At risk of only including minimal beekeeping content, the claim that Snake
Oil is not snake oil seems to be (wait for it, wait for it...) Snake Oil!

> Just for the record the myth or urban 
> legend about "snake oil" is simply a 
> combination of racism and (monopolistic) 
> salesmanship on the part of the early 
> 18th century Allopathic medical community

I could find no trace of the mythical paper, but what I COULD find was a
short and highly speculative 1989 letter to editor of the Western Journal of
Medicine.  It does not analyze any actual oil from Chinese snakes, it only
compared bottled Chinese "snake oil" purchased at some Chinatown shop to
oils taken from actual US snakes, and theorizes about the possible
advantages of the Chinese product.

Anyone who knows the strict quality control China uses for their exported
honey is sure to trust their exported snake oil to be nothing but 100% pure
unadulterated, USDA Organic... snake oil. [Yep, that's sarcasm.]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1026931/pdf/westjmed00120-0094a.
pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/ozdvegg

Kunin, a psychiatrist rather than a medical doctor trained to treat the
physical ailments of patients, took up the well-known quackery of Linus
Pauling, who after a very distinguished career, at 65 suddenly grabbed onto
megadoses of vitamins as a life-extension technique.  The sad tale of Linus
Pauling's descent from intellectual giant to what may have been either a
pathological fear of mortality or undiagnosed senility is told in this
article in "The Atlantic":

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-th
ink-we-need-supplements/277947/
or
http://tinyurl.com/lhm9re2

It should be no surprise that Kunin heads up what remains of Pauling's
long-since debunked "orthomolecular" (a term coined by Pauling) movement.
Given that he does, I'd question the veracity of any claim made about the
subject not backed by strict proof.  

Richard Kunin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kunin
http://tinyurl.com/ol5a2pd

Orthomolecular medicine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomolecular_medicine
http://tinyurl.com/y6eh59



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