Read more about scientific research into homeopathy

View the video interview HERE:

Homeopathy was officially adopted in Cuba in 1992, and it is now integrated across the whole island.

See:  Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control. Bracho G, Varela E, Fernández R, et al. Homeopathy 2010; 99: 156–166.

‘Homeopathy is the medicine for the people… and the main solution for developing countries… a low risk, low cost solution… and the only solution for difficult situations where no conventional medicine solutions are possible or available.’

Read more about scientific research into homeopathy

Video Information

An exclusive interview by Carol Boyce with Dr. Gustavo Bracho about the place of homeopathy in the Cuban health system, his work into methods of epidemic prevention at the prestigious Finlay Institute and the potential of homeopathy to address the challenge of epidemics in the developing world.

Dr. Gustavo Bracho kindly agreed to give us this exclusive interview at the first Homeopathy in the Developing World conference in The Netherlands in 2009, after presentation of his team’s work into prevention of the annual epidemic of Leptospirosis in Cuba.

With thanks to Tony Pinkus at Ainsworth’s Pharmacy 4.8.2009:

Exciting research from Cuba by Tony Pinkus BPharm MRPharmS LFHom (Tony Pinkus can be contacted at TonyPinkus@ainsworths.com)

Tony Pinkus is Joint MD of Ainsworth’s Pharmacy with his partner and fellow director, Carole Gregory Pinkus, with whom he personally prepares the essences for Ainsworth’s Pharmacy Bach Flower Remedies.

Together they visited Cuba to give a presentation on Homeoprophylaxis for cattle and sheep and discovered the research for this article. Tony has been a homeopathic pharmacist at Ainsworth’s Pharmacy since 1983 and continues the time-honoured tradition of providing individual hand-prepared potencies as well as those prepared on a unique potentiser he designed for ultra-high potencies.

An unprecedented research study has been conducted in Cuba on the homeopathic prevention of Leptospirosis in 2.4 million people following the seasonal occurrence of this disease after tropical flooding caused by hurricanes.

An 80% reduction in the incidence of Leptospirosis was recorded in the three most affected eastern seaboard provinces by comparison with the incidence in their three less affected neighbouring provinces after two years use of the nosode. In the affected provinces only ten cases were reported instead of the typical several thousand cases of Leptospirosis.

On 10-12 December 2008 at the ‘Nosodes 2008’ conference in Havana (Cuba) the director-general of the Finlay Institute, an advocate of homeopathy herself, Dr. Concepcion Campa Huergo, opened the session and her director of research, Dr. Gustavo Bracho, gave a presentation about controlling the local epidemic disease of Leptospirosis by using a Leptospira nosode alongside conventional vaccination.

Leptospirosis is an infectious disease caused by the spirochaete Leptospira transmitted to humans from rats, especially in flooded areas. In humans it may cause a wide range of symptoms including high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, vomiting, jaundice, red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, or a rash. If untreated the patient could develop kidney damage, meningitis, liver failure, and respiratory distress.

Cuba succumbs to a yearly epidemic of Leptospirosis, especially after the hurricanes flood the countryside and water pollution reaches its height each autumn. Many people are left homeless, flooded out and suffering from stress following the seasonal hurricanes. In 2008 two of hurricanes hit Cuba within ten days of each other, the population having little time to recover from the first before the next struck land.

A part of the Ministry of Public Health, the Finlay Institute is the Cuban research institute. It has WHO qualified facilities, produces allopathic vaccinations and acts as supporting institution for research, production and development of high quality homeopathic products.

Since Cuba is still subject to a 50 year US embargo, the Cubans, impoverished as they are, have become self-sufficient in the production of medicines and health care programs. Since they had a vested interest to benefit the population they were able to conduct the Leptospirosis project on a massive scale unknown in the history of homeopathy.

In October/November 2007, three provinces of the eastern region of Cuba were affected by strong rainfalls causing widespread flooding and infrastructure damage to sanitary, power and health systems. The risk of Leptospirosis infection reached extremely dangerous levels with about two million people exposed to potentially contaminated water.

