Radio 4 You & Yours investigate unregulated ‘live’ blood tests

Thursday’s BBC Radio 4 You & Yours featured a report on live blood analysis.

I won’t go into too much background detail about the technique, the practitioners featured, the Groupon deals I’ve reported to the Advertising Standards Authority or the angry and disappointed customers who found my blog (and subsequently spoke to the media). I have already written about those things extensively (see ‘Further reading’, below).

Let me just share some highlights…

The Daily Mail promotes magic underwear!

Yesterday’s Daily Mail featured a really quite incredible advert article by Maysa Rawi extolling the wonders of the Playtex ‘Objective 1 Size Down’ ‘shapewear’.

Let’s not get distracted looking at the model and imagining all the unsightly and embarrassing bulges she would have, were she in smaller underwear. I am well aware of the merits of big knickers.

I do, however, find the following assertions very hard to believe:

British Airways put snakes on a plane!

Travelling with British Airways these days, you could be forgiven for imagining you’re on a one-way trip to La La Land.

How disorientating it must be to find yourself miles in the air, possibly at some ungodly hour, and then be confronted with surreal advertising – relating to the health-giving properties of coloured light, negative ions and snake venom. Claims which can only be based on pure fantasy – since reliable evidence to support them is distinctly lacking.

Groupon caught promoting snake oil

Well, that’s hardly news, is it?

As we’ve already established, Groupon seem to have no scruples when it comes to the promotion of dubious quackery. The only difference here is that the miracle product apparently comes from an actual snake.

Another bloody disgrace from Groupon!

Excuse my belligerent tone but I truly am appalled and frustrated that despite  numerous complaints, innocent members of the public are still being misled by Live Blood Analysts promoted by Groupon.

In addition to making misleading claims in his advertising, one practitioner, Errol Denton, has even – according to comments made online – been treating customers appallingly, resulting in a ‘mass refund’ from Groupon, as well as an adjudication by the Advertising Standards Authority against the original ad.