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The rise and fall of snake oil

79 points by samizdis

by pedalpete

7 subcomments

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again".
I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research".
People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science.
I've seen products that claim to be Vagus Nerve stimulators that are worn on the wrist, nowhere near the vagus nerve. Products that claim to mimic the "magnetic frequency of hormones".
We've also got the current "It's got electrolytes" craze which is kinda crazy that we've truly replicated idiocracy.
For those curious, I'm the co-founder of affectablesleep.com

by janalsncm

2 subcomments

> Government analysis and enforcement of standards meant that snake oil had acquired a reputation for infamy that it retains to this day.
Notably, they ended up being shut down due to a lack of actual snake oil in the product, not because of their claims that snake oil cured maladies.
If we can draw a lesson for busting today’s multitude of scams, it might be easier to prove the scam is bogus on its own terms rather than appealing to science or medicine or financial authorities.

by delichon

0 subcomment

Given that this timeline maximizes irony we will soon find that the demonization of rendered gopher snake fat was an early victory of big medicine, protecting doctors from the competition of a genuine all purpose elixir of health.

by CobrastanJorji

1 subcomments

It's a shame that the article is so interesting in telling us about snake oil salesmen and the shenanigans and questionable claims involved in the trade, but it neglects to explain the direct origin of the phrase "snake oil salesman."
The phrase comes not from the ineffectiveness of snake oil, but rather from the common practice of selling counterfeit snake oil, that is to say selling some other liquid falsely labeled as snake. There was a famous Federal bust of a snake oil salesman, and after testing it was revealed that he was selling a liquid with beef fat instead of honest-to-God snake fat.

by RobotToaster

0 subcomment

It's worth noting the original "snake oil" from Chinese water snakes was high in omega 3, so it may have some minor medical effect[0][1]. The later marketing of rattlesnake oil and fakes made from mineral oil is where the term comes from.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snake-oil-salesme...
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17622788/

by fsckboy

0 subcomment

>Trademark registration for Clark Stanley's Snake Oil brand Liniment, June 12 1900. Library of Congress. Public Domain
I don't read the trademark registration as "snake oil" brand, it looks more like "Clark Stanley's" brand. The word brand should follow the trademarked name, and while this application does not contain the term brand, up at the top it says "Trademark. Clark Stanley. Linament."
the article starts out "over the 19th Century", and this trademark is from 1900, so a latecomer to the snake oil market, unlikely to be able to trademark the term "snake oil".

by 0xWTF

0 subcomment

It was not only the FDA that stopped snake oil. A lot of it was also stopped by state licensure and medical school accreditation (see the Flexner Report), all of which happened in roughly the same era.
What I take from this is that AI code, biology, etc, will not announce itself. We will have to announce the human-produced content. Introductions are about to be ritualistic again. Queue humorous (but not really all that valid) counterpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoe24aSvLtw

by cogman10

1 subcomments

We need yet another "This has what it says it has" regulation around supplements and vitamins. There's basically no guarantee that any vitamin pill you pull off the shelf has any percentage of it's claimed ingredients. You could be getting 10% of what you wanted, you could be getting 1000% of what you wanted.
Fortunately, the body can handle some pretty wide variation. But unfortunately if you are taking a vitamin because you lack a nutrient, there's really no guarantee that your actually treating that deficiency.

by djeastm

0 subcomment

> In 1915 an analysis of Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment by the US Bureau of Chemistry showed it to ‘consist principally of a light mineral oil mixed with about 1 per cent of fatty oil (probably beef fat), capsicum, and possibly a trace of camphor or turpentine’. Stanley pleaded guilty to the charge of mis-branding his product, and paid a fine of $20.
$20 in 1915 is like $650 today

by bluGill

0 subcomment

I prefer Professor Savage's swamp elixir https://www.lhf.org/event/medicine-shows-2/ they haven't announced the schedule for this coming summer, but it's well worth a visit up to Des Moines if you can work one out just to see it.

by ZunarJ5

1 subcomments

The manosphere is rife with snake oil salesmen, it just changes form with time. Snake Oil as a concept is as old as money. Everyone wants a miracle, especially when hope can be commodified.

by kevin_thibedeau

1 subcomments

Fall? The new US surgeon general nominee is a supplement hawker.

by shmeeed

0 subcomment

I clicked on it expecting an article about antivirus solutions... guess I'm primed the wrong way.

by Theodores

0 subcomment

Even if you had some genuine snake oil with every step of the manufacturing process documented, with the product protected by the best anti-tamper technology and legal department, nobody today would buy snake oil. You could make it organic, fair trade and everything, but, due to the snake oil salesmen of times past, selling an adulterated product that contained no snake oil, the market for legitimate snake oil is not exactly massive.
Hence the problem with snake oil is not the product, it is how it has been sold.
There are many other products that are a whisker away from the same fate. For example, olive oil. Can anyone say they have had the pure and unadulterated stuff? There is no way of knowing unless you have pressed your own olives.
It is the same deal with honey. None of that honey in the supermarket could possibly be legitimate, at the price it is at.

by roysting

1 subcomments

Snake oil may have died, but the snake oil salesmen sure did not die out. If anything they’ve only proliferated.

by Bender

0 subcomment

Over the course of the 19th century snake oil transformed from folk remedy, to industrial medicine, to notorious fake.
And yet they can be a great source for Omega-3 fatty acids, most notably the Chinese water snake up to 20% EPA, the Erabu Sea Snake high in DHA. Rattlesnakes are much lower, around 5% to 6% Omega-3's better than nothing. I will always personally prefer Krill Oil for the high absorption.
There will always be scammers and grifters but I would prefer to not let them ruin the original product they are trying to exploit.