Quackwatch is a network of people based in the United States founded by Stephen Barrett, which aims to "combat fraud, myths, modes, errors, and health-related errors" and focus on "quackery related information difficult or impossible to get elsewhere ". Since 1996, he has operated an alternative drug regulatory website quackwatch.org , which advises people on alternative drugs that are not proven or ineffective. This site contains articles and other information that criticize different forms of alternative medicine.
Quackwatch cites peer-reviewed journal articles and has received several awards. This site has been developed with the help of a network of volunteers and expert advisors around the world. It has received positive recognition and recommendations from mainstream organizations and sources. It has been recognized in the media, citing quackwatch.org as a handy source for online consumer information. The success of Quackwatch has resulted in the creation of additional affiliate websites; in 2013 there are 21 of them.
Video Quackwatch
History
Barrett founded the Lehigh Valley Against Health Fraud Committee (LVCAHF) in 1969, and was founded in the state of Pennsylvania in 1970. In 1996, the company started the quackwatch.org website, and the organization itself renamed Quackwatch, Ã, Inc. in 1997. Pennsylvania's nonprofit company was dissolved after Barrett moved to North Carolina in 2008, but network activity continued. Quackwatch is closely affiliated with the National Council's Fraud on Health (NCAHF), which is a co-founder.
Maps Quackwatch
Mission and scope
Quackwatch is overseen by Barrett, the owner, with input from volunteer advisors and assistance, including a number of medical professionals. In 2003, 150 scientific and technical advisors: 67 medical advisors, 12 dental advisers, 13 mental health advisors, 16 nutrition and food science advisers, 3 podiatry advisers, 8 veterinary advisers, and 33 other "scientific and technical advisors" Quackwatch. Since then, many have volunteered, but the advisory name is no longer listed. This site has recruited volunteers to report on various health practice topics in question. Many credible professionals have agreed to be involved on the site in their area of ​​expertise.
Quackwatch describes its mission as follows:
... investigating the claims in question, answering questions about products and services, advising shaman victims, distributing reliable publications, dismantling pseudoscientific claims, reporting illegal marketing, improving the quality of health information on the internet, helping or making consumer protection demands, and attacking misleading advertisements on the internet.
Quackwatch states that there are no paid employees, and the total operating cost of all Quackwatch sites is about $ 7,000 per year. It is funded primarily by small individual donations, commissions from sales on other sites they refer, profit from sale of publications, and own funding by Barrett. The reveals also came from the use of sponsored links. This site focuses on combating fraud, myths, modes, and errors related to health, which are hard to find elsewhere.
Site content
The Quackwatch website contains essays and white papers, written by Barrett and other authors, aimed at non-specialist consumers. The articles discuss healthcare products, care, companies and providers that Quackwatch deems misleading, deceptive, and/or ineffective. Also includes links to article resources and internal and external resources for further study.
This site is highly critical of dubious, dubious and/or dangerous products, services and theories, including:
The website also criticizes some practices, such as calorie restrictions and Ornish Dean programs, as they are considered too difficult for many to follow, not because they are ineffective; It also opposes resveratrol, which is considered to have inadequate research support.
Websites provide information about specific people who do, market, and advocate for dubious therapies, including in many cases details of beliefs for past marketing fraud. He keeps a list of sources, individuals, and groups that are considered questionable and not recommended. The list includes two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling (who claims about mega doses of vitamin C criticized), National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and integrative drug supporter Andrew Weil.
Related sites and subsidiaries
The Quackwatch site is part of a network of related sites, including Homeowatch (in homeopathy), Credential Watch (dedicated to exposing the title factory), Chirobase (specifically chiropractic), and MLM Watch (compiled as a skeptical guide for multi-level marketing), respectively -mases are devoted to a particular topic. The Quackwatch.org article is reviewed by an on-demand advisor. The site was developed with the help of a network of volunteers and expert advisors around the world. Many of his articles cite peer reviewed research and are fully accounted for with some links to references. Site search engines help pick up certain articles. Reviews in Run & amp; FitNews states that the site "also provides links to hundreds of trusted health sites." Naturowatch is a Quackwatch subsidiary site that aims to provide information about naturopathy that is "difficult or impossible to find elsewhere", and thus serves as a skeptical guide to the topic. The site is operated by Barrett and Kimball C. Atwood IV, an anesthesiologist with a profession, who has been a vocal critic of alternative medicine.
The site is available in French and Portuguese, and earlier in German, as well as through several mirrors, including www.quack-watch.org and www.quackwatch.com.
Influence
Some sources mention Stephen Barrett Quackwatch as a useful resource for consumer information including web site reviews, government agencies, journals including articles in The Lancet and several libraries.
