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Suspect health products debunked

Young researchers publish some of the crazy claims about how many so-called healing products work

Would you buy a compact disc that claims to channel 34,000 homeopathic waves from your computer into your body? Or a skin patch that draws toxins out of your body while you sleep?

No, thought not, but apparently a lot people are being taken in by the suspect claims some manufacturers are making for their unorthodox products -claims being rubbished by a group of young British scientists.

On 9 October, , a charitable trust based in London that works with 3000 young UK-based researchers, published a pamphlet detailing how its irked members had telephoned numerous companies to ask how their products actually worked. Some of the answers are simply amusing, but others – for example, herbal products that claim to clear the body of 100 parasite species – shocked those making the calls.

“The saddest part is that a lot of people who buy these things are desperately ill, perhaps with cancer or multiple sclerosis,� says pamphlet author Frank Swain. Yet the firms “seemed completely unprepared for anyone to take issue with their products,� says co-author Alice Tuff.