Pristiva Primer and Activator

[GB2008]

This is my first time on this forum but I’d like to respond to some the questions and comments that have been raised about Pristiva. My name is Geoff Brown and I’m a Developmental Scientist in Pristiva’s R&D department. Just to tell you a little about myself, I’m a 22 year veteran of the pool industry and have developed a number of new pool and spa products throughout that time. In addition, I’ve been actively involved in advocacy organizations and held leadership positions on APSP committees.

First of all, I’d like to address the comments posed by cjryan33 regarding low chlorine readings at start up. When this occurs, supplemental chlorine should be added until it reaches the desired, stable level. In spite of the issues that you’re experiencing they are temporary and the pool will continue to look great, as advertised. Also, I’d be more than happy to send you an Information Bulletin that describes how to optimize start ups in Pristiva pools. It addresses the questions you’ve raised and gives easy-to-follow steps that simplify the start up process.

Second, I’d like to address some misunderstandings about what Pristiva’s additives are and what they are not. The additives that make Pristiva unique are trademarked as X2O. The reason why the company does not disclose the composition of X2O is because it is proprietary. Divulging the formula would be analogous to Coca Cola® sharing its secret formula with their competitors. Suffice it to say though, Pristiva contains no cyanuric acid (CYA).

Also, years of intensive research and development are behind Pristiva and its superior performance has been verified by independent, third party testing. Moreover, the product is substantially different from BioGuard’s Mineral Springs®. Although both products make similar claims, Mineral Springs is rich in two troublesome, scale promoting compounds. Specifically, Mineral Springs adds large amounts phosphate and sulfate, which can combine with calcium to form scale inside the electrolytic chlorine generator. By contrast, and very much by design, Pristiva does not use phosphate or sulfate-based products.

To put all of this in its proper perspective, thousands of pool owners across the US and Canada are using Activator and Primer. The overwhelming majority of these customers are not having issues and are delighted with the feel and convenience of their Pristiva Pool.

Cjryan33, I’d like to thank you for using Pristiva and to assure you that you and your customer’s satisfaction is our primary concern. I hope this addresses the questions and misunderstandings, but please feel free to call me if you want to additional details. [ PoolDoc note: Contact info deleted -- subscribing doesn't give you the right to promote your company here. Once you've delivered HARD evidence that your product works, we'll reconsider ]

[PoolDoc]

Hi Geoff;

While I appreciate your attempts to support the value of your product, nothing you've said here is likely to persuade me, or any of the moderators and contributors here that your product has any value, except as a means of boosting income for Compass and its dealers. While I appreciate that novel but un-patentable products can be protected by obscuring their nature, I'm sure you can appreciate that useless old products can be obscured the same way . . . and yet acquire a new and marketable cachet via a catchy sounding trademark, like "X20" for example.

I gather that Compass is new to the pool industry.

Many of us are not. Speaking only for myself, I've witnessed 30 years of product shyster-ism by both small businesses and big corporations. During that time, I've learned -- often through painful and personal experience -- that most of what claims to be "new and improved" is neither.

We can accept at face value your claim that the Pristiva products are not yet another re-incarnation of the various blends of borax, polyphosphates, and copper that have played such a large role in the "new and improved" products foisted on naive consumers over the last decade.

But the fact that Pristiva's products aren't like those in no way supports the premise that they have any unique value.

The simple reality is that it's not hard to prove that your products work. If you've done so, show us the beef, so to speak. You can take a look at the China Shop, and quickly determine that there are a number of us here who are quite comfortable reading peer-reviewed scientific literature.

We've seen -- and archived -- your brochures, and aren't really very impressed. I'm not going to reproduce the article I published years ago on "Blue Water Voodoo", but years before Compass even dreamed of Pristiva, I explained in some detail how I could hire a "gold neck-chain sales promoter" and sell fancy jugs filled with blue water and silicone thickener AND provide a 120% money-back guarantee AND make money doing so.

You inform us you are active in the APSP. Not to put to fine a point on it, but so what? The APSP is, as the NSPI was, dominated by the corporate chemical players, and reflects their interests, not those of pool owners.

