Magnets and "catalysts" for softening water, magnetic laundry balls, waters that are "oxygenated", "clustered", "unclustered" or "vitalized" (purporting to improve cellular hydration, remove toxins, and repair DNA), high zeta-potential colloids and vortex-treated waters to raise your energy levels, halt or reverse ageing and remove geopathic stress— all of these wonders and more are being aggressively marketed via the Internet, radio infomercials, seminars, and by various purveyors of new-age nonsense. The hucksters who promote these largely worthless products weave a web of pseudoscientific hype guaranteed to dazzle and confuse the large segment of the public whose limited understanding of science makes them especially vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.
The purpose of this site is to examine the credibility of these claims from the standpoint of our present-day understanding of science. The latter, of course, is always evolving and is never complete, but it makes an excellent "B.S. filter" that is almost always reliable. It is hoped that the information presented here will help consumers make more informed decisions before offering up their credit cards to those in the business of flogging pseudoscience.
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A-Z index and cross-reference of products and processes relating to water treatment and quackery, ranging from the merely unsupported-by-science to the definitely weird |
Please check here before you ask me! |
What is pseudoscience?How it differs from science, how to recognize it. |
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What is this stuff called water? A gentle introduction to water and its properties; water-cluster facts and fictions. |
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A brief description of the nature of water hardness and scale. |
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Magnetic water treatment and related pseudoscience Also: magnetic laundry balls, fuel-enhancers and similar stuff |
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"Precious-metal" catalysts suck electrons out of the water and money out of your wallet |
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Other water-treatment crackpot schemes and devices Electrical pulses, magic minerals, and other unbelievable alchemy |
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Structure-altered water nostrums and nonsense |
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Other wonky water-wellness schemes "Energized" and "ionized" waters, vortexes and vibrations, biophotons— and then there's the really weird stuff! |
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This "sports beverage" is great if you have gills, but otherwise it's good for no more than an expensive burp! |
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"ionized" water, Spend hundreds of $ to get |
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Coral Quackery ("coral calcium" nonsense)
"Energized" water wackadoo
"Magnetized Water" misinformation
Penta Water pseudoscience
Pi Water debunked
John Ellis Electron Water Machine debunked
"Detoxifying" foot-bath quackery
The Drinking Water section of the Open Directory Project contains links to numerous EPA and other informational sites.
Drinking Water Resources - this site contains a wealth of information and hundreds of links, all nicely organized through a menu covering general concerns, contaminants, risk factors and treatment methods. The author is in the water filter business, but he is science-trained and offers reliable advice.
Wilkes University has a good Online Information Guide covering water quality, drinking water, groundwater, surface water, common water quality problems and water analysis and testing.
For a good review of advanced water-treatment technologies, see the article Waterworks in the April 9, 2001 issue of Chemical & Engineering News. (ACS members can access it here.) This has a particularly good discussion of large-scale microfiltration and reverse-osmosis methods such as are being used for wastewater treatment in Orange County CA and elsewhere.
The University of Arizona Hydrology Dept has a very comprehensive, student-oriented Western Water Resources site which has a lot of links of general interest, including to water-related sites of EPA and USCGS. See also Agriculture Canada's site on farm water resources and treatment. Some notes on the historical development of water-treatment processes can be found here.
This private risk management organization has an extensive list of common water contaminants with information on their allowed levels, health effects, and remediation technologies.
What's in your well? A guide to well water reatment and maintenance from Health Canada.
Drinking water chlorination - from the Health Canada site
Choosing a water treatment system - a Government of Ontario site
Scams and Frauds page from the excellent CultureJammer's site. Hundreds of links.
Dead water, lies or fiction? Blog on various water-quackery scams
Multilevel marketing: "Ten big lies"
Alternative Medicine$ The Multi-billion $ Fraud!
U.S. Federal Trade Commision: index page - Dietary supplement advertising rules - File-a-complaint
U.S. Federal Drug Administration Consumers Page -
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Simon Fraser University Burnaby Mountain campus with Vancouver, |
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