The Finlay Institute has been manufacturing a multivalent Leptospirosis vaccine since 1998 but is hampered by the inability to successfully produce sufficient doses to protect all the population at risk. It takes the best part of a year to produce and distribute two million doses of vaccine, sufficient for only 773,000 at-risk patients in the most affected eastern provinces. The Finlay Institute was thus continually hitting a brick wall in its aim to offer protection to the remaining population in the flooded areas.

Dr. Concepcion Campa Huergo decided on the pragmatic approach of providing the rest of the at-risk population with a homeopathic version of Finlay Institute’s own vaccine. In addition, she provided a Bach Flower remedy for stress. (The original Bach Flower combination put in the first year, 2007, was equivalent to Rescue Remedy. The 2008 combination was slightly enhanced and was similar to Ainsworth’s Pharmacy‘s Emergency Spray formula I believe).

The Finlay Institute therefore prepared a Leptospira nosode 200c using the four circulating strains and following international quality standards. A multidisciplinary team travelled to the affected regions to conduct the massive administration of the nosode.

Coordinated action with public health system infrastructures allowed the administration of a preventive treatment consisting of two doses of the nosode (7-9 days apart) to about 2.4 million people (4.8 million doses). The coverage of the intervention rose up to 95% percent of total population of the three provinces at risk. Another dose, at a higher potency (10M), was given after the hurricane Ike hit the island in 2008; again with the accompanying Bach Flower combination for stress.

The epidemiology surveillance after the intervention showed a dramatic decrease of morbidity two weeks after, and a reduction to zero mortality of hospitalised patients. The number of confirmed Leptospirosis cases remained at low levels and below the expected levels in accordance with the trends and rain regimens that had been calculated and predicted by the Finlay Institute for a decade. The usual expectancy of infection, even with allopathic vaccination, would have been around a few thousand, with some deaths included.

The cost of the Leptospirosis project was US$200,000, whereas the costs of ‘normal’ vaccination, only for the most at-risk populations – i.e. children, pregnant women, and the elderly – is about US$3,000,000.

What is remarkable is their ability to deliver this solution so effectively and successfully, and conduct research on such a large population, with credible scientific verification. Now we have a really exciting situation. Five million doses of the nosode were manufactured within one week at a fraction of the cost of making the vaccine.

Because it can be made more quickly and cheaply (as the Finlay Institute discovered), does not require a fridge (unlike the vaccine), can be given without a nurse or doctor to a large number of people quickly and efficiently, including to patients under 15yrs (unlike the vaccine) it represents a huge boon to third world countries seeking an alternative to expensive drug treatment and prophylaxis of a wide range of diseases. Moreover, the adaptation to variant strains that normally limit the efficacy of a vaccine are easily overcome with a homeopathic nosode.

Under the influence of Dr. Concepcion Campa Huergo, the Cubans have demonstrated both the efficacy and the economic expediency of homeopathy in the prevention of an epidemic. This experience could be extended to other diseases and other countries.

The Finlay Institute is offering their facilities and specialists to spread this alternative to all regions needing emergent alternatives for epidemic control and prevention.

Wikipedia is guilty of a nasty bias in many of its articles?

How?

Why?

Read on and despair!

Wikipedia was such a good idea but it turns out to be just another propaganda machine for vested interests, dubious no necks and big business!

Click here to read The Weird World of Wikipedia
By Martin J. Walker

With this in mind, most people dealing with this issue, attempt to mitigate the problem by understanding that all knowledge is `situated‘ knowledge, and that all judgments come from a particular standpoint. This means that it is understood that no one can claim to be 100% ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’, and that there are always power struggles involved when someone claims to be `objective` (especially whilst engaging in partisan behaviour).

Angela Kennedy & Jane Bryant, The One Click Group to Jimmy Wales. 17 November 2005.

http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/ME-CFS_docs/More%20Wikipedia%20On%20Wessely.doc

One Click seems to me to be a bunch of paranoid zealots. And I  will state again that before I tried to tone down the shit they put on the Wessely page I had never heard of them or Simon Wessely.

