A spoof, wherein the illustrious author purports, as a Child of the
Enlightenment, to shed light on the bogus issue of Magnesium in Water.
Let us assume for a moment that the proponents of magnesium in water are
correct, that magnesium in water could prevent at least 150,000 deaths
per annum in the United States, by preventing heart disease and stroke.
Would such a proposition, even if true, be a good thing? My dear friend
Tom Malthus, renowned for his logical proof that excessive population is
a bad thing, has advised me most confidentially that Magnesium in Water
is a positive evil, as it will only extend lifespans, increase the
numbers of the Common Men, and lead to all sorts of evils, such as
famines, plagues from too-close living, and the Closing of the Commons
due to overpopulation. Why, indeed, with lengthened life spans, even the
educated or titled classes will find their opportunities curtailed, as
old codgers live on and on, failing to make way for the next crop of
ambitious young Etonians, Oxfordians, and Cambridgians.
Even my wife -- a common-sense housewife with no pretensions of learning,
has voiced the opinion that Excess Population is a threat to our Way of
Life, and should best be curtailed by whatever surreptitious means are
available, as the Curtailees are unlikely to volunteer to vacate their
Places. Clearly, she told me, "Magnesium in Water is a bad thing indeed,
for it has exactly the most Opposite Effect of what good policy should
be."
But does Magnesium in Water even work as advertised? Must it not be bogus
in its entirety? After all, if there were any merit to it, that most
illustrious journal, Scientific American, would have already
addressed it, and found some pretext for debunking it, given the
irrefutable logic of overpopulation.
Let us present all the evidence that Magnesium in Water is bogus in its
entirety. The indisputable facts are:
1. Humans did drink magnesium-rich water for countless eons from springs,
wells, and streams having an average magnesium content of 19 mg/liter,
until the modern Enlightened age introduced "pure" water, piping
snow-melt from mountains down to the thirsty cities, with an average Mg
content of only 6 mg/L. American bottled water is even purer, averaging
only 3 mg/liter. Obviously, the modern, most advanced, and Scientific way
of collecting and treating water must be superior to the crude water
beliefs of our primitive forefathers.
2. Why indeed, even that hoary old book, the Bible, speaks of "Sweet
Waters" as being a good thing, and everyone knows that waters that are
contaminated with Magnesium BiCarbonate have a slightly sweet taste. How
could a bunch of superstitious primitives be right, and modern science
wrong?
3. My illustrious Associate, Benjamin Franklin, who as everyone knows is
the scientists' scientist, has gone to great lengths to bring "pure"
water to Philadelphia, and show municipalities everywhere what a modern
water works should be. If Benjamin Franklin sees no need for magnesium in
water, it can be accepted without question that there is nothing to it!
4. The illustrious American Medical Association, in the year Anno Domini
Nineteen Hundred and Thirty Two, issued a pamphlet that roundly chastised
the believers in Magnesium in Water. The pamphlet stated, “No
mineral water will be accepted by the medical profession for alleged
medicinal properties supported only by testimonials from bucolic
statesmen or romantic old ladies.” Further, “Nostrums and
Quackery”, a 1912 book of reprints from the Journal of the American
Medical Association, attacks numerous brands of bottled waters, as does
the Guide to the American Medical Association Historical Health Fraud and
Alternative Medicine Collection, (1992). The AMA has taken a leading role
in disparaging mineral water, both before and after the FDA was founded.
5. The AMA’s archivist, Dr. John Zwicky, has written: “The
AMA archives has a fair amount of material on the mineral water industry
in their historical health fraud collection. The material consists of
… chemical analyses of the products themselves (the water was
usually anything but pure, clean water)…”
6. The Pure Food & Drug Act, passed by the learned men of the
Congress of 1906 has proven irrefutably that scientific men are convinced
that "pure is good, impure is bad." Magnesium in Water is nothing more
than an impurity, and thus it must be bad.
7. At its inception in 1930, the Food & Drug Administration, as its
first order of business, destroyed the American mineral water industry by
hauling all the mineral spring owners into court and charging them with
selling "impure" water. The charge was irrefutable, and faced with the
entire might of the Federal Government, the craven spring owners folded
their cards and quietly shut down their nefarious operations of selling
magnesium-contaminated water. Obviously, if these spring owners were in
the right, they would have all gone to jail rather than accede to
authority. Their acceptance of defeat is a sure indicator that their
cause lacked merit.
Thus the facts are clear, that ALL men of science agree that Magnesium in
Water is foolishness --- the only DisAgreement being from those handful
of deluded scientists who have devoted a life-time to a study of the
subject, and thus have a career bias in favor of Magnesium in Water. A
sad fact is that true believers remain unaffected by contradictory
evidence, today as well as in the Last Century.
M. Shermer Wannabee is publisher of the Magnesium Web Site at
www.MgWater.com. Dr. Wannabe is NOT the publisher of Skeptic magazine at
www.Skeptic.com, and does NOT write a column for Scientific American
magazine.
This page was first uploaded to The Magnesium Web Site on October 26,
2002
Healthy Water
Association--USA