KCTS Infomercials, Supported by Viewers Like You
Last year at this time, we were spouting off about KCTS running, for a fundraiser, Dr. Daniel G. Amen's "self-produced show, 'Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.'" Charitably, Amen's claims were not always fully supported by conventional medical wisdom, and we wondered at PBS being wiling to do real damage to its brand for the sake of gulling aging baby-boomers with promises of eternal middle age.
The short answer is that PBS doesn't give a shit about protecting the brand when there's money to be made, and they make no attempt to scientifically review these programs, as evidenced by this year's "UltraMind Solution with Mark Hyman, MD"--the meek little blurb says it'll teach you how to deal with anxiety and depression via good nutrition. Doesn't even mention how it teaches you to fix autism!
Salon's Robert Burton talks about his dismay at flipping on the TV to see:
Mark Hyman, M.D., a family physician...talking about "brain fog" and "broken minds" and how such "conditions" could be cured or prevented by using "The UltraMind Solution"--a combination of books, DVDs and home questionnaires.He and Hyman get into a little back-and-forth that's not all that illuminating. Hyman tells him he's "reductive." ZING!
If you watch the UltraMind program, you may notice that it has many things in common with a fictional book we're going to call Hucksterism for Dummies: First and foremost, tell people something patently true as if you've discovered it and nameless others are trying to keep them from discovering it. Let the audience know that mainstream medical professionals are using "old' or "bad" thinking, that your new paradigm is based on personal experience and/or ancient (but not "old") thinking, and that they can trust you because you have a medical degree.
Once you've covered the basics--sugar is bad, processed foods are bad, toxic burdens are bad--you can casually mention how you once helped an autistic boy with his diet, and just a few years later he was mainstreamed out of special ed and into a regular class. DO NOT say you cured autism--just let the audience connect the dots regarding your implication.
If you can, boil the complexity of human health down to, say, seven principles. Seven is good. Seven is memorable.
Make sweeping claims ("Diseases don't exist"), but throw in some invented jargon and qualifiers so that you can claim amazement later at sticklers' blatant misreadings of your work. Remember, you're on the side of the angels here. Ultimately you're just telling people to eat well and exercise, and maybe move a few million books and DVDs. Is that so wrong? So what if you're contributing to a tiny bit to the tide of woo-woo with your crusade against the "mechanism" of inflammation. And asking people to mistrust their pill-happy doctors? Hey, they only need to trust one doctor, and that's you!
Thank god there's a place for you on KCTS. You can't find this stuff on regular TV. I mean, not where people take breaks and ask you, on top of buying the books and DVDs, to help pay for the broadcast of it.
