As a medical specialist trying to deal with patients who have been 'treated' by Quacks and who are now reaping the resulting detrimental health consequences, this site is invaluable. I tell my Medical students, Junior Staff and Nursing staff to refer to Quackwatch for well researched information free of opinion, hearsay and magical thinking. It's a fantastic resource. Thankyou.
Dr. Barrett is right on course regarding chiropractors! The manipulation of the neck poses definite health risk for patients. In addition chiropractors are quite often involved in medical treatment that should be reserved for m. D. s only. The chiropractor simply doesn't have the mandatory training to engage these procedures. Any neurological system I. E. x. Spine in particular requires the utmost in manipulation (if any) care. And chiropractors simply don't have this training. Fatalities can easily result from mistakes.
If I were a psychiatrist, I would not be allowed to practice nutrition just as a dietitian could not practice psychiatry without the corresponding degrees. Dr. Barrett is not qualified to make professional judgments about the nutrition industry short of pointing out research. Even giving his personal view on research data is biased information, which amounts to nothing without a strong nutrition education. Couple that with the lack of dissenting research to his views (of which there are infinite examples), this site is misleading and quackery itself. It's like going to FoxNews for complete unbiased political news or MLB.com for news about all sports.
This is a scientifically based website which uses evidence-based medicine to support their articles. No, it is not an arm of "big pharma" which is itself a much overused conspiracy term. The people who write for Quackwatch are respected in their various fields and provide much-needed advice for those who have little background or knowledge of scientific and evidence-based medicine. If the general public had any idea how to evaluate scientific studies or interpretation of data we would not need this site. Unfortunately this is not the case. I would ask anyone who disparages this site to think about what the various snake oil salesmen that they may subscribe to get out of their relationship with them and the rest of the unsuspecting public.
It's so very sad when you see greedy promoters of pseudoscience and duped, placebo-admiring, ripped-off customers both feeling so hurt about hearing the cold truth. Soon enough, there'll be quacks claiming that they can beat death and some will believe in that, too. And when their customers die, the quacks will be blaming them for insufficintly following their crazy recommendations. What an irony, kind of like the Stockholm syndrome.
I went to quack watch to see what was offered. I have a Ph. D. In Nutrition from a top 5 university and I am deeply disappointed in the quality. I have fought nutrition quackery for over 30 years but I do it by evaluating the evidence as presented by quality studies and experts. There is a paucity of quality analysis on this site and conclusions drawn that are contrary to scientific evidence. As a result, I have to put this site among those that report quackery. Zero stars.
Some of the most fantastic, educated and effective naturopaths I know have been discredited on Quackwatch, which is so disappointing. Anyone that offers safe alternatives are discredited, while they they don't attack he big pharma and the crazy expensive toxic medical treatments that destroy our bodies! Quackwatch is definitely a shill for the medical industry.
Cleary this website has an agenda. An agenda that fits in line with the kind of people that make vaccinations and fluoridated water compulsory. You must be a quack if you speak up about the dangers in things like that, eh?
At one point I used to see and think I could trust information from this site. It wasn't until they tried to post about something I myself had personally had my life changed about that I realized how biased it was. It seems hard to be with citing sources, but you realize the sources are all cherry-picked and also from biased sources.
Mostly, every article is a strenuous exercise in confirmation bias. Though many alternative therapies have favorable studies, quackwatch consistently neglects them. Have you ever seen a section talking about the favorable studies for any therapy? Nope, because they're too busy trying to prove it wrong instead of seeking the truth. Two quick examples, the article on vision therapy fails to mention the CITT trial; the article on Chelation fails to mention the TACT trial. And those are just the recent studies on these topics.
It's good to be critical of *all* science-based anything. That's the whole point of science, but quackwatch is critical only of a few things and never critical of the rest. You can find some good questions raised for any given alternative therapy, but you have to read through a lot of bias.
Psychiatryis total BS Medical practice. If it was a real it'd be verifiable and treated with Neurology.
Quackwatch gives the message that anything outside of Dice & Drug Medicine is dangerous.
- What about all the loss of life from Psychiatric drugs? Suicides, Homicides, mass shootings.
- Big Pharmas drugs are the 4th leading cause of preventable death, when taken as prescribled and directed!
But look out for non-lethal herbs!
Seeing is believing. I'll take natural alternatives over chemical synthetics, any day. This site is designed to discourage alternative treatments by instilling fear, so that big pharma can continue to lie with their bed partners who are mainstream, narrow minded Doctors. Natural Doctors treat the whole person, they don't just specialize in specific areas of the body so as to divide it in sections. When's the last time you went to a mainstream Doctor who was able to diagnose AND treat the thyroid, BP, liver, heart and digestive system all in one visit?
