
Miracle health device crowdfunds $730k, but might be bullshit - Angostura
http://pando.com/2014/03/20/on-indiegogo-a-miracle-health-device-raises-730k-and-a-whole-load-of-red-flags/
======
Shinkei
Physician here. Yeah, this device sounds like complete pseudoscience. To echo
some of the other comments, non-invasive glucose testing is a 'holy grail' of
diabetes research efforts and would be hailed as a major breakthrough--
something covered by major media outlets and aggresively pursued by all of big
pharma and biotech.

A red flag for me is the spontaneous development of something that would be
completely groundbreaking. I mean all of the people involved are relatively
unknown to the scientific community. There should be someone with some kind of
credentials who tested and developed the device. A century ago, knowledge and
raw materials was usually the limiting factor in discovery and a single genius
scientist could make a giant leap in a field because there were a limited
number of people total that had access to the knowledge and materials for
furthering that area of interest. Today, nearly all of human knowledge lies at
the fingertips of anyone with the internet. Everything from genetic sequencing
to chemical engineering has become to prevalent and 'cheap' that almost anyone
with a good idea have access to all the instruments necesary to achieve 'good
science.' Now top this with the multiple Fortune 500 companies that are
working to discover a means to non-invasively monitor glucose. Unexpected
leaps forward in a scientific discipline, especially in medicine, should be
met with great skepticism.

As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

~~~
tiatia
"To echo some of the other comments, non-invasive glucose testing is a 'holy
grail' of diabetes research efforts and would be hailed as a major
breakthrough--something covered by major media outlets and aggresively pursued
by all of big pharma and biotech."

No, it wouldn't. It is currently extremely difficult to find money for medical
devices. We have a working prototype of a non-invasive blood glucose
measurement system, including several peer reviewed publications. Yet, it
seems impossible to find venture capital for this. The pay off in IT und Web
Start-ups is just much better.

~~~
blahedo
Well, have you tried IndieGoGo? It appears that they won't reject you as
fraudsters, at least. :P

...and who is "we"? A claim like you're making might be better backed up with
at least a link to your company or some of those publications.

------
carlob
Are crowdfunding platform going to be the home shopping channel of this
decade? There seems to be a lot of resemblance with the miracle products with
dubious claims and ripoffs that are more expensive than the original.

~~~
netcan
At least that shows this is not a crowdsourcing specific issue.

------
graeham
Non-invasive glucose monitoring is a holy grail of biomedical engineering. For
diabetes management alone, it would be a multi-billion dollar product. This
questions why it would be launched in this sort of way - the credientials of
the people involved in the project would presumably allow them access to the
kind of capital needed to launch a real medical device.

Also in that non-invasive glucose monitoring has had a considerable research
effort behind it, it is suprising that the 'solution' would come without lots
of press coverage of the science, let alone the product.

~~~
atmosx
> Also in that non-invasive glucose monitoring has had a considerable research
> effort behind it, it is suprising that the 'solution' would come without
> lots of press coverage of the science, let alone the product.

I've been talking with a Gerontologist doctor who has been actively monitoring
patients with diabetes in my town. She is an incredibly up-to-date doctor. She
told me that any kind of therapy or approach that doesn't bring $$$ back to
the pharmaceutical companies (involving long term treatment with supplies) is
immediately abandoned. Research from major players is money-driven and nothing
more. She mentioned a couple of cases which I can't recall.

I have high hopes for this project and for Google's Contact Lens[1]. Let's
hope it flies...

[1] [http://www.sci-tech-
today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12300CTY4...](http://www.sci-tech-
today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12300CTY4HHX)

~~~
cperciva
_any kind of therapy or approach that doesn 't bring $$$ back to the
pharmaceutical companies (involving long term treatment with supplies) is
immediately abandoned_

So... you're saying that they spend millions of dollars on clinical trials,
and _then_ they abandon these products? Because there have been plenty of
trials for non-invasive glucose meters -- unfortunately, they all fail
horribly at producing consistently accurate readings.

