A costly and luxurious tincture
The future king is playing games with his subjects.
Prince Charles has been accused of exploiting the public in times of hardship by launching what a leading scientist calls a “dodgy” detox mix. Edzard Ernst, the UK’s first professor of complementary medicine, said the Duchy Originals detox tincture was based on “outright quackery”. There was no scientific evidence to show that detox products work, he said. Duchy Originals says the product is a “natural aid to digestion and supports the body’s elimination processes”.
Notice how conveniently meaningless those claims are, yet at the same time how attractive to the gullible. A ‘natural aid to digestion’ could just mean – something you eat so therefore it ‘aids’ digestion by, you know, forcing you to digest it. ‘Supports the body’s elimination processes’ could mean the same thing – if I drink a root beer or a bottle of gin or a basin of dirty bath water that supports my body’s elimination processes in the sense that I will eventually have to pee because of the added fluids. Yet to people browsing the shelves at Waitrose in hopes of something to ‘support’ the body’s natural health-giving whatnots, that might sound like just the ticket, to the tune of £10 for a 50ml bottle.
Professor Ernst of Peninsula Medical School said Prince Charles and his advisers appeared to be deliberately ignoring science, preferring “to rely on ‘make-believe’ and superstition”.
He added: “Prince Charles thus financially exploits a gullible public in a time of financial hardship.” Marketed as Duchy Herbals’ Detox Tincture, the artichoke and dandelion mix is described as “a food supplement to help eliminate toxins and aid digestion”…Andrew Baker, the head of Duchy Originals, said the tincture “is not – and has never been described as – a medicine, remedy or cure for any disease.
No, because they were careful; they kept deniability; which is very unattractive of them. It seems to hint that they know it’s worthless, and word their claims carefully so as not to get the future monarch charged with false advertising, yet still persuade the persuadable to buy the expensive ‘tincture.’
Professor Ernst said the suggestion that such products remove toxins from the body was “implausible, unproven and dangerous”. “Nothing would, of course, be easier than to demonstrate that detox products work. All one needed to do is to take a few blood samples from volunteers and test whether this or that toxin is eliminated from the body faster than normal,” he said. “But where are the studies that demonstrate efficacy? They do not exist, and the reason is simple: these products have no real detoxification effects.”
Wellllllll – they don’t actually prevent detoxification, as far as the Duchy knows, so that makes it fair enough to say they aid it. Surely? Be a sport! Say yes!
I was at Whole Foods a few days ago, and found that they are in the business too – they had bottles of something called ‘Urban Detox’ on sale for something like $4.95 for four not-large bottles. Cheaper than the Prince’s stuff though, plus Whole Foods isn’t the heir to the throne.
I read somewhere that the future King of England and the remnants of its empire has a personal staff of 50 or 60 people.
In any case, what he needs to do is hire someone who can play Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote.
Don Q never had the sense to sell worthless tinctures to the huddled masses, poor guy.
OB: No, but DQ lived in an illusory world of his own mental making. I don’t think Charles Windsor needs the money. I think he honestly believes all this stuff.
The sad thing is, if he was near skint ‘commoner’ he would probably be relieved of what little cash he had by some operator using royal endorsement as his sales pitch. As PT Barnum reputedly said, there’s one born every minute. But on the same basis, there’s only one PT Barnum born each year. That’s why they all get rich.
No Charles Windsor doesn’t need the money but then why does he sell it for £10 per 50ml bottle? It obviously doesn’t cost anywhere near that to make – it’s water with a bit of dandelion and artichoke in it for godsake. So whether he believes in it or not he’s also bilking his future subjects. It’s a revolting spectacle. Overpriced biscuits aren’t so bad, because they don’t pretend to be anything else, but this stuff – he might as well appear at carnivals selling Genuine Imported Snake Oil. Horrible man.
Of course there is a lot of snake oil out there. Its very hard to see what extra knowledge or competitive advantage his brand could have EXCEPT selling his name and ‘credibility’.
Quite, which is exactly why he shouldn’t do it. It’s disgusting.
I’m not in line to be the monarch of anything. That doesn’t stop me from thinking through the stuff I would do if I were, though. In fairy tales kings and queens sometimes do something for the benefit of the whole kingdom, just because they can. Throw a big party or declare a day off from school. It’s easier for them. They have the staff, and the post office, and they can afford the little bottles, and cake, etc. So if I were Queen and I discovered something really good, I wouldn’t be so rude as to try to sell it to my kingdom. I would give it to them free. What in the hell is Ch. W’s excuse for going into business as a cookie, hand lotion and tincture salesman? Seems tacky to me, and nothing to do with benefitting the kingdom.
