Do You Believe in Magic? summary

Desperate to gain fame and money, some celebrities are willing to promote all manner of products, even if they endanger people’s health.

Take actress Suzanne Somers, for example. She played a large part in promoting a deeply problematic form of hormone therapy. After her recovery from breast cancer, Somers subjected herself to a regimen of “bioidentical” hormones and dietary supplements. What she didn’t know was that these supposedly natural hormones were in fact conventional hormones engineered in a German factory.

Plenty of supposedly natural remedies combine false claims and unexpected side effects. This trickery isn’t new, either. Way back in 1905, journalist Hopkins Adams published an article entitled “The Great American Fraud” after having a chemist analyze common herbal medications.

It turned out that several contained large quantities of alcohol, like “Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters” at a hefty 44 percent – equivalent to a strong whisky. Some medications even contained opium and cocaine!

“It’s only the placebo effect” – that’s a phrase we all know. But the placebo effect really is one of the ways these therapies actually work.

Take acupuncture, a treatment that millions of people swear by. For thousands of years, acupuncture has been known as an effective treatment. Reliable studies have also confirmed that at least some people experience positive effects from acupuncture, such as patients suffering chronic pain.