Mention in media, reviews and journals
Quackwatch has been mentioned in the media, reviews and various journals, and received several awards and honors. It is consistently hailed as the primary source for filtering medical information on the web. In 1998, Quackwatch was recognized by the Journal of the American Medical Association as one of nine "preferred sites that provide reliable information and health resources." It is also listed as one of three medical sites in the US. News & amp; World Report's "Best of the Web" in 1999. A website review by Forbes magazine states:
Dr. Stephen Barrett, a psychiatrist, seeks to expose unproven medical care and possible unsafe practices through his homegrown but well-organized site. Most attack alternative medicines, homeopathy and chiropractors, the tone here can be rather harsh. However, the list of sources of health advice to avoid, including books, doctors and organizations, is great for the uninformed. Barrett received the Special Citation Award of the FDA Commission to combat the shamanship of nutrition in 1984. BEST: Frequently updated, but also relevant article archive that dates back at least four years. THE WORST: A list of selected doctors and organizations without explaining the reason for the election.
Quotes by journalist
Quackwatch has also been quoted or mentioned by reporters in the report on therapeutic touches, baldness of Vitamin O, Almon Glenn Braswell, dietary supplement, coral reef claims Robert Barefoot, stem cell therapy William C. Rader, noni juice, shark cartilage, and infomercial. The site's opinion on the US government report on complementary medicine is mentioned in news reports in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute . The sources that mention quackwatch.org as a resource for consumer information include the US Department of Agriculture, The American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, The Lancet, The Journal of Marketing Education , Australian Medical Journal , Journal of the American Diet Association, US Department of Health & amp; Human Services, U.S. National Health Institute, Dictionary Skeptics , and Diet Channels. Library websites throughout the United States, including links to Quackwatch as a source for consumer information. In addition, some nutrition associations are connected to Quackwatch. An article at PC World listed it as one of three websites to discover the truth about internet rumors, and WebMD listed it as one of eight organizations to be contacted with questions about a product. In a review of the Washington Post about the alternative medical website, the introduction rated Quackwatch as offering "a better truth than the Food and Drug Administration or the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine".
American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society lists Quackwatch as one of ten leading sources of information on alternative and complementary therapies in his book Cancer Medicine , and lists it in the source list for information on alternative and complementary therapies in an article. about cancer online information and support. In a long series of articles on various alternative medical methods, he uses Quackwatch as a reference and includes a critique of methods.
Health On the Net Foundation (HONcode)
The Health On the Net Foundation, which delivers the HONcode "Code of Conduct" certification to a trusted source of health information in cyberspace, directly recommends Quackwatch, and has stated about Quackwatch:
On the positive side, "four websites stand out" from the rest for exemplary quality of information and care: quackwatch.org, ebandolier.com, cis.nci.nih.gov and rosenthal.hs.columbia.edu. Three sites, quackwatch.org, rosenthal.hs.columbia.edu/and cis.nci.nih.gov are coded HONcode by Health On the Net Foundation.
Their website also uses Quackwatch extensively as a recommended source for health-related topics. It also advises internet users to remind Quackwatch:
If you find a health care Web site you believe may or may be fraudulent and does NOT display HONcode, please notify Quackwatch. Of course, if the site does NOT display HONcode, please let us know.
The gold standard in the 2007 eligibility study
In a 2007 feasibility study of methods for identifying web pages that make unproven claims, the authors wrote:
Our gold standard relies on an unproven cancer treatment identified by experts at http://www.quackwatch.org. This website is managed by a 36-year-old nonprofit organization whose mission is to "combat fraud, myths, modes, errors, and health-related errors." The group employs 152 scientific and technical advisory boards consisting of academic and personal physicians, dentists, mental health advisors, registered dietitians, podiatrists, veterinarians and other experts who review health-related claims. By using unproven care identified by monitoring organizations, we take advantage of high-quality reviews that exist.
Site review
The Good Web Guide says Quackwatch "is undoubtedly an important and useful source of information and injects a healthy dose of skepticism into reviewing popular health information". Cunningham and Marcason in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association described Quackwatch as "useful", while Wallace and Kimball, in the Medical Journal of Australia, described the site as "objective." " The Rough Guide To The Internet write" do not buy anything until you search it at Quackwatch , a great place to separate documents from ducks. "
Ned Vankevitch, professor of communications at Trinity Western University, puts Barrett in an anti-quackery historical tradition, embracing such figures as Morris Fishbein and Abraham Flexner, who have been part of American medical culture since the early twentieth century. Acknowledging that "the exposure of hazardous and deceptive health products Quackwatch is an important social and ethical response to fraud and exploitation," Vankevitch criticized Barrett for trying to limit "medical diversity", using "degrading terminology", categorizing all complementary and alternative medicine as a species of hucksterism medical, failing to condemn deficiencies in conventional biomedicine, and to promote an exclusive model of medical and health scientism that serves hegemonic interests and does not fully address the needs of patients.
Donna Ladd, a reporter with The Village Voice, said Barrett relies heavily on negative research where alternative therapies prove to be malfunctioning. Barrett told Ladd that most positive case studies are unreliable. Barrett said that "many things do not need to be tested [because] they do not make sense."
