When you write a medical blog and talk about herbal remedies and ingredients and alternative medicine -even if it is usually to bash them, as I do (it's absolutely NO fun to write about the good shit that works -not that I have really found any, anyway), you start to get all sorts of interesting comments and e-mails regarding herbal remedies and cures.
It make my job a lot easier when the scammers start to come to me directly.
It saves me going out to look for them. I have to laugh though, thinking
that if they only took a little time to research me, they wouldn't walk
both feet into the lion's bitch's den.
I had reason to open my Spam folder yesterday, and there were tons of e-mails promising me cheap Viagra, illegal Adderal and all manner of prescription drugs from Canada. I have to laugh at all these mails, which are so obviously scams they are not even worth mentioning here usually.
The other big spammer I get is for Russian porn. For some reason the Russian pornographers seem to think there is a healthy market here on this site for their wares. I have no idea why this might be. Rightly or wrongly, this is what I think of when I think of Russian women:
Here is my sterotypical image of Russian men:
So the thought of Russian porn is not a happy one for me ('specially when looking at the guy second from the left!). OK so I know these probably aren't shining examples of current Russian pornstars, but I wouldn't be willing to take that chance. So Nothankyouverymuch, Russian pornographers. You should program your spambots to target somewhere else. It would save us both some time.
In addition to fake prescription drugs and Russian porn, I get the traders in "supplements" and other "natural remedies", with lists of mad stuff; single ingredients- that they will happily sell to me from overseas. I sometimes look at these lists, idly wondering how much might be poison. Some of the entries really make me wonder what kind of fools they usually deal with. And I am by no means an expert!
A list from one company had a lot of vitamin-and-nutrient-sounding stuff thereon. Fifteen pages of them, including some vitamins I hadn't been aware existed. Primarily, because they seem to have made them up! Yes, folks: Makey-up vitamins seem to be the very latest in preventative healthcare. These are fun for me to explore, especially when I combine them with slang "vitamin" definitions from the Urban Dictionary...
We have Vitamin M, which the vendor claimed was Folic Acid. However, "Vitamin M" is also slang for money! So here's me thinking, I could order this and get a bunch of capsules full of those shredded manky old dollar bills you can get from the US Mint. Yum! Or if it is really Folic Acid, I wonder what comes in their B9 capsules? And I'm sure the Urban dictionary could come up with a good alternative for Vitamin B9. It's not there yet, but suggestions are always welcome.
Vitamin P in the urban dictionary is ...well, you can go look it up (While OSM is not exactly PG13, there are some terms of which I am not fond). According to the jokers who e-mail me, their "Vitamin P" contains Rutin, a type of flavinoid. I could easily see SNL doing a pretty good sketch on confusing those two terms up. Not enough that I would actually buy any, though.
My erstwhile providers had two different version of Vitamin U: One was Methylmethionine sulfonium chloride, which I have seen referred to as "Vitamin U" elsewhere. But until someone with a medical degree tells me it is good for me, I am disinclined to try it. I am even less inclined to try their other Vitamin U: Chlorine. Isn't that toxic? Didn't chlorine gas kill a bunch of soldiers in World War...Something? And isn't it a tad irresponsible to have two things with the same name, one potentially good for you, and the other potentially harmful? Yeah I thought so. because that won't cause any confusion at all...
And to add insult to injury, there is no good Urban Dictionary definition for Vitamin U. I needs to find me one, as that may become the only valid definition for the term.
These guys also have two versions of vitamin H. The first they claim is D-Biotin (isn't that really B7?). The second is blank, which make me very curious to know what might really be in there? The Urban Dictionary definition of "Vitamin H" is Heroin, which made me giggle at the thought of what might happen if Grandma took the wrong vitamin...
I was disappointed to find the list of vitamins that my would-be suppliers provided was incomplete when compared to the Urban Dictionary, because I really want to try some Vitamin Q, which according to that revered tome is defined thus:
A vitamin so elusive it's found in the subtle recesses of the alphabet... Also the secret ingredient used to make Gatorade, clones and Chuck Norris.
I really need me some of THAT! (where can I get it, I wonder?)
If you think prescriptions are any safer read this article ...
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-the-deadly-gap-in-the-drug-safety-net/19460911?icid=main|netscape|dl8|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fopinion%2Farticle%2Fopinion-the-deadly-gap-in-the-drug-safety-net%2F19460911
Suzanne
Posted by: Suzanne | May 10, 2010 at 03:16 AM