Wayne Josephson and TinniStop

After learning about this product in the Tinnitus Talk forums, I did some research on TinniStop and what I found didn't inspire me.

The Inventor

Wayne Josephson is the person claiming to have created TinniStop. To his credit, he actually joined the forums at Tinnitus Talk and responded to criticisms of his product. In my opinion, this puts him a step above other people marketing supposed "cures" for tinnitus because he actually put his own neck on the line with his critics and naysayers. But, he only posted twice in the forum and has been inactive since March 2017.

Like others who claim to have discovered a miraculous cure or treatment for tinnitus, Wayne states that he suffered with tinnitus for years before stumbling upon a treatment he created and is now offering it to others. It would truly be "miraculous" if he didn't make the exact same claim as all the others and say that he came up with TinniStop to help a friend of loved one, but I guess using the same script as everyone else saved him a lot of time trying to invent something new.

Like every other "discoverer of a tinnitus cure" before him, Wayne Josephson has no medical background whatsoever. His actual professions are as an inventor and an author.

Looking through titles with his name credited as an author shows that most of his work consists of updating classic works by other authors with modern language to make them easier for modern readers to comprehend. He also produced two "mashup" works where he combined two books by two separate authors into one book, which puts them on the same level as fanfiction, in my opinion. Books that he wrote entirely by himself didn't impress me with their subject matter.

According to Amazon, Wayne Josephson received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Emory University and his Master of Business Administration degree from Wharton. He subsequently worked on Wall Street for twenty years before trying to make his living as an author and successful screenwriter, although I can find no information on exactly what movie scripts he has either written or in which he contributed.

As far as activities outside of writing, I found two LinkedIn profiles of a Wayne Josephson in the Charlottesville, VA area, one of an inventor and the other of an author. On the inventor's profile, it only mentions something called the EZ Scramble, which allows you to make scrambled eggs in your microwave. Wayne Josephson has been involved in three Kickstarter campaigns, attempting to raise money to help get his inventions on the market. However, only two of the three campaigns were successful. The author's profile is pretty blank. Neither LinkedIn profile mentions anything about having worked on Wall Street or about inventing TinniStop. Wayne also has a Facebook page, which hasn't seen new posts since January 2010, with the exception of having posted TinniStop product pictures in December 2016. I'm not friended with him on Facebook, so there might be more content there than I can see. But, it seems really weird that, from what's able to be seen, his profile sat unused for nearly seven years before he embarked on his career with TinniStop.

But, I do have to give credit to Wayne for putting himself out there, making him a better person than just about everyone else who I've blogged about in the past.

Moving on.

Internet Presence

TinniStop is available through its website, which seems well put-together. It's easy to navigate and there are no annoying voice or video recordings to endure.

Curiously, despite Wayne Josephson not being too shy to put himself out there, tinnistop.com is registered anonymously with the registrant being listed as Domains By Proxy and the IP address is out of Canada. The site itself was created in October 2016, which was less than a year before I discovered this product.

TinniStop.com is actually a Shopify site, Shopify being an online marketplace for all kinds of products. This makes sense since it leaves the responsibility of selling the product in the hands of experienced people.

They do have a Facebook page, but it hasn't seen activity since March 2017. Speaking of March 2017, that's also when a number of Twitter posts appeared to hawk the product. I noticed that there wasn't much variation in the text of the posts, almost like the same people were posting about it from various accounts. So, both Facebook and Twitter have been virtually silent about this product since March 2017, which is also when Wayne defended his product in the forums at Tinnitus Talk.

Looking through their Facebook page, I noticed that several of the posts had comments, but most of the comments had been deleted. This makes me think that the comments were either of a negative nature or had asked questions TinniStop didn't want to answer and the comments were removed. This makes TinniStop look like it has something to hide and should give anyone second thoughts of trusting them. If you can't take criticism or probing questions about your product, maybe you shouldn't be selling that product in the first place.

Let's compare TinniStop to a company with whom I've dealings: Hot Shot Insecticides. I posted a decidedly negative review of one of their products, going so far as to state that I would never buy it again. Did they delete my comment? No, they left it up and they courteously responded to me, keeping their replies professional at all times. They behave the same way with everyone who posts negative comments about their products. Do you know why? It's because they're a professional company, run by professional people and they aren't afraid to take questions and criticism.

I'll never buy a Hot Shot Insecticide product again, but I have much more respect for them than whoever is running TinniStop.

The Product

The site likes to mention how TinniStop is registered with the Food and Drug Administration, but a search for its FDA number resulted in finding its listing at the National Institutes of Health, which states:

This homeopathic product has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration for safety or efficacy. FDA is not aware of scientific evidence to support homeopathy as effective.

So, even though TinniStop has an FDA registration, the product itself hasn't been evaluated by the FDA to determine if it works or even if it's safe. This doesn't fill me with confidence toward Wayne Josephson.
Furthermore, TinniStop claims this

TinniStop is manufactured in an FDA registered facility, one of the few authorized homeopathic manufacturing facilities in the United States. Our laboratory follows all current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs) as set forth by the Food and Drug Administration.

