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70-577: A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank ) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception . One example of a charlatan appears in the Canterbury Tales story " The Pardoner's Tale ," with the Pardoner who tricks sinners into buying fake religious relics. Synonyms for charlatan include shyster , quack , or faker . Quack

140-488: A "multi-state racket where unqualified doctors conducted hundreds of illegal kidney transplants for huge profits." The president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) in 2008 criticized the central government for failing to address the problem of quackery and for not framing any laws against it. In 2017, IMA again asked for an antiquackery law with stringent action against those practicing without

210-538: A "poster child for the term 'biostitute'." Curt Linderman Sr., the editor of the Autism File blog, wrote online that it would "be nice" if Offit "was dead". Such criticism has provoked statements in Offit's defense. Peter Hotez , a professor and vaccine researcher at George Washington University , has been quoted in a Newsweek article: Offit has written or co-written several books on vaccines, vaccination and

280-589: A death threat and received protection by an armed guard during meetings at the CDC. His 2008 book Autism's False Prophets catalyzed a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the U.S. He donated the royalties from the book to the Center for Autism Research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . Offit served on the board of the American Council on Science and Health until 2015 when he resigned from

350-548: A figure of hatred to the many vaccine denialists and conspiracy theorists." Specter reported that Offit had often been threatened with violence by anti-vaccine advocates, necessitating precautions such as screening Offit's packages for mail bombs and providing guards when Offit attends federal health advisory committee meetings. At a 2008 vaccine activism rally in Washington, D.C., environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. criticized Offit's ties to drug companies, calling him

420-435: A fraud, it is not strictly necessary for one to know they are misrepresenting the benefits or risks of the services offered. Unproven, usually ineffective, and sometimes dangerous medicines and treatments have been peddled throughout human history. Theatrical performances were sometimes given to enhance the credibility of purported medicines. Grandiose claims were made for what could be humble materials indeed: for example, in

490-581: A known placebo effect . With little understanding of the causes and mechanisms of illnesses, widely marketed "cures" (as opposed to locally produced and locally used remedies), often referred to as patent medicines , first came to prominence during the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain and the British colonies, including those in North America. Daffy's Elixir and Turlington's Balsam were among

560-929: A license. As of 2024, the government of India is yet to pass an anti-quackery law. In 2014, the Government of India formed a Ministry of AYUSH that includes the seven traditional systems of healthcare. The Ministry of Ayush (expanded from Ayurveda , Yoga , Naturopathy , Unani , Siddha , Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy ), is purposed with developing education, research and propagation of indigenous alternative medicine systems in India . The ministry has faced significant criticism for funding systems that lack biological plausibility and are either untested or conclusively proven as ineffective. Quality of research has been poor, and drugs have been launched without any rigorous pharmacological studies and meaningful clinical trials on Ayurveda or other alternative healthcare systems. There

630-503: A little red wine. Radam's publicity material, particularly his books, provide an insight into the role that pseudoscience played in the development and marketing of "quack" medicines towards the end of the 19th century. Advertising claims similar to those of Radam can be found throughout the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. "Dr." Sibley, an English patent medicine seller of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, even went so far as to claim that his Reanimating Solar Tincture would, as

700-620: A mugu is a victim of a rigged game. In reported spiritual communications, a charlatan is a person who fakes evidence that a spirit is "making contact" with the medium and seekers. Notable people who have successfully debunked the claims of purported supernatural mediums include magician/scientific skeptic James Randi , Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato and magician Harry Houdini . Quackery Common elements of general quackery include questionable diagnoses using questionable diagnostic tests , as well as untested or refuted treatments, especially for serious diseases such as cancer . Quackery

770-545: A part in the professionalisation of medicine. Its efforts in the public debate helped to make the Netherlands one of the first countries with governmental drug regulation. In 1909, in an attempt to stop the sale of quack medicines, the British Medical Association published Secret Remedies, What They Cost And What They Contain . This publication was originally a series of articles published in

