NCAHF Newsletter articles from September 1996

NCAHF Newsletter archives from September 1996

How to check out a doctor.
September 1, 1996... For the first time, American consumers have a way to quickly determine if a physician has had any disciplinary actions taken against him anywhere in the nation, and verify his background of education, residency, board specialty certifications,...

Magnet promoter warned. (William W. Lampard)
September 1, 1996... On April 17, 1996, the FDA's Buffalo, NY, regional office sent a warning letter to William W. Lampard, MD, of Lakewood, NY, notifying him that the magnetic products he was distributing, "including Magsteps and Kenkopillow" (Nikken) are medical...

Quackery and the media.
September 1, 1996... Quackophiles(*) traditionally blame "the AMA and the big drug companies" for the passage of laws restricting the sale of unproven medicines. In fact, none of society's academic-scientific elite have been the moving force behind historic...

Blame for abuse of OTA report's dubious estimate: "only 10-20% of medical procedures are proved." (Office of Technology Assessment)
September 1, 1996... In the Nov-Dec, 1995, issue we reported that Kerr L. White, MD, had revealed that he was the likely source of the statement in the 1978 OTA report that "only 10 to 20 percent of procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to...

Lawrence Taylor, MD-ex. (for promotion of Immunostim as quack remedy for AIDS)(adapted from The Herald, March 20, 1991)
September 1, 1996... The saga of the promotion of the quack remedy Immunostim is detailed in the September, 1996 FDA Consumer. Lawrence Taylor, MD and William Stacey, who ran the Taylor-Stacey Center for Advanced Medicine in San Diego, manufactured, prescribed, and...

Holistic harm.
September 1, 1996... Quackery causes holistic harm. Physically: injury and death; emotionally: psychological trauma, self-deprecation, deprecation, depression, and despair; socially: lost faith in the system, stigmatization; economically: lost money, sometimes...

The second coming of shark cartilage.
September 1, 1996... William Lane has written a sequel to Sharks Don't Get Cancer (Avery, 1992) entitled Sharks Still Don't Get Cancer (Avery, 1996). The foreword of the second book is written by chiropractor "Dr. David Williams" (see NCAHF Newsletter, March-April,...

How many potential medicines are in the rain forest? Estimate for science, 328; for quackery, 749,672!
September 1, 1996... We've seen a plethora of romanticized articles about the secret medicines hiding in the rain forests. The idea of secret remedies hiding in exotic natural settings is as old as the mythical Chinese Islands of Immortality, Shangri La, and the...

DHEA still a puzzle. (dehydroepiandrosterone)
September 1, 1996... Cornell University's Marc Weksler (Division of Geriatric & Gerontology) provides insight into what is known about the risks and benefits of DHEA. Placebo controlled studies report that orally ingested DHEA in older adults: (1) increases blood...