Just Z  G, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 15:46, 19 December 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Simon_Wessely

Through the late Eighties into the early Nineties, Martin J. Walker worked as an investigator for lawyers in criminal and civil cases and with defendants – with and without lawyers. In the late 1980s he co-founded Hackney Community Defense Association (HCDA), a group which worked on the defense of people assaulted, fitted up and wrongfully arrested by the police in north east London . See earlier blog on Martin J Walker where he exposes Ben Goldacre and Dirty Medicine.

Len Horowitz and Sherri Kane report on secret CIA and FBI counter intelligence operations to disrupt internet websites criticising governments as well as on the role of Wikipedia in these “black ops” – there is no smoke without fire.

Read about the battle over homeopathy on Wikipedia

Read about Citizendium’s challenge to biased Wikipedia

Helena, who is a fan of homeopathy, would have liked to have had a natural birth with son Billy but when it was all and said and done, the pain won out.

Actress Helena Bonham Carter, 41, is currently seven months pregnant with her second child by director Tim Burton, 49. The couple, who have a four-year-old son Billy-Ray, knew that they wanted more children but didn’t know the struggle that awaited them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqmeB6GB25Q

Note: the information contained in this video is extremely shocking!

Gwen Olsen has recorded several other videos too

After years of secrecy on the matter, confirmation has finally come to light that Guardian ‘Bad Science’ journalist Ben Goldacre is the son of Oxford professor of public health  Michael  J Goldacre (HERE).

Prof Goldacre has been director since 1986 of the UK Department Health funded Unit of Healthcare Epidemiology (HERE).  The family relationship is mentioned in a review of Goldacre junior’s Bad Science book in the peer-review journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival (25, p.255-7, 2009)by Dr Ian Fairlie, but there has been a long term lack of candour about the matter.

Read Martin J Walker Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism – against Ben Goldacre

Read more about Evan Harris and his dark dealings

Read about Edzard Ernst Exposed

Read about Quackbusters and what’s in it for them!

While the reasons for the secrecy remain unknown it is possible that if the relationship, which has never before been mentioned in the mainstream media or scientific publications, had been common knowledge it might have raised questions about the independence of the younger Goldacre’s views.

Goldacre senior was a co-author of a study of the effects of GlaxoSmithKline’s notorious Urabe strain version of MMR, Pluserix, after it was suddenly withdrawn from public use in 1992 (HERE): the Unit has produced several MMR related studies.

Ben Goldacre’s column which started in 2003 has featured his largely epidemiological approach to health issues, most prominently MMR and autism. Coming apparently from nowhere, journalistically speaking, he was promoted to the role of an “opinion leader” from the outset. His early article MMR: Never mind the facts won the accolade of the GlaxoSmithKline sponsored Association of British Science Writers’ award for the best feature article of 2003.

The article, however, used flawed epidemiology for which he later offered no defence (HERE), as well as including an anonymous attack on Andrew Wakefield by one of Wakefield’s colleagues. This was just the first of several notable interventions Ben Goldacre in the MMR affair. A stock-in-trade has been his generalised attacks on parents of MMR damaged children. His Bad Science blogsite for a long time offered this intimidatory advice to would-be contributors:

“..personal anecdotes about your MMR tragedy will be deleted for your own safety”
(HERE)

A fundamental of Ben Goldacre’s journalistic method is the ad hominem and he always talks across opponents: he can always depend on the greater prominence of his published views and he never answers the many awkward criticisms.

The Goldacre dynasty seem to be one of several with on-going connections with the MMR affair:

