Let's Take A Closer Look

What Is a Quack?

1. The noise a duck makes.
2. An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment.
3. A person who pretends to have skill, knowledge, qualification, or credentials they do not possess.
4. A person who deceives others to trick them out of money.
5. A charlatan, fake, fraud, impostor, mountebank, seller of snake oil.
6. An ignorant, misinformed, or dishonest practitioner.
7. All the above.

Let’s deal with the duck noise first

To quack is to make the harsh, flat, croaking cry of a duck, like this.

Why are some doctors called quacks?

The Dutch word kwakzalver (hawker of salve) was used in the 17th century to describe people who sold salves, balms, and medicinal ointments in the marketplace. So many of those peddlers were selling fake potions as ‘miracle cures’ that the word soon evolved to mean a crook.

What is quackery?

It is the deliberate promotion of fraudulent medicines and medical practices. Some studies suggest that the more educated the person, the more likely they are to fall for some form of quackery. Quacks prey on people’s belief that everything that claims to be natural or organic is good.

According to Consumer Reports, six out of ten Americans look for the ‘natural’ label before buying a product, inspite of the fact that ‘natural’  is one of the most widely used, most deceptive labels, because basically it means nothing.

Did you read the May 1, 2023 article, A Closer Look at Bamboo?

If you did, you already know that any fabric claiming to be made from bamboo is not a natural fabic. If you’re buying bamboo sheets or clothing because you think they’re made from natural bamboo fibers, you’ve been bamboozled, a word Sarah Zhang coined in her article How I Got Bamboo-zled by Baby Clothes.

Why do people seek quack therapies?

When people who are dying of a dreadful disease and all legitimate forms of treatment no longer work, some are terrified enough to try anything. Actor Steve McQueen smoked two packs a day and was dying of lung cancer. In desperation, he tried pancreatic enzymes, 50 daily vitamins and minerals, massages, prayer sessions, psychotherapy, coffee enemas, and injections of live cells from sheep and cattle fetuses. He died in spite of these ‘cures’ at the age of 50.

Poisonous gas cure

Another choice of those in despair is to pay to stay inside decommissioned gold, silver, and uranium mines. They inhale radon gas and drink radon water because they believe radon helps the human body heal itself in spite of the face that radiation levels in mines are more than 100 times higher than the EPA safety standard for houses.

Cancer Quackery: The Persistent Popularity of Useless, Irrational ‘Alternative’ Treatments 

That’s the title of an article that appeared in the Journal ONCOLOGY. In it the author discussed the history of cancer quackery and provided an overview of cancer therapies that have never been proved, and some that have even been scientifically disproved.

If you think the COVID-19 vaccine makes you magnetic and infertile, causes autism, rewrites your DNA, or has a microchip in it so the government can track you, then you are a denier or conspiracy theorist who is unlikely to believe anything in this article — so stop here or proceed at your own risk.

Laetril was made from extracts of peach pits that release cyanide when metabolized

To get around the stigma of being exposed as a worthless medicine that benefitted only those who sold it, it was (and still is) sold as amygdalin and vitamin B17. By the way, vitamin B17 is not an actual vitamin but pretends to be one to trick the gullible and naïve. After 20 years of studies and clinical trials, “vitamin” B17 was found to have no anticancer effects and was banned by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Alternate therapies are medical treatments that are used instead of mainstream therapies administered by physicians

One problem with these ‘alternate therapies’ is that they have rarely if ever been subject to scientific testing. The author of Cancer Quackery says that “The promotion of unproven or disproved cancer ‘treatments’ instead of mainstream therapy is quackery.”

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Here are a few of today’s unproven cancer treatments

Essiac is a treatment sold in pill and liquid form. It is also known as Flor-Essence, a play on florescence, meaning the process of flowering. Essiac has been peddled as a cancer cure for nearly 100 years, without a single shred of clinical evidence that it is a safe and effective cure. The name Essiac was chosen by a nurse named Ren Caisse because it spelled her name backwards.

Entelev was deveoped by a chemist who had a dream that it cured cancer. Thinking himself divinely chosen, he said his remedy balanced the vibrational energy of cancer cells, causing them to kill themselves. He claimed that his chemical also cured HIV/AIDS, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease. Finding no scientific basis for any of his claims, the FDA made it illegal to distribute CanCell (its new name) across state lines.

Oxygen therapies are an entire group of unproven ‘cures’ for cancer and HIV/AIDS. Some of these therapies administer oxygen in pill and liquid form, while others inject patients with ozone-treated blood and — get this — by giving patients a series of hydrogen peroxide enemas.

The author devotes an entire section to healers, what she labels “The most egregious contemporary cancer quackery”

Invisible auras are claimed to surround us. The premise is that these ‘energy fields’ around the human body can be manipulated to treat diseases. One technique is therapeutic touch, an odd term because it involves no touching. Therapeutic touch is a technique where ‘healers’ pass their hands several inches above the patients’ bodies to sweep away invisible forces that block the free flow of patients’ ‘energy fields.’ Another procedure is manipulation of those energy fields by electromagnetic energy provided by an array of special devices. Not only is there no scientific evidence that manipulating energy fields to cure diseases works, there is no such evidence that such ‘energy fields’ even exist.

Energy healers commonly refer to themselves as miracle workers who heal cancer and other diseases with no side effects. They also claim to be able to perform their energy healing remotely.

Electrical devices claim to diagnose and treat cancer and other diseases by the use of electrical currents and electromagnetic oscillations. The author says these modern technological ‘therapies’ often use pseudoscientific language to make themselves seem scientific when they are anything but.

The Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface System claims to balance the body’s ‘bio-energetic forces.’ There is no scientific evidence that such forces exist, therefore, no scientific evidence that they can be manipulated. The inventor fled the United States after being indicted for fraud, but still sells his ‘cure’ internationally. The FDA has banned the device but it is still used by ‘healers.’

Physicians stress the importance of cancer patients keeping positive attitudes

Meditation and biofeedback have been shown to promote relaxation by reducing stress and are a useful adjunct to modern medicine, but never a substitute. Quacks selling mind/body therapies claim that stress causes cancer and eliminating stress eliminates cancer and other serious illnesses. These claims are also unsupported.

The author offers her reflections in these closing paragraphs

“Some quacks are true charlatans, while others are believers in what they preach. Both, however, promote unproven or disproved alternative therapies as ‘cures’ for disease. Desperate patients and their loved ones — especially when facing serious or untreatable illness — are inclined to believe in miracles.”

Even with those unproven therapies that do no harm, people too often choose to shun conventional treatment entirely and replace it with alternative treatments that do nothing to diminish their disease.”

There’s a sucker born every minute

This famous quote is attributed to P.T. Barnum, who did not originate it. Early examples came from gamblers, tricksters, and con men who used it to describe customers who are easy to deceive and so gullible, they’ll buy anything.

Bonus

“Until the people themselves are better educated concerning the danger and iniquity of quackery, they must be protected from the forces that prey. The popular understanding of these matters is becoming better every day, and, aided by proper laws, the time will come, perhaps, when quackery will be unprofitable.”  -From a 1912 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Thanks for stopping by

If you agree that market research standards and practices have gone to hell in a handbasket, take a look at another one of the things I do over at davidallanvan.com.