I got my first pair of Florsheim shoes when I was thirteen years old. It seemed an appropriate bar mitzvah present because, after all, I was becoming a man. I had earned the right to wear an adult shoe. It squeaked a little, as I recall, but it was a very good shoe. But a few years ago, the Florsheim company did a little squeaking itself. The company was sued by a consumers’ rights group in California called the Consumer Justice Center for false advertising and consumer fraud. What’s going on here? How can something as simple as a shoe become embroiled in a courtroom drama?
Well, it can if the shoe is a golf shoe and claims to do more than just provide a comfortable barrier between the foot and the ground. Questions naturally arise when claims are made about increased circulation, reduced foot, leg, and back fatigue, pain relief, and improved energy levels. That seems to be quite an accomplishment for a shoe. Ah, but it’s no ordinary shoe. Florsheim’s “MagneForce” has magnets built right into it. And therein supposedly lies the magic. But according to the Consumer Justice Center, there is no magic here, just some trickery.
Magnets are very popular as healing tools these days. There are magnetic mattresses, pads, bandages, insoles, rings, and bracelets. You can even buy magnetized water. A remarkable Web site sells “immortality rings” that claim to increase life span. The inventor, American Alex Chiu, offers up incomprehensible equations and diagrams to buttress his claims of having solved the problem of aging.
Perhaps I am just not smart enough to understand Chiu’s explanations and diagrams because I’m not wearing the immortality rings. You see, they also boost your IQ to 180! I guess Chiu must wear them all the time, because now that he has solved the problem of immortality, he has gone on to other things. He has invented a teleportation machine. He ensures us that he is “not one of those stupid morons who doesn’t know what he is doing.” Why teleportation? Because when we are immortal we will have plenty of leisure time, which we will be able to use to pop up here or there.
Admittedly, magnets can produce fascinating effects. The idea of an invisible force that attracts iron is mind-boggling. And without magnets we would have no electric motors, tape recorders, VCRS, or indeed credit cards to pay for them. But using magnets for healing is another matter altogether. Unfortunately, very scientific-sounding claims about healing abilities can be made, and believed, by people who do not have a good grasp of magnetism. This, of course, means most people. There is a pattern to these claims.
Usually it all begins with a reference to some form of ancient wisdom. Like how Hippocrates, that most famous of all ancient doctors, used magnets to heal the sick. Or how Cleopatra wore magnetic jewelry to preserve her youth. The fact is that neither the ancient Greeks nor the Egyptians ever used magnets in this way. But what if they had? They did many senseless things. Hippocrates, for one, believed that a mixture of horseradish and pigeon droppings could be used to treat baldness. Anyway, after supposedly having established the long and fruitful history of magnetic therapy, the scene often shifts to those flag-bearers of our future: those modern knights, the astronauts. The story is that magnets incorporated into spacesuits resolved many of the astronauts’ health problems. And a story it is. No magnets have ever been incorporated into spacesuits for this purpose.
But the real “scientific” selling point revolves around the so-called “electromagnetic nature of the human body.” There is usually talk of how our nervous system relies on small electric currents and how MRI machines diagnose disease by examining changes in magnetic fields inside the body. Both of these are true. But then from these observations we are asked to conclude that applying small magnets to the body can treat ailments. A scientific and logical non sequitur. First of all, the electricity being talked about really involves the flow of small charged particles called ions. Their motion could in theory be affected by giant magnetic fields, but not by the small magnets sold for healing purposes that have strength in the range of refrigerator magnets. Even magnets used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which are hundreds of times stronger than the healing magnets, do not affect the nervous system, and have no effect on blood flow. It isn’t surprising that there is no effect on blood flow. While magnet advocates maintain that blood flow is affected because hemoglobin contains iron, the fact is that the iron it contains is not magnetic. And that’s lucky, isn’t it? We wouldn’t want our blood to be ripped out of our body when we’re undergoing an MRI scan.
And if magnetic fields can heal, shouldn’t we have reports of people being healed, or at least being energized, after an MRI scan? The huge magnetic field this instrument generates certainly penetrates the body. Not like the little healing magnets. Those in a shoe produce fields that may penetrate the sock but not much else.
There is another common claim used to buttress sales. The claim is that we suffer from magnetic deficiencies. Physicists say, at least according to the magnet salespeople, that the earth has lost some of its magnetism, and since human evolution occurred in higher fields, we are now feeling the ill effects of the reduced magnetism. First of all, physicists do not say this, and even if they did, it would not mean that there is a related health effect. As it is, the earth’s magnetic field varies tremendously. At the poles, it is 0.6 gauss, double that at the equator. No one has ever noted any variation in disease patterns based on magnetic field geography. Other related claims are barely worth refuting. Including the one about the earth’s magnetic core. It goes like this: “The earth itself is a giant magnet with north and south poles and a liquid core. (True enough). The hot liquid creates a magnetic field, which at the earth’s surface is relatively weak (still true), but serves to keep humans attached to the earth’s surface. Without this magnetic field, we would spin into outer space.” This is absurd. As any grade one student knows, gravity, not magnetism, keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground.
It would seem, then, that the arguments used to promote the sales of magnetic healing products are not scientifically justifiable. But that does not rule out their possible effectiveness. Perhaps magnets do perform the wonders their advocates claim to have experienced, but through some completely different mechanism. That’s why the only way to study efficacy is through controlled trials. And what do these show? Not much. Although dozens of studies have been carried out, there is only one that is constantly quoted as having shown a positive effect. And that was in a rather rare condition known as post-polio myalgia, and has not been reproduced. But trials of magnetic jewelry, and even insoles, have shown no benefit. And that is exactly why Consumer Justice Center sued Florsheim shoes. For making claims that are not scientifically supportable. I wish I could tell you otherwise. I wish that all those people who tell me about their wonderful experiences with magnets were reporting something more than just a placebo effect. Believe me, if any compelling evidence emerges, I’ll be happy to relay it.
In response to the lawsuit, Florsheim has greatly pared back its claims about the $200 MagneForce on its Web site. Maybe Florsheim should drop the dubious health claims, forget the magnets, and get Tiger Woods to wear the shoe. People would buy it then even if the spikes were on the inside. That’s the kind of magnetic pull Tiger has.