Re: The Quackbusters, by Helke Ferrie
- From: "Peter Moran" <pmoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 06:21:41 +1000
"PeterB" <pkm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1144264817.453335.58870@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Another poster (Jan or Illena?) put this up on the newsgroup a while
back and I thought it bore repeating. My apologies for the
formatting....
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The Quackbusters
Vitality May 2002
By Helke Ferrie
"The great mass of people will more easily
fall victim to a big lie than a small one."
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925
My first encounter with Quackbusters was on November 10,1998, when a
public debate was sponsored by the American College of Toxicology in
Orlando, Florida. The speakers on one side were Albert Donnay and
Grace Ziem, both with Johns Hopkins medical school and experts on
multiple chemical sensitivity. The Quackbuster representatives were
its founder Stephen Barrett and Ronald Gots, the founder of the
Quackbuster branch, Environmental Sensitivities Research Institute.
Both men are also directors of the American Council on Science and
Health, another branch of Quackbusters. Their presentations were later
published in the prestigious International Journal of Toxicology (vol.
18, no.6, 1999). The debate focused on whether chemical sensitivity is
a psychological or a biological condition. In front of an audience of
several hundred people, and aware that the entire debate was being
video- and audio-taped, Gots stated that prestigious
university-affiliated authors of a (named) main-stream peer-reviewed
journal had recently provided incontrovertible proof, on the basis of
rigorous scientific study and experiment, that chemical sensitivity
was a psychological condition.
Top
Gots was followed by Johns Hopkins' speaker Albert Donnay who
informed
the audience that this prestigious study was fictitious. The authors
were fictitious, too. Even the journal was fiction. A gasp went
through the audience. Amazingly, Gots made no attempt to answer. Even
more astounding was the body language of both Gots and Barrett. While
the audience was audibly shocked and murmurs were going through the
crowd, those two Quackbusters leaned back in their chairs, fiddled
with their pens in the bored and relaxed manner of total
self-assurance awaiting the next item on the agenda.
PM This certainly does sound like a complete and utter fiction. I challenge
*anyone* to produce such a study. For Heaven's sake, numerous clinical
studies find strong evidence of psychological factors in the MCS
syndrome -why would anyone bother to invent one ?.
Peter Moran
Top
How is this possible? I asked myself. If this had happened to a
university professor, his tenure would be in jeopardy and his chances
of ever getting published again in a peer-reviewed journal would be
zero. Sure, some university professor lie and cheat and fudge the
data, and occasionally huge government investigations into science
fraud are launched, such as recently in Germany - but never does this
happen so outrageously, brazenly in full public view. If cooking the
data to support a favorite theory is like the skilled production of
counterfeit money in a secret basement operation, Gots' performance
was like a bank robbery in full daylight.
Top
A bona fide researcher, even if he is a crook, must at least appear to
be honest. But if your work is supported by an infinite money source,
nothing much matters. Gots' and Barrett's job seems to be to keep
lies
circulating so doubt remains strong and fuel is given to the
self-defensive all-too-human tendency to dismiss unpleasant
information as scare-mongering. Such propaganda provides a highly
effective break for change and saves billions of dollars for those
whose products and practices would otherwise be compelled to change
radically. So, who funds Quackbusters?
Top
Birds of a Feather
The main Quackbusters are Ronald Gots, Victor Herbert and Stephen
Barrett, retired physicians all who appear in countless public venues,
many high profile, to air their views on how untold millions are being
poisoned by vitamin C, why we should fight for the right to have
fluoride in our water, avoid unhealthy organic foods because they lack
those protective pesticides we urgently need, and trust in the
absolute safety of mercury amalgam fillings. Global warming is a silly
scare perpetrated by individuals in need of psychiatric help, and
vaccines cannot possibly cause health problems. On Barrett's web site
one finds in-depth article on everything he believes is fraud
(amounting to roughly one fifth of the US gross national product). The
most personal and viscous attacks are reserved for the likes of Linus
Pauling and many leading lights in current medical research.
Top
For Barrett and friends nobody -absolutely anybody - has any
authority. The alternative crowd is for them as bad as, the (alas!)
progressively more and more deluded mainstream such as the World
Health Organization, the NIH, the FDA, the White House task force on
complementary medicine, Harvard and Johns Hopkins medical schools, and
any other serious person or institution trying to make sense of the
world's ills. As for good old-fashioned research, the only democratic
tool humanity has got by which to establish what is real and what
works - that's only permitted in Barrett's world as long as the
results fit his opinion. In the world of Gots and Barrett there are no
surprises. They are trapped in a black-and-white movie from the early
1950's and they want us all to be trapped in it too. In a detailed
analysis of why doctors turn to complementary medicine, Barrett
diagnoses them as suffering from paranoid mental states, fascination
with the paranormal, profit and prophet motives, psychopathic
tendencies, and boredom.
