America’s boundless faith that anything is possible helped build the world’s largest economy. It has also made the country a reliable mark for hucksters, from 19th-century snake oil to today’s unproven peptides, as Jonathan Fahey reports for Los Angeles Times.
In 1897, a Baptist minister persuaded investors he could extract gold from seawater off Lubec, Maine. In 1925, Bailey Radium Laboratories launched Radithor, a radioactive “health tonic” that poisoned its customers. Clark Stanley’s snake oil turned out to be mostly mineral oil, and Charles Ponzi lent his name to an entire genre of fraud.
Why do we keep falling for it? “People really don’t want to die,” says Dr. Lydia Kang, author of Quackery and associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. American optimism, individualism and lightly regulated capitalism amplify that desperation.
Gullibility isn’t necessarily stupidity. Tali Sharot, a neuroscience professor at University College London, says we hold beliefs not to map the world accurately but “to have beliefs that will get us the most rewards and help us avoid harm.” Even false beliefs, like the idea that vaccines cause autism, can deliver community, someone to blame or simple hope.
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Hucksters thrive in gray areas, where a hint of real benefit cracks the door open. Stanley borrowed from Chinese laborers’ remedy; radiation had real medical uses. Today, rapamycin’s lifespan gains in yeast, flies and mice, and the success of peptide drugs like Wegovy, have spawned a market for largely untested longevity and muscle-building products. “What’s scary is that they will take that hope and they will try to stick it in a bottle and sell it to you at whatever price that they think that you can afford,” Kang said.
Influencers and a costly, confusing health system make things worse, as does Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has given voice to vitamin A for measles, peptides and raw milk. “The guard rails are off right now,” Kang warns.
