Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine news and discussion thread

https://twitter.com/user/status/1751140957469245742




Kirsty Schnickelfritz @KSchnickelfritz

https://web.archive.org/web/2024011...1/18/dragons-den-ip-blog-series-21-episode-3/

The government page as it was before they removed reference to Acuseeds yesterday. Again, no question about whether they work.

7:11 AM · Jan 27, 2024

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The following notice has been posted on the Gov blog and text removed:

https://dragonsden.blog.gov.uk/2024/01/18/dragons-den-ip-blog-series-21-episode-3/

"[We reported here on the intellectual property of a business called Acu Seeds. We have removed our coverage of the pitch after the episode was withdrawn from viewing by the BBC, who are reviewing the content.]"

 

Dragons scrutinizing clinical trials about a acupuncture back rest from a 'doctor'.
"No Clinical Research To Back Your Medical Claims" | Dragons' Den

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4Bx8zajjA

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/dragons-den-new-backlash-over-31978691

"Meanwhile, it’s emerged Boxer was also banned from a prominent ME Facebook forum for “spamming” members about her “natural recovery”.

Moderators on the forum with more than 50,000 members expressed unease about Giselle’s posts in December 2019 which claimed she had “nearly recovered” and wanted to “share her journey with you all…..to give you hope”. They removed three of her posts, and banned her from posting."

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/dragons-den-new-backlash-over-31978691

"A BBC spokesperson said last night: “Dragons’ Den is an entertainment programme which features products created by entrepreneurs but is not an endorsement of them."


But she hasn't "created" the product, per se.

The product (both the natural seeds and the gold and silver plated versions) is available from many retailers, including Amazon, Temu, AliExpress, ebay, Etsy et al. She's just flogging an already easily available product at a higher mark-up than most. It's not unique to her business and I don't understand why she was approached to pitch on the programme. I've never watched Dragons' Den - are most of the products that appear on the programme unique?

 

Good question. Giselle has got herself into a position of being able to 'certificate' anyone who pays out to do her 12 hour course in ear seeds. But who 'certificated' Giselle? Another 12 hour course probably.



https://acuseeds.co.uk/pages/learn-1

'Acu Seeds was founded by Giselle Boxer, who was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or M.E at the age of 26. When her GP told her that she would never recover from the condition, Giselle went on a personal healing journey using a holistic approach of diet, supplementation but most importantly Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Through the use of acupuncture, Chinese herbs and ear seeds, Giselle is now fully recovered and thriving!'



Giselle is a certified Ear Seed Practitioner and it is her mission to teach ear seeding to other wellness professionals.

This is a 12 hour course which is examined by a short multiple choice questionnaire

Giselle in the Course Q&A:
" there is a short multiple choice exam which will test your knowledge on ear seeds, the anatomy of the ear, the different points etc. Once you have passed with 70%, you will receive a certificate of completion. If you don’t pass, you can take the test again until you do"


"the course has been accredited by the IPHM - The International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine"

"once you complete the course and receive the certificate, you will be able to take out insurance so that you can start practising on clients. Our recommended insurance provider in the UK is given in the course material, but there are other providers worldwide who will cover you for ear acupressure/auriculotherapy/ear seeding"


............................................................



This looks to be a 12 hour distance learning £599 course that no one can fail to pass the 'exam'.


Looks like The International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine will certificate anything, however flaky or controversial, however much bad publicity the course leader has accumulated, however many complaints to multiple bodies (ASA, Ofcom, BBC etc) are pending about the product.

.

 

I see, thanks. I assumed they would usually be developing and pitching new products.

 

" there is a short multiple choice exam which will test your knowledge on ear seeds, the anatomy of the ear, the different points etc. Once you have passed with 70%, you will receive a certificate of completion. If you don’t pass, you can take the test again until you do"

Very rigorous, then?

 

Giselle's ear seeds 'practitioner' course she is charging £599 for is probably based on the weekend course type 'training' she herself did.

 

Good find I will try and clip that and put it on Twitter

 

I received this yesterday about my complaint to the BBC -

This is an update from the BBC Complaints team.

We wanted to let you know that we have referred your complaint to the relevant people and are still looking into it. We regret that it may take a little bit longer before we can reply. Please wait to hear from us before you contact us any further – we appreciate your patience.

Although we reply to most complaints within 2 weeks we cannot achieve this every time. It depends on what your complaint was about and how many others we are handling, or may sometimes be due to issues outside of our control. Sometimes it can take a while to hear back from the key people involved, but we often find the wait is worth it.

Please don’t reply to this email because it’s sent from an account which can’t receive replies. If you do need to get in touch, please use our webform instead at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints, quoting your reference number.

For full details of our complaints process please visit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/how-we-handle-your-complaint.

Thank you for contacting us - we hope to be in touch soon.

Kind regards

BBC Complaints Team

 

Oh that's a typo. It should read "fatuous".

 

Hey that's the LP business model. They're learnding.

Hard to have the "talk to a medical professional" disclaimer when you're just as likely to be scammed by doing this. It's not as if snake oil is any better or worse than NFTs of snake oil.

Or maybe it's like those butter substitutes called things like "memories of butter" and "I can't believe it's not butter", except it's snake oil instead of butter. Just as slimy, when you think of it, the exact same pitch with a few tiny distinctions.

 

I don’t regularly watch Dragon’s Den, but in the past I has seen people pitching for investment rejected because their retailing of items without any exclusivity deals meant they did not have a long term sustainable business model. The Dragons previously said why invest when anybody else could set up rival identical businesses at any time. I did not see this episode so I have no idea why they wanted to invest in this ear seed business, unless they felt there was something remarkable about Giselle Boxer and that they were investing in her personally rather than her business model.

[added - indeed many retailers already supply ear seeds at a fraction of the cost of those supplied by Ms Boxer raising the question what is being invested in by the Dragons. Is it what makes Ms Boxer remarkable is her reported recovery from ME?]

 

This US ear seed company also offers a $997 certification programme:

https://www.earseeds.com

https://www.thriveearseeds.com/level1-waitlist

Learn All The Skills Required to Master Ear Seeding & Auriculotherapy at Your Own Pace

https://www.thriveearseeds.com/level1-waitlist#simplero-section-12



Edited to add: Also offers workshops for parents for ear seeding children:

https://www.thriveearseeds.com/childrens-health-workshop

"You'll learn ear seed protocols and holistic health tips to effectively to address a range of pediatric conditions including:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Hyperactivity
• Focus/Memory
• Sleep

• Tummyaches
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Common Cold
• Immunity Support"

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1751355707134214540

 

The CMA (competition and markets authority) don't allow it ie making claims whilst using disclaimers to cover your back

 

There are some good points.

The one I'd like to pull out right now is how this is cyclical/happens often.

And whether it would be useful to have a table/chart whether certain media/vehicles are doing these 'ME type things' more regularly than others.

If there is a pattern in future eg from the BBC of it happening every x amount of time then that would be insightful like when it was newspaper articles and the source e.g. all came from one place (I remember an article that was started at Reuters then pretty much copied in other newspapers)?

 

I know, but being able to track back the 'source' of each 'cycle' may or may not be insightful to see/visibly show if these tend to be often the same sources (even if different angles) and I'd be intrigued how regular (ie so regular they might be part of a comms plan)