➟ Beyond the direct risks of damage from spurious
cures, there’s an indirect risk: Taking these instead of
proven treatments could mean that patients get sicker.➟ Don’t be fooled by the term natural(see Figure
14-10) — it doesn’t equate to safe.Many natural
ingredients are lethal — cyanide, for example, is
found in many common plants. Conversely, 60 per-
cent of over-the-counter drugs and 25 percent of pre-
scription drugs are based on natural ingredients.
Alternative cures have no exclusivity on the use of
natural ingredients.How rampant is health fraud online? Consider the results for some
health cures from a recent Google search:➟ 44,800 results for black salve,a cancer treatment
which claims to draw cancer out through the skin but
in reality burns healthy skin tissue and causes severe
scarring.➟ 11,100 results for Hoxsey cancer treatment,an
unproven herbal remedy that the FDA has tried to get
rid of since the 1950s.➟ 3,150,000 results for diabetes cures. (Diabetes can’t be
cured, just managed.)➟ Weight lossgets a whopping 70,300,000 results.
Weight-loss pills alone commands 2,120,000 links.
There just isn’t a guaranteed weight-loss supplement
that the five o’clock news and your doctor missed,
although there are several that can cause serious harm.Although many search results on health cures lead to
scholarly articles, a great many more lead to fraudu-
lent sites. It’s easy to create a slick site and pose as a
medical practitioner online and make wild claims that
link to a variety of fraudulent supporting medical
studies.
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Part III: Protecting Your Wealth and Your Health