#2603: Sonia Broglin et al.

Finding silly scam products on the Internet is not difficult, but the Luminas Pain Relief Patches are so silly that one would expect even the dimmest wits to be able to see through it. But apparently, they don’t. There is a fine takedown of the product here. The patches – a cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow’s energy patches – promise to cure virtually anything through what they call “energy”, by which they mean, of course, not energy as understood by anyone caring about the real world, but rather shimmering ghostly spirit stuff – basically what New Age guru-types mean when they talk about ‘quantum physics’.

 

And indeed doesn’t the advertisement for the Luminas patches! The patches ostensibly take advantage of “revolutions in quantum physics,” and are charged with the “energetic signatures of natural remedies known for centuries to reduce inflammation” – “… energy that your body inherently knows how to absorb and use with absolutely no side effects.” So it goes. For obvious reasons, they do not attempt to explain how “scientists and doctors” are able “to store the energetic signatures of hundreds of pain- and inflammation-relieving remedies on a single patch”, nor what an “energetic signature” means, nor what revolutions in quantum physics they are talking about – nor, for that matter, how any of it is supposed to work to provide health benefits – unless you count some impressively handwavy word salads like this:

 

“For the geeks and scientists among us: Each patch contains 5.2 x 10^19 molecular structures, each with 2 oxygen polar bonding areas capable of holding a targeted, host electron, creating a total possible charging capacity equal to 10.4 x 10^19 host electrons. After considering the average transmission field voltage of humans (200 micro volts) we can calculate the relative capacity, per square inch of patch, at 333 Pico Farads.”

 

You don’t exactly need a degree in chemistry to recognize that … there are some gaps in that story. Fortunately, there are no scientists among the “us” at Luminas, nor in their target audience.

 

Sonia Broglin is the amazing genius behind the nonsense, and she is, naturally, the director of product development at Luminas. She is also a certified EnergyTouch® practitioner who graduated from the EnergyTouch® School of Advanced Healing. Energy touch is apparently “an off-the-body multidimensional healing process that allows the Energy Touch® Practitioner to access outer levels of the human energy field” – look, it’s multidimensional” and a registered trademark. This is serious New Age magic, and you can pay for study to a diploma in the technique by visiting an online page through a link in your spam folder.

 

Broglin is, perhaps surprisingly, not alone in this obvious scam. With her on her team, she’s got:

 

-       Craig Davies, who is a “Pro Sports Doctor.” If you ask “doctor of what?” you are probably not in the target audience for this amazing product (he’s a chiropractor)

-       Dr. Ara Suppiah, who seems to have some legitimate training but is currently pushing the quackery known as “functional sports medicine”.

-       Ashley Anderson, a nurse practitioner affiliated with Athena Health and Wellness, a women’s health (and wellness) practice that mixes real health treatments with “integrative medicine” quackery

 

Apparently, the product has had some “astounding results” – not any real evidence, of course, but they have some testimonials. They also have a hilariously silly series of imagings of patients using thermography (basically, it seems, just thermographic imagings of patients with and without patches, with no control of environmental factors or anything else).

 

Diagnosis: It’s hard to imagine anyone being a true believer in anything as profoundly nonsensical and obviously scammy as the Luminas pain patches, but we’ll charitably (?) assume that Broglin and her team are. And you wonder how New Age dimwits go on to believe Qanon nonsense!

 

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence