Dragons’ Den ‘ear seeds’ episode pulled by BBC

The BBC has removed the latest episode of Dragons’ Den from catch up over concerns over one of the pitches.

Episode three of the latest series, which originally aired on 18 January, featured businesswoman Giselle Boxer pitching her brand Acu Seeds.

In the episode, she claimed that her needle-free acupuncture kits for ears had helped her recovery from ME.

The pitch grew complaints from charities. Dr Charles Shepard, Hon Medical Advisor for The ME Association said: “The way in which Dragons’ Den has been used to promote an unproven treatment for ME/CFS has, not surprisingly, caused a great deal of upset and concern in the ME patient community.

“People with ME/CFS are fed up with the way in which products like this are regularly being promoted when there is no sound evidence from proper placebo-controlled clinical trials to confirm that they are safe and effective.

“These sort of expensive commercial products and devices should not be promoted to very vulnerable sick people until they have been properly assessed for safety and efficacy in clinical trials – in exactly the same way that drug treatments are.”

The BBC has now pulled the episode from iPlayer.

A spokesperson telling the Mirror: “We’re taking the concerns raised seriously, so we are reviewing the episode and therefore it’s currently not available on iPlayer.”

In the episode, Dragon Steven Bartlett agreed to pay £50,000 for a 12.5% stake in the business.

It comes after Giselle claimed that BBC researchers approached her to take part.

She said: “Funnily enough they [the BBC] contacted me and I received an email from a researcher there and I initially thought it was a spam email. We went through the different stages of the application process and there was so much due diligence and they really looked into every part of my business before I went in to pitch to the Dragons.”