Rush's medicine show.

• Author: Crowley, Michael
• Position: Rush Limbaugh advertises unusual health products on his show

"Folks," confides Rush Limbaugh, pausing for a moment from his trashing of all things liberal, "lemme tell you about something that really works...."

You lean toward the radio. What brilliant political strategy is the conservative mastermind about to reveal? None, actually. "Rid your home of harmful airborne pollutants," Limbaugh urges, going on to recite testimony from satisfied owners of something called an "electrostatic air filter." "I couldn't believe the. difference ... our nose problems disappeared within two days!"

Limbaugh makes these personal pitches for products every day in his three-hour broadcast, following the practice of such radio giants as Paul Harvey. But Rush adds something special to this tradition. The man who regularly twists facts in his political commentary has similarly low standards for the products he and his sponsors peddle to faithful "dittoheads." $30 million in annual ad revenue is at stake, and so it's not hard to understand why Limbaugh would look the other way as his listeners get duped. But you have to wonder about the causes Limbaugh backs with his considerable clout and powers of persuasion.

"If you're going bald, you may think it's because your father's going bald, too," intones an announcer during another commercial break. Au contraire. You just need Natural Hair, an "herbal shampoo and scalp cleanser" to release "the hair that's trapped under your scalp."

Natural Hair, which charges $164 for a three-month supply (and which comes with instructions suggesting that users hang themselves upside down for a few minutes each day), is one of a slew of oddball health products that have accounted for millions in advertising on Limbaugh's show. Like many of these products, Natural Hair is largely unregulated and has been proven neither effective nor safe.

While some Limbaugh products may offer limited benefits, their appeal is often based on false impressions about their wide-ranging potential effects. Melatonex, a leading brand of melatonin capsules, runs frequent spots on Limbaugh's program. Melatonin is a hormone billed by health-food groupies as a "magic bullet" capable of battling cancer, slowing the aging process, and boosting sexual potency.

While there has been some anecdotal substantiation of melatonin's insomnia-fighting claim, real scientific evidence is sketchy. Like other "natural remedies" of its kind, Melatonex is not closely regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Last year the National...