'Detox' seller caught lying on national British radio about their own claims

[muriel_volestrangler]

The excellent Dr. Ben Goldacre read out a ridiculous claim from the company's website, the Managing Director claimed it must be from someone else's, and now that the BBC have confirmed she was lying, she's quietly changed it:

And this is her webpage. I read directly from it on the air:

One of the most complex detoxification functions is against heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadminum, nickel, arsenic, and aluminum.

As I said, they can’t even manage to spell “Cadmium” correctly. The website goes on to explain that their detox programme will expedite the removal of these nasties from the body, without troubling itself to offer any evidence for these claims. Nas explained that she didn’t need to because it had nothing to do with her.

It strikes me that to confidently deny the contents of your own website can only denote a rather careless approach to the facts, or at worst, we might tenuously speculate, in our darkest thoughts, a rather clumsy attempt to obfuscate when caught out.

I have emailed Nas Amir Ahmadi to inform her of her error, in the hope that she will be able to clarify on this issue, and look forward to her apology for misleading the 2 million listeners of the Today programme, and for incorrectly claiming that my research into her absurd website was mistaken. I’ve also rung the Today programme on the one in 5 million chance that they will clarify this on air, partly because I am the most anal person in Britain, and partly because I think it is important to be clear about these things. If it had happened on any subject I would want them to clarify.
...
EDIT: And on that comment they have now changed the text of their website. Heh. Note to Nas: changing your website does not change the fact that you were wrong and pwned.

http://www.badscience.net/2009/01/the-barefaced-cheek-of-these-characters-will-never-cease-to-amaze-and-delight-me/

The BBC did point out, in the dying seconds of the programme, that he was right.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. The only ways I know of to get rid of heavy metals

is through chelation therapy done under a doctor's supervision. To some extent saunas can also help if someone has gotten a nasty dose of something--but again, with doctor's supervision and with other things happening as well, such as Vitamin C IVs to boost the immune system, etc--and ALWAYS with testing for heavy metals to make sure of levels before and after treatment.

[hobbit709]

2. Right up there with those "Inoki" pads.

What I call Airhead 101 thinking.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Turns out there's another 5 sites with the same 'cadminum' spelling

Who knows which was the ignorant original, and which just stupidly copied it:

http://www.detox-guide.com/benefits-of-detox.html
http://www.highcresthealth.com/preventive_biodentical.htm
http://www.sportsspecifictraining.com/training/Benefits_of_detox.html
http://budgetdetox.com/detox-colon-article.htm
http://www.clinictherapy.com/Detoxification/

[mopinko]

4. sadly, my local air america station runs ads for one of these stupid products

"some experts believe you have 5 pounds of toxins adhered to your intestinal walls like spackle."
everclens or something like that. makes me shake my head every time i hear it.