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840-493: Is $ 5.00! Another genius in Philadelphia, of the bogus diploma breed, who claims to have founded a new system of practice and who calls himself a "Professor," advertises two elixers of his own make, one of which is for "all male diseases" and the other for "all female diseases"! In the list of preparations which this wretch advertises for sale as the result of his own labors and discoveries, is ozone ! One among many examples

910-621: Is William Radam, a German immigrant to the US, who, in the 1880s, started to sell his "Microbe Killer" throughout the United States and, soon afterwards, in Britain and throughout the British colonies. His concoction was widely advertised as being able to "cure all diseases", and this phrase was even embossed on the glass bottles the medicine was sold in. In fact, Radam's medicine was a therapeutically useless (and in large quantities actively poisonous) dilute solution of sulfuric acid , coloured with

980-551: Is a reference to quackery or the practice of dubious medicine, including the sale of snake oil , or a person who does not have medical training who purports to provide medical services. The English word comes from French charlatan , a seller of medicines who might advertise his presence with music and an outdoor stage show. The best known of the Parisian charlatans was Tabarin , whose skits and farces – which were influenced by commedia dell'arte – inspired

1050-659: Is accepted by patients in spite of its lack of effectiveness: As technology has evolved, particularly with the advent and wide adoption of the internet, it has increasingly become a source of quackery. For example, writing in The New York Times Magazine , Virginia Heffernan criticized WebMD for biasing readers toward drugs that are sold by the site's pharmaceutical sponsors, even when they are unnecessary. She wrote that WebMD "has become permeated with pseudomedicine and subtle misinformation." Paul Offit Paul Allan Offit (born March 27, 1951)

1120-633: Is an American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases , vaccines , immunology , and virology . He is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine . Offit is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , former chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases (1992–2014), and the director of

1190-464: Is difficult to distinguish between those who knowingly promote unproven medical therapies and those who are mistaken as to their effectiveness, United States courts have ruled in defamation cases that accusing someone of quackery or calling a practitioner a quack is not equivalent to accusing that person of committing medical fraud. However, the FDA makes little distinction between the two. To be considered

1260-628: Is in the advertising quacks. The coolness and deliberation with which they announce the most glaring falsehoods are really appalling. A recent arrival in San Francisco, whose name might indicate that he had his origin in the Pontine marshes of Europe, announces himself as the "Late examining physician of the Massachusetts Infirmary, Boston." This fellow has the impudence to publish that his charge to physicians in their own cases

1330-453: Is no conclusive therapeutic effect except in back pain. Naturopathy is considered to be a form of pseudo-scientific quackery, ineffective and possibly harmful, with a plethora of ethical concerns about the very practice. Unani lacks biological plausibility and is considered to be pseudo-scientific quackery, as well. While quackery is often aimed at the aged or chronically ill, it can be aimed at all age groups, including teens, and

1400-421: Is no credible efficacy or scientific basis of any of these forms of treatment. A strong consensus prevails among the scientific community that homeopathy is a pseudo-scientific, unethical and implausible line of treatment. Ayurveda is deemed to be pseudoscientific. Much of the research on postural yoga has taken the form of preliminary studies or clinical trials of low methodological quality; there

1470-456: Is often described as "health fraud" with the salient characteristic of aggressive promotion. Psychiatrist and author Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch defines quackery as "the promotion of unsubstantiated methods that lack a scientifically plausible rationale" and more broadly as: "anything involving overpromotion in the field of health." This definition would include questionable ideas as well as questionable products and services, regardless of

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1540-555: Is the scare tactics he says proponents of alternative medicine will often use, in a 2010 podcast with the Point of Inquiry Offit stated "it is very difficult to unscare people when you scare them." Offit has said that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 should be overturned to provide proper oversight and action against supplement providers. Offit is a recipient of numerous awards, including

1610-493: The American Civil War . British medicines never regained their previous dominance in North America, and the subsequent era of mass marketing of American patent medicines is usually considered to have been a "golden age" of quackery in the United States. This was mirrored by similar growth in marketing of quack medicines elsewhere in the world. In the United States, false medicines in this era were often denoted by

