancer Society

NIH Office of Dietary Supplements

Anatomy of an Online Health Scam - this is put out by the Canadian Government, and it’s very interesting. It mimics many of the typical scam websites, and as you read through it, and draw your cursor/mouse over the words, pop up bubbles will explain the tactics that scammers are using to gain your trust.

-maven