Political Potpourri [and flu nonsense]

The Novemeber 3-9, 2004 column "Political Potpourri" by Becky Fenger from SonoranNews.com quoted ACSH's Rivka Weiser:

One can always count on scalawags to exploit the health fear of the hour.

"Feeding off the widespread panic over the flu and the desire for alternatives in flu prevention," Rivka Weiser of the American Council on Science and Health cautions, "an abundance of 'flu remedies' is now available on the Internet, making strong and misleading claims."

Completely worthless is the Influenzinum 30C, an oral homeopathic remedy using an extremely diluted form of this year's vaccine. How diluted? Weiser informs us that we would need to buy a volume equal to 300 septillion times the volume of the sun in order to get the amount of flu vaccine present in 1 dose of the traditional vaccine!

Then there's a product called Total Body Defense. Not only will this fight the flu, the Website claims, but will induce daily fat loss and combat aging. Oh, brother. Perhaps the worst is a purported flu remedy called Mesosilver, a colloidal silver solution long known to cause argyria, a permanent blue-gray discoloration of the body. Don't say I didn't warn you
people...