Kinoki Foot Pads: Update

A call I received a few days ago earned Walgreens a little bit more respect from me (like the company cherishes that as a valuable commodity). It may not have been the answer I would have preferred to hear, but at least they actually responded to my Kinoki Foot Pads complaint.

The call came from the reasonable and soft-spoken manager of the specific branch of Walgreens about which I had complained. He politely told me what a store sells is not up to the local managers to decide, as I had suspected. The Walgreens corporate office makes those decisions, he said, and corporate wants to sell the foot pads because people keep buying them. He told me since the original airing of the ABC News report, the Kinoki people had removed all unsubstantiated claims from their packaging; which is really all an investigative journalist could expect.

I was glad to hear a tone of reluctance to sell the products in the manager's voice. This was most evident when he told me that some of his employees have bought the foot pads. He also mentioned he thought there are way too many of this type of product on the market. A statement with which I wholeheartedly agree.

So, this proved to be a valuable learning experience. You can't always get the desired outcome in situations like this, but the manager's attitude and the results of the ABC News report served as a glimmer of hope that rationality and skepticism can still enjoy small victories every so often.

Kinoki Foot Pads: There's Bullshit Afoot

There is a Walgreens Pharmacy about a half-mile from my house. These particular establishments seem to be as ubiquitous as Starbucks franchises in Las Vegas. The Walgreens near my house has an animated billboard in its parking lot which advertises various products that can be found for sale inside. One day while driving by, I noticed the billboard display: "Kinoki Footpads: $19.99." Now, I had seen the occasional television commercial for these products in Bellingham, WA and I must admit, I thought it was a Northwest thing. I laughed off those commercials like I have done for those of thousands of other products that offer vague claims of "cleansing your body naturally" and "removing toxins." So, my understandable first reaction to seeing these things for sale not a mile from my house was, "They're actually selling this crap?"

Since this happened a few days after I had decided to post on my blog every day, the first thing I thought of doing was going to down to Walgreens, shelling out the $19.99 (plus tax) and trying these things for myself. They plan was to offer a day-by-day report on my blog on whether or not these things actually worked.

All that changed when I searched "Kinoki" on Google and found that John Stossel over at ABC News had already done the work for me and wrote an article about it; four months ago at that. The article handily debunked the foot pads as being nothing more than strips of absorbent material that darkened when moisture was applied to them. This darkening was claimed by the Kinoki people as evidence of the toxins that had been removed from your body overnight.

So, feeling a bit disappointed that I didn't get to do my own investigative journalism, I decided to do the next best thing: write a letter to Walgreens asking why they sold these things. What follows is the text of that complaint.

I have a complaint regarding Walgreens' decision to sell Kinoki Cleansing Detox Footpads. I would like to know why a fine establishment like Walgreens chooses to sell this product despite the fact there is absolutely no scientific evidence that they do what the Description on the Walgreens website claims. Indeed, there is no earthly reason why these foot pads would "absorb toxins and impurities" as claimed.

A recent report by ABC News revealed these foot pads for what they truly are: useless pads of absorbent material that rely on the placebo effect to produce results in the user. From the article:

"The idea that they're drawing toxins through the skin out of the body in any significant amount, I think is just wrong," said Dr. George Friedman-Jimenez, the director of the Bellevue / New York University Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic in New York City.

NMS Labs, a national laboratory in Willow Grove, Pa. tested for a lot of things, including heavy metals like arsenic and mercury and 23 solvents, including benzene, tolulene and styrene (materials the foot pads are claimed to remove) and found none of these on the used pads. There's no evidence that it's toxins. When I dropped distilled water on the pad, it turns dark in seconds.
Link to article online: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Stossel/Story?id=4636224&page=3

So, I would like to know, is it the usual practice of Walgreens to sell products that don't perform as claimed? If so, I'm afraid I may have to rethink my decision to shop at your particular pharmacy.

I will post any response I get from Walgreens here.