Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine news and discussion thread

Just checking that I wasn’t mistaken about something I said earlier, they did claim on the program that it was related to acupuncture no?

 

Giselle: "Ear seeds are an ancient Chinese medicine tool based on the principles of acupuncture, but without the needles. They are tiny beads which stick onto the ear, applying pressure onto nerve endings. They send signals to the brain and body to relax the nervous system, release endorphins and naturally relieve pain."

[...]

Male voiceover: "And it seems Sara Davies is no stranger to the Chinese treatment."

Giselle does not say that the concept of ear mapping was proposed in 1957 and exported to China. A model ear with mapping points is displayed along with packets of the product.

 

Okay. Thanks!

 

Paper on ear cartography here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604909/

Med Acupunct. 2019 Jun 1; 31(3): 145–156.
Published online 2019 Jun 17. doi: 10.1089/acu.2019.1349
PMCID: PMC6604909
PMID: 31297168
The History of Ear Acupuncture and Ear Cartography: Why Precise Mapping of Auricular Points Is Important
Andreas Wirz-Ridolfi, MD1

 

Well, except that it linked ear seeds with recovery from ME. None of the low-cost suppliers could get away with that because they have to abide by the rules. This business gained a huge competitive advantage over them by calling it entertainment instead of advertising, and doing it on the BBC.

The advantage and exclusivity wouldn't last for long, but as long as it brought in a rush of orders, it wouldn't need to. Bank the money and move on.

 

We need a biomarker.

The Dragons bought into her warm fuzzy feel good story of recovery, not the ear seeds, they have no clue what M.E is.

Giselle's 'mindset':
"I think, find a community that's really supportive that can actually understand what you're going through so you're not alone. I think look at recovery stories, there are so many out there. If you're listening to this podcast, you're already aware of all these recovery stories. Listen to them, believe in them, it will give you so much hope and I think visualizing your future is really important. I used to meditate every day and visualize myself running on a beach . . ."

I'm not posting the youtube video b/c it's too annoying.

 

Not at all hard to believe. I've been saying this for years, but the natural outcome of the biopsychosocial ideology and the destruction of all validity of so-called evidence-based medicine is the gradual erosion of the line between scientific and alternative medicine, to the point where they sort of merge together to become one. We're very close to having guru as an official title in health care.

There is only going to be more of this until the medical profession wakes up about the monster they created. But I still think that this only happens, and sooner rather than later, with AI basically marking all of it as complete pseudoscience and not caring one bit about feelings and interests. Then it'll still be years of BS but it will eventually die down.

 

This is actually a good example of how a seemingly harmless pseudoscience can be harmful. They talk about reducing the visits to clinics or hospitals, so there are visits to clinics and hospitals. The same with all the useless rehabilitation pseudoscience out there, it involves a lot of trips to medical facilities.

And nowadays trips to medical facilities basically involve the highest risk of respiratory infections out there. And it's inevitable that as a result of some of those visits, some people got COVID or another respiratory infection, brought it home, and either suffered significant illness, or gave it to someone, with no doubt a certain number of major disability and deaths as a result, which could never be traced back to a visit to a health facility so that someone can stick something on your ear, or be coached into doing something that almost no one ever needs to be coached in.

The banality of evil. It's usually ordinary people doing things they know and understand little about, just doing their job, for no reason that ever makes sense.

 

"It has come to our attention that there have been a number of fake advertisements on Facebook for products that appear to be endorsed by Dragons’ Den. CBC and Dragons’ Den strongly recommend that you research any product online before purchasing it to ensure the company is reputable and the product is genuine.

If you feel that you have been taken advantage of involving a fake Dragons’ Den endorsement in a Facebook ad, please report the company or product page to Facebook and contact your credit card company as soon as possible if you have given your credit card number".

https://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/articles/fake-dragons-den-ads

LOL

 

Curious (and sorry if someone else has asked/commented, too many posts to read through from today), I wonder if 'compliance' will mean they have to contact all those with outstanding orders/recent purchases, to advise that they were falsely advertised and give the option to not proceed with the purchase/get a refund.

 

Indeed this is quite bizarre. The business side of this deal is atrocious, it rests entirely on hype and branding for something that isn't a luxury item and branding is irrelevant. There is zero possibility of exclusiveness, the raw product is available in bulk and eventually the hype will die down. Quickly at that. And they invested rather small amounts, so this is a business that will only ever see, maybe, a maximum lifetime net profit of about 1M. Is this really what the show is about? This is a very small business with very little potential, zero innovation or even the possibility of significant expansion.

