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"These aren't just swamp leeches though - we are talking about highly trained medical leeches. These are not some low level scavengers..."

By Ann Althouse

Demi Moore is talking about some "high level blood suckers." Beauty secrets of the stars!

"It detoxifies your blood - I'm feeling very detoxified right now. I did it in some woman's house laying on her bed. We did a little sampler first, which is in the belly button.

"It crawls in and you feel it bite down on you and you want to go, 'You bastard.' Then you relax and work on your Lemaze breathing just to kind of relax.

"You watch it swell up on your blood, watching it get fatter and fatter - then when its super drunk on your blood it just kind of rolls over like it is stumbling out of the bar.

Me, I hate leeches.

And about all those toxins...

To better understand [the peddlers of "detoxification"], it's necessary to define what they mean by toxins. Are they bacteria? Chemical pollutants? Trans fats? Heavy metals? To avoid being tested, they leave this pretty vague. Actual medical treatments will tell you exactly what they do and how they do it. Alternative detoxification therapies don't do either one. They pretty much leave it up to the imagination of the patient to invent their own toxins. Most people who seek alternative therapy believe themselves to be afflicted by some kind of self-diagnosed poison; be it industrial chemicals, McDonald's cheeseburgers, or fluoridated water. If the marketers leave their claims vague, a broader spectrum of patients will believe that the product will help them. And, of course, the word "toxin" is sufficiently scientific-sounding that it's convincing enough by itself to many people.

Read the whole thing, but be careful not to stare too long into that picture of "mucoid plaque"... lest it stare back at you. You may dream of it crawling into your bellybutton and getting "super drunk" on your blood.

Full post as published by Althouse on March 25, 2008 (boomark / email).