Holographic Pain Patch? Yep, it’s a scam
March 20th, 2010
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This is actually a topic that was covered here some time ago. A hologram is a specialized image recording which allows for photon distribution to be replicated from a 3D source, thus allowing a two-dimensional surface to appear to show a three dimensional object or scene. High quality holograms, which produce realistic depth and high resolution are expensive and fairly limited. Cheaper holograms are smaller and often don’t produce much a a 3D illusion, but rather just have a shine pattern that varies depending on angle. You probably have one of these on your bank card or credit card. They work as a security feature since they’re hard to replicate.
Cheap little holograms are also used as reflectors or on stickers. There has been research into holographic media for storing digital data, but thus far, it has had only limited commercial use.
One thing that a little hologram sticker will not do is cure any disease or relieve any symptom of disease.
The topic came up recently on Chron.com
No, there is no science or physics to this.
Does it make some feel better? Perhaps, but this should not be seen as a justification for its sale. The placebo effect is well known to exist, but modern medicine universally considers dispensing of a placebo-based treatment in mass to be unethical. It destroys the trust relationship between doctor and patient and prevents informed consent. They’re also not necessarily that effective – sure, they may be effective for some, but the effect varies.
Finally, feeling better is not the same as being better. If you have arthritis and your joints hurt, that’s because there is a real problem going on in your body. Cartilage is damaged and joint tissue has become inflamed. Putting a sticker on the area might convince you that the pain is not as bad, but there’s really no change in the condition. The tissue is still damaged and inflamed, even if you think it feels a bit better. Of course, placebos will never cure cancer or an infectious disease.
In the end these kind of products are universally the same: someone is trying to make a buck by being dishonest, and that’s never acceptable.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 20th, 2010 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Not Even Wrong, Obfuscation, Quackery, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 20th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Well, you could put a real pain killer on the sticker, like is in Icy Hot or Ben Gay which absorbs through the skin. But it still wouldnt be the Hologram that is reducing pain.
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March 20th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
“(He) says he is made money on the product, but that’s not the reason he is involved” Right.
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March 20th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
I never believed it was acceptable to tolerate this crap because it gives some relief via the placebo effect.
My argument is that these products can only work as effective placebos if people believe they will work and the only way that can happen is if they’re ignorant or misinformed. If you truly understand how the human body works, how physics work, how holograms are produced, then you will know this is nonsense. This produce goes against that and it tells people something that is not true. It therefore is encouraging an ignorant population.
This is not a good thing. More ignorance and myth is never good and it creates a class divide. You have those who know this is crap and those who don’t know the secret. It’s almost like conspiracy theorists say the world is, where some know the secret and the greater public is blissfully ignorant. The population has a right to know and in a democracy they must, because if the ignorant run the world, then we are all in trouble.
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March 20th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Saying it works on the placebo effect is just a nice way of saying it’s all a lie.
It’s not even a patch or chip. It’s a stupid little sticker.
Anyone notice that in addition to their paid endorser the only other person they had to speak so great about it was a distributor of it. Obviously making money on the product as well.
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March 20th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Recently I did some work for a very large ‘health spa’ that offered any number of ways to take money from rich women, with the implied promise of reducing the effects of aging, enhancing beauty and treating ’stress.’ They offer the usual tripe like Aromatherapy, Detox Cleansing, Glycolic Peel, and so on and so on.
They needed some one to write up as set of instructions for the staff so that they could do light maintenance on the pools and baths and other equipment they have in the place, so I was hired to write a single SOP manual for the place. It was not that hard, and I finished in about six weeks. Meanwhile however I had to wade through a lot of junk that they had in the way of documentation from the OEMs, all of which was written as if this nonsense was legitimate.
Near the end I asked the woman that managed the place why ancient treatments like Ayurveda, Reiki and Shiatsu, the ones usually involves relaxing music and pseudo-massage, were popular as opposed to other antiquated treatments like bloodletting and trepannation. She laughed and said the reason these weren’t offered is that someone had to protect these idiots from themselves.
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March 20th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
DV82XL said:
Liability would be the issue there.
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March 20th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Q said:
Well yes. I think her remark was made tongue-in-cheek. It was obvious she didn’t buy into the BS they were selling, her own looks were obviously the result of diet and regular trips to the gym, and some help from good genetics.