Waltraud Ernst, professor of medical history at Oxford Brookes University, commenting on Vankevitch's observations, agrees that efforts to oversee the "medical cyber market with a view to preventing fraudulent and potentially harmful practices may be justified." He praised "Barrett's concern for unproven promotions and hype," and stated that "Barrett's concern for fraudulent and potentially dangerous medical practices is important," but he sees Barrett using "antique terms like 'dukun'" as part of " dichotomising discourse that aims to discredit "'ancient', 'traditional', 'simple' and heterodox by contrasting them with 'modern', 'scientific' and orthodox." Ernst also interprets Barrett's attempt to "reject and label as 'quackery' and any approach that is not part of science-based science "as one that minimizes the patient's role in the healing process and goes against the medical pluralism.
A review paper in Annals of Oncology identifies Quackwatch as an excellent source of complementary medical information for cancer patients.
Helen Pilcher writes for Nature News believers "Up to 55% of the 600 million Internet users collect medical information from it.Patients with life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer, often use the web for alternative therapies, but with more of the half million sites offering advice, the quality of the information varies greatly. "Edzard Ernst says," A good website exists, and the vast majority of those tested provide useful and reliable information.Two sites, Quackwatch and Bandolier , stands out for the quality of information they provide.
The Handbook of Nutrition and Food describes "Maintaining adequate nutrition is important for the general health of cancer patients, as is the case with all patients, and diet plays a role in preventing certain cancers.However, no diet or diet supplement products has been shown to improve the outcome of established cancers Full information on questionable cancer methods is now available on the Quackwatch website ".
Steven L. Brown stated "Dr. Stephen Barrett's website www.quackwatch.com provides excellent, detailed, well researched, and documented information on alternative therapies that have been disputed."
Journalist John MacDonald, writing for the Khaleej Times, called Quackwatch "sounds the reason for everything from the efficacy of alternative treatments to the validity of suggestions from the best-selling diet guru, and the various forms of medical shamanism done on gullible consumers".
Internet Directory 2009 suggests that "Have you ever read a health article or asked for advice from a friend that sounds too good to be true? Then check on Quackwatch before you spend any money or risk on your health to try it out. Here you will find a skeptical friend to help you solve what is true of what is not when it concerns your physical well-being. "
The Chronic Pain For Dummies book says "While there are many reliable sources on the Internet, including those we listed in this chapter, unfortunately, too many sites offer only false and/or outdated information, and many are hoaxes which is really designed to sell empty promises Make sure you collect information only from reliable resources Two good sites to check for possible hoaxes are www.quackwatch.org and http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org. "
The Arthritis Helpbook articulated that "A good source of information on questionable care is Quackwatch.org, a non-profit company whose goal is to combat fraud, myths and health-related errors (www.quackwatch.org ) They also have other sites accessible from Quackwatch. "
Katherine Chauncey, at Low-Carb Dieting for Dummies , writes "The main purpose of Quackwatch (www.quackwatch.org) is to combat fraud, myth, fashion, and health mistakes. be struck hard developed by Stephen Barrett, MD Not only information related to targeted quackery, but individual shamans are named You will find information here that you will not find anywhere else One purpose of this site is to improve the quality of information in The Internet Just reviewing this site will show you how to recognize information that may come from a dubious source. "
Writing in the trade journal The Consultant Pharmacist , the Bao-Anh Nguyen-Khoa pharmacist characterizes Quackwatch as "relevant to consumers and professionals". Nguyen-Khoa noted two Quackwatch articles of interest to pharmacist consultants - "Sell Dubious Products" about pharmacists who store and recommend alternative products that doubt they have poor knowledge but continue to keep it because of higher profit margins, and "Compounding Abuse "about some pharmacies that combine commercially available products from bulk in lieu of available recipes because the ingredients may be cheaper. Nguyen-Khoa said that "the site seeks to cross-reference keywords with other articles and relate their citations to Medline's abstract from the National Library of Medicine." This site has received praise from leading reviewers and rating agencies. In 1999, steps were taken to improve the existence of so many articles written by Barrett who left one with a sense of fair lack of balance in a curse-writer of many dubious health therapies, as many prominent professionals have signed to fill sites in the field of expertise they. Nguyen-Khoa states that the implementation of the peer review process will increase the legitimacy of the site, which is a logical transition to a site that uses much of the accepted medical literature as its foundation. The success of Quackwatch has resulted in other related sites. According to The Consultant Pharmacist , Barrett often "puts his strong opinion directly into sections of articles already supported by the literature.Although entertaining, these direct comments can be seen by some as less than professional medical writing, and probably better reserved for its own part. "
Dr. Thomas R. Eng, director of the Health and Humane Department of Health's Department of Health on Interactive Communication and Health stated in 1999 that when "the government does not support Web sites",... "[Quackwatch] is the only site I know now see fraud and health problems on the Internet. "
Organizations are often challenged by supporters and practitioners of various forms of alternative medicine criticized on the website.
See also
- Consumer protection
- Evidence based medicine
- Medical ethics
- Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine
- Scientific suspicion
- List of topics that are characterized as pseudoscience
References
Further reading
- Paranormal Claims: Critical Analysis , 2007, edited by Bryan Farha, US Press University, ISBN 978-0-7618-3772-5. Three of the eighteen chapters are reprints of Quackwatch articles.
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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