SQu
Member
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2014
- Messages
- 1,308
I did a google search on enterosorption and found a Wikipedia entry on something called Polymethylsiloxane polyhydrate which is a 'polymeric organosilicon compound'. This article defines enterosorption and the history section discusses the long history of using coal, clay and 'other natural substances' but unfortunately they have side effects says the article. So of course industry has been forced to find a better substitute. So public spirited of them.
No mention of charcoal. Because it doesn't do worse than constipate?
I just thought about the subtle misinformation in this article. Charcoal I am sure is cheaper, safer, and of course tested by time. This stuff? Who knows. The article certainly isn't saying.
It's there to sell a product that is probably no better than charcoal. Which isn't mentioned because unlike coal and clay (offputting to contemplate swallowing) charcoal is hard to beat.
But my point is that if I didn't already know, I'd never have learned about charcoal for enterosorption from Wikipedia. Which is a massive reference source and influential supplier of information in society. I'd have headed off to take a more expensive and questionable alternative. Yet this and who knows how many other articles are just PR for products and the reader is misinformed. And I may not pick it up in other articles in areas I am less informed about. So I may have picked this up, but another topic I might fall for.
Take aspirin for cancer as another example (though I haven't googled this one or gone to Wikipedia, just going by what we already know about the ignorance of its role).
No mention of charcoal. Because it doesn't do worse than constipate?
I just thought about the subtle misinformation in this article. Charcoal I am sure is cheaper, safer, and of course tested by time. This stuff? Who knows. The article certainly isn't saying.
It's there to sell a product that is probably no better than charcoal. Which isn't mentioned because unlike coal and clay (offputting to contemplate swallowing) charcoal is hard to beat.
But my point is that if I didn't already know, I'd never have learned about charcoal for enterosorption from Wikipedia. Which is a massive reference source and influential supplier of information in society. I'd have headed off to take a more expensive and questionable alternative. Yet this and who knows how many other articles are just PR for products and the reader is misinformed. And I may not pick it up in other articles in areas I am less informed about. So I may have picked this up, but another topic I might fall for.
Take aspirin for cancer as another example (though I haven't googled this one or gone to Wikipedia, just going by what we already know about the ignorance of its role).