~~~
unreal37
>> Because there have been plenty of trials for non-invasive glucose meters

And maybe this GoBe device IS an inconsistently accurate glucose meter?

What you're saying is this device already exists, but is not good enough for
diabetes. But could it be good enough for dieting?

~~~
carbocation
A person without diabetes should not be experiencing large excursions in blood
glucose, so presumably this device should not be helpful for non-diabetic
dieters.

~~~
atmosx
It could have many uses. I'd like to know my exact insulin spike when I drink
a coke for example. If insulin spike[1] can be correlated to glucose levels in
the blood (which is theoretically possible) then trying to minimize the spike
gives you a better chances of never getting diabetes :-)

[1] [http://www.masterthyself.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/Roll...](http://www.masterthyself.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/Rollercoaster-Basic.jpg)

------
Morendil
I saw this campaign a few weeks ago, felt very tempted, ultimately decided it
was prudent to wait for the final product to be available.

The discussion here has raised some interesting points pro and contra. Much
hinges on how well the research state of the art supports the company's
claims. My default assumption is that people will jump to conclusions, one way
or another, without doing enough homework.

Googling for key words in Healbe's brochure has turned up this academic paper
which seems to confirm their method for noninvasive BGL measurement is at
least a promising path:

[http://www.eejournal.ktu.lt/index.php/elt/article/download/4...](http://www.eejournal.ktu.lt/index.php/elt/article/download/4566/2588)

A similar article reveals interesting information about an attempt at
noninvasive glucose measurement _ten_ years ago:

[http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~mam10069/Docs/NonInvasiveGlucoseM...](http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~mam10069/Docs/NonInvasiveGlucoseMeasurement.pdf)

"Report shows the device had correlation with actual glucose level by only
35.1% and in some cases it gave potentially dangerous measurements."

(Not exactly a confidence booster, but ten years is enough to improve a lot.)

Half an hour of homework has substantially decreased my trust in people who
say it's flat out impossible _in principle_ to do what HealBe claim to be
doing.

ETA: further academic paper links I've posted in other comments:

[http://dst.sagepub.com/content/8/1/54.short](http://dst.sagepub.com/content/8/1/54.short)

[http://knowledgetranslation.ca/sysrev/articles/project21/Ref...](http://knowledgetranslation.ca/sysrev/articles/project21/Ref%20ID%207984-20090628225926.pdf)

~~~
danmaz74
They might have a correlation that is not good enough for diabetes (a life
threatening condition) but good enough for dieting. That's also mentioned in
the article.

------
scrollaway
This was publishd 17 days ago. Clicking "more" reveals they wrote further
articles about this:

[http://pando.com/tag/healbe/](http://pando.com/tag/healbe/)

Wow. If this turns out to be a scam, and IGG is doing nothing about it and
saying "none of this stuff that looks terribly like a scam seems to be a scam
so just go ahead and give them money", they should be liable.

Ok, if it's not a scam, I will happily eat my words. But if it is, I almost
don't see the problem with the company itself but rather with how the platform
is handling this.

I am very curious to see how this develops.

~~~
doesnt_know
_> Ok, if it's not a scam, I will happily eat my words. But if it is, I almost
don't see the problem with the company itself but rather with how the platform
is handling this._

So if this is all a big scam you "almost don't see the problem" with the
company trying to pull off the scam? The blame should lay squarely on the
platform?

Are you serious?

Like, I understand that the platform should take responsibility for their
vetting procedures, but to suggest they are _more_ responsible then the
company that is trying to pull the scam is fucking nuts.

