How gullible can we be? Let us count the ways.

My youngest daughter declined to take the 'Goodness Grapeness' lower-sugar organic thirst quencher to school today.

'Why?' I ask.

'It's tasteless.  It seems like it is mostly water.'

Here's what we figure the manufacturer has done:  Take your average grape juice, cut it in half with water and sell it as a 'thirst quencher' (can't call it juice any more, that would be lying).  Call out the watered-down feature as a benefit, package the heck out of it and caring parents will snap it up.

We sure fell for that.  To make ourselves feel a little less like chumps we joked that the most audacious scam yet is the drink industry selling water.  Water.  Folks, we get free water from our tap, but there are people out there who actually shell out hard earned dollars for the stuff.

What next?  Well how about selling people the very air they breath.  You guessed it - there are smart business folks out there right now selling the very air we breath and there are actually people out there gullible enough to pay for it.

 

A fool and his money are soon separated.

Of course I can't resist getting back to health care and pointing out the long history of snake oil, sham cures.  It's still happening folks and it's not only the sham vitamin & weight loss & eternal youth claims.  Remember hormone replacement therapy and how in the 1960s it was touted as a way to slow down the aging process?  Remember how back surgery was touted as a sure way to relieve severe back pain?  Oh wait - most folks are still falling for this one.

How many people out there believe that more testing and scanning means better health care?  A person without major conditions and lacking symptoms is more likely to be harmed by extensive testing than helped (with some exceptions like screening for colorectal cancer in people >50 and some other things).

If you want an evidence based approach and to avoid being one of the fools easily parted with their money, go to the USPSTF site. [I also can't resist pointing out that the USPSTF is a government agency doing really good work on behalf of all of us and I for one am grateful for their work.]

Comments

[Jean Antonucci]

I suppose this post should have irritated the easily irritable ME .But I cracked up The bottles are pretty. But the kid says umm Dad I'm outta here.

When my husband was hit and run in Death VAlley and I flew out to drive him hone crosscountry we bought water Dasani I think COke puts it in the bottle-- we knew we had no tap we were just driving and drivngso we called it "healing Dasani waters" to this day we call it that knowing its a scam we play upon.

[Sean McEntee]

It's the emperor's new thirst quencher!

[Deborah Mourey]

Glad to hear that your daughter is as smart as her daddy. You are doing a good job. A skeptical child is likely to make good decisions later in life, at least my children have shown this inclination.
I take comfort in the fact that the next generation seems to be astute, kind, generous and tolerant. The new communication tools (social media) will make more things transparent to lots of people and so 'pulling the wool' will get harder. Not impossible but harder.
keep up the great commentary. I love it. deb