• *Dr Evan Harris, the former MP, who accompanied Brian Deer to make accusations against Andrew Wakefield and colleagues, and led a debate under privilege in the House of Commons making further allegations of unethical practices (HERE) is the son of paediatrician Prof Frank Harris who sat on the Committee on Safety in Medicines and the adverse reactions to vaccine committee ARVI in the early 1990s when Pluserix MMR vaccine had to be withdrawn (HERE) , (HERE) , (HERE).
• *Paul Nuki, the Sunday Times features editor, who hired journalist Brian Deer to investigate Andrew Wakefield with the statement “I need something big” on “MMR” ( HERE) was the son of Prof George Nuki who was on the Committee on Safety of Medicines when MMR and Pluserix were introduced in the late 1980s.
• *The Davis brothers Sir Crispin and Sir Nigel. Sir Crispin was CEO of Reed Elsevier, publishers of the Lancet, when Lancet editor Richard Horton denounced Andrew Wakefield to the BBC but was also a non-executive director of MMR defendants GlaxoSmithKline, and Sir Nigel was the High Court judge who upheld the Legal Services Commission to withhold funding from the MMR case a week later without disclosing a family connection to the case (HERE). Sir Crispin gave evidence against Andrew Wakefield to a Commons committee as CEO of Reed Elsevier, cross-examined by Evan Harris, in which he neither disclosed his GSK directorship or his brother’s judicial involvement in the case (HERE).
• * In 2009 James Murdoch CEO of News International, publishers of the Sunday Times joined the board of GSK, with a responsibility to “review external issues that might have the potential for serious impact upon the group’s business and reputation” (HERE). This was immediately followed by renewed “overkill” type attacks in Times newspapers on Andrew Wakefield by Brian Deer and others.

For several years Ben Goldacre kept his distance from the Deer allegations against Wakefield, preferring to use the epidemiological literature to combat and deride concern about MMR and autism. In another ABSW award winning article Don’t dumb me down sponsored by Syngenta he wrote:

“people periodically come up to me and say, isn’t it funny how that Wakefield MMR paper turned out to be Bad Science after all? And I say: no. The paper always was and still remains a perfectly good small case series report, but it was systematically misrepresented as being more than that, by media that are incapable of interpreting and reporting scientific data.”
(HERE)

Remarkably, Evan Harris – who originally made the allegations about scientific fraud against Wakefield and colleagues under privilege in a House of Commons debate in March 2004  – was on the panel of judges that made the award (HERE).

Indeed, Goldacre was right: the claims were convoluted and tenuous. When the GMC finally brought in its verdict against the three doctors in January 2010 it managed to find them guilty both of conducting the Legal Aid Board protocol in the Lancet study and guilty of not conducting it at the same time. Since the Lancet paper was as Goldacre had stated a ‘a perfectly good small case series report’ and “ an early report” as paper itself stated, Wakefield and colleagues were found with remarkable ingenuity to be in innumerable respects in breach of the terms of the protocol which they had reasonably pleaded they were not doing.

By this stage, however, Goldacre had “dumbed” himself “down” and welcomed the verdict (HERE). In retrospect this looks like nothing so much as an elaborate ploy in which the medical and political establishment were giving themselves a policy in case the GMC failed to bring in a guilty verdict. If this had happened the polemical position evolved by Ben Goldacre over seven years, based on dodgy epidemiology, might have provided the main defence for MMR.

There have been a number of other key moments when Ben Goldacre has intervened in the MMR debate. In 2005 Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, alone in the journalistic profession, correctly spied the weakness in the newly published Cochrane review of MMR (HERE). While this had been successfully spun to give the impression MMR was safe, the real findings were that after sifting 5000 related studies and reviewing the 31 best the evidence base for MMR safety was “largely inadequate”, while individually several of the autism studies had come in for scathing criticism, and none of them was strong (HERE). Goldacre berated Phillips for knowing nothing about science, but the reality was that she was the only journalist who had taken the trouble to read the small print and dared to say the emperor had no clothes. There is no doubt in this attack that ad hominem prevailed over substantive discussion of the science (HERE). There is a dangerous message here from Goldacre of ‘leave it to the scientists’, but scientists are human, subject to institutional bullying and manipulation: many will not speak up against the powerful interests, or they speak, as did Cochrane, “with forked tongue”.  Goldacre’s attack on Phillips sounded plausible, but the problem with the literature that Cochrane reviewed was not that the science was “imperfect” as Goldacre put it, it was that it was mostly no good whatsoever. And hiding behind a few weasel statements Cochrane had said just that.

