Robert Oldham Young, author of the book pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health has been ordered by a US court to pay more than $105 million in medical expenses and damages to a woman who was falsely treated. His myth of “pH miracle living”, turned out to be unscientific as well.
曾经因《酸碱奇迹:平衡饮食,恢复健康》一书而名声大噪，并将酸碱体质理论带向全世界的罗伯特·O·杨，近日被美国一家法院判决赔偿一位受到其不当治疗的女性高达1.05亿美元的损失。与此同时，他的酸碱体质理论骗局也被戳穿，成为了一门“伪科学”。
Young, who promoted the theory that acidity causes disease and an alkaline diet was the cure, was convicted last year of practicing medicine without a license. Young, though, had expressed optimism he would avoid convictions during a two-month trial involving dozens of witnesses and over 200 evidence items.
杨所提倡的理论将人体的酸碱度作为衡量是否健康的标准，宣称碱性的饮食能治疗疾病。就在去年，杨被控无证行医，他对此信心满满地坚称无罪，但在两个月的审判过程中，检方利用充足的证人及大量的证据，最终使其认罪。
His books have been quite popular throughout the world, even though doctors and other medical professionals have denounced his theory. Now many so-called health training agencies also promote the idea that an alkaline diet is a cure-all for any illness.
杨有关酸碱体质的图书一度风靡全球，但众多医生学者都曾质疑过其理论。而许多所谓的健康训练机构则鼓吹酸碱平衡，碱食谱可包治百病。
Most of these "health training agencies" are actually sales companies that make money by selling low-cost health products at high prices. Driven by their pursuit of profit, they have been hyping up Young's theory for years.
而这些“健康训练机构”实际上是销售公司，以销售开价高昂、成本低廉的保健品牟利。在利益的驱使下，它们多年来大肆兜售杨的理论。
In China, with an aging population, there is a huge market demand for health products. Many of the customers are relatively less well educated than the younger generations and they can be easy prey for fraudsters. These fraudsters don't believe in Young's theory, they just see it as a way to cheat people out of their money. Probably it’s time for us to review beyond the pH Miracle, and discover the reason why we are misled by pseudoscience.
在我国，随着人口老龄化的加速，保健品市场正在进入高速成长期。但老年群体的受教育程度往往不及年轻一代，对于虚假宣传的产品通常没有鉴别力，从而沦为骗子手中待宰的羊羔。诈骗团伙自己对于杨的“酸碱体质理论”甚至都不屑一顾，“酸碱平衡”只是他们用来骗财的手段。仔细想想，在“酸碱平衡”一说被推翻的同时，是不是也说明，我们太容易被狐假虎威的“伪科学”所误导？
Vocabulary
pseudoscience: n. 伪科学
alkaline: adj. 碱性的
fraudster: n. 行骗者