NCAHF Newsletter articles from July 1996

NCAHF Newsletter archives from July 1996

Aroma therapy. (overview)
July 1, 1996... Psychologist Lynn McCutcheon discusses the confused. ambiguous, and unsupported claims being made by aroma therapists in the May-June. 1996. Skeptical Inquirer. McCutcheon reviewed books. articles and scientific reports on the topic. Aroma...

Health food industry: little to do with either health or food.
July 1, 1996... Newsweek ("Herbal warning," May 6, 1996) exposes the modern health food movement for what it has become--the shopping place for the "natural drug culture." There are many herbs that can stimulate or depress the central nervous system, or distort...

Weight loss quackery. (manual provides guidelines for recognizing weight loss fraud and quackery)
July 1, 1996... Frances Berg, editor of the Healthy Weight Journal, and Coordinator of the NCAHF Task Force on Unsound Weight Loss Practices, has put together an exceptional 32-page manual entitled Weight Loss QuackeRy and Fads. The manual provides guidelines...

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. (evaluation of treatment usage)
July 1, 1996... Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy involves treatment in which a patient breathes 100% pure oxygen intermittently while the pressure of the treatment chamber is increased to a point higher than sea level pressure (1 atmosphere absolute [ATA])....

Fight to save ephedra weight loss products taking shape.
July 1, 1996... Larry Hobbs, author of The New Diet Pills claims that ephedrine plus caffeine is "the ideal diet pill." His arguments are elaborated in the June, 1996 Townsend Letter. a publication that provides a forum for the proponents of controversial health...

Medical licensing boards' meeting shakes quackdom. (Federation of State Medical Boards)
July 1, 1996... The 84th Annual meeting of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) held in Chicago on April 12 has Arlene Brecher, a publicist for the Townsend Letter, in a tizzy. Brecher attended a session entitled "Fraudulent Medical Practice--Watch and...

Senator Hatch goes to bat for maverick medicine as insurance fraud bill is discussed.
July 1, 1996... How Hatch helped thwart nutrition labeling reform. In 1983 the Senate's Special Committee on Aging determined that medical quackery was the #1 consumer fraud problem facing the nation's elderly. In 1984, Claude Pepper's Committee independently...

Health foods industry group gets naturopathic practice act in Utah.
July 1, 1996... The sweetheart relationship between naturopaths and the health food industry became more transparent with the passage of a naturopathic licensure act in Utah. Health Forum, the lobbying organization that pulled off the action, was led by Rae...