In 2007 Goldacre led an attack via the Guardian on its sister newspaper the Observer contributing to the dismissal of its editor, Roger Alton. The Observer had published ahead of the GMC hearing against Drs Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch an account of a study which showed the autism rate amongst Cambridgeshire schoolchildren to be running at 1 in 58. One of the authors concerned about the seriousness of the situation and delays in publication had leaked an early version of the paper to the newspaper. The story was denied by lead author Simon Baron-Cohen, ridiculed by Goldacre, and the Rwanda massacre denying director of Science Media Centre, Fiona Fox, organised an institutional hanging party against the newspaper. Then, a few months later, when the furore had died down, the article had been removed, the Observer editor sacked, Baron-Cohen gave a presentation at the London IMFAR conference, which showed that story had been  correct all along (HERE) .

It has been a lamentable feature of Ben Goldacre’s contribution to the public discussion of science in the UK that he has everywhere generated an atmosphere of intolerance in support of his views, and rather than raise the tone of the debate it has encouraged a new kind of scientific infantilism, in which you deride your opponents and defer to authority. The ruthlessness of this power was demonstrated when LBC radio journalist Jeni Barnett questioned the heavy-hand of the MMR lobby. She could not have been proved more right when the station was inundated by protests from Goldacre’s website, LBC removed the broadcast from its website, and Goldacre arranged for Liberal-Democrat Members of Parliament to organise a motion censuring Barnett: the second signatory inevitably being Evan Harris (HERE , HERE).

A recent development in Ben Goldacre’s career has been the projection of himself as an arbiter of research ethics. It remains hard to judge the sincerity of his position. While he has recently attacked GSK over the diabetes drug Avandia  (HERE) this is only after many years of controversy surrounding the product and with the US Food and Drugs Administration about to take action. Only last year he led a hostile campaign against Express journalist, Lucy Johnston, for her reporting of GSK’s HPV vaccine Cervarix. (HERE). Yet the long term efficacy of the product is still to be demonstrated, and to attack concerns about safety is to prejudice the issue in relation to those who suffer adverse effects. Goldacre’s angry denunciation is an essence no better than a public relations agenda (on behalf of whom?), and can only prejudice the science. Johnston, on the other hand, was just trying to report.

There is not a little irony in the doctor-journalist who sells ‘MMR is Safe’ T-shirts, mugs and baby-bibs from his website (HERE ) calling for an end to scientific spin (HERE). Did Cochrane say that? No, Cochrane said “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing is largely inadequate” HERE, which is quite different. The calculation apparently would appear to be that we are by now all too stupid or too intimidated to call his bluff.

I agree with Ben Goldacre, we need an end to spin and he can start at home: we not only need to know what we are being told, we also need to know why. And we can do with an end to the totalitarian tactics.

John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism. 4.8.10

Quackbusters Are Busted!

Though they seem to have more lives than a cat, it seems likely that Quackbusters will be down for the count.

by Heidi Stevenson 25 July 2010

Amidst the morass of fallacious attacks by mainstream medicine on honest alternative approaches to health, now and then there’s a glitter of good news. It’s a breath of fresh air to announce that the self-styled Quackbusters, headed by a self-styled psychiatrist who failed his exam and was never accepted into the profession, has fallen to one of its targeted victims.

On 25 June, the tables were turned on Stephen Barrett. The Doctor’s Data Laboratory, which does laboratory testing on issues of heavy metal, nutritional deficiencies, liver toxification, metabolic abnormalities, and environmentally-caused diseases sued Barrett for what, after getting through the legaleze, amounts to defamation of character, libel, conspiracy, and intentionally attempting to destroy their business.

The suit asks for $5 million in damages and another $15 million in punitive damages, plus injunctions to prevent Barrett from ever attempting to destroy their business in the future. Barrett has initiated many frivolous lawsuits against alternative practitioners, causing enormous trauma and expense to his victims, is currently out of cash. The last time Barrett was sued for libel, he relied on his homeowners insurance to defend him. That source of legal defense money appears not to be available to him now.

Barrett had until 12 July to file a response to the Federal lawsuit filed by Doctor’s Data Lab. He never responded.

