Biomag millionaire ‘just a humble Kiwi’

A product dismissed by scientists fuels a luxury lifestyle, writes Matt Nippert.

BRENT MCCARTY – despite his penchant for racing Porsches, recently gifting his wife a $325,000 Bentley convertible, his Takapuna cliff-top mansion and his 60ft luxury launch especially designed to allow golf swings off the loading deck – insists he is just humble Kiwi and would prefer to remain anonymous.

‘‘We’re very much people who just like to be under the radar. We’re not social scene people about the city. We’re just doing our best to keep the economy working,’’ he said.

Before this week the moustached McCarty had never given a media interview, despite being – along with his wife, Yvonne – behind one of the most persistent marketing campaigns New Zealand has seen.

To a large extent McCarty’s success has been on the back of Woolrest BioMag, a mattresscover-and-magnet piece of bedding that is praised by Murray Deaker and written off as pseudoscience by the Skeptics Society.

Advertising for BioMag, relying heavily on advertorials promising ‘‘drug-free pain relief’’, have been regularly subject to complaints to the Advertising Standard Authority – BioMag has won nearly all of the cases, partly by emphasising its therapeutic claims are heavily caveated.

Dr Simon Edmonds, a chemistry lecturer at the Christchurch Institute of Technology, is firmly in the sceptic camp. ‘‘I’m not sure slick is the right word – it’s very wellthought-out advertising,’’ he said.

Edmonds said a review of scientific literature shows only a few patchy and dubious studies showing positive effects of magnet therapy – and larger studies broadly showing no difference in effect from placebos.

Claims made that magnets help blood circulation and stimulate melatonin production also appeared to be lacking scientific support, Edmonds said.

The United States’ National Institute of Health is more blunt in its pamphlet warning about magnet therapy: ‘‘Magnets have not been proven to work for any health-related reason, yet static, or permanent, magnets are widely marketed for pain control.’’

McCarty defends his mattress covers.

‘‘Magnetic therapy goes back a long way – to Roman days, and the Chinese. Cleopatra used it.’’

McCarty said there are many doctors who recommend BioMag to their patients.

‘‘It’s not a cure, we’re not saying it’s a cure – but it certainly provides a huge amount of pain relief to a lot of people,’’ McCarty said, citing testimonials, which he said are unsolicited.

Regardless of the controversy, BioMag has been a roaring success. Advertising manager and former BioMag director Edward Borrie described it as ‘‘a bit of a wonder product’’.

McCarty was unwilling to talk numbers, but said: ‘‘It has been, by New Zealand standards, reasonably successful.’’

The company’s website boasts one in 10 New Zealand

‘I get three square meals a day. And so does my dog.’