I guess this is just another notch on the "fuck you got mine" belt that seems
to be fairly common on HN. If you can think up a good business that doesn't
have to deliver and you can get away with it or shift the blame to someone
else, you get a pat on the back and are absolved of any responsibility!

~~~
claudius
Nobody trusts a Moscow-based company with a lawyer and PR office in the US. To
see this, simply set up a single webpage with a Paypal button advertising for
this product. You will get money, but probably not 1M$.

On the other hand, people seem to trust IGG and Kickstarter (at least to some
extent). This can be demonstrated easily by observing that content which would
– on a normal website – not collect any funding seems to do well on these
platforms.

So, no, it is not entirely about criminal responsibility, but about a misuse
of trust, trust that IGG has and which it conferred to some company by letting
them use their platform.

------
pron
Calling this particular device "bullshit" misses the big picture. Considering
how little we actually _know_ (and I don't mean, "some studies on 200 people
have shown"; I mean actually know) about how a healthy (as in non-sick) human
body works[1], most of the products and techniques regarding health are pretty
much bullshit, from miracle diets, super-exercises, wonder shakes and magic
devices. This is not to say they don't perform their specific functions such
as tweaking blood sugar or cholesterol levels, but that the relationships
between those metrics and general health are more conjecture than knowledge.

What is happening here is something else altogether. It is a psychological
phenomenon that some might say resembles religion, but in any case touches on
a very primeval function of our psyche. Jonathan Haidt says it's the
manifestation of the "purity" value among liberals[2]. Whatever this health
craze is, it is far from scientific. Even people who are otherwise very
careful in interpreting scientific research, change their lifestyle based on
two studies on 300 people in total, that found a decrease of 40% in the
incidence of a type of cancer that affects 1 person in 2000.

In fact, heated debates over findings of such dubious nature, and a far more
dubious relevance to actual day-to-day living, is a common form "religious
study" among the faithful, not unlike debates in Jewish Yeshivas.

Entrepreneurs – some of them believers themselves – rush to fill the demands
of this As a pseudo-scientific religion's worshippers. There is nothing wrong
with that. But it should be clear that they fill a very real, and very
serious, _psychological_ need, but one that has nothing to do with actual
health. As such, calling a particular magic device "bullshit" is not unlike
criticizing the efficacy of a particular batch of Virgin Mary icons.

[1]: To clarify: we know how it works, but not how each of a gazilion
parameters – from weather to sleeping habits to genetics to diet to exercise –
affects it.

[2]:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind](http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind)

~~~
__david__
No.

This device purports to be able to measure glucose levels non-invasively. That
is 100% verifiable, and most likely BS (to an accuracy that a diabetic would
need).

Considering that diabetes is a real illness and that glucose monitoring is
very important to keeping diabetics _alive_ , this kind of thing doesn't get a
pass by being "religious," like a magnetic anti-sea-sickness bracelet might.

~~~
lotu
The more concerning thing is the apparent lack of engineers that would be able
to design, build, and mass produce such a device. The video consists of the
video of the CEO at a desk the looks like it is prop, and stock videos. There
is no evidence that this company owns office space or employs anyone, much
less is capable of making such a device.

------
mkal_tsr
As someone in the fitness tech industry, the lack of info on the device should
be telling. Indiegogo and Kickstarter are becoming full of new HW devices that
promise amazing results with very little proof. I really wish these
crowdfunding sites required a prototype to independently verify in-house prior
to accepting the campaign. Sure it's not a perfect solution (as there could be
exceptions of experienced HW developers needing capital to execute and build
their realistic prototypes), but it sure would cut down on a lot of "make big
promises and flashy videos, excuses later"

------
marze
To increase the odds of groundbreaking ideas succeeding, you'll want a system
that allows certain fraction of junk idea to get funding.

I don't know anything about this particular device, but as Ed Catmull says, if
you try to eliminate errors you decrease an creative output.

~~~
unreal37
People haven't seen the device yet, but they're judging these guys primarily
because they're Russian. If they were a YC-funded SV startup, this article
wouldn't exist.

~~~
__david__
No, people are judging because they're claiming a huge medical breakthrough
out of nowhere.

People would equally skeptical of the kids down the block claiming to have
cracked cold fusion.