Top
That last item is closer to the truth than even Barrett could stand: I
have had literally hundreds of doctors tell me at international
conferences on environmental and complementary medicine that they were
bored to tears with prescribing drugs and have their patients return
for more and more drugs, getting sicker and sicker. Then they switched
to real medicine (the kind inspired by Hippocrates who 2,500 years ago
taught about clean air, water and wholesome food) and being a doctor
became exiting at last. "Life began when I stopped seeing drug
reps,"
one said, and another sighed happily, "I haven't used my
prescription
pad in years. I am not sure where it is."
Top
Barrett tells us that "Neither Quackwatch nor I have any financial
ties to any commercial or industrial organization" and "Quackwatch
has
no salaried employees" and is funded by personal donations and
profits
from publications. "If its income falls below what is needed ... the
rest comes out of my pocket." His and Gots' pockets are
interesting,
to say the least. The funding sources of their organizations were
readily available on the Internet until recently; in the early
'90's
he stopped disclosing such information. The last annual report to list
donors was published 1991 where we find all our toxic friends:
Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland (both of genetic engineering
fame), the Nutrasweet Company (neurotoxic aspartame etc.), Union
Carbide (as in Bopal disaster), the producers of pesticides,
fertilizers, and fluoride Dow Chemical, Dupont, Cargill etc., the
biochemical warfare and pharmaceutical producers Eli Lilly, the
Uniroyal Chemical Company, all the big petroleum and pharmaceutical
companies, and various refined sugar producers and refined food
producing giants. Two thirds of the world's economy is controlled by
this list of North American Big Business. With friends like that, who
needs to worry about telling the most fantastical lies in public?
Top
To test Quackwatch's insistence that it is based on public support, I
applied to become a member in 1999. First I was told that the annual
membership fee was US $25,000. I said, "That's fine, send me the
membership application form." Was I calling on behalf of a
corporation? No, I informed the person, who then said, "We prefer
corporate members."
Top
Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist, has written 49 books
debunking what he identifies as health fraud. He also enjoys debunking
UFO's and experiences of the paranormal. He operates six Web sites.
In
his CV he claims that he did peer reviewing for some of the top
medical journals (e.g. New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of
Internal Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association). Since
the peer review system is secret, there is no way of verifying this
claim.
Top
Of course, mainstream medicine has as much trouble discriminating
between what's sound and what's dubious in medicine as the rest of
us.
So, it came as no surprise that in 1999 Quackwatch was able to
convince the New England Journal of Medicine to co-host a conference
on a critical appraisal of alternative medicine. The journal's justly
famous then editor, Marcia Angell was the keynote speaker, but rubbing
shoulders with Quackwatchers did not impair her find mind and sound
judgement. All the hype and tongue clicking notwithstanding, the
conference produced lots of sound stuff. Angell's editorial integrity
is now the stuff of legend, as she sounded the wake-up call for
medical publication rules and standards of ethics with her June 22,
2000, editorial. She identified the rot by asking to whom the
pharmaceutical industry is accountable and argued that it is time
medical research does some serious soul searching. As of September
2002 the rules governing conflicts of interest in medical publication
have been re-written worldwide. Barrett's friends are having a hard
time, at last - as is his entire organization, because the law suits
against Quackwatch are increasing in number and seriousness. Check out
juri...@xxxxxxxxx for the details.
Top
By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them
So observed Jesus 2000 years ago with astute psychological insight -
fortunately, that cuts both ways. Serious long-term irritation can
produce magnificent pearls. Quackwatch's Dr. Victor Herbert
specializes in vitriolic smear campaigns. Linus Pauling describes his
many irritating meetings with Herbert in Linus Pauling in His Own
Words (1995): "Here is this .... Victor Herbert, who to this day
keeps
writing papers and giving speeches saying that no one benefits from
taking extra vitamins, and he won't even look at the evidence.... I
finally became sufficiently irritated by this fellow that I decided I
ought to do something about it. So I sat down one summer ... and in two
months wrote the book Vitamin C and the Common Cold." [1971]
Top
Quackwatch's negative influence is formidable. The formula of their
attacks on health freedom is fairly simple and easy to detect and its
success depends on persistent repetition. The Quackwatch formula
simply requires citing scientific literature that is outdated,
irrelevant or non-existent. Only the specialist or nitpicking
investigative journalist will ferret out the truth. In attacking the
White House Commission on Complementary Medicine (annual budget of US
$ 50 million at the National Institutes of Health) initiated by
President Clinton in March 2000, Barrett devotes enormous amounts of
cyberspace to its condemnation. Triumphantly he informs the browser
that even members of that task force have broken away in disgust and
made their dissent known publicly. What really happened can be found
in the rather reliable March 28, 2002, issue of the world's premier
science journal Nature. Two members of that task force stated that
more money should be allocated towards research into complementary
medicine, and that the task force's final report would have been
better if it had cited even more research to support its suggested
program of action.
