Farrukh Dhondy | Of ‘Miracle Cures’ and Snake Oil Ads: When Will We Stop Falling for Them?

I insist, perhaps disingenuously, that I am resistant to ads and shun the products on which their producers spend crores or millions persuading the gullible to part with their moolah.

I lie! Journalistic conscience dictates that I should withdraw the above assertion because on at least three occasions in my short and happy life, I have stumbled.

The first when I was a mere ten years old and bought a cream advertised on the radio “to end all skin troubles, or money back”. I had a “skin trouble” in an embarrassing place. The cream didn’t cure it as my rash turned out to be a fungal infection called “dhobi’s itch”. I went to the chemist to get my money back but there was a young lady behind the counter and I decided to bear the loss and not explain to demand a return.

The other two incidents? Only recently. I was persuaded to buy “miracle cures”. Snake oil? The jury says “guilty” on the first -- and is out on the second.

And so, to confessions:

Like most oldies, in recent years I’ve suffered loss of hearing. On my phone, randomly, I regularly come across assertions such as “Completely restore your hearing with this proven, effortless, inexpensive miracle cure”. These ads profess to cure or alleviate every ill that, mainly, ageing flesh is heir to: deafness, fatigue, rheumatic pain…

Access the ad and you get a persuasive video presented by a qualified doctor who tells you he suffered from precisely what you want cured. The affliction, hearing loss for instance, stopped him working, hearing his grandchildren chatter and sing…

Then he delved back into anatomical fundamentals, suspending everything he’d been taught and realised that there were basic questions his medical education hadn’t answered. He set out to answer these and-- lo and behold -- he found the answers.

We are now well into perhaps fifteen minutes of the video. “Get to the damned cure”, I shout at the screen. The screen ignores me. It even forbids me from fast-forwarding.

Doc goes on. For the next few minutes, he gets into some scientific medical jargon with diagrams and animation as he speaks. At the end of that section, he tells you that the discoveries he has just elucidated have led him to find the (inevitably natural) ingredients, which will facilitate the growth of/substitute the missing stimulant that the body should produce/open some nervous bodily pathway that is being obstructed, etc, etc.

“Yes, please -- THE CURE,” I shout. But no. The video continues.

Then follows in every one of these miracle-cure-ad videos, the same or similar diatribe.

These are aimed at the doc’s parallelly qualified medical practitioners, and at the same time at what they always call “Big Pharma” and even at other practitioners or providers of props, such as physiotherapists or, in this case, the manufacturers of hearing aids. All these are the villains of the video. They are the vested interests that do not want you to know about or access the miracle cure you are about to be persuaded to be blessed by.

Motive for warning clear?

In the case of hearing loss, Big Pharma has no drugs (as far as I know) which claim to cure it. For other ailments such as arthritis, Big Pharma and your local GP may recommend patented drugs. Osteopaths will give you courses for which they charge…

The video says leave all those financial exploiters of illness behind. Doc on the video implies that they are all probably aware of his miracle cure but know it will annihilate their trade and so pretend it doesn’t exist.

The hero has exposed the villains and now we get to the persuasive adverts.

Firstly, the doc himself tells us he tested the cure on himself. Now he can hear the crickets in the grass, birds in the trees, the crash of waves on the beach, his grandchildren’s questions and ditties… how blessed is restoration, how glorious is life when it’s done?

Then follows testaments from a host of other customers who’ve been miraculously cured. They can now hear their grandchildren’s questions and songs, the roar of the waves as they lash the rocks and sand, the nightingales in Berkely Square, the bubbling farts in the bath … err… I think you get the picture!

Then the pitch. Doc has assiduously worked to reduce the cost of the pills he is selling and now for a mere X, you can have thirty, or for Y, which is less than 3X, you can have ninety.

Gentle reader, I fell for it. In the words of the old joke: “I spent half my money on women and wine, like a fool, I squandered the rest!” Yes, I bought ninety of the anti-deafness pills and diligently followed the instructions. And you know what?

What???????? Speak!!! What did you say???

Er… Sorry, gentle reader, I’m still hard of hearing. Lemme adjust my hearing aid volume…

Yes… Snake oil!

BUT, despite that failure, I was tempted and accessed a similar video which promised me freedom from arthritic knee pain. Oh God, yes, I paid for the pills and am taking the dose. Nothing yet! Early days… but watch this space!

When will they ever learn?