 Did you notice how they don't tell you exactly where the product is manufactured? Where is this "laboratory" you speak of, Wayne?

Wayne Josephson claims that he discovered the ingredients which would later be incorporated into TinniStop by doing the research himself and using them to treat his own tinnitus. I suppose we'll have to trust him on that. The active ingredients are listed:

• Causticum 6X: also known as Potassium Hydrate, this is prepared prepared blending slaked lime and sulfate of potash and is a very popular ingredient used in homeopathic remedies, though I couldn't find how anyone but TinniStop relates it to treating tinnitus. It seems that, if you're going to make a homeopathic product, you're going to include this by default. Aside from homeopathy, causticum has no medical uses, as it is caustic;
• Cocculus Indicus 6X: this site mentions it being used by homeopaths to treat motion sickness. I haven't seen anyone mentioning how it is used to treat tinnitus. It is also known as the Levant berry and does have some serious side effects;
• Conium Maculatum 6X: also known as poison hemlock. Despite its very poisonous nature, homeopaths sometimes incorporate it into their products. Poison fucking hemlock! Jeez!

Here's something that leaped out at me from the site

Tinnitus Relief Guaranteed

Breakthrough Natural Remedy Proven to Relieve Symptoms

On the back label, this statement is made:

Active ingredients are prepared in accordance with the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States (HPUS) and are non-toxic with no known side effects.

Proven by whom? Prepared by whom? Who formulated TinniStop and decided how much of what to put into it? Who did the research to lend any truth to their claim that the product has no side effects? None of that is mentioned.

I could go on all night about how unreliable the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States is, but I'll leave that up to an actual medical doctor. Looking back at the list of the three active ingredients, I'd say that they all have some serious side effects on their own. Of course, it would really depend on how much you ingested, but I'd give some serious thought before I'd use anything with poison hemlock in it.

If there was any doubt that the actual safety and/or efficacy of TiiniStop hasn't actually been established, here is the mandatory disclaimer that they put on their website to escape the wrath of the Food and Drug Administration:

Disclaimer

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

That says it all, right there.

The Company

According to the NIH link for TinniStop I mentioned above, the actual company selling it is Peerless Homeopathic and their mailing address is PO Box 5083, Charlottesville, VA. Okey-dokey, let's look them up.

Hmm.

As I thought, nothing comes up for Peerless Homeopathic or Peerless Labs as a company registered in Virginia. Neither does TinniStop, for that matter.

So, what about that address? As it turns out, that address is registered to the West Point Society of Monticello. I found that same address in the Society's 2017 report and in their business registration.

It's possible - even, likely - that the information given for TinniStop on the NIH link was a misprint. Another product sold by them is called DriNites (supposedly to cure bed wetting) and the link for that product gives its address as PO Box 5038, as it also does for their homeopathic weight loss product 29Again. so, either TinniStop provided the wrong PO Box number or the NIH webmaster made an error. Whatever.

Conclusions

In my opinion, TinniStop is just another one of those schemes that claim to "cure" or "treat" tinnitus using "natural" products, even though none of their claims have been validated by scientific testing. These people mix-up some homeopathic ingredients and we're supposed to take their word for it that the ingredients are effective, in the right proportions and that they were prepared in a hygienic facility by professionals.

What do they offer as proof of efficacy? Testimonials posted on their website, which can't be independently verified. Anecdotal evidence is completely useless to definitively verify whether a pharmaceutical product is either safe or effective. It needs to be subjected to rigorous scientific testing in a laboratory under controlled conditions.

To appropriate the Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #109 for the purposes of this review:

"Anecdotal evidence and an empty sack is worth the sack."

If you want to take a chance and buy TinniStop, I can't stop you. After all, it's only about $20 and you get free shipping, with a money back guarantee. It's entirely your business if you want to buy the product, discover it didn't meet your expectations and then try to get your money back. Personally, I don't want to go through all that trouble.

But, understand that this company is extremely opaque in its dealings and isn't even a registered business in Virginia, so there's no corporate accountability. Aside from what looks like the wrong address posted on the NIH site, the only way they provide to contact them is via the contact page on their website or through a toll-free number. We don't yet know who's really behind it. Even if they provided us with a valid PO Box number, no physical address is given, which gives them a pretty good level of protection in the event that someone would try to initiate legal proceedings against them if using the product actually causes someone physical harm or if TinniStop didn't refund their money.

In my opinion, their spokesman/inventor, Wayne Josephson, looks like a person whose career as an author and inventor hasn't turned-out the way he probably hoped and has apparently embarked on TinniStop in order to actually amount to something.

There's nothing new here with TinniStop. It's just another scheme where they try to convince people with tinnitus that they can cure or treat their tinnitus naturally. People like this hold out the hope that your suffering can end and your life can go back to normal, but their claims are based on nothing more than their say-so and that's just not good enough for me.


Duane Browning