~~~
unreal37
It's fine to be skeptical. (I'm skeptical too.) But where's the line between
being skeptical and outright calling something a scam and asking for IGG to
shut the campaign down?

------
acangiano
OK, let's assume that these guys created an amazing non-invasive glucose
monitoring solution (unlikely). That doesn't tell you jackshit about calories.
If I ate 3,000 calories of mostly fat and some protein, or I ate 300 calories
of pure sugar, the insulin and blood glucose profiles would be drastically
different. And the system would most likely think that I assumed more calories
when eating the sugar.

------
_Robbie
This PDF has some test results and a more detailed description of the
technology and science of the device. The article does not seem to reference
it, so it was probably posted to the campaign after the article was written.

[http://healbe.com/files/Healbe_HistoryTechnology_04031-C.pdf](http://healbe.com/files/Healbe_HistoryTechnology_04031-C.pdf)

~~~
Angostura
The PDF doesn't actually describe the technology or science as far as I can
see. It does include quite a lot of handwaving. There are tables of results,
but none independently verified.

From what I can tell, it all comes down to whether its claim to use impedance
at different frequencies to measure blood glucose levels. There's no
indication that this is possible. There's a lot of talk about secret
algorithms, but algorithms are only as good as the data they can be fed.

------
rdl
I hope the crowd funding sites crack down on crap like this before it poisons
the pool for legitimate hardware startups using presales.

~~~
plusfour
Too late.

~~~
collyw
The first time I heard about kickstarter was for some stupid non-science
bicycle cranks:

[http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2013/01/bad-physics-
ba...](http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2013/01/bad-physics-bad-
investment.html)

------
ufmace
I'm not too interested in the details of yet another probably snake oil
medical device, but I am now curious about exactly what IndieGoGo's standards
for fraudulent campaigns are. Can you say that it isn't IGG's responsibility
to evaluate whether the product being sold actually meets claims that might be
complicated and ambiguous? Is their side of the deal okay as long as this
company actually manages to deliver some sort of device to the customers?
Assuming they can verify that the company actually intends to deliver
something, how ridiculous does it have to be before they say the campaign is
invalid?

In other words, can I make and sell a space-alien repellant on IGG? If people
bought it and are happy with their purchase, well, you can't prove that it
isn't repelling space aliens, and IGG gets their cut too.

------
DonGateley
I've been following numerous fraudulent projects on Indiegogo and Kickstarter
and have come to the conclusion that both are merely carefully shielded fronts
for grifters. Both outfits should be taken down by the U.S. Attorney General
until they can be regulated in their project vetting so as to eliminate or at
least minimize consumer fraud.

Currently the more attractive a fraud brought to them is the more they stand
to make from it so there is a strong conflict of interest between them and
their users.

Someone needs to create a site that is a crowd funding wall of shame listing
and reviewing projects that show the extent and profitability of fraud. There
is KickScammer but it isn't very visible or complete at this point.

------
kateho
I just tried to get a refund, but realised that indiegogo doesn't hold funds
like kickstarter do.

I understand that its my own fault for not waiting, but if Indiegogo doesn't
do anything about this, I think their reputation could get quite badly damaged
...

~~~
steven2012
Call your credit card company and do a chargeback. It's easy, straightforward,
and if you tell them you accidentally put money into a scam and that there is
$1M invested in this, they might do an investigation on their end.

------
blazespin
It's not a total scam, but their use of the word 'exactly' is obviously
fraudulent. They admit themselves to measurement errors. That being said, it
might be good enough and the next version even better. Crowd funding is about
funding things that disrupt. If you want to buy finished and complete, go to
your local best buy..

