Quackwatch.org

It seems that Quackwatch exists for the sole purpose of discrediting all forms of alternative medicine in favor of promoting Big Pharma. I like to think of Quackwatch, like many doctors, as simply drug-runners for the pharmaceutical companies. Like most drug dealers, they will stop at nothing to squash the competition - especially if the competitor product actually works and might reduce drug sales.

We are often told to think for ourselves, but understanding why one expert is right and another wrong can be out of reach for people without the required expertise or information. This website provides great information regarding the credentials of affluent pseudo-experts and the failures of theories pushed by pseudo-intellectual academic movements. I have greatly appreciated the clarity and scope of this website and highly encourage anyone who would like to be more properly informed to give it a look.

Stephen Barret IS a quack ~ an ignorant fool whose only agenda is to discredit alternative medicine at any cost with out any credible research and fatten up the Drug industry - he is a laughable idiot

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?

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!