Hello and welcome once again to the Randy Show. I am Brian Thompson with the James Randy Educational Foundation and with me as always is Mr. James Randy. Good to see you Brian and let's move right into our topic which I think you may find provocative but then I'm no one for introducing from time to time provocative subjects. I'm all for something provocative so lay it on me. Okay I can't find something whether you're there. I noticed the strangest things so I do know Brian I tend to notice these things and this will be a bit of a surprise to you but this is from public supermarkets. Now public's PUB LIX is very well known in Florida. I don't know about the rest of the United States but I'm sure there are other venues as well. You have any where you are as a matter of fact you know? I'm not sure but I know whenever I go to Atlanta there's one basically every four or five feet. Well public's is pervasive like that yes and provocative at the same time because this is a brand of clear fiber supplement. Now this is something I take medically it's a fiber supplement. It's not one of those like sort of things this just does things for my various parts of my body. Let's not get into the details though but it's a very simple thing and it's they say it's soluble that's wrong it's mixable it's not a soluble substance at all but it is very finely and divided what is it actually do they say what it is here? Well a sugar free and a flavor of the taste free and what it's not free when you buy it. No the point is this is the container it says it's 8.6 ounces and it's sold by weight but and this will be a bit of a revelation to you well perhaps not what they say that when it's manufactured that it's rather bulked up you see because of the way it's it's produced and so it takes a while to settle. I can't imagine that it takes this long to settle take a look at this you see this green line that I put on here. That green line marks the level inside this bottle of the actual substance. The substance when you take the lid off and you take the seal off now mind you it's opaque you notice it's white opaque it's not transparent if this were transparent they would never sell a container of it because it's just below this little green mark that you see around here this I've put a piece of tape on in order to mark it indelibly for you. This is the level of what's actually in this container. Now that doesn't mean there's funneling us if it's sold by the ounce by weight and such that's just fine but I really think that's very seductive and deceptive on the part of the package. I think this should come to be attention to the FDA or somebody if they had any person who would look after this sort of thing or have any interest in it whatsoever. This is a deceptive feature and I really think I've written the publics about it and I get no response whatsoever they just don't answer the noradol together it gets filed in what they call the the circular filing cabinet waste paper basket I'm sure but I think this is something that more people should pay a little bit of attention to. You see an opaque container like this wonder just how much of this. See that could be this height right here very easily and it would be quite adequate to contain the contents. It doesn't take that long for it to settle out maybe when this manufacturer needs this full but I'm sure that settles out rather quickly and maybe just a quick like that on a table would settle it out. You know I always get a little bit annoyed whenever I open a bag of potato chips and it's half empty and then later on I'm grateful for it because I would eat this whole thing. Well I'm sure over the years you've dealt with a lot of manufacturers of pseudo-scientific bunk like you know theopathic remedies and things like that and they seem to always sort of skirt the line between lying and deceiving in their packaging. So what can you say about the way that you know regulatory bodies like the FDA and the FTC deal with deception versus outright lying? Well I've been preparing the text for a magician in the laboratory as you know rather frantically I'm coming along very well with it thank you and the book should go to the publishers I think within the next 60 days but I find out that the FDA just doesn't have staff. They don't have people there who can look after this kind of thing. They have no interest at it whatsoever because they're swamped. Now this is not unlike some other government agencies as well but I would think that the FDA might get some sort of priority treatment. I think the FDA needs to look into these things as they need to look into homeopathic remedies so-called I use that word in quotations all the time of course. I think they need some additional help. They need someone to supervise what they're doing and provide them with adequate personnel. They just don't have it the same with the US patent and trademark office in Washington. They don't have enough people either. So they're issuing patents on perpetual motion machines and free energy machines left and right because they just don't have the staff to filter these things out. Now you would think that perpetual motion machines as an automatic classification would be classified as fake, don't work. They simply cannot work. The laws of physics won't allow them to work but the deluded out there they the great deluded inventors who sell these things all the time and they sell stock in them and some of them get very very wealthy like the Stern company as T-E-O-R-N company and I think that's Denmark or is it Sweden? I think Sweden. They have been selling this device for the longest time and promising demonstrations of it and I've watched the demonstrations on TV and the wheel turns around like crazy and they get a good stop so they look and they say oh what happened? It stopped Dumbled because this sort of thing will not work but they seem to think that it will work and they they promise demonstrations they they call well tune in in 48 hours we'll have it working. This is something that they can get away with because there just aren't enough folks out there to monitor this kind of thing and relieve people of their delusions that are perhaps even shared by the inventors. So I guess the lesson here is for everybody before you buy anything do your research make sure it works make sure it's not woo and also make sure that that package is full. I guess the only way to do that that was to open things up in the store peek inside. Exactly. Exactly. Well I intend to take this back to publics and show them the level at which their particular brand of this digestible fiber is set. Maybe I can get an argument. Maybe after this podcast someone that probably will pay it no I don't think so. Probably not. Probably not. But you can update us in a future episode. Of course. The Randy Show is a production of the James Randy Educational Foundation to learn more about how we promote science and critical thinking go to Randy.org.