Finns spend hundreds of millions each year on questionable cures

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In her book The Cure for all Diseases, which is now available in Finnish, Canadian-born Hulda Clark promises that all diseases from Alzheimer’s to AIDS can be cured as long as the reader follows her instructions.
      All that the patient has to do is to buy a small device called a Zapper, which emits a small electric current - slightly more powerful than that of a mobile telephone. The device is supposed to kill parasites and worms, which she says are the root cause of any number of diseases.
      The Zapper can be programmed to put out just the right amount of current for each individual disease.
     
Dr. Clark’s teachings and the universal Zapper panacea are extreme examples of dubious cures on which Finns spend more than EUR 200 million a year. The products range from herbs and preparations to medical devices whose effectiveness has not been established.
      One of the Zappers was recently found among the effects of a deceased cancer patient. The device sells for EUR 188, and users can buy separate "programme drivers" which are said to deliver the right amount of electricity to cure any one of 36 different diseases at a cost of EUR 22 each. A separate instruction book costs EUR 27.
      About 2,500 copies of the books, and a few dozen Zapper devices, have been sold in Finland.
      The book was translated into Finnish and published by Jussi Yli-Panula, CEO of the publisher Lootus-kirja. Panula himself is convinced of the effectiveness of the device, saying that it helped him beat the 'flu four times last winter.
     
Helsingin Sanomat ordered a Zapper and asked experts at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) to test the device to see what it really does.
      Matti Linnavuo at HUT said that the device puts out a maximum of 16 milliamperes of current - about 1/1000 of the amount that is dangerous to humans.
      "A person will get more current just touching a door handle", he said.
      Linnavuo feels that the greatest danger from the device is that users might fail to seek help that they need from genuine health care professionals.
     
Supervision of alternate cures in Finland is quite dispersed, and many people do not know where to turn if they are not satisfied what they get.
      The National Authority for Medicolegal Affairs (TEO) enforces standards of treatment by health care professionals.
      When a person offering alternate cures, or selling devices for health care purposes, is not a professional in the field of health care, the responsibility for supervision is with consumer officials or the National Agency for Medicines.
     
The Consumer Agency reacts if a device does not function as advertised. The National Agency for Medicines is supposed to make sure that a product’s marketing does not give a misleading impression of the composition or effect of a product.
      Considering the large volume of sales, institutions monitoring the health care business are surprised at the relatively small number of complaints that they get. Each year officials ban the sale or advertising of only a few products. Prosecutions for quackery are even less frequent.


Links:
  Quackwatch.org - The Bizarre Claims of Hulda Clark
  Dr. Clark's home page

Helsingin Sanomat