Male Pattern Baldness: What Have You Got to Lose

Liberated male           by Jim Sanderson

Several months ago I told you about Bob Murphy, 45, of Reno, Nev., who is defying all conventional wisdom of the medical establishment. He says he has a product which has not only restored 50 percent of his own male pattern baldness, but which has helped thousands of other despairing men (and even some women) to grow new hair. 

Cures for baldness have been a flim-flam since the days of the pharaohs, and there must be hundreds of them on the market even now. Can this be any different? I asked readers who have tried Murphy’s “New Generation” to write to me, pro or con.

The mail has not been heavy, perhaps because most readers simply haven’t heard about the product. Several users were bitter and called it a fraud; others simply expressed sorrow that it hadn’t worked for them. But I did receive a few wildly enthusiastic success stories. “Believe,” one man cried. “It’s true. It grows.”

Reader mail is one thing, but I felt I owed you a little investigative reporting. I have now talked face to face with 20 men in my area who are growing hair, some of it two and three inches long. I have inspected their scalps, run my fingers through this new growth, and looked at earlier photos of them when they were bald.

You never saw a happier bunch. They ranged in age from their 20s to their 60s and in occupation from truck driver to rocket engineer. All of them had stars in their eyes. Some had been bald for 25 years.

Among the most grateful were the young guys who came from families where the male pattern starts very early. 

I was so skeptical that I asked my wife to come along on these interviews, in the hope that between us we could sniff out something phony. In many cases we also talked to the wives of the men. (It came as a great surprise to some of them that baldness had mattered so much to their husbands.)

Friends, there is simply no way these guys are faking it. Murphy’s product does help stop hair fallout, clearly. And it can generate some new growth on some – but not all ÷ bald heads (please note these qualifications).  “New Generation” consists of a daily shampoo and a twice-daily conditioner. It’s totally safe. The magic ingredient is polysorbate 60, a standard emulsifier still used in many bottled salad dressings. 

You can’t expect a Gene Shalit kind of bushy, even if it works. Hair doesn’t grow back a lot faster than you lost it, and growth starts only in those areas, front or back, where you lost it last. Eventually other spots may begin to fill in, but nobody claims 100 percent regrowth.

Film clips of Murphy himself over three years show that he has only recovered 50 percent so far, but amazingly, he doesn’t look like a bald man anymore. 

All the men I interviewed said they saw first baby hair within three months. If you don’t find anything in this period, Murphy does not encourage you to go on, and he does instantly refund your money. You can reach him at Box 220160, Reno, NV 89515. Cost of a three-month supply is $39.95; not available in stores. 

Walter Klenhard, of Los Angeles, who is just completing a book on baldness, is not fully convinced that polysorbate works very well, if at all, although he concedes it’s suave and pleasant enough to use. 

Those 20 men convince me, though, and I’ve started on New Generation myself. Although my male pattern hasn’t advanced very far, I’d like to keep it that way, it’s a kind of crap-shoot, guys, no doubt about it. But as long as Murphy is offering the money back, what have we got to lose that we haven’t already lost? 

Jim Sanderson is a nationally syndicated columnist.