More amazing than the sheer volume of nonsense products on the shelves of pharmacies are the lies that are allowed to be told in order to sell them. Take this interesting cure for baldness for example.
Here are the claims by Nanogen Serum VEGF:
Patent Pending TechnologyGrowth factors are a cutting edge technology, pioneered by Nanogen for treating thinning hair.
The Natural Solution for Hair Loss
VEGF is a growth factor like the ones humans produce naturally. VEGF maintains hair growth and ensures nutrients and oxygen reach the hair, allowing it to grow. It also acts against the factors that cause hair to fall out, maintaining hair growth.
Now, Vascular Endothelial Growth factor (VEGF) is a growth factor produced by your body. There is such a thing. It's a big old protein, and if this product contained any synthetic VEGF it would need to be a lot more expensive than £30. The business of manufacturing recombinant proteins is not cheap or simple. You can buy 25 micrograms (25 millionths of a gram) for about £200. Even if you did get your hands on some recombinant VEGF, you couldn't use it in a medicinal product without jumping through a lot of regulatory hoops - it would be prescription only. So, what's going on here?
Apparently:
Nanogen Serum VEGF is a safe, plant derived sh-VEGF growth factor serum that reduces hair loss and promotes existing hair growth
You could no doubt stitch together a story about how baldness is due to a lack of blood supply to hair follicles, and that VEGF stimulates the growth of blood vessels. Almost certainly such a notion inspired this product. However, let's not even consider the possible therapeutic value of VEGF (or sh-VEGF) in treating baldness until there is some evidence the product contains any. We've already ruled out VEGF itself. What about this sh-VEGF?
The only mention of sh-VEGF you will find in the scientific literature is short hairpin RNA for VEGF, a man-made tool for preventing VEGF gene expression in experimental cell biology. Researchers have made sh-RNA to prevent the expression of all manner of genes. It's a complex, but common technique. Needless to say, there is no way on this earth that a product containing such a thing would be on sale on the open shelves of a pharmacy either. This magic potion almost certainly has no active ingredient. It's just plain bullshit. There really ought to be a law.
What's the point of all this pseudoscientific frippery then? You could make up any old nano/quantum/etc bullshit as a sales pitch, but Google wouldn't lend any credence to it. However, if you type sh-VEGF into Google, you will get loads of hits - most of it scientific studies using short hairpin RNA silencing techniques. Anyone not remotely familiar with the field would think that there is a lot of science surrounding sh-VEGF and have faith in the product. Googlers with a little familiarity with science might even find some reassuring phrases in what turns up (eg "growth" and "stimulated").
On the other hand, other people might be disturbed by the notion of inhibiting gene expression in their body - playing with your very own DNA. But nothing could go seriously wrong, could it? Not from something "plant-derived"? See what they did there?
Again, there ought to be a law.
[See also: Caffeine for hair loss.]
