I see that U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the ruling against QT, Inc.,
Q-Ray Company, Bio-Metal, Inc., and Que Te Park, enjoining the
promotional claims and requiring them to disgorge some $16 million
(plus interest) for the FTC to distribute to consumers who have been
taken in.

U.S. Court of Appeals

No. 07-1662

Federal Trade Commission
v
QT, Inc., Q-Ray Company, Bio-Metal, Inc., and Que Te Park,

Argued October 31, 2007
Decided January 3, 2008

Before Easterbrook, Chief Judge, and Bauer and Williams, Circuit
Judges.

Easterbrook, Chief Judge.  WIRED Magazine recently put the Q-Ray
Ionized Bracelet on its list of the top twn Snake-Oil Gadgets.  See
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/11/10-awesome-gadg.html

The Federal Trade Commission has an even less honorable title for the
bracelet's promotional campaign: fraud.

***********************************

Some highlights:

Defendants promoted the bracelet as a miraculous cure for chronic
pain, but it has no therapeutic effect.

Defendants told consumers that claims of "immediate, significant, or
complete pain relief" had been "test-proven"; they hadn't.

The bracelet does not emit "Q-Rays" (there are no such things) and is
not ionized (the bracelet is an electric conductor, and any net charge
dissipates swiftly).

The bracelet's chief promoter chose these labels because they are
simple and easily remembered -- and because Polaroid Copr. blocked him
from calling the bangle "polarized".

The bracelet is touted as "enhancing the flow of bio-energy" or
"balancing the flow of positive and negative energies"; these empty
phrases have no connection to any medical or scientific effect.  Every
other claim about the mechanism of the bracelet's therapeutic effect
likewise is techno-babble.

Defendants represented that the therapeutic effect wears off in a year
or two, despite knowing that the bracelet's properties do not change.
This assertion is designed to lead consumers to buy new bracelets.
Likewise the false statement that the bracelet has a "memory cycle
specific to each individual wearer" so that only the bracelet's
original wearer can experience pain relief is designed to increase
sales by eliminating the second-hand market and "explaining" the
otherwise-embarrassing fact that the buyer's friends and neighbors
can't perceive any effect.

Even statements about the bracelet's physical composition are false.
It is sold in "gold" and "silver" varieties, but is made of brass.

But the best has got to be:

For the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet, by contrast, all statements about how
the product works -- Q-Rays, ionization, enhancing the flow of
bio-energy, and the like -- are blather.  Defendants might as well
have said: "Beneficient creatures from the 17th dimension use this
bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief, and whisk
them off to their homeworld every night to provide help in ways
unknown to our science."