Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Support Group

I highly recommend that you don't go to this website as this is what I found out about it.

“There are governmental agencies that also have propaganda specialists, and you will find a lot of their Web sites out there to support opposing views. For example, the Web site Quackwatch has been connected to and received funding from the AMA, FTC, and FDA. Mr. Barrett, who runs Quackwatch focuses on *debunking* alternative and natural health care, being sure to always side with modern medical views.”
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/s...

This website is run by a Dr. Barrett a retired psychiatrist who receives funding form the AMA, FTC, and FDA. It is paid propaganda. The AMA has a financial interest in not allowing alternative medicine into mainstream medicine by squashing any promising new alternative therapies. Incidentally a Quackwatcher’ suit was tossed from court so this makes this website a not so credible source of information. http://www.chiroeco.com/news/2005/...

We need to wake up and figure out that the FDA does not work for the best interest of Americans but they do work for the best interests of corporations. Big pharma will continue to poison us as long as we let them. This is my opinion. Think of all the drugs that have recently caused death that have had the FDA approval. As long as big pharma can make billions they don’t care about people dying and becoming disabled. Again this is my opinion.

Consider this example of how the FDA works to stop good medicine.

I have a 30% chance of developing ovarian cancer and an 82% chance of developing breast cancer. In 2002 when I was told I had this mutation that caused breast and ovarian cancer I started to do a lot of research on cancer as I was being told to get a bi-lateral mastectomy and an oophorectomy. I was seriously considering their recommendation when I found some information on proteomics and a most promising test called OvaCheck developed by the company that has a patent for this test and was developed jointly by some doctors at the NIH. This is a non-invasive test that requires a drop of blood and was 100% accurate in clinical trials. Not only will this technology work testing and catching ovarian cancer in its earliest stages but it will work for other cancers as well including a test already available for prostate cancer. This technology will revolutionize diagnostics as we know it today. Imagine if you catch many cancers early what would happen to the pharmaceutical companies that make chemotherapy drugs and all the needless biopsies that could be avoided. Imagine all the different screening tests that would be eliminated as this technology proves to be as effective as I believe it will be. So why I ask myself are the NIH and FDA not allowing this technology to be approved after five years? Why is it that drugs that are toxic and are known to cause liver damage and death approved so quickly when this non-invasive ovarian screening test is stalled with the FDA who decided to regulate this test; something they don’t normally do for screening tests. Well given how honest we know the FDA to be I did a little research and found out that the founder of the company Correlogic http://www.correlogic.com/index.php has testified before Congress on some conflicts of interest with the NIH. If inclined, you may read the testimony on their website. From my understanding it is now being held up by our very own FDA. Most informed citizens now know that the FDA does not represent the best interest of the American people but the best interests of the corporations that contribute to their personal wealth. This is my opinion.

In conclusion I highly recommend you don’t believe anything you read on Quackwatch as it is biased in support of expensive, toxic drugs that sometimes do not work and cause damage. This is also my opinion.

Below is the link to what happened to the company I mention in my article. Please read.
http://www.correlogic.com/pdfs/DTT...

Sharon called this one right on! Barrett is an industry hack who no longer even has a medical license. On his "Board"? Ron Gots of Dateline infamy - does fake IME's that always favor the insurance companies, and takes fees for testifying against PATIENTS WITH CFS. Has a "non-profit", ESRI, that sells pro-chemical policy to government. (Gots is presently in trouble with a judge over that one.) And that's just the one that comes to mind right now. The people Gots is associated with? all in that same business. One of them, Paul Lees-Haley, invented a neuropsychometric test which "proves" CFS patients are just neurotics.

You know how many of us struggle with insurance issues? With finding competent care? With not getting labeled as head cases? Yeah. You get the picture.
Any time you want to talk about 'junk science'? Just let me know. Barrett really DOES know a thing or two about quackery...and a few people know a thing or two about Barrett. Steer clear - NOT a reputable source.

If I had listened to Dr. Barrett, I'd still be ill. Just "google" Stephen Barrett, MD or "Quackwatch" and read all the controversy yourself.

Hi Wannabewell,

I am so glad that you posted here about quackwatch. These days we are not getting the truth from the media. We are all victims of the lies they tell and the misinformation they spread. If you want to know the truth these days you have to go out of your way and do extra research. It should not be like this but this is the reality each and everyone of us face.

I don't beleive that every person who speaks out about questionable medical claims is part of a bigger conspiracy to deny us access to cures for our ailments or promote profits for pharmaceutical and insurance companies.This argument has been circulating for years. I suspect some ppl just cannot accept their illness as having no cure. I struglle with it daily myself.

I have found many of these so called "alternative" treatments and tests to be bogus thru personal experience.That's why I posted this website. Best case scenario- just a waste of time and money. At worst, they can be harmful and mislead ppl to abandon sound medical advice. Websites like quackwatch are designed to protect the consumer from fraud. If you don't accept the FDA, the AMA, the NIH, NIHM, etc as reliable sources of information, then that's your perogative. I'm not sure why you'd accept an anonymous source on the internet making outlandish claims and accusations if that is the case ????

