Weightloss jab scam

I was reading Maria Konnikova's The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time, when I stumbled across this interesting statistic:

For the total U.S. population, between 2011 and 2012 — the last period surveyed by the Federal Trade Commission — a little over 10 percent of adults, or 25.6 million, had fallen victim to fraud. The total number of fraudulent incidents was even higher, topping 37.8 million. The majority of the cases, affecting just over 5 million adults, involved one scheme: fake weight-loss products.

For fear of spreading misinformation, I looked into the stat. For the purposes of the research, the Federal Trade Commission defined Weightloss products as "products such as nonprescription drugs, dietary supplements, skin patches, creams, wraps, or earrings that were promoted as making it easy for consumers to lose a substantial amount of weight or allowing them to lose weight without diet or exercise, but which did not deliver as promised."

It's the "fake weight-loss products" that caught my attention, as it called to mind a recent article warning about the prevalence of fake weight loss jabs. I guess old scams are the best ones. Plus ça change.

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