Can Copper Bracelets Relieve Pain? Bogus!
When I dropped off my prescription at the local pharmacy I was told it would be a 10 minute wait. I never have issues waiting, although when I am the only customer I sometimes wonder what it is the pharmacists get up to in the back-room. You would think that grabbing a box of non-controversial medication really shouldn’t take THAT long!
Looking through the aisles while waiting for my name to be called I came across the following product for sale:
“Experience the magic of pure copper”…Because magic is medicine now?
The product immediately caught my interest, partially because such a shiny bracelet seemed out of place in a chemist!
Upon closer inspection I noticed that the packaging had an Rx (a common symbol for prescriptions) printed on the front. I found this perplexing as the product makes absolutely no claims anywhere on its packaging. The reverse of the packet merely warns that wearing copper can leave green stains on one’s skin; completely silent as to what this bracelet is actually meant to do.
My bullshit detector was in overdrive.
Upon Googling “copper bracelets” I found a myriad of sources that made the assumption that wearing a copper bracelet could reduce arthritic pain.
Now it made sense why the pharmacy had decided to place the bracelets amongst the products for elderly customers; old people with joint pain, a logical choice! With a bit more digging I found that the beneficial effects of a copper bracelet are fundamentally no different to a placebo (that is, the bracelets do NOTHING!).
Typically I live by the adage “caveat emptor” (buyer beware).
If someone is stupid enough to buy into pseudoscience then that person probably deserves a lighter wallet. However, something about this scenario just seemed down right dishonest. The product clearly has no medical claims on it, but is sold amongst real medical devices. It uses very misleading words (who the hell buys magic at a pharmacy?) to convey a sense of therapeutic relief to potential customers.
The vilest thing about this junk however, is that the bracelet is clearly aimed at a vulnerable class – elderly people in pain.
While I freely admit that a bracelet that makes no therapeutic claims is technically just a bracelet, I think someone really needs to assess the inventory at my local pharmacy (part of a national brand of pharmacies).
Trying to sell snake-oil to old people ranks up there with abusing any class of vulnerable people, it is a downright shitty thing to do.
How anybody with even a modicum of human decency would allow a product like this to grace their shelves is beyond me, especially when 30 seconds of research reveals that its implied claims (remember, this is just a bracelet according to the packaging) are complete and utter horse shit.
The truth behind the poster is that :even you proved that the copper bracelet has no effects on release arthritic pain, the elderly people need something to give them hope that the pain can be overcome by some magic.
There is no such thing as magic.
It is disgusting that anybody would want to convince another person that “magic” exists. I do not even do it to children!!
When the elderly people has faith on something, that thing sometimes work.
That is probably the placebo effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo
Thanks OLIVER FROST for sharing this article to awake us to be alert of some new products which need more research.
For Chinese people, pure snake oil is rich in natural active substances and antibacterial ingredients used for skin protection and prevent skin aging.and preventing hardening of the arteries.
It is cruel to kill snake for its oil. However, the whole body of the snake is treasure. For folk medicine for skin care, people with hand, foot and body parts drying winter break, continuous smear snake oil for one week, the skin will return to normal.
I seriously doubt if there are any benefits to those folk medicine claims. I have never heard of snake oil remedies when I was young.
I encountered the term “snake oil” when I was an adult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
Wikipedia clarified snake oil as any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. However, the function of the original snake oil refined from the fat of the snake is gradually replaced by coconut oil 🙂
Do snakes really produce any oils?
What kind of snakes are we talking about?
How much oil is produced?
Any peer-reviewed studies on snake oil?
I am extremely skeptical about such a thing as “original snake oil”.
I suspect the “original snake oil” is someone’s idea of a joke.
I’ll be almost willing to bet that anything claiming to be “snake oil” will not contain any snake and will never have contained any snake.
I believe Wikipedia has the correct definition of “snake oil” – it is fraudulent and unproven.
The 10 feet python was fatty. Some people teared its skin. got the fat and cooked it to get oil. The snake oil shared among the villagers. It is as oily as chicken oil, could last for a few months. That’s my childhood experience.
Oh, I see, so you have personal experience with the fatty parts of a snake are being rendered down for its oil.
OK, that’s an interesting fact but I still do not believe in the healing properties of snake oil 🙂
You better not believe the healing properties of snake oil. The snake will extinct if too many people believe that 🙁
Now, we can’t catch python. No more habitat for the python to grow. Most of the village turned to suburban development areas.