I've participated in a number of kick starters, they all have delays and
overhype. That's ok with me. I love bleeding edge tech.

~~~
Nursie
How do you know it's not a total scam?

The pattern on display here is a classic - make bold (but impossible) claims,
attract a crowd of the faithful who want to believe, backpedal and prevaricate
when called to back up your claims, collect as much hype and as much cash as
possible and then never deliver.

It's the same pattern as was seen with perpetual motion machines several times
last decade.

HHere's a question - what would make you change your mind?

------
meritt
Might be? This thing is 100% snake oil.

------
ulfw
MIGHT be bullshit? M I G H T B E ?

------
zanny
How the fuck does obvious crapware get 7x its funding goal while Gooseberry is
looking to not reach its goal in the next half month? Is it really just
because the Blender Foundation tried to do their campaign on their own site?

~~~
voltagex_
Marketing. People who don't normally crowdfund things are finding out about a
chance to get a "miracle" device.

Meanwhile, who outside of Reddit, HN and LWN knows about Blender's campaign?

~~~
lotu
Blender is doing a horrible job marketing this. First the video tells you
nothing about the movie, from what I can tell it is going to be a movie about
"close ups" strange characters faces, because that is what most of the clips
were. No story or creative direction is mentioned. Why this movie is special,
or important is also never mentioned, I think it has something to do with
being "open". However they don't even explain what "open" is much less why it
important, will the movie only use open source software, will the final movie
be free to "share", will they give us access to all the model files? It looks
like they try to explain it in the description but few people will bother
reading it.

Secondly perhaps more importantly the choice to self host the campaign was
very foolish, and probably fatal mistake. I don't know if this was because
Kickstarter is not open source, or they didn't want to give Kickstarter 5%.
The value of Kickstarter is it's network effect, (not the code to host a
video, and manage credit card transactions). If they used Kickstarter they
would be exposed to way more potential backers every day, as people backing
other film projects look around for other similar projects. If they were on
Kickstarter they would be the most funded Film and Video project with the
money they have raised on their own and the in the top 10 of currently funding
projects.

------
kamakazizuru
is this journalism? the first paragraph is about how he isn't believable
because he has a russian accent yet works in the valley. seriously? Isn't the
valley largely made up of foreigners pursuing crazy ideas? This is subjective
and fishy armchair journalism at best. Even if the product is junk - there
needs to be more substance than "i dont feel like its right because he has an
accent and my 2-3 hours of research from my chair didnt show up much". Try
researching some biotech companies that are in super-stealth mode - you will
find nothing - yet they've often raised double digit millions in funding for
their products from VCs...

~~~
MDCore
The author seems to be highlighting the accent because after some research he
discovers that the CEO actually _isn 't_ in San Francisco.

~~~
Blahah
There's a big section on the IndieGogo page about how he is a doctor in St
Petersburg. The author highlights it as thought it were suspicious.

~~~
MDCore
I don't see that in the article anywhere (^F doctor ^F Petersburg).

I also don't sense any specifically anti-Russian sentiment. I think the
references to Russia are to contrast the lack of presence in SF despite a
claim to have one, or the lack of corroboration for the claimed references. I
imagine the tone of the article would be the same if it was France or South
Africa or Malaysia.

------
danieltillett
Do we really need the might in the heading?

~~~
FatalLogic
It's in the title of the original article.

It still has most of the impact of saying 'It's bullshit', but it is a lot
safer from a legal standpoint.

edit: I think most of us will read a little of this and the other articles in
the series, and then delete the 'might'

~~~
danieltillett
Yes but in this case the word is rather superfluous.

~~~
Angostura
Do you mean superfluous, or rather superfluous?

------
achalv
ItBe BS.

~~~
Codhisattva
GoBe A Sucker! (tm)

------
notastartup
so how much does indiegogo make from this deal? is this why they are being
tolerant while looking the other way?

~~~
owenversteeg
4% if it's successful or 9% if it's not, so about $40k currently. I'm guessing
this is a huge reason that they haven't pulled it.

