#2896: Samuel Girod

Samuel A. Girod is a Kentucky-based Amish snakeoil salesman and convicted felon. Indeed, Girod is somewhat notable for being a classic snakeoil salesman – looks and all – of the kind parodied in old vaudeville shows in the early 20^th century. His product, a concoction of chemicals called “TO-MOR-GONE” was claimed, without a shred of evidence or substantiation, to cure skin disorders, sinus infections, and cancer, and turned out to be based on bloodroot extract, which makes it a relative of black salve and suchlike, and which is highly caustic, thoroughly dangerous and complete (and potentially fatal) nonsense as a health product.

 

When confronted by legal authorities, Girod, somewhat expectedly, went full sovereign citizen: “I am not a creation of state/government, as such I am not within its jurisdiction,” and “The proceedings of the ‘United States District Court’ cannot be applied within the jurisdiction of the ‘State of Kentucky’”. That argument didn’t exactly fly in court (Girod may for all we know be unaware that American history has dealt with such claims rather … decisively) and Girod ended up with a six-year sentence; it didn’t help that he also threatened witnesses. Predictably, the altmed community came out to support Girod, because “natural” and “health freedom”; his victims be damned. Girod himself later tried to capitalize on his story by shamelessly portraying himself as a victim in his book A Good Life Interrupted (blurb: “When Samuel Girod began selling Chickweed Healing Salve out of his kitchen with herbs grown in his garden and the surrounding fields, little did he know that the business he so loved, which he had literally built from the ground up, would catch the eye of the federal regulators who wanted him out of the way”)

 

Diagnosis: Dangerous and remorseless chiseler and grifter. Avoid at all costs.

 

Hat-tip: Steve Novella @ SciencebasedMedicine