My son recommended this book to me recently:
Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
http://www.amazon.com/Do-You-Believe...0578761&sr=1-1
I am about halfway through and it is a really good book. A page-turner. At the same time, I get pretty upset reading it. At the beginning of the book, it charts the history of medicine and shows how horrible things were just a century ago with a vast industry of snake oil salesman preying on the general public. It shows how we gradually started moving to evidenced-based medicine and started using double-blind clinical trials to sift the legit cures from the fraudulent cures. We made steady progress with the development of the FDA and a series of laws and regulations to protect the public from medicinal scams.
In the early '90's some major legislation was proposed that would have put the final dagger in quack medicine, making it illegal to make fraudulent claims about the healing powers of any kind of health product. Sadly for all of us, it backfired and the quack industry put the dagger in the FDA. As the legislation was making steam, the tycoons of the quack industry gathered at a large estate in California and planned what to do in order to protect their multi-billion dollar business. They decided to fund a massive campaign to stop the legislation and a core part of the strategy was to buy off a number of senators to lead the fight in Washington. The main target was our very own Orrin Hatch, who was already a fan alternative medicine and was already bought off by the supplement industry in Utah (many of which are also pyramid schemes). In a classic case of cronyism, they donated massive amounts to his campaign and he led an effort that not only killed the bill, but he wrote and successfully passed a bill that carved out a special exception for certain types of quack medicine. If your drug can be classified as a vitamin, herb (plant-based), etc (a few other criteria - can't remember the full list) then you can make ANY claim you want without any consequences whatsoever. Cures cancer? Sure, whatever. If your claim gets debunked by clinical trials, no problem. Just keep on committing fraud and lining your pockets with the money from desperate sick people and Orrin Hatch has your back. I wonder how many people have died because they wasted their money on fraudulent cures when they could have been using something that actually works. It is disgusting.
Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
http://www.amazon.com/Do-You-Believe...0578761&sr=1-1
I am about halfway through and it is a really good book. A page-turner. At the same time, I get pretty upset reading it. At the beginning of the book, it charts the history of medicine and shows how horrible things were just a century ago with a vast industry of snake oil salesman preying on the general public. It shows how we gradually started moving to evidenced-based medicine and started using double-blind clinical trials to sift the legit cures from the fraudulent cures. We made steady progress with the development of the FDA and a series of laws and regulations to protect the public from medicinal scams.
In the early '90's some major legislation was proposed that would have put the final dagger in quack medicine, making it illegal to make fraudulent claims about the healing powers of any kind of health product. Sadly for all of us, it backfired and the quack industry put the dagger in the FDA. As the legislation was making steam, the tycoons of the quack industry gathered at a large estate in California and planned what to do in order to protect their multi-billion dollar business. They decided to fund a massive campaign to stop the legislation and a core part of the strategy was to buy off a number of senators to lead the fight in Washington. The main target was our very own Orrin Hatch, who was already a fan alternative medicine and was already bought off by the supplement industry in Utah (many of which are also pyramid schemes). In a classic case of cronyism, they donated massive amounts to his campaign and he led an effort that not only killed the bill, but he wrote and successfully passed a bill that carved out a special exception for certain types of quack medicine. If your drug can be classified as a vitamin, herb (plant-based), etc (a few other criteria - can't remember the full list) then you can make ANY claim you want without any consequences whatsoever. Cures cancer? Sure, whatever. If your claim gets debunked by clinical trials, no problem. Just keep on committing fraud and lining your pockets with the money from desperate sick people and Orrin Hatch has your back. I wonder how many people have died because they wasted their money on fraudulent cures when they could have been using something that actually works. It is disgusting.
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