Pass the Duct Tape

On Glenn Beck's radio show he does a routine of wrapping his head with duct tape (sound effects) so his head won't explode when he hears something outrageous. I found myself looking around for duct tape this morning at the coffee shop.

I was having a perfectly interesting conversation with a lovely lady to whom I'd just been introduced. After a few pleasantries about her fascinating job, she reached in her briefcase, pulled out something about the size of a small 3" battery pack and attached electrodes to her wrists. She explained to me that she was purifying her blood--that "blood electrification" cures memory loss (her problem), cancer, Parkinson's, etc., and that ambrotose (sp?) can reverse Down's Syndrome, Alzheimer's and asthma. Truly, I couldn't have been more shocked if she'd opened a box of leeches and attached them to her arm. That's the last "blood cleansing" cure I'd heard of that was so all encompassing.

I excused myself from the table and drove home with visions of 19th century snake oil salesmen laughing all the way to the bank, only these were on the internet charging $100 for a device that costs maybe $1.00 to put together. After checking the Internet, I see that the web is full of these things--both the bioelectrification gimmicks and the ambrotose (extract of cabbage and grapes, I think), all with assurances that the mean old medical establishment doesn't want us to know of these wonders, the pharmaceutical industry fears these "break throughs," and so forth. (Medical breakthroughs that are "secrets" should be the dead giveaway that you've stepped deep into doo-doo.)

I've checked Medline and the Alternative Medicine database, but can't turn up any entries, let alone rebuttals. Which means not even a clinical trial that failed has been published? Yet all these websites make references to "research" and "papers." Must be using these papers to train puppies (whose circulation system and kidneys are apparently performing the cleansing function without an electrical assist from a cheap battery), because they don't seem to be in any known medical journals.