1680-496: The British Medical Journal between 1904 and 1909. The publication was composed of 20 chapters, organising the work by sections according to the ailments the medicines claimed to treat. Each remedy was tested thoroughly, the preface stated: "Of the accuracy of the analytical data there can be no question; the investigation has been carried out with great care by a skilled analytical chemist." The book did lead to

1750-724: The Institute of Medicine at the group's annual meeting. In 2013 Offit was presented with the Robert B. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) for Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine . "Offit is a literal lifesaver... educates the public about the dangers of alternative medicine, may save many, many more." Michael Specter wrote that Offit "has become

1820-707: The Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, DC for his work on the oral rotavirus vaccine and his leadership in promoting immunization. In 2011 Offit was honored by the Biotechnology Industry Organization with the 2011 Biotech Humanitarian Award. Offit donated the award's $ 10,000 prize to the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Also in 2011, Offit was elected to

1890-461: The group, accusing them of crossing the line for their promotion of e-cigarettes . In 2015, Offit appeared in a vaccine awareness video created by Robert Till in which he advocated teenage vaccinations. Offit worked for 25 years on the development of a safe and effective vaccine against rotavirus , which is a cause of diarrhea , and which kills almost 600,000 children a year worldwide, about half as many as malaria kills; most deaths are outside

1960-465: The 17th century playwright Molière . The word is also similar to Spanish charlatán , an indiscreetly talkative person, a chatterbox . Etymologists trace charlatan ultimately from Italian, either from ciarlare , to chatter or prattle; or Cerretano , a resident of Cerreto , a village in Umbria , known for its quacks in the 16th century, or a mixture of both. A distinction is drawn between

2030-579: The 25 years of the development of the rotavirus vaccine . Offit decided to become a doctor, the first in his family. Offit earned his bachelor's degree from Tufts University and his M.D. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore . In 1980, he completed his residency training in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh . That year, he began a fellowship in infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. One of his mentors

2100-587: The American Medical Association Health Fraud and Alternative Medicine Collection. "Medical quackery and promotion of nostrums and worthless drugs were among the most prominent abuses that led to formal self-regulation in business and, in turn, to the creation of the Better Business Bureau ." "Quackery is the promotion of false and unproven health schemes for a profit. It is rooted in the traditions of

2170-587: The FDA has mentioned some areas where potential quackery may be a problem: breast developers, weight loss, steroids and growth hormones, tanning and tanning pills, hair removal and growth, and look-alike drugs. In 1992, the president of The National Council Against Health Fraud , William T. Jarvis, wrote in Clinical Chemistry that: The U.S. Congress determined quackery to be the most harmful consumer fraud against elderly people. Americans waste $ 27 billion annually on questionable health care, exceeding

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2240-826: The J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland Medical School, the Young Investigator Award in Vaccine Development from the Infectious Diseases Society of America , the 2013 Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health . In 2018, Offit was awarded the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal from

2310-748: The Supreme Court interpreted it to mean only that ingredients on labels had to be accurate. Language in the 1912 Sherley Amendment, meant to close this loophole, was limited to regulating claims that were false and fraudulent, creating the need to show intent. Throughout the early 20th century, the American Medical Association collected material on medical quackery, and one of their members and medical editors in particular, Arthur J. Cramp, devoted his career to criticizing such products. The AMA's Department of Investigation closed in 1975, but their only archive open to non-members remains,

2380-568: The University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine, for writing that "There [is] evidence that both real acupuncture and sham acupuncture [are] more effective than no treatment and that acupuncture can be a useful supplement to other forms of conventional therapy for low back pain." He also castigated editors and peer reviewers at the New England Journal of Medicine for allowing it to be published, since it effectively recommended deliberately misleading patients in order to achieve

2450-739: The Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . Offit is a member of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee; a board member of Every Child By Two ; a founding board member of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF); and a former member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices . Offit has published more than 130 papers in medical and scientific journals in

2520-497: The West. His interest in the disease stemmed from the death of a 9-month-old infant from rotavirus-caused dehydration while under his care as a pediatric resident in 1979. Along with his colleagues Fred Clark and Stanley Plotkin , Offit invented RotaTeq, a pentavalent rotavirus vaccine manufactured by Merck & Co. Since 2006, RotaTeq has been one of two vaccines currently used against rotavirus . In February 2006, RotaTeq

