| It isn’t surprising nowadays to find medical doctors | | | | Occult practices labeled under the New Age, |
| who combine scientific treatments with quack | | | | alternative or holistic brand, have also permitted quacks |
| nostrums like visualization, homeopathy, iridology, faith | | | | to promote unproven remedies and publicize these in |
| healing and other unproven healing methods. | | | | respectable magazines and newspapers. |
| A study made by Dr. Barrie R. Cassileth, director of | | | | Because editors and publishers are often ignorant |
| psychosocial programs at the University of | | | | about these quack devices and are usually on the |
| Pennsylvania Cancer Center showed that 60 percent | | | | lookout for anything sensational or controversial, many |
| of unorthodox practitioners were actually physicians | | | | will print these stories to boost circulation figures and |
| and 30 percent of doctors supported the use of | | | | increase advertising revenues - at the expense of the |
| alternative treatments. | | | | public. |
| "Physicians in general practice are susceptible to being | | | | To protect consumers from this growing health fraud, |
| taken in by quackery. They may be handed a packet | | | | here is a list of guidelines which can help you |
| of information, say about chelation therapy or live cell | | | | determine whether your doctor is a quack or not. |
| analysis based on articles that look like they are based | | | | These guidelines are based in part on those made by |
| on real science (but are, in fact, not)," said Dr. James A. | | | | Dr. Stephen Barrett, a psychiatrist, prizewinning author, |
| Lowell, a professor of life sciences at Pima | | | | consumer advocate and board member of the |
| Community College in Tucson, Arizona who has | | | | National Council Against Health Fraud Inc. |
| written over a hundred newspaper articles on | | | | Don’t ever make the mistake of assuming that you |
| quackery and is the president of the Arizona Council | | | | don’t need this list because you are intelligent and |
| Against Health Fraud. | | | | won’t be fooled by quacks. Many intelligent people |
| Experts say one of the reasons why quackery thrives | | | | are victims of quackery without realizing it. Many |
| in the medical profession is because it is an easy way | | | | others have been diverted from expert medical help |
| of making money. | | | | and have not lived long enough to tell others of their |
| In the 1960s, quackery cost the American public $1 | | | | misery at the hands of these charlatans. As Barrett |
| billion annually. In 1984, Americans spent $10 billion on | | | | wrote in “Health Schemes, Scams and Frauds”: |
| worthless and dangerous quack remedies. That figure | | | | “Despite Voltaire’s dictum, quackery has never |
| has reached over $20 billion, according to the late Dr. | | | | been limited to transactions between knaves and fools. |
| Victor Herbert, former professor of medicine at the | | | | Indeed, its victims come from all walks of life and |
| Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. | | | | educational backgrounds. The extent to which people |
| Quackery is also alive and well thanks largely to | | | | can be fooled should not be underestimated.” (Next: |
| unregulated newspaper, radio and television ads which | | | | How to spot quacks. |
| allow quacks to peddle their questionable wares. | | | | |