The Number One Rule of Quackery

Teller Demonstrating that Blood is Magnetic

Honest medical doctors have more in common with quacks than they might think. Popular culture has it that doctors take a vow of "do no harm," a familiar part of the Hippocratic Oath. Smart quacks, the ones that don't get into trouble with the law that is, are wise to take a different oath: "Do nothing."

Quackwatch is one of those wonderful sites on the Internet that I would call "one of the good guys." These are sites that try to counter the Pandora's Box of misinformation created by the Internet by giving people a good starting point from which to find the truth. As you've always been told: don't trust only one source. People of the rational persuasion always try to reference several sources before coming to a conclusion. These "good guy" sites themselves recommend critical research instead of assuring visitors that they have the truth. A good example is Snopes, which put up a few light-hearted hoaxes to remind folks of the importance of not relying on a god-truth. [A quick note: I don't link Snopes because they have a lot of annoying ads.]

That said, Quackwatch is a great place to find out if an "alternative" treatment for an illness has legitimate scientific grounding, or belongs on Penn and Teller's Bullshit. Two weeks ago, I read an article on Quackwatch about some so-called "Black Salves." These are corrosive topical treatments given by "Alternative Medicine" practitioners to sufferers of all sorts of skin tumors, especially on the face. Here is a link to the article, but I warn the squeamish out there; it contains a couple of gory pictures. For the rest of us, it's an interesting glimpse at folk medicine gone horribly wrong. Anyway, the story goes (there are a couple actually) that a woman with a bump on her nose was given medicinal paste by some dude, and soon after, much of her face was destroyed.

Here is a quote from the article: "...she developed red streaks that ran down her cheeks. ...the naturopath brought the explanation that the presence of the lines was a good sign because they 'resemble a crab, and cancer is a crab'." My first thought when reading this was that the paste contained sodium hydroxide or lye, a chemical base that is corrosive on the skin (think Fight Club). The injury created then became infected by bacteria (the red streaks) and much of her face had to be debrided. Further research indicates that the alkaloid found in bloodroot (in the salve) acts on ion pumps on cell membranes in such a way as to make the stuff necrotoxic.

It is unclear whether this naturopath was penalized in any way, but there are mentions in the article of several practioners who were punished in similar cases. They went to jail (or got fines, etc.) because it was proven in court that they marketed their products as medicine rather than drain cleaner. True quacks after all have to lure patients, or else they would be out of work.

These quacks failed because they claimed their products had medicinal properties. In some quackery cases that have gone to court, patients, such as cancer sufferers, stopped chemotherapy and radiation, and relied strictly on these alternative healers. Some good examples are cases involving something called a Rife Machine. From my very limited legal understanding, if I give a chainsaw to you, and you cut off your arm, I'm only guilty if I told you it would cure your hangnail. If I implied it, we enter a gray zone full disclaimers and references to 19th century scientists. I don't believe in a nanny state, so I favor a buyer beware argument: an ignorant person should be allowed to make bad, even fatal, choices as long as they aren't being grossly deceived. I think that is an issue I disagree on with Quackwatch, but, anyway, that's all beside the point.