The corporation Barrett presided over, Quackwatch, which seems to have been the recipient of mysterious funding through most of its history, is now unable provide a defense. Aside from its websites, Quackwatch now appears to be defunct.

Stephen Barrett, Lead Quackbuster

Stephen Barrett is a retired psychiatrist and hires himself out as an “expert” to testify against non-mainstream medical practitioners. He is a retired psychiatrist, though he was never certified because he didn’t pass the board examinations. In America, once licensed as a physician, it’s legal to practice any type of medicine desired. Simply take a look at the storefront self-styled plastic surgeons doing liposuction and other plastic surgery.

Barrett was terminated from a part time position by the Pennsylvania State Mental Hospital in 1993 and, in a profession that has supposedly been very short staffed for more than two decades, he was unable to find work. He turned his medical license in and retreated—some say to his basement.

Please understand that I would never make fun of someone’s misfortunes in normal circumstances. In Barrett’s case, though, an exception needs to be made. He has done enormous harm to anyone who advocates or practices non-mainstream medicine. He has hired himself out as an expert to testify against such practitioners, and he has been the mouthpiece for Big Pharma’s attack on anything that isn’t manufactured and sold by them.

Barrett’s Machinations for Self-Enrichment

Barrett and Wallace Sampson MD were involved in Quackbusters’ sister organization, National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF). Through it, they sought to enrich themselves by suing 43 different alternative health practitioners and suppliers, claiming that their products and methods didn’t work. By some magical thinking, they expected their victims to make restitution by paying penalties to NCAHF. The first case was against King Bio, a supplier of homeopathic remedies.

The judge in the case raked them over the coals.⁽²⁾ The court ruled:

• Neither Barrett nor Sampson was qualified to act as expert witnesses in the case.
• No evidence documenting the claims against King Bio was offered. The case was intended to be based on nothing more than the testimony of the two self-styled experts.
• Most damning was the court’s finding that both Barrett and Sampson were tainted because they stood to gain financially if they’d won. Here is the relevant portion of the court’s statement:
  

  Both witnesses’ fees, as Dr. Barrett testified, are paid from a fund established by Plaintiff NCAHF from the proceeds of suits such as the case at bar. Based on this fact alone, the Court may infer that Dr. Barrett and Sampson are more likely to receive fees for testifying on behalf of NCAHF in future cases if the Plaintiff prevails in the instant action and thereby wins funds to enrich the litigation fund described by Dr. Barrett. It is apparent, therefore, that both men have a direct, personal financial interest in the outcome of this litigation…In light of these affiliations and their orientation, it can fairly be said that Drs. Barrett and Sampson are themselves the client, and therefore their testimony should be accorded little, if any, credibility on that basis as well. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, the California Supreme Court found that Barrett and Sampson were using the court system to operate a self-enrichment scam! Barrett and his partner in crime, Sampson, were attempting to enrich themselves by destroying the reputations and livelihoods of alternative healthcare practitioners.

Barrett’s Own Admissions of His Actions

In Canada, Barrett admitted to claims made by a plaintiff⁽³⁾ that:

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.Stephen Barrett founded and has been the figurehead of Quackbusters since its inception. What more should anyone require to acknowledge Quackbusters’ lack of their authenticity?

Where Has Barrett’s—and Quackbusters’—Funding Come From?

Barrett has launched at least 14 expensive legal actions at a single time, cases that can be assumed to cost at least $100,000 each to pursue. In the Federal Court in Oregon, he was forced to respond to questions about his income.

In two years’ time, Barrett had made a total of $54,000.

Where did Barrett get the money to pursue so many cases? Thus far, no one seems to have found the hard proof, but it’s obvious that the backing for his nefarious machinations has been Big Pharma and Big Medicine, which seek to drive any and all competition out of business and make them illegal.

Quackbusters Keep Coming Back from the Dead

In 1976, the American Medical Association (AMA) failed in its attempts to destroy chiropractic in America. A Federal court ruled that the AMA had carried out a covert operation against chiropractors, and that they must cease in those activities.

