Alternative Medicine also has its Abundance of Unethical Sharks, Charlatans and Quacks - Reprint

Nutrition Health Review, Wntr, 2001 by William Jr. Renaurd

Also, in fairness to many products that have been condemned by the medical profession as "quackery," some have come to be accepted by medical science. The science of herbology is an outstanding example of such cynicism. Today, such organizations as the National Institutes of Health are pursuing botanicals with fervor. It is believed that medications of the future will rely heavily upon these discoveries.

The seeker of health and well-being will have to assume the burden of an inquiring mind, depend less upon headline news and the implorings of the dispensers of wild claims, and spend more time and energy in personal investigation. The enemy may be everywhere.

Quackery and Advertising

Fear of losing good advertisers is one of the more common reasons why worthless medicines and gadgets and treatment methods get free publicity, and why you don't see honest medical rebuttals printed or aired as often as could be wished.

A physician and professor at Northwestern University's School of Medicine, for example, is writing a book--on a new, drug-free approach to headache treatment that he has developed and studiously tested. In this book he offers evidence that many common over-the-counter headache remedies are potentially hazardous. Will he ever get to publicize the book by appearing on a TV talk show? Will any major magazine print a pre-publication excerpt?

"No TV station is going to let me stand up and advise people not to take pills for headaches," he says. "Nor will any of the big newsstand magazines. They all get ... income from pill companies."

Misleading sales tactics are used not only to promote products with ineffective ingredients; they are also used to sell products with effective ones. Aspirin is a prime example. In plain form, it is a drug to combat fever and relieve aches, pains and malaise (general poor feeling). More than 100 products, which contain aspirin as their principal ingredient, are being marketed. To convince people to buy their particular product--which invariably costs more than plain aspirin--manufacturers add other ingredients ... and make a variety of misleading suggestions.

From: The Health Robbers

Edited by Stephen Barrett, M.D., George F. Stickley Company