AI6YR BenApparently it's almost the wild west out there with herbal supplements.
Darth Osler@ai6yr the wild West would be an improvement
@ai6yr never forget the wild west gave American women suffrage
Admitted, there are a WHOLE lotta asterisks in there
tom jennings"Herbal supplements" has been at minimum scam-adjacent even when we had functioning government. All of it. Homeopathy and aromatherapy are at least harmless.
Nazo@tomjennings @ai6yr I'd argue that they never even get as good as "harmless."
They lead so many people into believing that they can find solutions not by seeking professional help like they need, but by just taking a bunch of vitamins or something. I'd file even the best case scenario as doing harm.
Laukidh@ai6yr It always was. The industry is effectively completely unregulated just as long as it does not actually claim to treat or cure a disease.
See nightshade in the "cures" for colic thing a while back.
With JFK Jr in charge of the FDA I expect even that requirement to go away sooner or later.
Taran Rampersad@ai6yr well, jeepers.
Boner chocolate?! 🧐
@knowprose @ai6yr old candy tagline suggested but not uttered
AccordionBruce@autolycos @knowprose @ai6yr
Maybe we’ll see the day when there’s a medical backlash like the one that drove quacks like the goat gland guy out of the country and then out of business 🐐
After his lucrative time broadcasting on million watt radio stations he set up just across the Mexican border ⚡️
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
@AccordionBruce @autolycos @ai6yr I think the link is this?
@knowprose @AccordionBruce @ai6yr yeah I should have put in "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" to avoid that train wreck of American history
@autolycos @AccordionBruce @ai6yr I just read the whole entry and...
There are some interesting parallels with the present administration. 🤣
@ai6yr @autolycos @AccordionBruce right?
See why I see parallels? 🤣🤣🤣
🏴🏳⚧🏴☠
The Dollop Podcast Ep 62- Goat Doctor John Brinkley
@coolcalmcollected @ai6yr @knowprose @autolycos
Can’t recommend enough Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford’s book:
Border Radio:
Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves
Lots of wacky stories. The Carter Family, the Goat Gland guy, Crazy Water 💦, Nazis in Mexico during WWII?
https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292725355/
@knowprose @AccordionBruce @coolcalmcollected @ai6yr I'm just gonna hum Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo to myself and try to accept that YOU HAVE SULLIED A SONG I WILDLY MISINTERPRETED
@autolycos @knowprose @AccordionBruce @coolcalmcollected I am pretty sure I have run into some of those people (quacks, pitchmen, plus conspiracy theorists and religious wackos etc.) in the broadcast business today, adjacent to amateur radio, so every once in awhile you run into some guy who says they own a high power radio station... you look it up, and it's an apocalyptic christian right wing cult shortwave station. 😬
@ai6yr @knowprose @AccordionBruce @coolcalmcollected having grown up on syndicated Paul Harvey, I can tell you Wells Lamont is stu-u-u-ubborn about quality
Adrian Riskin 
@AccordionBruce @coolcalmcollected @ai6yr @knowprose @autolycos
And here's the soundtrack.
Blasters - Border Radio
@coolcalmcollected @ai6yr @knowprose @autolycos
One of the engineers who built these up to a million watt stations, Bill Branch, got electrocuted by one of the transmitters in the early 1950s (Fowler pg 134)
Another Jim Welden, designed this tube, taller than he was, for the border stations
Then went on to engineer a 2,000,000 watt radio station in Saudi Arabia before retiring
@coolcalmcollected @ai6yr @knowprose @autolycos
Guess he was non-denominational or whatever in his faith in broadcasting
Guess he was non-denominational or whatever in his faith in broadcasting
@AccordionBruce @ai6yr @knowprose @autolycos
let us not forget father coughlin
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/charles-e-coughlin
@coolcalmcollected @ai6yr @knowprose @autolycos
The Father Coughlin story should be more well known in these Make America Great Again times
As should the way many of these characters ended up after their heydays in the spotlight
Like Joe McCarthy, who died three years after he left office, an alcoholic probably morphine addict supplied by “reefer madness” head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics Harry Anslinger
@AccordionBruce @coolcalmcollected @ai6yr @autolycos it's a definite pattern.
It's almost as if someone read about previous things like that and analyzed why they 'failed' without any question as to why anyone would want their success.
It's the power of narratives and group identity, maybe.
Yuck.