The files of information that the AMA had collected somehow found their way into Stephen Barrett’s basement.

Quackbusters’ Websites

Quackbusters quickly set up a series of interlinked websites and mastered the art of getting first-page listings on Google. These sites include NCAHF, Quackwatch, Acupuncturewatch, Allergywatch, Autismwatch, Bioethicswatch, Cancer Treatment Watch, Casewatch, Chelationwatch, Chirobase, Credentialwatch, Dentalwatch, Device Watch, Diet Scam Watch, Homeowatch, Infomercialwatch, Internet Health Pilot, Mental Health Watch, MLMwatch, Naturowatch, NCCAMwatch, Nutriwatch, Pharmwatch, and Quackwatch.

Each of these sites is set up on an identical layout with exactly the same image on the main page. They consist primarily of text lifted from other sources, mainly sites like government agencies. There is precious little original material. Most of the sites appear not to be updated or updated only rarely. They were created largely by reproducing articles published elsewhere. These sites have a life of their own. Once created, they simply sit there as their notoriety grows—and deluded people read them in the belief that they offer legitimate information.

Quackbusters’ Lack of Accountability

The Quackbusters sites all beg for money from the public, but only general claims about where the money goes are offered. No accounting of money has ever been provided to the public. Barrett claims on his Quackwatch site⁽⁴⁾, “My viewpoints are not for hire.” As already documented above, that claim is demonstrably false. Someone has been paying the cost of funding his activities. Although Quackbusters have been highly successful in ruining the lives of several non-mainstream medical practitioners, it has rarely, if ever, been the result of successful legal prosecutions. Rather, it has been done through the act of filing frivolous lawsuits and creating a media frenzy around them. Doing this costs money—lots of it.

The practitioners themselves have not been the only ones directly harmed by Quackbusters. Insurance companies have pounced on claims made in lawsuits to avoid paying for legitimate claims. Thus, patients have also been made to suffer at the altar of Barrett’s greed.

In 2004, Cavitat Medical Technologies, sued Aetna insurance company and named Quackwatch, along with Stephen Barrett, for “disseminating and publishing information regarding what it purports to be ‘health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies.”⁽⁵⁾ The basis of the lawsuit is that Aetna took advantage of Quackwatch’s misinformation campaign to avoid paying legitimate medical claims. It’s a RICO racketeering claim.

In 2006, after trying several Motions to Dismiss and deposing Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen as a “hostile witness”, Aetna apparently realized that the company would not prevail against Cavitat—that reliance on Quackbusters had been their undoing. So, Aetna settled with Cavitat in a secret agreement. Their concern with being accused of racketeering with, as Bolen described the Quackbusters, “a group of lowlifes” likely influenced their willingness to make a deal. Bolen described the deposition like this:⁽⁶⁾

As the deposition progressed, Aetna attorneys left the room more and more. Their questions became more and more strident, as the realization set in with them that their whole defense in the Federal case was based on NONSENSE – and the false information, and suggestions, provided by Barrett and Baratz. And, it became obvious, from their body language, that they knew they were in trouble – and that the actual trial was going to begin June 12th, 2006 with famous California litigator Carlos F. Negrete bringing the Plaintiff’s case to the jury.You’d have thought that Quackbusters would fade away after that. But they appear to have nine lives. They just keep coming back. In their lifetime, they’ve spawned equivalent organizations in the UK, including the similarly-named HealthWatch, which originally called itself the Campaign Against Health Fraud (CAHF). This group has had more success, having been front and center in the Wellcome (now called GlaxoSmithKline) battle to eliminate all HIV drug competitors with their infamous product, AZT.⁽⁷⁾ They were largely successful in that endeavor. They have utilized the press to harrass and destroy several good and dedicated alternative health practitioners.

So, although Quackbusters have been busted, Stephen Barrett shows no indication that he is planning to quit. It does, though, appear that his secret funding source has dropped him. One can only hope.

Perhaps more people will wake to the truth and toss Quackbusters on their ear, along with any medical professionals who associate with them. As Tim Bolen wrote, people may be waking up to realize that, “You mean my mother didn’t have to die that horribly, or even die at all?”

