Health Fraud

Health fraud falls into two broad classes – telling people lies that may kill them or someone else, and stealing from people by selling bogus medicines. The sites listed here provide useful information in the battle against quackery and for people just wanting to find out more about how real medicine works. (A list of sites offering suspect or fraudulent medical advice, products and services can be found at The Millenium Project.)

Articles and other comments in The Millenium Project relevant to health fraud and quackery.

• A brief history of some science
• A Placebo Can relieve A Skeptic's Pain
• A very profitable trick
• Anatomy of a quack
• Anti-quackery Committee
• Are all placebos equal?
• Argumentum ad whateverum
• Better get a lawyer son
• Blackmore's and the Pharmacy Guild – a marriage made in Hell
• Bogus Challenges
• Burzynski gets audited
• CAM or SCAM?
• Cancer 100 Challenge
• Checking the facts (AS)
• Checking the facts (Y)
• Chiropractic – quackery to the core
• Citation Cold Case
• Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon (AS)
• Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon. (DR)
• CRA vs Iridology
• Damaging autism paper retracted
• Dangerous Practitioners – Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Debating the undebatable
• Devastation in Haiti
• Do Be a Dick
• Don't hold your breath waiting for change
• Don't let straw men give you hay fever.
• Dr Andrew Wakefield
• Dr Sandra Trademark
• Drug interactions
• Faith healer? Fraud!
• Fighting the Medi-scams
• Foxes and henhouses
• Free speech breaks out in Anti-vax Land?
• Get together and do it again.
• Getting risk wrong (I)
• Getting yourself hated
• Hold the front page! More clickbait coming.
• Homeopathy – all the idiocy that fits
• Homeopathy – How can honest people sell this rubbish?
• Homeopathy – so diluted there's no evidence left.
• Homeopathy – unbelievable nonsense
• Homeopathy watered down?
• How many people do those doctors kill?
• How many unicorns does it take to match a draught horse's weight?
• How not to do science – Everyone retracts except Dr Wakefield
• How time flies.
• How to attack freedom of speech.
• If it's too good to be true …
• Ignorance is Strength
• I'm a celebrity. What do you want to hear?
• Irregular regulation
• Is that a cart or a barrow that horse is pushing?
• It can't hurt you. It's natural.
• James Randi: An Honest Liar
• Keep the eyes on the Prize.
• Keeping your skepticism out of court (AS)
• Keeping your skepticism out of court (SC)
• Let's be balanced!
• "Limited only by the laws of physics"
• Magic wands (AS)
• Magic wands (Y)
• Milks ain't milk
• Misremembering the past
• Mobile phones are frying our brains.
• Multiple Chemical Stupidity?
• Nocebo – whatever doesn't kill you might.
• Obituary – Stephen Jay Gould
• Of meridians and mice
• Organic food. What's in it for me?
• Pan Pharmaceuticals – if it ducks like a quack
• Pasteur's Last Words
• Peer review – Close enough is better than nothing.
• Philosophy and Science
• Polypharmacy
• Professor Boyd Haley
• Progress? We don't need no stinking progress.
• Put the Lyme in the quackonut
• Quackery
• Quackery Down Under
• Stem promises give way to abuses
• Still Deluded After All These Years
• Sweet simple things of life
• Take your pet duck to the quack
• Targeting the susceptible
• The 90th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle
• The Best Research Money Can Buy
• The Bloated Truth About Gluten
• The Dietary Supplement Experiment Begins
• The mass media does its job. Not.
• The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
• The Myth of "The Myth of Mental Illness" (AS)
• The Myth of "The Myth of Mental Illness" (S)
• The outer limits of woowoo
• The Precautionary Principle
• The Ragtag Posse of Snake-oil Vigilantes
• The times they are a changin'
• The Woo Review
• Theatre of the absurd
• Then it came for me
• Things change. Get used to it.
• Three Dead Children
• Tim O'Ranter – Patrick Timothy Bolen
• Transcript of the murder of Candace Newmaker
• Treating the symptoms
• True Believers
• Truth and Fiction
• Universities. What are they for?
• Watch out, doctors, the quacks are after your patients!
• We live in fearful times.
• What is a PhD worth?
• What science isn't.
• What you see might not be what you get
• When religion and medicine disagree
• Who has the backbone to stop this?
• Will your smart meter make you less smart?
• World Homeopathy Awareness Week
• You could just die laughing

Some articles by other people.