The "Do nothing" approach to quackery is what I'm trying to describe here. I had an exemplary experience of this at a New York City street fair. An Asian man in a suit and tie was selling, for lack of a better description, a set of electric dildoes with an instructional DVD. I mention that he was Asian (Chinese, if I remember correctly) because he would frequently cite this ethnic identity, and Eastern heritage in general, during his sales pitch. He would approach passersby, ask them if they had pain in their life, and, in his words, "fix any problem in ten seconds." His claim was that his devices contained "special magnets" that could be activated on exact pressure points to cure all sorts of ills, especially musculoskeletal strains and pain. I was around for a while during this street fair so I got to see him work. Many people sat down and let him practice his therapy. Some recipients of his treatment claimed that they felt outright nothing. Others politely left after the experience. I noticed that most fairgoers rolled their eyes at the spectacle, and many laughed. He was unfazed throughout, and you know what, many people bought his modified sex toys. Did I mention they were more than $150 dollars for a set? Of course, this man was, again from my legal understanding, doing something illegal. He enthusiastically claimed that his product could treat and cure disease, something that would get him in trouble with the FDA. Working street fairs is a good way of weaseling through such complications, but he might get in trouble if he goes big time. The point of the story is that his devices are simply vibrating knick-knacks; his customers have no chance of harming themselves. They will just get no relief or possibly benefit from a placebo effect. Their skin won't get burned and they won't turn purple. The worst that can happen is if they poke themselves in the eye. Considering our litigious society today, I wouldn't be surprised if the packaging came with a warning of the possibility of such a mishap. As long as the alternative therapy in question has no biological effect, the quack is in the clear.

Real medicine doesn't have the luxury of pure placebo effect, mystical magic auras, and allusions to "thousands of years of use." Drugs and surgeries will always have side effects, and severe ones in a select few individuals. That's how anatomy works. Futurists can only ponder when science will finally surpass this hurdle of improbable disaster.

Holistic medicine-men preparing to profit off the desperate and ignorant would do well to put only purified mud in their products. That way, nobody's face will get burnt off, and nobody's tumor will be healed.

Why "Critical Articles?"

Why did I choose the phrase Critical Articles as my blog's name? It might sound a little odd at first. You may think that it's too broad, generic, or dull of a name. Maybe it conveys an academic or journalistic feel that isn't consistent with what I am trying to do. Well, few things are perfect, but I know I picked the best one.

The title of the blog had to have a matching Internet domain (e.g., .com, .net). This saves people the trouble of typing in or saying the dots when accessing sites hosted on services like Blogger or MySpace. Moreover, it feels great owning a little plot of land on the World Wide Web, even if it is an illusion. "CriticalArticles.com" was already taken, which is why I use the cool sounding .ORG domain. The .com version is an ad site based in the Bahamas. In the unlikely event you will ever repeat the domain "CriticalArticles.org" to an acquaintance, remember to emphasize the .org domain. Anyway, the insignificant downsides of the name are defeated by all the wonderful positives. For one thing, I like generic and dull names. Second, I didn't want to invent words or use obscure ones like Lycos or google, respectively. There is a prospective problem, though: people who don't speak English may not understand the meaning of the name. That's not a big deal, however, because my entries will be written in English anyway. What about translator software? I can only read one language, so I performed an experiment just now. I copy-and-pasted something from the Alitalia website into Babelfish for an Italian to English translation. What I got back was understandable, to a certain extent, but a stranded airline passenger would have no idea what to do if he or she read it on a bright red sign in Palermo International. Conversely, an Italian reader may likely have a hard time reading my site. I welcome non-English-speaking readers, but I had to make a choice.

A short while after thinking up "CriticalArticles.org", I discovered that it sounds alliterative to my ear. Pleasing sounding language, including, in my opinion, alliteration, is almost always preferable. Since my blog theme is quite general, the name couldn't be something like "LighterCollector" or "SciFiMovieReviews". Using my name in the title wouldn't work either; "Miky'sThoughts" has no meaning at all. It's not a terrible option, but I think it works best for celebrities and the like. Through such elimination, I came up with the name. As it turns out, "CriticalArticles.org" is pretty appropriate. What I will be writing here is, for the most part, critical writing. I will analyze an issue and come away with a conclusion or question. The word critical has other meanings too. It can mean unfavorable, for example, a critical person who always finds faults in situations. Critical can also mean, according to dictionary.com, something very important or dangerous; Imagine fiery activists writing blogs regarding some grave injustices that they feel everyone out there should know about as soon as possible. I will try to keep problems that critical out of my blog, but I find the idea a little amusing. As for the "articles" part, that's clear; the entries I post are articles of a sort. ...And there you have the explanation.