Then again, what’s happening may be that Big Pharma and Big Medicine have their claws so deep into the regulatory system that they no longer need Quackbusters. It’s obvious that they own the FDA and USDA. Is that why Quackbusters hasn’t been able to launch a defense against The Doctor’s Data Library? Have they been deserted by their sponsors, in favor of more effective tools?

Whatever the reason for Quackbusters’ inability to defend itself, I wouldn’t write them off. They’ve returned from the dead too many times to write them off yet.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/93936

“The research and marketing of pharmaceuticals is controlled by a small number of huge corporations which spend millions marketing their products and influencing clinical decisions. In the same way that debates over climate change are distorted by the millions paid by oil and coal corporations to “sceptics,” the science of health care is shaped by self-interested multinationals. With their monopoly profits, big pharma can spend money manipulating the media and public opinion including the rubbishing of alternatives”.

http://www.hydrogen2oxygen.net/tag/homeopathy/

“Pseudo skeptics differ from the scientific well educated skeptics. They identify themselves with a certain kind of skeptic community that questions really everything. Their behavior is sarcastic, underbred and childish. This kind of skepticism is a state of illness and has nothing to do with real scientific thinking”.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have shown the stimulating effect of Helicobacter pylori on the gene expression of heparin-binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF) using the gastric epithelial cell line KATO-III.

Strychnos Nux vomica (Nux vomica) and Calendula officinalis are used in highly diluted form in homeopathic medicine to treat patients suffering from gastritis and gastric ulcers.

Read more about scientific research into homeopathy

AIM AND METHOD: To investigate the influence of Nux vomica and Calendula officinalis on HB-EGF-like growth factor gene expression in KATO-III cells under the stimulation of H. pylori strain N6 using real-time PCR with and without addition of Nux vomica and Calendula officinalis as a 10c or 12c potency.

RESULTS: Baseline expression and stimulation were similar to previous experiments, addition of Nux vomica 10c and Calendula officinalis 10c in a 43% ethanolic solution led to a significant reduction of H. pylori induced increase in gene expression of HB-EGF (reduced to 53.12+/-0.95% and 75.32+/-1.16% vs. control; p<0.05), respectively.

Nux vomica 12c reduced HB-EGF gene expression even in dilutions beyond Avogadro’s number (55.77+/-1.09%; p<0.05). Nux vomica 12c in a 21.5% ethanol showed a smaller effect (71.80+/-3.91%, p<0.05).

This effect was only be observed when the drugs were primarily prepared in ethanol, not in aqueous solutions. The data suggest that both drugs prepared in ethanolic solution are potent inhibitors of H. pylori induced gene expression.

INTRODUCTION: Homeopathy is a popular form of complementary and alternative medicine and is used to treat for certain liver ailments.

AIM: To analyze the efficacy of homeopathic Chelidonium majus (Chel) 30C and 200C in amelioration of experimentally induced hepato-toxicity in rats.

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METHODS: Rats were randomized into six sub-groups: negative control; negative control+EtOH; positive control; positive control+EtOH group; Chel 30; Chel 200. Rats were sacrificed at day 30, 60, 90 and 120; various toxicity biomarkers and pathological parameters were evaluated.

Gelatin zymography for determination of metalloproteinases activity and Western blot of p53 and Bcl-2 proteins were also employed. All analyses were observer blind.

RESULTS: Chronic feeding of p-dimethyl amino azo benzene (p-DAB) and phenobarbital (PB) elevated the levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), triglyceride, cholesterol, creatinine and bilirubin and lowered the levels of glutathione (GSH), glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD), catalase and HDL-cholesterol.

There were statistically significant modulations of these parameters in the treated animals, compared to positive controls. In both treated groups, there was downregulation of metalloproteinases, p53 and Bcl-2 proteins compared to over-expression in the positive control groups.

CONCLUSION: Both the potencies of Chel exhibited anti-tumor and anti-oxidative stress potential against artificially induced hepatic tumors and hepato-toxicity in rats. More studies are warranted.