From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 20:09:24 MST
There is a multi-level marketing effort going through our town now for a
new concept in vitamin sales. Something called a Biophotonic Scanner is
used to test the antioxidant levels in your cells. In this way you can
tell if your vitamins are working and you can have much more confidence
that you are getting anti-oxidant protection. If you sign up for regular
delivery of the vitamins you get a free scan every month.
The outfit behind it is Pharmanex, www.pharmanex.com, but because it
is a MLM organization you will find many other groups with their own
names pushing it. The way MLMs work is that if you recruit people to
sell the products, you get a share of their profits, and also a share
of the profits from the people they recruit. It's a kind of pyramid
scheme where each person tries to get as high on the pyramid as possible,
recruiting many people below them in the pyramid in what is called the
"downline". If you get enough people below you selling the product,
you can retire and live off your cut of the products. That's the dream
for most people who get into MLM sales.
The scanner is a laser that you wave your hand in front of for a few
seconds. It gives you a number which is supposed to be your level of
antioxidants. If you take the vitamins your number goes up.
I did some research on this and while it is not bogus, there is
considerable exaggeration in the claims. The scanner technology
comes from the University of Utah, and it is specifically measuring
carotene levels in your skins. Carotenes are antioxidants and so there
is legitimacy in checking those numbers. However the catch is that the
Pharmanex vitamins are extra-loaded with carotenes! This means that if
you take Pharmanex vitamins you will get a much higher reading on the
scanner than if you take other companies' vitamins.
So overall I think the machine is not all that valuable since it is
only looking at a small part of your overall antioxidant picture, and the
company has already figured out how to skew the results to their benefit.
Hal
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