2590-434: The amount spent on biomedical research. Quackery is characterized by the promotion of false and unproven health schemes for profit and does not necessarily involve imposture, fraud, or greed. The real issues in the war against quackery are the principles, including scientific rationale, encoded into consumer protection laws, primarily the U.S. Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. More such laws are badly needed. Regulators are failing

2660-591: The appeals that quackery held out to consumers. British patent medicines lost their dominance in the United States when they were denied access to the Thirteen Colonies markets during the American Revolution , and lost further ground for the same reason during the War of 1812 . From the early 19th century "home-grown" American brands started to fill the gap, reaching their peak in the years after

2730-419: The areas of rotavirus -specific immune responses and vaccine safety, and is the author or co-author of books on vaccines, vaccination, the rejection of medicine by some religious groups, and antibiotics . He is one of the most public faces of the scientific consensus that vaccines have no association with autism . As a result, he has been the frequent target of hate mail and death threats. In 2023, he

2800-537: The buyer to return. The few effective remedies sold by quacks included emetics, laxatives and diuretics. Some ingredients did have medicinal effects: mercury , silver and arsenic compounds may have helped some infections and infestations; willow bark contains salicylic acid , chemically closely related to aspirin ; and the quinine contained in Jesuit's bark was an effective treatment for malaria and other fevers. However, knowledge of appropriate uses and dosages

2870-541: The charlatan and other kinds of confidence tricksters. The charlatan is usually a salesperson of a certain service or product, who has no personal relationship with his "marks" (customers or clients), and avoids elaborate hoaxes or roleplaying con-games. Rather, the person called a charlatan is being accused of resorting to quackery, pseudoscience , or other knowingly employed bogus means of impressing people in order to swindle victims by selling them worthless nostrums and similar goods or services that will not deliver on

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2940-412: The development of new ones. Offit advocates for the repeal of religious exemptions to vaccine requirements , saying that such exemptions amount to medical neglect . He has also written books on the instances where science generated harmful ideas ( Pandora's Lab ) and the history of religious opposition (in some groups) to modern medicine ( Bad Faith ). In 2021 Offit released You Bet Your Life , which

3010-469: The diseases for which they were sold as a remedy, did make the imbibers feel better and confusedly appreciative of the product. The number of internationally marketed quack medicines increased in the later 18th century; the majority of them originated in Britain and were exported throughout the British Empire. By 1830, British parliamentary records list over 1,300 different "proprietary medicines",

3080-571: The early 20th century. Most people with an e-mail account have experienced the marketing tactics of spamming  – in which modern forms of quackery are touted as miraculous remedies for "weight loss" and "sexual enhancement", as well as outlets for medicines of unknown quality. In 2008, the Hindustan Times reported that some officials and doctors estimated that there were more than 40,000 quacks practicing in Delhi , following outrage over

3150-510: The end of some of the quack cures, but some survived the book by several decades. For example, Beecham's Pills , which according to the British Medical Association contained in 1909 only aloes, ginger and soap, but claimed to cure 31 medical conditions, were sold until 1998. The failure of the medical establishment to stop quackery was rooted in the difficulty of defining what precisely distinguished real medicine, and in

3220-418: The expense and risk to health for recipients of alternative therapies. In 2013 he wrote the book Do you believe in Magic? – The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine . Offit states that the purpose of the book "is to take a critical look at the field of Alternative Medicine – to separate fact from myth" and that "There's only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't."(p. 6) One of Offit's concerns

3290-484: The fact. The end of the road for the quack medicines now considered grossly fraudulent in the nations of North America and Europe came in the early 20th century. 21 February 1906 saw the passage into law of the Pure Food and Drug Act in the United States. This was the result of decades of campaigning by both government departments and the medical establishment, supported by a number of publishers and journalists (one of