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March 21st, 2010 at 2:15 am
There’s nothing wrong with spa kind of treatments. Sure, it might not cure anything, but some massages, time in a whirl pool or even a mud bath and pedicure can be soothing and leave your skin feeling soft and nice. I would not have gone to a whole day spa except I got a certificate as a graduation gift a long time ago and it was actually very soothing and relaxing. Just having a lot of people cater to you at once is a rare privilege.
Maybe you’re reading too much into it. Aromatherapy isn’t going to cure you of any disease, but what’s wrong with smelling nice things?
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March 21st, 2010 at 8:38 am
AliceInBlunderland said:
You are quite right, there is nothing wrong about being spoilt and fussed over like an Egyptian Queen for a few hours, and have your senses pampered to by pleasant stimulations. I fully understand that and I am sure it is very good for the ego and one’s general sense of well-being. However it does not stop and reverse the aging process, and beyond the fact they were often smiling, the women looked no more attractive going out than they did coming in. Granted these were mostly wealthy Montreal chatelaines, who regardless of their age are good looking women as a class, nevertheless I saw little improvement.
I have no issues with something like this for entertainment, and it is valid as such, but when these treatments are being pitched as cures for anything other than a too-heavy wallet, it borders on quackery.
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March 21st, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Did you hear James Randi came out of the closet as being gay??? What do you think of that? Surprised?
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March 21st, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Ben said:
And I care because?
To the best of my recollection nothing he has been involved in has any sexual connotation, such that this information would be relevant.
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March 21st, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Ben said:
And…..
I am not seeing your point, though I assume there us one buried in there somewhere..
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March 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Ben said:
Am I surprised he’s gay? Er.. no, not really. It’s one of those things that, if you know someone, you don’t actually know, but you kind of know… if that makes any sense. I’m not going to say “I suspected he was gay” because it’s not like I was trying to figure it out.
Am I surprised he came out of the closet?
Er, a little but i guess. The thing is he never really was one who said he wasn’t gay or anything. I mean he didn’t lie and say he was straight. As he put it, it was only a lie by omission. In fact, if someone had actually asked him face to face, I would bet he would have answered honestly.
If he wanted to make it clear then that’s fine, but he has no obligation to say so one way or another as the issue isn’t really one of any importance. My only thought on that one is that it could add some more amo to those who want to go after him for various things.
In any case, his personal life does not make that much difference. He’s the type of person who is really “married to his work” more than anything else, so it’s not as though I really expect him to be publicly dating or anything.
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March 21st, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Ben said:
That must mean Uri Geller really can bend spoons with his mind….
Oh wait, no it doesn’t.
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March 21st, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Why haven’t you made a post about this yet? Are you going to?
Also, you say you knew this before? Or you didn’t know? Please explain this.
I know you are a follower of James Randi and an atheist too. How does this seem to you? How do you feel about homosexuality? Will you answer if you’re gay or not and also do you think that with atheism being an issue here that what kind of sexual practices you do is related to this?
Do you think James Randi has had sex with men? As an atheist, do you think that this is a good route to go, having sex with men and women basically doubles the amount of sex you can have?
Do you think atheists should come out directly about what they do sexually or is it something you are ashamed of and if so why?
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March 21st, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Ben, you are way out of line with those questions and I hope everyone ignores you.
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March 21st, 2010 at 10:05 pm
I’m leaving it up because I don’t think it serves Ben any good and only makes his side look like complete fools.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 12:26 am
You never know. Ben could be subject to a fascination he doesn’t care to directly confront. Maybe this is his way of testing the waters.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 6:57 am
Ben said:
Hahahaha! My favorite homophobic response! How dare gays ‘indulge’ in homosexuality! How come they get to have more sex?! One who is righteous would not allow themselves the pleasure! And to top it all off, linking this with atheism. This made my morning. Thank you Ben.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Carletes said:
I think he might be thinking of being bisexual, as opposed to gay. That would theoretically “double” the number of people for you to have sex with – if your goal was simply to have sex with as many people as possible.