I find it hard to believe that this is fully organic and not at least a little bit forced.

 

I wonder if the Dragons can pull out of the deal when they realize that they've been snookered by an 'elevator pitch".

An elevator pitch is a brief (think 30 seconds!) way of introducing yourself, getting across a key point or two, and making a connection with someone. It's called an elevator pitch because it takes roughly the amount of time you'd spend riding an elevator with someone.

 

Yes sir.

 

There’s one Dragon who snapped this one up, and he loves this shit, it’s his thing, so I’d be very surprised if he’d pull out.

Probably a good business decision this one, in a society that collectively hates a disabled/chronically ill person, refusing to think positively enough not to be disabled/chronically ill any longer.

Just hurrying up and heal or die already.

Huh?
Have you really tried, tried everything?
Really?
What about the ear seed thingy?
Ahh well there you go.
Come back to me when you’re really and truly ready to heal. Okay?
Huh?
No I don’t wanna hear it, nothing is free in this life.

The fact that ME is in the top tier of despised patient groups can’t hurt either can it?

So from that angle I’d say the grifters struck gold with this one.

However you never know, something might go our way somewhere down the line… There’s always a first time. Important to always cultivate a healthy positive attitude huh sweeties?

 

Interesting

https://www.cbc.ca/m/dragonsden/rich/business-tips/do-all-deals-get-done.html

Not all deals you see on TV end up closing post-show. The question is WHY?

I’ve been in the venture business for almost 10 years, and like the Dragons, I’ve seen deals go sideways for a lot of different reasons. The same is true with deals done on TV (even more so). Here are the top five reasons a deal might not close after a handshake in the Den:

3. After the taping, but before the show airs, the entrepreneurs get cold feet and no longer want the deal. (Maybe after reading some of your forum posts?

 

@Mij, I think you had problems with the cut and paste. Here are the full five reasons:

1. During Due Diligence (the process by which the investors corroborate the facts shared with them in the Den) facts presented by pitchers don’t hold up (e.g. the pitcher said he had a patent, but really all he had was a patent pending).
   
2. After the show airs, but before the deal closes, the entrepreneurs get a better offer. (Last year the underwear guys got a much better offer after the show hit the air).
   
3. After the taping, but before the show airs, the entrepreneurs get cold feet and no longer want the deal. (Maybe after reading some of your forum posts?
   
4. The shareholders of the company (who are usually the original pre-Dragon investors) don’t agree with the deal management has struck with the Dragons.
   
5. The Dragons learn facts that undermine the investment. (For example, during due diligence, the pitcher turns out to be extremely hard to work with).

 

I think that if it were a CMA issue that I’d basically what they would have been required to do IF INFORMATION HAD CHANGED or there had been an honest error- provide evidence they definitely sent out individually and directly ie actually contacted each person who had gone through ‘step 1’ based on old info and provide them with correct info and fair choices what to do next (including refund but eg if it had been booking a course and they missed out on an alternative due to time/deadline there would be questions there etc)

This is obviously on top of getting info corrected asap on websites or ads and so on for those who eg hadn’t yet bought or expressed intention to buy

to be fair this is what most honest brokers would seek to do in a general sense anyway due to their reputation and morals so it just formalises the component parts in a useful way/roadmap

when it wasn’t a change or a genuine accident …… I don’t know what the default or decision would be re: what needs to be done but perhaps more significant than this?

 

Usually when the ASA make a judgement that something breaches the code, they expect the broadcaster to stop running the ad. Since this wasn't a conventional ad and is unlikely to go out live again, I guess it'd be limited to BBC iPlayer content?

The ASA wouldn't have the power to make a business contact everyone who has placed orders. Their job is to try and prevent businesses advertising a product in a way that's not legal, decent, honest and truthful, but I doubt they can stop them selling it. And even with adverts, they're dependent on the co-operation of whoever is hosting them.

The CMA is more about the regulation of entire markets, so I'm not sure whether they'd be involved in something like this. The most appropriate body would probably be Trading Standards, but there's no central organisation; it's run by individual local authorities, some of which have probably had to reduce their staffing to a skeleton provision because they haven't the money to pay for it.

 

1 February, article about Merryn by Ellie Fry in print edition:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1753161625622696442



1 February, article about Merryn by Ellie Fry in Mirror print edition:

"Proud to have told Merryn’s story in today’s paper #pwme"