Top
Quackwatch also delights in using the medial regulatory systems to go
after doctors who have strayed from the One True Barrett Path. The
State of New York is currently holding hearings (the equivalent of a
public inquiry) into the inappropriate way in which the disciplinary
process has been used, with Quackwatch "expert" witnesses, to stop
doctors from using complementary medicine. The popular radio show
"The
Touch of Health" was relentlessly attacked with viscous and insulting
e-mails by Ontario Quackwatch member Dr. Polevoy until the show was
closed down. One of the worst examples of Quackwatch's power comes
from Nova Scotia. In the early 1990's the faulty air filtration
system
at Halifax's Camphill Hospital caused 900 people to become seriously
chemically injured and today more than 300 remain permanently
disabled. When these cases began to come before Workers's
Compensation
tribunal in the late 1990's, it was Ronald Gots who appeared as the
"expert". The expert opinion reports, accepted by the tribunal,
weren't even signed by doctors and Gots explained that the
secretaries
could be trusted to know the physicians' intentions. Gots'
expertise
caused all claims to be denied and the claimants were encouraged to
seek the help of a psychiatrist. Enter Johns Hopkins researcher Albert
Donnay who provided the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
scientific and legal, to the appeals board. Since then case after case
has been won on appeal.
Top
Some time ago, when I was scheduled to speak at the Health Expo, a
friend found me on the Canadian Quackwatch site described as a
doctor's wife who promotes quackery in public lectures. I am
flattered. The information I provide must be dangerously accurate.
Top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources and Resources:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The battle over access to safe medicine and knowledge of disease
prevention is fought to a large extent over the Internet by which the
news travels faster than through medical journals, government agencies
and the courts. Therefore, the following sites and e-mail connections
are recommended as most helpful:
If you are involved in work that requires knowing how the enemy
thinks, surf the Quackbusters' web sites which are operated by Dr.
Stephen Barrett: www.quackwatch.com; the Canadian counterpart is run
by Kitchner pediatrician Dr. Terry Polevoy www.healthwatcher.net
To find out how Quackbusters really operates visit:
www.iahf.com/quackbusters.html; www.savedrclark.org; and
www.internetwks.com/pauling/lie/index.html; and
www.healthfreedomlaw.com to find out what law suits are in progress
against Quackbusters and for what reasons get on the e-mail list of
Tim Bolen: juri...@xxxxxxxxx
For the science and current developments regarding mercury amalgam
visit www.iaomt.org, the site of the International Academy for Oral
and Medical Toxicology whose scientists have won many legal victories
for non-toxic dentistry; many of these dental medicine scientists are
associated with the World Health Organization and the National
Institutes of Health and are advisors to the health authorities of the
European Union.
For the scientific facts, international consensus, current research
and personal help regarding Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, visit Johns
Hopkins medical school associate Albert Donnay's site www.mcsrr.org
An excellent source of information on the current status of available
clinical treatments and research in complementary medicine for cancer
and many other environmentally mediated diseases is the National
Institutes of Health site www.CMBM.org. You can download, free of
charge, the entire text of all the presentations made by the world's
top researchers at the NIH international conferences.
For facts on herbal medicine and a balanced interpretation of the
ongoing debate battle between pharmaceuticals and natural remedies
visit www.herbalgram.com
A first class source of information on the worldwide growing awareness
about the effects of fluoride visit www.fluoride.org.uk
To learn about the dangers, science, and legal actions going on
worldwide with regard to vaccines visit www.909shot.com; this is
especially helpful with regard to the facts on the connection between
autism and the MMR vaccine
If you want to be kept up-to-date on all of these politically loaded
health issues (and many more besides!) request to be put on the e-mail
list of one of the best sources of information: c...@xxxxxxxxxxxx
An excellent source for information on health freedom issues, and
especially newly developed treatments, is the news letter of the
International Council for Health Freedom which operates in 17
countries; available through cci...@xxxxxxxxxx tel.619-702-1282, Visit
their site www.ichf.net
K. Ausubel, When Healing Becomes A Crime, Healing Arts Press,2000
J.P. Carter,MD, Racketeering in Medicine, Hampton Roads Publishing
Co., 1993
M.L. Culbert, Medical Armageddon, C and C Communications, San
Diego,1997
W. Duffy, Sugar Blues, Warner Books 1975(the first of this type, still
a bestseller)
D. Haley (US Congressman), Politics in Healing, Potomac Valley Press,
2000
J. Lisa, The Assault on Medical Freedom, Hampton Roads Publishing Co.,
1997
G. Lanctot, M.D., The Medical Mafia, Here's The Key Inc.,1995
.
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