• Beware the spinal trap – Simon Singh
• DTP Vaccination or SBS?: The Role of Irresponsible Medical Expert Testimony in Creating a False Causal Connection – David L. Chadwick and Rob Parrish
• Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions – Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Homo Neanderthalensis – H.L. Mencken
• Mannatech Using Disputed Study to Boost Sales of Its Products – David Evans
• Shaken Baby Syndrome – Pamela Rowse RN
• The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing – Andy Lewis
• The Liver Cleansing Diet – Dr Joe Proietto
• The Median Isn't the Message – Stephen Jay Gould
• The WHO and homeopathy – World Health Organization
• When Judges Play Doctor – Paul Offit

books about Health Fraud.

• Alternative Healthcare : A Comprehensive Guide by Jack Raso and Stephen Barrett (Editor).
• Attachment Therapy on Trial : The Torture and Death of Candace Newmaker by Jean Mercer, Larry Sarner and Linda Rosa
• Autism's False Prophets : Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure by Paul A. Offit
• Bad Medicine : Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Distance Healing to Vitamin O by Christopher Wanjek
• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
• The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize by Peter Doherty
• The Best Australian Science Writing 2011 by Stephen Pincock (ed.)
• Blind Faith by Ben Elton
• Bullshit! Season 1 DVD by Penn & Teller
• Bullshit! Season 2 DVD by Penn & Teller
• Bullshit! Season 3 DVD by Penn & Teller
• Bullshit! Season 4 DVD by Penn & Teller
• Chemical Sensitivity : The Truth About Environmental Illness by Stephen Barrett and Ronald E. Gots
• Chiropractic : The Victim's Perspective by George Magner
• Chiropractic the greatest hoax of the Century? by L. A. Chotkowski
• Christian Science by Mark Twain
• A Consumers Guide to Alternative Medicine by Kurt Butler and Stephen Barrett (Editor)
• Consumer's Guide to Alternative Therapies for the Horse by David Ramey
• Denying AIDS by Seth Kalichman
• The Dose Makes the Poison : A Plain-Language Guide to Toxicology by Alice Ottoboni
• Facts Versus Fears : A Review of the Greatest Unfounded Health Scares of Recent Times by Adam J. Lieberman and Simona C. Kwon
• The Faith Healers by James Randi
• Fear of Food : Environmentalist Scams, Media Mendacity, and the Law of Disparagement by Andrea Arnold
• The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy : The Rise and Fall of Christian Science by Martin Gardner
• The Health Robbers : A Close Look at Quackery in America by Stephen Barrett
• I'm No Quack : A Book of Doctor Cartoons by Danny Shanahan
• Inside Chiropractic : A Patient's Guide by Samuel Homola and Stephen Barrett (Editor)
• Integrating Complementary Medicine in Primary Care: A Practical Guide for Healthcare Professionals by David Peters (Editor), Leon Chaitow, Gerry Harris and Sue Morrison
• Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini
• Mystical Diets: Paranormal, Spiritual, and Occult Nutrition Practices by Jack Raso and Stephen Barrett (Editor)
• The Naked Chiropractor Insider's Guide to Combating Quackery and Winning the War Against Pain by Preston H. Long
• Panic in the Pantry : Facts & Fallacies About the Food You Buy by Elizabeth Whelan and Fredrick Stare
• Pseudodoxia Epidemica : Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenentes, and Commonly Presumed Truths by Thomas Browne
• Sandra Schmirler : The Queen of Curling. by Perry Lefko and Shannon England
• Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations by John Diamond
• Spin Doctors: The Chiropractic Industry Under Examination by Paul Benedetti and Wayne Macphail
• Suckers : How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All by Rose Shapiro
• Superstition : Belief in the Age of Science by Robert Park
• Therapeutic Touch by Bela Scheiber and Carla Selby
• Things I Think About - Volume 1 by Peter Bowditch
• Things I Think About - Volume 2 by Peter Bowditch
• Trick Or Treatment? : Alternative Medicine On Trial by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst
• Tyler's Honest Herbal : A Sensible Guide to the Use of Herbs and Related Remedies by Steven Foster and Varro E. Tyler
• Vitamin Politics by John J. Fried and Stephen J. Barrett (Editor)
• The Vitamin Pushers by Stephen Barrett

Books with reviews:

• The Cancer Cure That Worked! by Barry Lynes
• How to Poison Your Spouse the Natural Way by Jay Mann

Books relating to other categories can be found here.

My state government has set up a committee to look at medical quackery. You can see some of the reactions here.

There are sites listed in this category. Please click here for a listing with brief descriptions of the entries.