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Fatal attraction Resist the pull of magnet medicine
Thirty-year-old Patsy D., a longtime migraine sufferer, regularly lost jobs because of too many sick days spent nursing her throbbing skull. Her doctor had tried every migraine remedy to no avail. Then a neighbor suggested a "wellness seminar" at a local community center. There a "wellness consultant," representing the medical magnet retailer Nikken, told the group that magnet therapy could banish their medical problems. By evening's end, Patsy's wellness consultant had diagnosed "magnetic deficiency" and sold her magnetic shoe insoles, a magnetic necklace with matching bracelet, magnetic headband and a "sleep system" consisting of magnetized mattress, pillow and comforter. The price tag came to $2,500. A month later, migraines unabated, Patsy's new discomfort was a flattened bank account and the realization that she'd been duped. Every year many thousands of folks like Patsy encounter magnet merchants who, some regulatory officials say, reap profits with unsubstantiated medical claims, phony testimonials and research purloined from the work of prominent medical establishments and/or practitioners. Some doctors affiliated with magnet therapy companies are not doctors at all. BIOflex Medical Magnets, Inc., touts its president Ted Zablotsky as a "physician who has spent over 13 years becoming an internationally known expert on magnetic field therapy." Dr. Stephen Barrett, head of www.quackwatch.com and vice-president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, reports that his Medline search located none of Zablotsky's publications in scientific journals nor did medical databases have any record of a current medical license issued to Zablotsky.
Magnet companies are everywhere now in the tradition of Amway, Mary Kay, Shaklee, NuSkin and Nutrition for Life. Three of the top magnet companies operating at the present time are Magnet Therapeutic Technologies, Pain Stops Here and the Japan-based Nikken. Nikken cites global sales of $1.5 billion and 200 million customers worldwide. Repeatedly sanctioned by the FDA and its Operation Cure All program, Nikken swears it has considerable proof of its health claims -- clinical trials, etc. -- but can't disclose the results as the FDA is too "backward and biased" to understand. Nikken closely monitors its "wellness consultants," who are required to invest heavily in the company and attend regular "trainings" which a former Nikken distributor described as akin to a Southern revival meeting. In addition, each neophyte is assigned a sponsor, who monitors their progress, visiting their homes and introducing them to the Nikken "family," as a former Nikken distributor told me. The basic Nikken brochure handed out at wellness seminars is titled, "Family Nikken Business Review" and makes this pitch: "We are the number one home-based health business in the world. If you could earn over $20,000 a year and retire in three to five years with more residual income than most doctors earn and with a generous compensation plan for the home and car of your dreams, wouldn't you join our Wellness Program?" In l999 Nikken was nabbed during one of the FDA's Health Claim Surf Days for selling its wares through Usenet newsgroups. Nikken, one of 800 Web sites cited, had a list of diseases cured by magnets that included heart disease, cancer, AIDS, diabetes, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Nikken was fined heavily and warned that "disseminating false and unsubstantiated claims" violates federal law. After that, reports Lara Owen, author of "Pain Free With Magnet Therapy," an analysis of magnet use published by Prima Books in 2000, Nikken changed its tactics. "They refused to allow their distributors to engage in any kind of interview with me while I was researching my book and their literature got very careful to speak in terms of wellness rather than health. The word magnet barely appears in the Nikken catalog now," says Owen. "Instead they use their own terms like 'Advanced Kenko Technology' or 'Wellness Technology.'" One of their distributors, Dr. William W. Lampard of Buffalo, N.Y., was recently sanctioned and threatened with losing his medical license for selling Nikken Magsteps (insoles) and Kenko pillows (with magnets), reports the National Council for Reliable Health Information newsletter.
Nikken also markets its PiMag water system based on their Pi water, discovered in Japan 30 years ago, they say, but this writer found nothing similar in any and all medical and/or science references. "Filtration with fine screens, carbon block and granular carbon -- but that's only the beginning. Nikken's exclusive water purification process uses far-infrared energy (from the Sun), Pi energy and Nikken magnetic technology that sends water through its magnetic field surrounding the water as it flows through the system." Drinking and bathing in Pi water doesn't come cheap, though. The basic Countertop PiMag Water System costs $850 plus $l00 for each carbon filter. The shower system looks like an ordinary hardware-store shower head but sells for $120 with $80 per filter and a $70 testing kit.
The FDA rigorously pursues Nikken and other magnet merchants like Feel Good for Life, based in Colorado, which offers its neck wrap, "love magnet" and magnetic headbands on its Web site, feelgoodfast.com, for conditions including the usual laundry list of ailments. Magnets, it explains, "speed wound healing, change the migration of calcium ions, enhances the lymphatic system and untraps blood proteins." Owen writes that even reputable companies have tried selling magnetized products. Dating back to the mid-19th century, the Sears Roebuck catalog sold magnetic winter hats, scarves and gloves. And Florsheim, citing its 108 years of service, jumped on the bandwagon with MagneForce shoes that "generate a deep-penetrating magnetic field to create an electrical current that blocks pain throughout the body." In l997, Dr. Stephen Barrett reported on www.quackwatch.com , that the FDA slapped a $30,000 penalty and sanction on Florsheim but that didn't deter Shoe Emporium, Dr. Scholl's, Sharper Image and Wissota Traders of Minnesota from selling their own brand of magnetized sneakers, golf shoes, workboots, pumps and slippers with "non-addictive pain-killing power." BIOflex copied Florsheim's MagneForce design, even quoting Florsheim's claim that the shoes "increase circulation, reduce foot, leg and back fatigue, provide natural pain relief and improve your energy level." Sharper Image's catalog recommends its sports shoes with this quote: "Many professional athletes -- football players, tennis pros and more than 90 percent of Senior PGA tour golfers regularly use magnetic insoles to help reduce pain and to increase their overall flexibility. Magnetic therapy is widely recognized today as an effective, non-invasive, non-addictive treatment for pain and, unlike sleep-inducing over-the-counter drugs won't make you drowsy, foggy or lethargic." Barrett quotes John W. Farley, Ph.D., professor of physics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas: "Anyone looking for a health enhancing effect from a shoe magnet might just as well put the fortune from a Chinese fortune cookie in their shoe."
In September, 2002, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a suit against European Health Concepts Inc. for making false and misleading claims for its magnetic mattress pads and seat cushions, naming EHC president Kevin Todd and his sales managers. The pending suit asks over $1 million in civil penalties for unfair business practices and false claims, $500,000 for transactions involving senior citizens and full restitution to purchasers of these products. In this case seniors were offered a free dinner seminar at a local restaurant to hear "prominent physicians and major medical universities" to endorse their pain relieving products. EHC claimed its mattresses and seat cushions contained "the only magnets clinically proven to cure fibromyalgia, lupus, sciatica, herniated discs, asthma, bronchitis, cataracts, chronic fatigue syndrome, colitis, diverticulitis, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and more than other conditions." Their presentations included testimonials from Anthony Hopkins, Dick Van Dyke, former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino and golfer Jim Colbert, which came as a surprise to these men who had never heard of EHC and didn't sleep on magnetized mattresses.
In New Hampshire last year, this writer met a 250-pound woman, aged 31, who met a magnet salesperson at her women's group who sold her worthless magnet products that were supposed to help her lose weight and realize her life's wish of overcoming diabetes and having a child. When it comes to "alternative therapies" we must ask questions and educate ourselves. There are several excellent Web sites that scrupulously track the grifters. An excellent place to start is online with www.quackwatch.com and www.junkscience.com.
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