3360-535: The falseness of their medicine was discovered. Not all quacks were restricted to such small-time businesses however, and a number, especially in the United States, became enormously wealthy through national and international sales of their products. In 1875, the Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal complained: If Satan has ever succeeded in compressing a greater amount of concentrated mendacity into one set of human bodies above every other description, it

3430-418: The first products that used branding (e.g. using highly distinctive containers) and mass marketing to create and maintain markets. A similar process occurred in other countries of Europe around the same time, for example with the marketing of Eau de Cologne as a cure-all medicine by Johann Maria Farina and his imitators. Patent medicines often contained alcohol or opium , which, while presumably not curing

3500-462: The majority of which were "quack" cures by modern standards. A Dutch organisation that opposes quackery, Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (VtdK), was founded in 1881, making it the oldest organisation of this kind in the world. It has published its magazine Nederlands Tijdschrift tegen de Kwakzalverij ( Dutch Magazine against Quackery ) ever since. In these early years the VtdK played

3570-592: The manufacturers of new and existing products, including drugs and nutritional supplements or vitamins. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) participates in some of these efforts. To better address less regulated products, in 2000, US President Clinton signed Executive Order 13147 that created the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine . In 2002, the commission's final report made several suggestions regarding education, research, implementation, and reimbursement as ways to evaluate

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3640-535: The marketplace", with "commercialism overwhelming professionalism in the marketing of alternative medicine". Quackery is most often used to denote the peddling of the "cure-alls" described above. Quackery is an ongoing problem that can be found in any culture and in every medical tradition. Unlike other advertising mediums, rapid advancements in communication through the Internet have opened doors for an unregulated market of quack cures and marketing campaigns rivaling

3710-433: The mid-18th century, did have genuinely beneficial properties. This medicine continued to be sold under the original name into the early 20th century, and can still be found in the British and American pharmacopoeias as "Compound tincture of benzoin ". In these cases, the treatments likely lacked empirical support when they were introduced to the market, and their benefits were simply a convenient coincidence discovered after

3780-587: The mid-19th century revalenta arabica was advertised as having extraordinary restorative virtues as an empirical diet for invalids; despite its impressive name and many glowing testimonials it was in truth only ordinary lentil flour, sold to the gullible at many times the true cost. Even where no fraud was intended, quack remedies often contained no effective ingredients whatsoever. Some remedies contained substances such as opium , alcohol and honey, which would have given symptomatic relief but had no curative properties. Some would have addictive qualities to entice

3850-586: The most effective was Samuel Hopkins Adams , who wrote "The Great American Fraud" series in Collier's in 1905). This American Act was followed three years later by similar legislation in Britain and in other European nations. Between them, these laws began to remove the more outrageously dangerous contents from patent and proprietary medicines, and to force quack medicine proprietors to stop making some of their more blatantly dishonest claims. The Act, however, left advertising and claims of effectiveness unregulated as

3920-518: The name implies, "restore life in the event of sudden death". Another English quack, "Dr. Solomon" claimed that his Cordial Balm of Gilead cured almost anything, but was particularly effective against all venereal complaints, from gonorrhea to onanism . Although it was basically just brandy flavoured with herbs, the price of a bottle was a half guinea ( £sd system) in 1800, equivalent to over £38 ($ 52) in 2014. Not all patent medicines were without merit. Turlingtons Balsam of Life, first marketed in

3990-415: The promises made for them . One example of a charlatan is a 19th-century medicine show operator, who has long since left town by the time the people who bought his "snake oil" or similarly named "cure-all" tonic realize that it was a scam. A misdirection by a charlatan is a confuddle, a dropper is a leader of a group of conmen, and hangmen are conmen that present false checks. A gaff means to trick or con and

4060-447: The public by enforcing laws inadequately, applying double standards, and accrediting pseudomedicine. Non-scientific health care (e.g., acupuncture, ayurvedic medicine, chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy) is licensed by individual states. Practitioners use unscientific practices and deception on a public who, lacking complex health-care knowledge, must rely upon the trustworthiness of providers. Quackery not only harms people, it undermines

