a snake oil salesman's quote of the day

Wow ummm so anyway the guy who has the best selling book in the nation right now was on tv. I know a little bit about this man thanks to the daily show doing a repot on him a few weeks back. Well I turn on cnn this afternoon and they are doing a report on this guy. They mention how his book, “natural cures what they don’t want you to know about”, managed to knock harry potter off the number one spot in the best sellers list despite that fact that the guy is not an author, not a doctor, and not even a scientist. They ask him why he thinks doctors are questioning the cures in his book. Well the answer he gives is somewhere in the vicinity of, “Because my book is exposing all the crooks and robbers in the medical business (his emphasis not mine). I am showing the medical business for what it is, fraud.” It was at this point that I was yelling something at the tv as the daily show popped back into my mind. I cant be sure because I don’t record my self speaking but i believe that it went something like this, “Oh yes you would know something about fraud wouldn’t you you devious little basted.” I say that because of the daily show report, and right hen I say it pala zon’s voice over comes back on mentioning, and I really like this line, “And fraud is something he knows a lot about. In 1991 he served a two year sentence for credit card fraud. He also has had several run ins with the federal trade commission over false claims. In 2003 he was fined 2 million dollars over claims made form his coral calcium supreme. He was banned from selling any products in infomercials and he was banned form selling any health products in any form. He is the only person in America banned form selling products on tv. However thanks ot his right to free speech he has been allowed to sell his book and newsletter on infomercials.” After this narrative came the obvious question form ms. Zon, “You’re the only person ever th have been banned form selling a product by the FTC, you have absolutely no medical training, you’re a convicted felon, why should anyone listen to what you have to say?” man finally an excellent and hard hitting question from a news person. I especially like it wasn’t just why should people still buy your book, but rather, why should anyone even listen to anything you have to say. Now then what he had to say next in response to the questioned poised, is actually the quote I wanted to share. It is pretty incredible. His response was “Well (pause) why should anyone (pause) listen to a medical doctor?” he then rests his head on his hands and acts like he just nailed that question out of the park. There is a stunned silence from palua zon which I take advantage of to shout at the tv that you listen to your doctor because they went to friking school for over a decade to learn how to become a doctor. I mean wow, the people should obviously get their medical advice from a snake oil salesman of the worst kind instead of a person who has been learning how to do this for a long long time and actually has some knowledge on the subject. Once ms. Zon recovers she follows up with a well controlled (compared to my yelling at the tv which brought my roommates into my room to check that I was ok) follow up response to his question. “well you would assume they have training…” He shoots back, “well yea you would assume that but these are the same people that advised us to use viox that killed a 150,000 people and these are the same people who kill 900,000 people a year.” My first reaction, WTF, I mean seriously wtf. And then paula’s narrative pops back in, “none of those claims can be verified.” The interview goes on for a little while longer and gets more and more ridicules, including a virtual shoting match between him and palua over how he wont respond to some of the criticism of his book and website (like for example committing fraud); but you get the idea. If you see it on cnn check it out.