Mick A.

Quackwatch is good for telling dumb, naive, and/or desperate people not to buy snake oil, like magic water blessed by the Virgin Mary or expensive "healing crystals". I totally agree with him about those things. But he also dismisses and attacks people who advocate natural remedies, and PREVENTIVE health measures like healthy eating; STRESS MANAGEMENT techniques like meditation, yoga, tai chi, qigong, deep breathing, etc; and people who are critical of the DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS for every little thing approach to health like Harvard trained psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin who believes that therapy is better than toxic drugs with their myriad dangerous side effects that the drug companies routinely minimize.

His knee-jerk "QUACK!" labeling of so many people just because they recommend natural remedies that many people have found relief from for hundreds or thousands of years is extremely ignorant and irresponsible and makes me not trust him because he obviously lacks wisdom and a balanced perspective

Quackwatch also seems to have BLIND FAITH in anything that calls itself "science." Barrett constantly talks about "science" but I wonder why he never mentions things like what Harvard trained Dr. Richard Horton, the editor of the medical journal The Lancet said about "science": The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.

Or the similar statements made by Dr. John Ioannidis, director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center and adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, who wrote the paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False".

"Science" is just as corrupt as politics and everything else because it is being done by greedy, morally and intellectually fallible human beings. It's not all good or all bad. But Quackwatch's information is very one sided about that and his condemning of people who dare to question the old ways of doing things is backwards and scary.

It's also misleading about supplements because often "no scientific proof" a supplement works only means that there was no big money to be made on a natural herb so no one was going to pay money to have many large studies run on it. It can still help. Lots of herbs that many people use and get wonderful relief from like Tulsi, Triphala, Valerian, etc, were unheard of in the west until recent decades. Barrett's small minded reasoning seems to be that doctors who recommend natural supplements without tons of "scientific proof" or who question the old ways of doing things are going against science and therefore "QUACKS!"

There have been constant news stories saying doctors grossly over-prescribe antibiotics and the AMA warning them to stop because it damages gut flora (Hypocrites said disease begins in the gut!) and causes antibiotic resistance. Why aren't the doctors doing that and why isn't that info in Quackwatch? And another news story a few years ago where the AMA warned doctors to stop passing out Ritalin so often because of dangerous physical and mental side-effects, and because we have no idea what the long term side-effects are to kid's growing brains. Why aren't the doctors heading those warnings and why isn't that info in Quackwatch?

Quackwatch is good for telling dumb, naive, and/or desperate people not to buy snake oil, like magic water blessed by the Virgin Mary or expensive "healing crystals". I totally agree with him about those things. But he also dismisses and attacks people who advocate PREVENTIVE health measures like healthy eating, STRESS MANAGEMENT techniques like meditation, yoga, tai chi, qigong, deep breathing etc, or people who are critical of the DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS for every little thing approach to health like Harvard trained psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin who believes that therapy is better than toxic drugs with their myriad side effects that the drug companies routinely minimize.

Quackwatch constantly talks about "science" but I wonder why they never mention things like what Harvard trained Dr. Richard Horton, the editor of the medical journal The Lancet said about "science": "The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."

Or the similar statements made by Dr. John Ioannidis, director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center and adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, who wrote the paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False".

"Science" is just as corrupt as politics and everything else because it is being done by greedy, morally and intellectually fallible human beings. It's not all good or all bad. But quackwatch's information is very one sided about that.

It's also misleading about supplements because often "no scientific proof" a supplement works only means that there was no big money to be made on a natural herb so no one was going to pay money to have many large studies run on it. It can still help. Lots of herbs that many people use and get wonderful relief from like Tulsi, Valerian, etc, were unheard of in the west until recent decades.

There have been constant news stories saying doctors grossly over-prescribe antibiotics and the AMA warning them to stop because it damages gut flora (Hypocrites said disease begins in the gut!) and causes antibiotic resistance. Why aren't the doctors doing this and why isn't that info in Quackwatch? And another news story a few years ago where the AMA warned doctors to stop passing out Ritalin so often because we have no idea what the long term side-effects are to kid's growing brains. Again, why aren't the doctors heading those warnings and why isn't that in Quackwatch?