4130-598: The public, and antibiotics, as well as dozens of scholarly articles on the topic. Isabelle Rapin , a neurology professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine , wrote in Neurology Today about Autism's False Prophets : In "The Cutter Incident" ( see Cutter Laboratories incident ), Offit describes fallout relating to an early poliovirus vaccine tragedy that had the effect of deterring production of already licensed vaccines and discouraging

4200-525: The risk of getting smallpox in the U.S. at the time. In December 2013, Sarah Erush and Offit declared the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has a moratorium on the use of dietary supplements without certain manufacturers' guarantee for quality. Offit defines alternative medicine as quackery when it involves unappreciated harm and replacement of conventional therapies that work, with alternative therapies that do not. His books and articles warn against

4270-487: The risks and benefits of each. As a direct result, more public dollars have been allocated for research into some of these methods. Individuals and non-governmental agencies are active in attempts to expose quackery. According to John C. Norcross et al. less is consensus about ineffective "compared to effective procedures" but identifying both "pseudoscientific, unvalidated, or 'quack' psychotherapies" and "assessment measures of questionable validity on psycho-metric grounds"

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4340-416: The scientific enterprise and should be actively opposed by every scientist. For those in the practice of any medicine, to allege quackery is to level a serious objection to a particular form of practice. Most developed countries have a governmental agency, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, whose purpose is to monitor and regulate the safety of medications as well as the claims made by

4410-519: The sincerity of their promoters. In line with this definition, the word "fraud" would be reserved only for situations in which deliberate deception is involved. In addition to the ethical problems of promising benefits that are not likely to occur, quackery might cause people to forego treatments that are more likely to help them, in favor of ineffective treatments given by the "quack". American pediatrician Paul Offit has proposed four ways in which alternative medicine "becomes quackery": Since it

4480-447: The slang term snake oil , a reference to sales pitches for the false medicines that claimed exotic ingredients provided the supposed benefits. Those who sold them were called "snake oil salesmen", and usually sold their medicines with a fervent pitch similar to a fire and brimstone religious sermon. They often accompanied other theatrical and entertainment productions that traveled as a road show from town to town , leaving quickly before

4550-434: Was Maurice Hilleman , who developed many of the major vaccines in use today. In 1990, Offit married Bonnie Fass-Offit, who is also a pediatrician. They had two children. By 2008 Offit had become a leading advocate of childhood immunizations . He was opposed by vaccine critics, many of whom believe vaccines cause autism , a belief that has been rejected by major medical journals and professional societies. He received

4620-454: Was approved for inclusion in the recommended U.S. vaccination schedule , following its approval by the FDA. Premarketing studies found that RotaTeq was effective and safe, with an incidence of adverse events comparable to placebo . RotaTeq has been credited (by Peter Hotez ) with saving hundreds of lives a day. Offit received an unspecified sum of money for his interest in RotaTeq. Offit

4690-408: Was elected a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry , in 2015. In 2002, during a period of fears about bioterrorism , Offit was the only member of the CDC's advisory panel to vote against a program to give smallpox vaccine to tens of thousands of Americans. He later argued on 60 Minutes II and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that the risk of harm for people getting the vaccine outweighed

4760-612: Was elected to the American Philosophical Society . Offit grew up in Baltimore, the son of a shirtmaker. He went to his father's sales meetings and reacted negatively to the tall tales told by salespeople, instead preferring the clean and straightforward practice of science. When he was five years old, he was sent to a polio ward to recover from clubfoot surgery; this experience caused him to see children as vulnerable and helpless, and motivated him through

4830-428: Was limited. The evidence-based medicine community has criticized the infiltration of alternative medicine into mainstream academic medicine, education, and publications, accusing institutions of "diverting research time, money, and other resources from more fruitful lines of investigation in order to pursue a theory that has no basis in biology." For example, David Gorski criticized Brian M. Berman , founder of

4900-440: Was pursued by various authors. The evidence-based practice (EBP) movement in mental health emphasizes the consensus in psychology that psychological practice should rely on empirical research. There are also "anti-quackery" websites, such as Quackwatch , that help consumers evaluate claims. Quackwatch's information is relevant to both consumers and medical professionals. There have been several suggested reasons why quackery

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