Oh well you see it’s all part of the whole ‘dem country’s geng to the dogs, people have no appreciation of the finer things, nobody learns to spell, damn carbuncles built right and left, all that awful music, ghastly glass boxes all over London, quality, finest ingredients, organic lemon pits from Dorset and hand-ground salmonella flour from Wiltshire, do try one with a cup of tea, a snip at £45 the dozen, mind the step on your way out’ thing.
Dreadful man, Priss Chos is. Frightful bounder.
“No Charles Windsor doesn’t need the money but then why does he sell it for £10 per 50ml bottle? “
It pains me to defend him, but I believe that the profits from the Duchy Originals brand go to charity, which is some kind of mitigation.
I wouyld love the detox industry to tell us what they mean by ‘toxins’ though, just once. Having said that, so long as these products aren’t actually poisonous I tend to feel that the dupes who buy them pretty much deserve what they get.
Duchy Originals is ridiculously over-priced cack. I would be happy to pay £10 for a little vial of Duchy Original-brand Prince Charles stupidity-removal-fluid, a sort of correcting tape for the many egregious errors of our idiotic King-to-be. Alas, it’s got about as much scientific backing as the detox tincture. The definition of ‘tincture’ is, at least according to the in-built Oxford American Dictionary on my laptop, “medicine made by dissolving a drug in alcohol”. Note the key words ‘medicine’ and ‘drug’. As in, something that actually helps with a medical problem. This kind of thing needs action: I’m going to write to my MP about all this Duchy stuff and complain that using one’s position of state to sell bullshit herbal medicines is not on.
It also is self-evidently NOT supporting “the body’s elimination processes” if the Prince is using it, since he’s still full of just as much shit as always.
As a liberal republican, Prince Charles is as close as one can get to a gift from the Gods in his sheer ability to turn into republicans those who think monarchism is just about fine under Queen Liz. Charles will be to his mother as George W. Bush was to Clinton, dragging down monarchism to Bush-style approval ratings.
That said, does not the Prince’s support for the full range of health quackery disprove the idea that these are “alternative”? The alties are perfectly happy to go on about how they are some kind of counter-cultural underground alternative to the “medical elite”, and at the same time trumpet the fact that the Queen uses homeopathy and the fact that Prince Charles is gullible enough to believe that coffee enemas. Can’t have it both ways.
That reminds me. A while back I made a cartoon when Mad Maddy Bunting defended the alties from all those hideous hide-bound scientists. Enjoy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommorris/154215498/
Charles is more Doctor Bendo than Man of La Mancha.
The people who buy DHDTs will shop at Waitrose, not Lidls. They’ll be v.v. m/c, v. rich, and v.v.v. stupid. I’d rob these people but don’t believe charlieboy would. He’ll believe his herbal tinctures have magical properties and won’t have set their price. Charlie won’t know his seasoned water is expensive, the value of a tenner or the median yearly wage to the nearest 20k.
Naturopathy, Catholicism, Healing Touch Islam…all aspects of the same damn thing. A pox on it all (with recourse to laying-on of hands and herbalism only).
“a little vial of Duchy Original-brand Prince Charles stupidity-removal-fluid”
Heeheeheeheehee.
I suppose, now I come to think of it, this makes sense. Here is a man who has no real power selling products that have no real efficacy to make money that has no real value. I can see why Christopher Hitchens became an American. The money might not be all that much more real, but there is no king. And the Atlantic, surely, has (arguably) more detoxifying power (even if you just fly over it) than the prince’s powders!
Let’s get together and start selling Tincture of the Atlantic, Eric! (Mind you, I live next to an arm of the Pacific, but what the hell, we’ll just call it Tincture of the Atlantic; who’s going to know?)
But does the prince’s tincture cure scrofula? If not now, then undoubtedly when he ascends to the throne.
But to be fair, MattR is right. How can you expect someone who employs a flunky to put the toothpaste on his brush to know that a tenner is actually real money?
Well I read somewhere that Chos is actually quite stingy around the house, in the odd way of some rich people – you know, no price is too high for the luxuries but do be careful not to overpay the servants.
Just my observation visiting the UK – EVERYTHING seems to cost a tenner.
Really? Even a box of Sainsbury’s triple chocolate cookies? (Yes, cookies.) I think they were about £1.50 last time I was there.
Don’t knock it Ophelia! Just think how much we can make with Tincture of the Atlantic! A tenner each time!
And to cure scrofula the prince (king) will have to touch the scrofulous. Selling bottles of seawater makes more sense. And, hey, we could corner the market. Sell Tincture of the Pacific too!
Think of all the Sainsbury’s triple chocolate cookies we could buy!