Yes, I suppose I am exaggerating. I suppose I'm just disappointed
by what I've been able to find for the layman. I'm sure there are
some good therapeutic studies that might generalize well, and there
might be (as Tony suggested) some value in looking at data from the
control groups of those studies as well.
My ire should be directed at the mass marketers of these things who
look only for vaguely-applicable studies that justify their sales
rather than looking for honest facts about their everyday benefits
to ordinary people.
I'm sure the misguided ethical barriers to cosmetic pharmacology
cause grant-seeking researchers to look elsewhere, but real capitalist
researchers should be looking for the cosmetic uses to /really/
boost sales among skeptics like me. The gullible will buy anyway,
so they have real incentive to do those tests to prove the value of
the products to joe consumer while the "ethical" doctors can keep
sucking the public teat for their studies.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC