- Spa owner arrested for allegedly performing illegal injections.
- âAnti-alcohol cravingâ supplement marketers agree to pay refunds.
- Facilitated communication and variants debunked.
- Harms of âalternative medicineâ summarized.
Spa owner arrested for allegedly performing illegal injections. Massachusetts spa owner Rebecca Fadanelli, 38, has been charged with smuggling goods into the United States and selling/dispensing counterfeit drugs and devices. Fadanelli owns Skin Beaute Med Spa, which has locations in Randolph and South Easton, Massachusetts. According to the criminal complaint, since March 2021, she has been importing counterfeit Botox, Sculptra, and Juvederm from China and Brazil and has performed thousands of injections of counterfeit drugs. She was charged with one count of illegally importing merchandise, one count of selling or dispensing a counterfeit drug, and one count of selling or dispensing a counterfeit device. It is alleged that she represented to clients and employees that she is a nurse whereas she is an aesthetician and is neither licensed nor certified to dispense or administer prescription drugs or devices. According to payment records, from approximately March 2021 through March 2024, Fadanelli completed approximately 1,631 Botox appointments, totaling $522,869 in client payments, and 1,085 filler appointments, totaling $410,545 in client payments. If convicted, she could be sentenced to many years in jail and fined as much as $1 million.
If you or a family member received services involving a counterfeit drug or counterfeit device from Fadanelli and/or Skin Beaute Med Spa between 2021 and the present date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a questionnaire it wants you to complete on its website. Information about the status of the case is located on the website of the U.S. Attorneyâs Office District of Massachusetts. [Spa owner arrested for allegedly performing thousands of illegal counterfeit injections on clients for over three years. U.S. Attorneyâs Office District of Massachusetts press release, Nov 1, 2024]
âAnti-alcohol cravingâ supplement marketers agree to pay refunds. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is sending more than $536,000 in refunds to 56,686 consumers who bought Sobrenix, a supplement marketed by Rejuvica using unsupported claims it could reduce and even eliminate alcohol cravings and consumption. [FTC sends more than $536,000 in refunds to consumers deceived by misleading ads for Sobrenix âanti-alcohol cravingâ supplement. FTC press release, Nov 7, 2024] The payment of refunds was part of a proposed court order permanently banning Rejuvica and its owners, Kyle Armstrong and Kyle Dilger, from making any unsubstantiated claims about health care products or services. According to the FTCâs July 2023 complaint, the defendants made numerous unsubstantiated and false claims about Sobrenix using paid endorsers in deceptively formatted advertising. The defendants also used bogus review sites they owned and operated to deceive prospective consumers.
Facilitated communication and variants debunked. Award-winning author and psychologist Stuart Vyse, PhD, has described the persistence of pseudoscientific methods claimed to enable nonspeaking people with cerebral palsy and autism to communicate. Facilitated communication (FC) involves a facilitator supporting the hands or arms of a nonspeaking person at a keyboard. However, well-designed studies have found that supposedly positive results were due to improper study designs in which the facilitators controlled how the patients performed.
Vyse praised the new Netflix documentary Tell Them You Love Me, which takes a close look at an FC practitioner who was convicted in 2015 of aggravated sexual assault of a severely disabled man with cerebral palsy. Vyse also discussed how facilitators can be unaware they are controlling the typing. [Vyse S. When silence speaks: The harmful pseudoscience of facilitated communication. Skeptical Inquirer 48(6):51-55 and Vyse S. When silence speaks: The harmful pseudoscience of facilitated communication. Realityâs Last Stand, June 24, 2024] Vyse has also pointed out that the mechanisms underlying beliefs in FC sessions resemble those at work in Ouija boards games. [Vyse S. How does the Ouija board work? Skeptical Inquirer, 48(6)]
Harms of âalternative medicineâ summarized. Dr. Edzard Ernst, an emeritus professor at the University of Exeter, has described several categories of harm caused by so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). [Ernst E. The harm of so-called alternative medicine. Skeptical Inquirer, 48(6):56-57] They include:
- direct harm by SCAM therapies such as chiropractic spinal manipulation, acupuncture, and herbal medicine
- harm such as missing a serious diagnosis or giving false positive diagnoses caused by SCAM diagnostic techniques that havenât been validated
- harm caused by SCAM practitioners recommending subpar treatments, offering poor advice, diagnosing conditions that donât exist, or exaggerating the importance of everyday health impairments
- harm caused by the industry by leading consumers to misspend their money and by endangering species through the exploitation of natural resources
- harm caused by unreliable research that undermines trust in science
- harm caused by fallacious notions, such as ânature knows best,â that undermine rational thought
Ernst concluded:
As the benefits of SCAM are often only marginal or entirely absent, even relatively minor risks count heavily. It follows that the risk-benefit balance of much of SCAM fails to be positive. In turn, this means that consumers should think twice before they use or recommend SCAM.
Epidemiologist and healthcare informaticist Katie Suleta, DHSc, concluded in her review of Ernst’s latest book. Bizarre Medical IdeasâŠand the Strange Men Who Invented Them:
Ernstâs book demonstrates what can happenâand why itâs dangerousâwhen anyone, but especially physicians, become so enamored with their own cunning, intelligence, and ideas that they forget to ask the question âIs it even feasible?â
[Suleta K. Inventor tales in alternative medicine. Skeptical Inquirer, 48(6):60-61]
Consumer Health Digest is a free weekly e-mail newsletter edited by William M. London, Ed.D., M.P.H., with help from Stephen Barrett, M.D. It summarizes scientific reports; legislative developments; enforcement actions; other news items; Web site evaluations; recommended and nonrecommended books; research tips; and other information relevant to consumer protection and consumer decision-making. The Digestâs primary focus is on health, but occasionally it includes non-health scams and practical tips. Items posted to this archive may be updated when relevant information becomes available. To subscribe, click here.
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