For the past 3 decades, chemical company after chemical company has attempted to make gold out of feathers, by creating a putative 'need' for specialty chemicals, thus allowing them to escape the nasty and low profit margins that come from selling mere commodities. The great majority of these products are unnecessary 90% of the time; the remainder are NEVER needed. Your 22 years in the industry means that it is likely that you have worked for one of these companies. And, it means that you know -- as I do -- that in the pool industry a "developmental chemist" is not someone who researches new and more efficient ways to manage pool chemistry, but rather is usually someone who re-blends the 15 or 20 existing pool chemicals into new mixes that can be sold as "new" and "improved" and (more expensive at retail) and (less expensive to make).

In 30 years, I've seen possibly 4 new chemical products, in TOTAL: the chitosan products, the enzymes, the lanthanum phosphate removers, and the new CuLator products. CuLator is the only one of those that might have significant specific value -- IF it works. The chitosans are another way to clarify, not a particular better way. The enzymes may -- or may not -- be occasionally valuable. And now the "ESSENTIAL" lanthanum products have suddenly become non-essential, with China closing down the supply.

So, in 30 years, there has not been a single, proven, SIGNIFICANT new chemical product. But there have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of chemicals that claimed to be all those things. So, just by the historical odds, it's 100 to 1 that your product even works differently, and it's 500 to 1 that the difference (if it exists) matters.

You want us to trust you? Fine. Prove that you are NOT like all the other chemical companies that have gone before you!

You don't want us to know what's in your product? That's fine, too. But PROVE that it works or we will be convinced that your well written post, filled with vague and meaningless implications of value, is all the substance Pristiva has to offer.

You wrote:

Also, years of intensive research and development are behind Pristiva and its superior performance has been verified by independent, third party testing.

Fine. Send them to us. We'll read them very carefully.

Until you do, we'll continue warn people not to waste their money on products with vague and unproven claims.

[GB2008]

Dear PoolDoc,

I’d like to thank you for your candid response to my post and I wholeheartedly agree with your perspective on the dubious and/or snake-oil type products that our industry seems to attract. As a result, I’m also quite skeptical of products (and not just those in our industry) that make unsubstantiated claims. On these things we agree and see eye to eye. However, I think that we will probably have to agree to disagree on some of the other points, especially as they relate to Pristiva. Specifically, Pristiva has data with which to substantiate it’s performance claims. Some of this data has been incorporated into a patent application while some of the other, more recent data has been shared publicly at the last two IPSPE trade shows. Although our target audience for these presentations was and continues to be prospective customers only, we’re aware that scientists working for our competitors have also seen our test data. After two years, we have yet to receive a data-driven rebuttal from any of these companies. Realistically, I don’t expect this to change your position, but that was not my goal. My goals were to thank you for your candor, and also to assure our customers that Pristiva has solid performance data that substantiate our claims. Prospective customers can and should review our data package in order to make informed buying decisions and, as noted in your earlier post, visit [ Pristiva's website - live sales links NOT allowed ] for more information.
--
Regards,
Geoff – a fellow skeptic

[PoolDoc]

Well Geoff, that's a better response than I expected.

But, unfortunately it's still a non-substantial response. And, until you provide actual data -- EITHER concerning the make-up and mode of operation of your product OR of field performance testing, the only possible counsel we can offer our members here is that Pristiva has done nothing publicly to support its claim of "solid performance data".

When you are ready to actually share that "solid performance data", and let us evaluate just how solid it is, we will continue to warn our members that they are better off leaving pool industry "mystery chemicals", like Pristiva's products, on the pool stores' shelves.

And there is NO way, we are going to encourage people to visit your site, which is long on 'sizzle' but short on 'steak'. Rather, we will use your site as currently configured (May 2012) as a masterful example of how pool company's can SOUND like they are saying something, which actually, they are saying nearly nothing at all.

[CarlD]

Geoff,
I will add my simpler take: If I don't know what is in a product I put into my pool, it doesn't go into my pool.
Coca-Cola may have a secret formula but it doesn't have secret ingredients. That is the object of the Pure Food And Drug Act signed by Teddy Roosevelt. So the analogy isn't valid.

When it comes to what I will recommend to our users, it is very simple. If I don't know what it is, I do not recommend it. For me, that is a line I simply will not cross. My children get into my pool, ingest some of the water, as we all do, and I will not have them ingest any unknown chemical. How well the product works, all the assurances of safety you can provide do not matter to me.

If I don't know what is in it, I won't use it. I won't recommend it.

CarlD