Most reputable alternative practictioners will not promise cures for serious illnesses or attack mainstream medicine. I have gotten much pain relief with chiropratic and massage therapy and sound nutrition and exercise have a profound impact on anyone's well being. To say that a diet, exercise and vitamins can cure cancer or schizophenia is pushing it in my opinion and many of these fringe groups and snake oil salesmen claim just that.

The reason there is no cure for cancer available to us is because one doesn't exist. Illnesses like CFIDs are not understood and their causes remain unknown. I hope that in my lifetime that will change.

wannabewell you missed the point completely. None of those who responded said anything about the validity of alternative treatment. Did you read the replies? All we were saying was that the quackwatch website was suspect for conflict of interest issues. The owner of the website does harm to those of us who are sick and need the support of the courts to get disability, to prevail in a lawsuit when needed and to get on-going medical care. For the past eleven months I have done nothing but research and what I have found out about the NIH, the NCI, the FDA and the CDC is absolutely scary. Please for the sake of others on this website do some homework before you blindly recommend a phony website like this? For your convenience I am posting a few helpful websites for you to become familiar with watchdog websites for mainstream medicine.


http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/vi...

http://www.iaomt.org/

http://www.wellnessresources.com/n...

Thanks for posting those, Sharon. If you hadn't I would have. wellatlast has apparently forgotten or overlooked the fact that most of what he promotes himself is considered outside 'the mainstream' by these quackwatch industry shills.

Anti-alternative "Quackbusters" Have Giant Court Losses on Two Continents
Holland, Pennsylvania & California Courts Rule Against Them
By Ilena Rose
Takeaways
"Quackwatch" uses legal attacks and smear campaigns to harm critics personally and professionally. Recent rulings in Amsterdam, Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of California are heavy blows to the Quackwatch anti-chiropractic and anti-alternative medicine organizations.
After years of being labeled a"quack," and defamed and ridiculed professionally, Dr. Maria Sickesz won a great victory in Amsterdam, Holland early June 2007.

The Netherlands Appeals Court ordered the "Vereniging tegen de Kwalzalverij" (Association Against Quackery, which is the Dutch version of the so- called "Quackbusters" ) to cease and desist from using the demeaning, subjective and pejorative term "quack." This group is linked extensively on their website with the American "quackwatch" headed by Stephen Barrett, who also has suffered several legal defeats recently.

The Justices recognized that this group's affinity for giving demeaning labels to doctors with whose practices they disagreed was a way of shutting down emerging science. They were also ordered to publish a public retraction in two widely circulated newspapers. It has been estimated this will cost them around thirty thousand euros (~US$40,350) and has been written that this will bankrupt this highly controversial association whose work is attempting to destroy alternative practioners in Holland.

Dr. Sickesz developed a kind of healing called orthomanual therapy which integrates chiropractic practices. For several decades the quackbuster organizations around the world have waged legal and public relations wars against chiropractors and other non traditional practitioners, demonizing them with their biased campaigns.

In June, for the second time, Barrett lost a case in a Pennsylvania Appeals Court against a local and respected chiropractor in his hometown of Allentown, PA.

Suing Dr. Tedd Koren has definitely backfired on the longtime head of the quackwatch empire. During this case, Barrett had to reveal that he had failed his psychiatric medical board tests and was never board certified for the decades he practiced.Board certification protects patients. Shortly thereafter, Barrett made a public announcement that after 40 years, he was leaving Allentown.

Barrett Vs Rosenthal was decided in November, 2006 against Barrett and his co-plaintiffs, Terry Polevoy and Christopher Grell. Though Barrett had claimed he was defamed and libeled, the Supreme Court Justice's final words in the decision were, "As the lower courts correctly concluded, however, none of the hostile comments against Dr. Barrett alleged in the complaint are defamatory."

In May, 2007, Barrett and Polevoy were ordered to post bonds of over $433,000 in this case.

In an earlier court loss, Barrett and fellow "National Council Against Health Fraud" member, Wallace Sampson, were ruled to be biased and unworthy of credibility in a case they lost against King Bio, a homeopathic remedy company.

In 2003, they also lost to Botanical Laboratories, and were ordered to pay a significant judgment. The Judges understood the NCAHF mission and wrote: Appellant (NCAHF) believes that no one should be allowed to market homeopathic remedies.

Soon thereafter, NCAHF's California license was suspended for nearly 4 years, until early, 2007.

Sources:

Dutch Newspaper Report on Dr. Sickez's Victory Over Quackbusters

Barrett Vs Rosenthal - Links to court documents & history of case

NCAHF Vs King Bio Documents

Court Victory for Chiropractors Against Quackbusters

Ilena Rosenthal's Blog

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