I love Quack Watch because their truly are so many newfangled remedies and health claims circulating with a sole for profit intention.
They intelligently debunk claims and, although they can be extreme in some cases, give great information, especially when one is engaging in debate and needs backup!
Very enjoyable and factually entertaining.
This site is terrifying. It presents itself as a non profit consumer protection site when in reality its only goal is to promote the pharmaceutical industry. It tries to discredit legitimate, state-licensed, legal health care practitioners. It bashes every government agency that endorses or promotes alternative medicine. It discounts the critical importance of nutrition in health. If there are 30 positive studies and 10 negative ones on a certain treatment, guess which ones get listed and which don't? Reader beware!
There are references listed at the bottom of every article that link to papers and studies with hard evidence. It's rare to see the site's detractors backing up their claims with proven facts. Use your best judgement. If one side can support their arguments with science and the other side cannot, who would you believe?
Very few people realize that this website is founded, funded and written by the pharmaceutical industry and is a desperate attempt to discredit and attack all holistic and alternative health treatments. There is a lot of money these days from the mainstream healthcare industry especially big pharma to eliminate any competition. So read with an informed mind.
This website and its contributors are no different than those believe that nothing good exists... and Elvis is still alive. Unfortunately for Dr. Barrett, he has been marketed to just as much as those he complains about... and global warming was promoted as quackery for years and look what's happening. He is just as much a product of promotion as everyone else. I suggest to people to do their own research on both sides of the fence because I have, as many people I know, experienced help in areas that he promotes as quackery.
In reading through a Quackwatch article on Lyme disease, I was appalled by the lack of quality references. As a person who spent many years doing research to attain my PhD, I find the information in the article misleading, and based on poor or inefficient reference work. Such practice is commonly suspected as slanted within the "true" research community.
Based on reading this article, I would caution anyone to do their due diligence and look for higher quality research and reference sections. It is out there. Look for peer reviewed research by people with qualified backgrounds. DO NOT waste your time at Quackwatch! I certainly will not.
I manage online support groups for a neurological disease and sleep disorders. The theories about what causes these are far reaching and most are ridiculous. He has helped me prove that some of the doctors I suspected are "quacks", definitely ARE. It is good to have the proof right in front of me and saves me valuable time. Cannot thank him enough! It is amazing what some people will fall for or who they will believe. So when I see some article about what I research all of the time, he usually has the answer for me 90% of the time. I had one case of a "doctor" who said the neurological disease was made up and hyped up and made up by pharma companies to sell more drugs. Then, he discovered the court cases where the "doctor" had had her license to practice stripped in Canada and in several states in the US. Stops those online arguments fast when I have the facts in front of me. Court documents do not lie. I trust Dr. Barrett implicitly and have the highest respect for him.
There are many times when you hear of a new medical fad or diet and you wonder if it is really true or not. Quackwatch.com is wonderful website that is run by a team of doctors who go out of their way to tell people what is medical truth versus fiction. It is completely non-profit and I think they do a great job of telling us what to really believe in.
Answer: God only knows, but they seem to have a narrow limited field of knowledge and also seem out of date.
Answer: I have a friend who had MS but now doesn't. He attributes Mannatech with and Ambratose with healing him. Depends what your problem is... as different problems require different solutions.
Answer: Presumably the documentary series? It's probably more of a spectrum... some of what the treatments they talk about probably work very well... and some not as well. Many of the treatments they highlight are being used and promoted by doctors, scientists and specialists all over the world. These people are all putting their personal credibility on the line by promoting these things... so they must believe they work... and they're much better positioned to judge the efficacy of a treatment than a member of the general public. Not all treatments are useful for all patients... so it's unreasonable to expect 100% success rates with anything? Cancer cure rates are quite low when using chemotherapy or radiotherapy... which is why targeted cancer therapies are so attractive. New therapies only have to be equally effective or slightly better to be a better option? The big advantage of most targeted cancer therapies is that they are usually not toxic. If you are inclined to try an alternative therapy make sure you match the proposed therapy to your cancer and check if there is some research validation? Some of these therapies are in clinical trials... which is generally a good sign. Ideally you want some way to rank the effectiveness of the proposed therapy compared to other therapies. That's probably the hardest thing to establish... as success rates are often quite hard to obtain. Disappointingly conventional treatments also rarely provide success rates... or side effects making it very hard to make an informed choice.:-)
Answer: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/15/herbalife-ftc-fine-200-million-pyramid-scheme-label Not a lot of people make money selling herbalife.:-)
Quackwatch has a rating of 2.1 stars from 59 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Quackwatch most frequently mention big pharma, pharmaceutical industry and side effects. Quackwatch ranks 90th among Health Information sites.