On  Thu, 5 Dec 1996 04:33   Brian Collins wrote on the subject of: Exciting
testimonial ?

As soon as I started reading the post from Ron Amos, my first reaction
was that something was wrong. Having read it right through, I am sure
something is wrong. The phraseology is typical, and there is an over-
whelming odour of Snake Oil about the whole thing. My reaction is to
ignore Ron Ammos and his dubious message.

__________________________________________________

Later that day, Stan R. Houston gave some great examples of suspect key
phrases as excerpts from the original sales pitch.

Michel Marg, Barb Patterson, George M. Andes, Barb Mallu, Dennis Green,
Steven E. Mayer, Ph.D., Mark Atyeo, and others offered similar warnings
based on sound logic.   Most people told him in no uncertain terms to get
lost.   I took a different tack.

I have no doubt that Ron Amis is oblivious to criticism.   Salesmen are
inured to the majority of approaches receiving a response of "no."    What
might be worse is that logical discussions of the flaws in his approach will
be accepted by him as lessons learned rather than the shame of exposure or a
stinging rebuke.

I would advocate responding to his email and telling him that you might be
interested in his product and asking him to go to the expense of mailing by
snail mail the audio tape and the hard copy of his literature.   You could
then wait a few days and issue your warning to the list serve.   The
downside is that in the intervening few days some unwarned list serve
members might actually buy his product.   The upside is that you strike at
his pocketbook where he will feel a tiny bit of pain rather than strike at
his conscience where he will escape unscathed.

As far as pycnogel, I can offer the following:

        Pycnogenol=AE is a patented extract from the bark of the French
Maritime Pine Tree.   It is touted as being a 100% non-toxic, natural and
powerfully effective nutritional antioxidant which is 20 times more powerful
than vitamin C and 50 times more powerful than vitamin E as an antioxidant
supplement.
        It also has the somewhat unique ability to cross the blood-brain
barrier to directly protect blood vessels and brain cells.
        Horphag Research Ltd. of France owns U.S. Patent Number 4,698,360
and is quick to emphasize that imitators with a mixture of grape seed
extract and pine bark extract have no claim to similar success with their
inferior product.   I'm going to guess that Ron Amis pimps a grape seed
imitator.

       Our friend Kathrynne Holden offered me a couple of warnings from
memoryback in October while she was vacationing in Florida :
                1)   studies had been performed "in vitro" but not "in vivo"
therefore results could not be generalized to humans. It would be better
if there were a substantial number of well-controlled human studies
included, not just a bunch of animal or test-tube studies, and,
                2)   a number of the journal studies addressing the product
were performed on antioxidants in general (e.g., vitamins C and E) rather
than  performed on the product in question.

        What I could learn otherwise is that the pine bark extract has been
used for over 450 years.   Isn't that about the time Columbus returned from
his third voyage with blood on his sword because the Indians couldn't find
any gold on their sandy island?   But, I digress.   The patented extract has
been used in Europe for about a decade to help patients with attention
deficit disorder (ADD) and there is a study released last week about its
potential benefit for Multiple Sclerosis and full-scale, double-blind
research studies currently being undertaken for such conditions as
Alzheimer's disease, immune system dysfunctional conditions and others.

        I have no clue as to what a dosage might be for PD benefit.
        According to researchers at the Pasteur Institute and the Huntington
Institute, Pycnogenol=AE is virtually nontoxic to humans and mammals.
Water-soluble, it is also a non-allergenic, non-carcinogenic, non-mutagenic,
non-antigenic and non-habit forming nutritional antioxidant.   So, while
arguing that the patented variety (not necessarily the Kaire International
variety) won't hurt you, other than whatever value it has as an antioxidant,
the scientific community is not arguing that it will help you.




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