"It's hard to take what you say seriously when you say things like this. "
You don't have to take me seriously, it's obvious you and most here don't anyway. All I am saying is that in these drug company debates everyone always points to quackwatch and snopes and says "see, you dumb person" see what is in print on the web that refutes what you say?
All I'm saying is use some other sources for your debates. Here is a piece on the quack who started quackwatch....it is illuminating...
http://www.quackpotwatch.org/
You have to click on "who are the quackbusters", and then "who is stepehn Barrett"? in order to get to this link. But here is a clip...
"Quackbusting" - is a Profitable Business...
Frankly, "quackbusting" is a profitable industry, and Stephen Barrett plays it to the hilt.
In a Canadian lawsuit (see below) Barrett admitted to the following:
"The sole purpose of the activities of Barrett & Baratz are to discredit and cause damage and harm to health care practitioners, businesses that make alternative health therapies or products available, and advocates of non-allopathic therapies and health freedom."
Stephen Barrett testifies for money. He claims he's an "expert" in virtually everything. Those "expert witness" fees seem to be a significant part of Barrett's existence.
In a California Court case, former Barrett peer, and fellow Board Member of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), William Jarvis PhD, testified, under oath, that Stephen Barrett and Robert Baratz conspired to use the NCAHF, without Board permission, as a Plaintiff in over 40 cases in California, where Barrett and Baratz were to testify as "expert witnesses," and get expert witness fees. The NCAHF Board was never consulted.
However, sometimes their plans fail.
One of those cases caused the NCAHF to be saddled with over $100,000 in legal fees awarded their victim - and the NCAHF doesn't have the money to pay that debt. In fact, the NCAHF is SO DESPERATE for funds it is being run out of a cardboard box in the back room of Robert Baratz's Braintree, Massachusetts hair removal and ear piercing salon.
Those type of cases Barrett involved the NCAHF in were considered so heinous that the people of California just passed an initiative (Proposition #64) banning this kind of lawsuit for all time.
Barrett's claim to be a Consumer Advocate is an insult to American consumers.
Organized Stupidity is the Hallmark of the Quackbuster Conspiracy...
Barrett, and his vacuous minions, like to spout off other stupid "rules" that they think should apply to health care - the application of which, has to make the scientific community shudder.
One of the other totally BRAINLESS statements Barrett, and his parrotts, like to to screech out is "It hasn't been double-blind studied!!"
The "double-blind study" is one of about 45 different kinds of scientific studies used, and approved for use, within the scientific community. It was designed for, and is usually restricted to, testing new dangerous drugs for the claims drug companies wish to make about their new laboratory produced products. Generally, in this type of study, you give half of the group the new pill, and the other half gets a sugar pill that looks just like the original. This type of study simply does not apply to new research. Never has, never will.
And worse, the "double-blind study" is considered to be heinous, and was banned by world government during the Helsinki Accord in 1964.
There's a lot more...
Barrett's Funding - TOP SECRET...
Barrett was cornered in a Federal case in the State of Oregon not long ago, and asked about his income. He testified that over the past two years he made a TOTAL of $54,000.
How then does he afford to carry on fourteen (14) separate legal actions at one time?
If each legal action cost him $100,000, that would come to 1.4 million dollars ($1,400,000).
How do you squeeze 1.4 million out of a $54,000 total income?
Good question...
Stephen Barrett - Professional Crackpot...
The Internet needs health information it can trust. Stephen Barrett doesn't provide it...
Barrett is one of those people whose ambitions and opinions of himself far exceeds his abilities. Without ANY qualifications he has set himself up as an expert in just about everything having to do with health care - and more.
And this from a man who is a professional failure.
Records show that Barrett never achieved any success in the medical profession. His claim to being a "retired Psychiatrist" is laughable. He is, in fact, a "failed Psychiatrist," and a "failed MD."
The Psychiatric profession rejected Barrett years ago, for Barrett could NOT pass the examinations necessary to become "Board Certified." Which, is no doubt why Barrett was, throughout his career, relegated to lower level "part time" positions.
