We love the LA Times’ Healthy Skeptic column. You’ve heard that before.
I hate being on a flight when I’ve run out of reading material and resort to leafing through the highly-priced stuff in the SkyMall magazine.
Now the Healthy Skeptic analyzes such SkyMall-listed products as “The Baby Quasar”…”The Aculife Therapist Deluxe”…and the “Nano-UV Wand”.
Excerpt:
“It’s frighteningly easy to drop a couple of hundred dollars on a holiday present. If you’re considering spending big money on a health-related gift, you’ll want to make sure that it will do something besides take up space in the gift bag.
Unfortunately, when it comes to health products, even an outsized price tag won’t guarantee results. While some gadgets and devices really do deliver on their promises, others seem to owe their entire existence to wishful thinking and clever marketing.
To see marketing at its finest, simply browse through SkyMall, the airline catalog that aims to connect frequent fliers with all sorts of pricy items, including quite a few products that supposedly revitalize body and mind. The pictures and ad copy make every health gadget seem like a medical breakthrough that would surely be a can’t-miss gift.”
Just for fun, see if you can match the pictures below, taken from the SkyMall website, to the product names above!
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Take all the issues enmeshed in any cancer screening story and amplify it with the liquid biopsy issue. @AP's @CarlaKJohnson. did a solid job here. https://apnews.com/article/science-business-health-hodgkin-lymphoma-oregon-ca899bb9c4c7f1859d4e9ce16a1cf78d
Come on, NY Times; you must do better than this. Important research doesn’t need hype and the “breaking news” BS doesn’t help readers or patients. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2022/03/nyt-proclaims-breaking-news/
Comments (2)
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Marya Zilberberg, MD, MPH
November 22, 2010 at 10:47 amFunny this should appear now — on a recent flight I got perturbed by Aculife’s FDA claims, to the point where I actually filed an FTC complaint. Alas, have not heard back form the agency.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like