I take it this Dragon’s Den clip is pretty old but I just saw it today.

I’m not a fan of reality shows. But this segment I think counts as a public service. Be nice if we saw more of this aggressive confrontation of alt-health quackery coming from newsrooms. Still, I’ll take this.

I found this clip on skepchick.org in a piece about a guy trying to get money out of the investors on Shark Tank, the U.S. version of Dragon’s Den. The guy was promoting these plastic watches that are supposed to give you good health through the power of negative ions or some shit.

A scam, basically.

And he rightly gets booted from the show.

Incidentally, the most notorious incarnation of these magic-health bracelets are produced by a company called Power Balance. They claim theirs employ high tech holograms that resonate with your natural electromagnetic field.

So, more nonsensical bullshit.

And there was actually a company peddling Power Balance knock-off bracelets out of one of those little kiosks in the Cornwall Centre. They were selling for around $30 apiece, if I remember correctly. But that kiosk seems to have disappeared recently.

If you’d still like to get yourself one of these magic bands because, I don’t know, you think they look stylish, then you can learn all you need to know about how they work at the SkepticBros website and then buy one of their Placebo Bands for a mere $4.