Barrett, we know, was forced to give up his medical license in Pennsylvania in 1993 when his "part-time" employment at the State Mental Hospital was terminated, and he had so few (nine) private patients during his last five years of practice, that he couldn't afford the Malpractice Insurance premiums Pennsylvania requires.
In a job market in the United States, where there is a "doctor shortage," Stephen Barrett, after his termination by the State mental Hospital, couldn't find employment. He was in his mid-50s at the time. He should have been at the top of his craft - yet, apparently, he couldn't find work.
It is obvious, that, after one humiliation after another, in 1993 Barrett simply gave up his medical aspirations, turned in his MD license, and retreated, in bitterness and frustration, to his basement.
It was in that basement, where Barrett took up "quackbusting" - which, in reality, means that Barrett attacks "cutting-edge" health professionals and paradigms - those that ARE achieving success in their segment of health care.
And there, in "quackbusting" is where Barrett finally found the attention and recognition he seems to crave - for, a while, that is, until three California Judges, in a PUBLISHED Appeals Court decision, took a HARD look at Barrett's activities, and declared him "biased, and unworthy of credibility."
Bitterness against successful health professionals is Barrett's hallmark. To him they're all "quacks." In this, his essays are repetitive and pedestrian.
Barrett, in his writings, says the same things, the same way, every time - change the victim and the subject, and still you yawn your way through his offerings. It's like he's filling out a form somebody gave him...
Take an overactive self importance, couple it with glaring failure and rejection in his chosen profession, add a cup of molten hatred for those that do succeed, pop it in the oven - and out comes Stephen Barrett - self-styled "expert in everything."
Barrett, we know, along with his website, is currently named, among other things, in a racketeering (RICO) case in Federal Court in Colorado.
He's also being sued for his nefarious activities in Ontario, Canada.
Barrett, in the Canadian case, has formally admitted, according to Canadian law, to a number of situations put to him by the Plaintiff, including:
"The sole purpose of the activities of Barrett & Baratz are to discredit and cause damage and harm to health care practitioners, businesses that make alternative health therapies or products available, and advocates of non-allopathic therapies and health freedom."
"Barrett has interfered with the civil rights of numerous Americans, in his efforts to have his critics silenced."
"Barrett has strategically orchestrated the filing of legal actions in improper jurisdictions for the purpose of frustrating the victims of such lawsuits and increasing his victims costs."
"Barrett failed the exams he was required to pass to become a Board Certified Medical Doctor."
Ahayes,
quackwatch disses just about every health professional whose books made a difference in my life. Real Psychiatrists like Petter Breggins whose book Talking back to prozac helped motivate me to get off the drug. His book Toxic Psychiatry is a must read for anyone with a loved one on psyche drugs, and his web site is a great resource for families and people taking pharmaceuticals.
http://peterbreggin.org/
We have all sorts of MD's dispensing anti-depressants right now, who have not been trained in what they do, how they react, and are not properly watching patients who are taking them.
Quackwatch also disses several healing modalities I have used with great success, and the list of quack doctors are many of those whose books I read and used to get well.
Jenny
I see you have not addressed at all the alleged Snopes connection.
I prefer to use sources like JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and other medical journals, personally.
The "double-blind study" is one of about 45 different kinds of scientific studies used, and approved for use, within the scientific community. It was designed for, and is usually restricted to, testing new dangerous drugs for the claims drug companies wish to make about their new laboratory produced products. Generally, in this type of study, you give half of the group the new pill, and the other half gets a sugar pill that looks just like the original. This type of study simply does not apply to new research. Never has, never will.
This would come as a big surprise to everyone running a double-blind test right now. . .
My major objection to "alternative medicine" is that first of all its proponents typically rabidly deny any usefullness of traditional medicine at all, and secondly that there is no proof that any of these "cures" work. Sometimes they hit on something real, and this is then noticed, tested, and taken into the mainstream (like the use of artemisinin for malaria treatment).
There is also the assumption that because most of these treatments are "natural," they are safe. This is definitely naive. Only a couple of weeks ago I was reading about deaths in cancer patients due to hypercalcemia caused by multivitamins or shark cartilege supplement. If it weren't for practitioners of traditional medicine noticing these deaths and reporting on them, more cancer patients would be killing themselves "naturally."