Actually, though, being gay would not increase the number of perspective mates, it would decrease it. Since the majority of people are straight and thus would not go for it, you’d be limited to a fairly small subset of your own gender.
“As an atheist” … I’m neither bi nor gay. I’m straight. It wasn’t really a decision I made. I could not be gay even if for some reason I wanted to be. I find the idea of being with another man highly unappealing and I feel attracted to women. There’s no way I could just decide to change that… despite being an atheist.
Also, regarding the sex life of an atheist: speaking only for myself, I can say it’s considerably more boring and less active than Ben seems to think.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
drbuzz0 said:
I believe the balance of evidence is that homosexuality is a trait determined by the organic structure of the brain, rather than a matter of choice (and my internal mental state confirms this… like Doc, I couldn’t be gay even if I decided I wanted to be). This reality is an anathema to Christians, who need to believe that it’s a matter of free will so that the designation of homosexual behaviour as a sin can be justified.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
By general theological agreement there are 667 sins listed in the Bible between both testaments. Why is it that Fundamentalist Christians obsess over one that isn’t even that serious by the Bibles own standards? Why focus on this and not the several other forms of fornication that there are injunctions against, like intercourse out of wedlock, which I am sure is practiced more between different sexes than the same ones?
My theory is these right-wing Christian zealots are using the gays exactly like the Nazis used the Jews; as whipping stock to incite hatred and for the same reasons.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Finrod said:
Yeah, I really don’t know what determines what someone’s orientation is, but I would generally guess it’s probably more complex than any one factor. I don’t think it’s genetic, at least not entirely, because there’s no evidence of any greater or lesser likelihood in isolated groups and if it were purely genetic it may tend to work its way out of the population anyway.
There seem to be a number of variations. Some who say they always knew they were gay. Others seem to have been confused until after puberty etc etc etc. Hence, I tend to think it’s more than one factor. Possibly a combination of pre-natal combined with very early development. The fact that it seems to have an organic side does not preclude neural plasticity and development playing into it.
It’s a legitimate scientific question as to what factors determine sexual orientation and the greater issue of how this relates to human sexual and social development.
However, this is a rare issue in science that is so taboo, most researchers won’t touch it. You just plain can’t research it because almost any result you discover is guaranteed to bring villagers with torches. Anything which could possibly be twisted to make it seem that there’s some element of enviornment involved will have you branded a homophobe and possibly have religious groups looking to lift you on their shoulders. If you indicate that it appears to be random and probably not environment based, you’ll get the opposite… or maybe the same… or maybe both.
It’s just such a taboo subject that it can’t be researched.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Homosexuality is by definition, a behavioral trait. Behavioral traits are a social concern in two cases: where behavior is causing the individual manifesting it to suffer and in the other instance, where it is causing harm to those around the individual manifesting it. Beyond that it is no one’s affair.
Homosexuals are not harming themselves, and they are not harming the rest of us in any real way.
We should just leave them alone. Their sex-lives are simply none of our business – which is exactly what the rest of us demand for ourselves.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 9:33 pm
DV82XL said:
There are actually professionals who spend their career researching the sex lives and sexual development of heterosexuals. One of my friends is a psychologist and took several classes with a professor who spends her time researching what kinds of kink various individuals like and what it has to do with their cultural background.
I’m serious.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 9:40 pm
drbuzz0 said:
And there was a time the Inquisition would have had them burnt outright as well for doing so.
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March 22nd, 2010 at 9:40 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Do you happen to have a picture of her? She sounds like fun. Why don’t I ever get a professor like that?
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March 23rd, 2010 at 1:34 am
DV82XL said:
I guess I could agree with both sides on this. Yeah, it’s their buisiness and not really of any consequence. On the other hand, there are sociologists and behavioral scientists who research behavior and stuff just for the pure research aspect.
Sexual behavior research though, yeah, I mean, it has it’s legitimate side and there’s something to be said for understanding how reproductive biology plays into who we are and how humans work, but at the same time it gets taken too far too easily to the point of being very questionable. It seems like there was some really some things of questionable ethics and stuff that went on, all the way back since the 1970’s.
Some of those who started off saying they were researching sexual development in the early years and it just got really creepy where they went with it.
So I don’t know, it’s just a place I’m not sure we need to consider a big scientific priority.
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