QuackwatchReviews 59

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.

I read an accusatory letter from a government agency, t o an honorable and effective herbalist i had bought items from in the past, which letter was published on the QW site. But it seems to be a fundamentally flawed accusation, just that the federal agency did not seem to know their own business and what is permitted vs what is not. The site QW did not give any further info, as to the disposition of the case- just an accusatory preliminary letter. Which may have been overruled by a judge in favor of the existing laws that the Fed agent seemed unaware of. Or maybe the Feds and who knows, maybe also QW, just try to bully and harass alternative medical professionals, in order to serve thier apparent long term masters, Big Pharma. Since the major Federal agencies including this one, seem a bit compromised and a bit captured by industries who become government insiders and then wield the agencies as weapons against competitors.
Old medical remedies DO NOT have the same labeling or ad requirements as new ones. A lot of them are "grandfathered in" without the current requirements, based on thier past of successful use by doctors of the past.
It appears that these people on QW are a bit out of date and not very knowledgeable. As are some people in federal agencies. Or else they deliberately and knowingly harass good alt medicine professionals.

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.

Quackwatch has totally FALSE information on their website. They have a webpage called Index to "Fad" Diagnoses, which claims that Chronic inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) (aka biotoxin illness, aka mycotoxin illness) is not real. I have mycotoxin illness and it is REAL. I I tested positive on VCStest.com as well as positive for Ochratoxin A on the MycoTox Profile test through Great Plains Laboratory. Finally, I have an answer to all my joint pain, muscle pain, memory loss, etc. It is very frustrating when doctors tell you that there is nothing wrong, but yet you know there is something wrong. Barrett is a former psychiatrist, and is in no way qualified to claim that Chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) (aka biotoxin illness, aka mycotoxin illness) is not real. It IS REAL. Stop spreading false information on Quackwatch.

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.

When people (Stephen Barrett) start writing articles about areas well outside their specialisation (psychology) they tend to defend the status quo and reject anything new.

The definition of madness is to:

Keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome

Quackwatch is like watching the argument for smoking all over again:

"The established paradigm is safe"
The new has not been proven and thus is bad.

It's hyper skepticism at it's worst... and gives true skeptics a bad name.

Quackwatch do use extensive referencing which is a good habit. If only the referencing was a bit more balanced?

Conflicting data often exists which Quackwatch fails to reference. Disagreements are typically resolved as the weight of data finally erodes an existing paradigm. Quackwatch shows no signs of recognising this duality and stifles valid debate rather than facilitating it.

Quackwatch censors debate, is not transparent, misrepresents dissenting points of view and dismisses anyone who disagrees with them as quacks.

The site would benefit from a comments section. Comment sections bring balance back to a discussion. Publishing reader comments forces websites to address weak points in their arguments. Reader comments give an alternative point of view which is otherwise lacking.:-)

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.

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.

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.