Author: Ophelia Benson

Okay, now we get the fun part. We visit the Duchy itself. We see pictures of all the pretty little tincture bottles with their mediciney-looking droppers so that you can measure out the exactly precisely correct dosage of the dandelion-tinted water and not use either too much or too little which could be fatal or seriously discomfiting. We see that the tinctures are sold exclusively in selected Boots stores and in Waitrose, and we are suitably impressed. Then (well prepared for the erudition and profundity ahead) we are allowed to read what the Prince of Wales thinks.

HRH The Prince of Wales has always been an advocate of a requirement for fundamental reappraisal of the way we view health. He believes poor health does not exist in isolation, but is in fact a direct consequence of our lifestyles, cultures, communities and how we interact with our environments. He is passionate about adopting an integrated approach to health, as well as exploring how safe, proven complementary therapies can work in conjunction with mainstream medicine.

Has he indeed; does he indeed; is he indeed. So the fuck what? Who cares what ‘HRH the prince of Wales’ thinks? (Notice how we are instructed how to address him even on a website, as if there were some danger that the rabble might come rollicking up to him shouting ‘Hey Chuck love the tincture, dude!’ Notice the pomposity even as he plays the role of the carnival barker.) Who cares what HRH has always been an advocate of and what he believes about health and what he is passionate about? Does he know anything about the subject? Does he have any degrees in the subject? If he wanted to set up shop as a doctor or a pharmacist, would he be able to, or would he immediately be busted for practicing medicine without a license?

Honest to god, the conceit and self-importance of that little paragraph really takes the proverbial biscuit. The amateur dilettante HRH has a lot of crack-brained ‘opinions’ and ‘views’ and ‘beliefs’ about health and ‘therapies’ and medicine and he apparently thinks that his membership in the ‘royal family’ somehow converts his worthless opinions into medical expertise – by alchemy perhaps. He’s so deluded by royal conceit that he thinks he’s qualified to sell ‘tinctures’ to a gullible populace. It’s staggering.

Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture is made from extracts of Artichoke and Dandelion, cleansing and purifying herbs to help support the body’s natural elimination and detoxification processes, and help maintain healthy digestion. Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture can be taken as part of a regular detox program. Globe artichoke, which has the Latin name Cynara scolymus, is a thistle-like perennial plant originating from Africa.

And dandelion is that irritating yellow thing that is always turning up in your garden, and both of them are pretty much harmless, and that’s why we decided to use them to make a ‘detox’ ‘tincture,’ since we don’t much want to actually poison people and get sued, but we do want to pretend that we are giving them something in exchange for their ten pounds, so we picked a couple of harmless weeds, and put a few drops of each in some vats of water, and put the result into tiny little bottles with medicine droppers and called them a ‘tincture.’ It could have been floor dust and potato juice just as well, except then we couldn’t have called them ‘herbal.’

It doesn’t say a word about exactly what it is in the dandelions and the artichokes that cleanses and purifies, or exactly how they ‘help support the body’s natural elimination and detoxification processes’ and ‘help maintain healthy digestion.’ It really is the most blatant, shameless, brazen flim-flammery. And this guy is the future king! He’s a ridiculous posturing quack-embracing pompous patent nostrum salesman – and he’s the future king!

He and George W Bush should form some sort of club – Shameless Sons of Nepotism or something.

Oh isn’t the Vatican just too adorable? It’s not so busy excommunicating doctors who save the lives of raped little girls by aborting their pregnancies (yes I know that was a Brazilian archbishop and not the Vatican as such, but the Vat sets the policy) that it can’t find time to exercise its puckish sense of humour and love of fun. No indeed, it makes a point of celebrating international women’s day by insulting women with an article about washing machines in l’Osservatore Romano on international Women’s Day. Hahahahahaha – that is so funny.

The Vatican newspaper says that perhaps the washing machine did more to liberate women in the 20th century than the pill or the right to work. The submission was made in a lengthy article titled “The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women – Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax.” The article was printed at the weekend in l’Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper, to mark international Women’s Day on Sunday.

Condescend much?

I saw the piece about the article at Faith in Honest Doubt, where Dale suggested that the Vatican ‘has moved past self-parody and gone straight to provoking [me] intentionally.’ It would be fun to think so, wouldn’t it?

Just one little thing, Mr President.

Mr Obama reminded everyone of his religious leanings by saying that “as a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering”.

Come on – you know better than that. Play fair. I realize you have to soothe the religious as much as possible, but don’t do it by throwing the non-religious under the bus. You know that’s silly, you know that persons of no faith can just as well believe we should or must care for each other and work to ease human suffering. Yes we say ‘should or must’ instead of ‘are called to’ – but you know the should or must can be every bit as strong and peremptory as the called to. I know you know this because you used to be an atheist yourself, and you know plenty of atheists, and you’ve worked with all sorts of people, and you’re sensible and observant. You’re not like your inattentive clueless incurious predecessor, who probably does really think that only ‘persons of faith’ have any moral sense; so do try not to talk like him.

Thanks about the stem-cell research though. Love ya, mean it.

The future king is playing games with his subjects.

Prince Charles has been accused of exploiting the public in times of hardship by launching what a leading scientist calls a “dodgy” detox mix. Edzard Ernst, the UK’s first professor of complementary medicine, said the Duchy Originals detox tincture was based on “outright quackery”. There was no scientific evidence to show that detox products work, he said. Duchy Originals says the product is a “natural aid to digestion and supports the body’s elimination processes”.

Notice how conveniently meaningless those claims are, yet at the same time how attractive to the gullible. A ‘natural aid to digestion’ could just mean – something you eat so therefore it ‘aids’ digestion by, you know, forcing you to digest it. ‘Supports the body’s elimination processes’ could mean the same thing – if I drink a root beer or a bottle of gin or a basin of dirty bath water that supports my body’s elimination processes in the sense that I will eventually have to pee because of the added fluids. Yet to people browsing the shelves at Waitrose in hopes of something to ‘support’ the body’s natural health-giving whatnots, that might sound like just the ticket, to the tune of £10 for a 50ml bottle.

Professor Ernst of Peninsula Medical School said Prince Charles and his advisers appeared to be deliberately ignoring science, preferring “to rely on ‘make-believe’ and superstition”.
He added: “Prince Charles thus financially exploits a gullible public in a time of financial hardship.” Marketed as Duchy Herbals’ Detox Tincture, the artichoke and dandelion mix is described as “a food supplement to help eliminate toxins and aid digestion”…Andrew Baker, the head of Duchy Originals, said the tincture “is not – and has never been described as – a medicine, remedy or cure for any disease.

No, because they were careful; they kept deniability; which is very unattractive of them. It seems to hint that they know it’s worthless, and word their claims carefully so as not to get the future monarch charged with false advertising, yet still persuade the persuadable to buy the expensive ‘tincture.’

Professor Ernst said the suggestion that such products remove toxins from the body was “implausible, unproven and dangerous”. “Nothing would, of course, be easier than to demonstrate that detox products work. All one needed to do is to take a few blood samples from volunteers and test whether this or that toxin is eliminated from the body faster than normal,” he said. “But where are the studies that demonstrate efficacy? They do not exist, and the reason is simple: these products have no real detoxification effects.”

Wellllllll – they don’t actually prevent detoxification, as far as the Duchy knows, so that makes it fair enough to say they aid it. Surely? Be a sport! Say yes!

I was at Whole Foods a few days ago, and found that they are in the business too – they had bottles of something called ‘Urban Detox’ on sale for something like $4.95 for four not-large bottles. Cheaper than the Prince’s stuff though, plus Whole Foods isn’t the heir to the throne.