If you think medicine shows and fake cures were a 19th-century phenomenon that disappeared after 1900 or so, think again.
Human nature is immutable. There were suckers then, and there are suckers now — and unscrupulous hucksters seeking to profit from human gullibility.
The latest example:
“Magic dirt.” The targets of this scam were obvious ones: Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers, supplement poppers, and the “more general alternative health and fake cure” crowds. What they bought, for $110 a baggie, was peat dirt.
“The stars appeared aligned for it,” NBC News says, until regulators stepped in, and ultimately shut the company down.
Those “stars” were a “pandemic marked by unprecedented … misinformation,” Facebook groups to spread the message, and a willing audience of stupid people who’ll believe blatant nonsense and refuse to believe real medical science, who “provided an audience and eager customer base for a new kind of medicine show.”
Read the long and convoluted story here, then decide for yourself whether the victims of this 21st-century medicine show deserve any understanding or sympathy.