wanted: a litany of "chemical abuse"...

[scientitian]

Physics and medicine seem to be the favorite targets of pseudoscience, with reflexology and perpetual motion devices as far as the eye can see. This is understandable, due to the very deep awe and ignorance the general pulic seems have for both. But other academic disciplines certainly get their fair share as well.
As a chemist, this got me thinking: what sort of vile canards have been heaped on chemistry? Since chemistry is "the central science" there is undoubtedly a lot of overlap, but I was hoping to make a list of some of the junk chemistry out there. Specifically, I'm interested in pseudoscience where claims are made and mechanisms explained using bad chemical data. So what sort of psuedoscience is out there fundamentally abusing chemistry? Below is a short list of a few things that sprang to mind, but I'd kindly appreciate folks adding to the list.

monoatomic gold
homeopathy
creationism (i.e. their misinformation campaign against things like radiodating, entropy)
breathatarianism
chelation therapy
hydrogen peroxide as a food supplement
"quantum" anything (other than chemistry and physics)
transsubstantiation
alchemy

[geni]

Schussler’s Salts

Not only do they fail to understand what salts are and the difference between organic and inorganic but they then try and co op the name biochemistry.
http://www.holisticlive.com/en/members/schussler.shtml

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by geni
Schussler’s SaltsOK, I'm slow. Remember Kumar? I followed him to the homoeopathy forums and found his aliases, Kayveeh and Vijay-some number. One of these had a sig file which said that homoepathy and biochemistry were opposites, because Hahnamann and Schussler had different ideas.

I thought he'd been very clever, because if you think about it, homoeopathy is the opposite of biochemistry much more than it is the opposite of "allopathy". I wasn't quite sure who Schussler was, but I assumed he was some founding father of real biochemistry. But I obviously got the total wrong end of the stick!

:bricks:

PS. Do you count Cold Fusion, Scientician?

Rolfe.

[Virgil]

silver therapy
vitalism
mega dosing of vitamims

magnet therapy
copper bracelets

Virgil

[BTox]

About any quack diet or medical "treatment":

"living enzymes" and other nonsense from raw diets

oxygenated water

colloidal silver

[pgwenthold]

pentawater

[Earthborn]

Polywater (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html).

[Rolfe]

Pathological science.

I was reading a book about the cold fusion fiasco, and one chapter was dedicated to the psychology of "the science of things that aren't so".

They listed, in addition to cold fusion; polywater, n-rays and Benveniste's "memory of water".

Not sure if this really counts as "chemical abuse" though, as nobody was selling anything (not that Fleischmann and Pons didn't dearly hope to make a mint of course....). Fascinating study of the infinite capacity for self-deception inherent in even the most scientific brain.

Rolfe.

[geni]

The whole molicules/atoms vibrating at special frequencies