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Street Philosopher

Selling Snake Oil

Seán Moran hunts the hype around hypertension.

Isn’t this wonderful news? My photograph shows an inexpensive magnetic bracelet that relieves pain and cures so many ailments – including the ‘silent killer’, high blood pressure. Except it can’t cure anything. It’s not a panacea, it’s a scam.

I grant that the false claims may have a surface plausibility to them. After all, we remember from school that our blood contains iron, a shortage of which causes anaemia; and magnets attract iron, don’t they? Well, sort of.

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