Quackery is the practice of producing fraudulent medicine, usually in order to make money or for ego gratification and power. Those who practice quackery are called "quacks" and are in the business of selling false hope to ill-informed people. NLM (National Library of Medicine, contains resources for patients and healthcare professionals) Virtual Hospital (digital health sciences library by the University of Iowa) Online Medical Dictionary Collection of links to free medical resources Wikicities has a wiki about medicine: Medicine Categories: Medicine | Health ...

The word derives from quacksalver, an archaic word originally of Dutch origin, meaning "to boast about an unguent." An unguent is a soothing preparation spread on sores, burns, irritations, or other topical injuries; an ointment. ...

Pietro Longhi: The Charlatan, 1757

It is often difficult to distinguish between those who knowingly promote unproven medical therapies and those who are mistaken as to their effectiveness. In libel cases in US courts against people who accused others of being guilty of quackery, the courts have ruled that accusing someone of quackery or calling him a quack is not equal to calling him a fraud — that in order to be both a quack and a fraud, the quack has to know that the medical services provided are unproven and ineffective. Download high resolution version (2536x3171, 582 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (2536x3171, 582 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Pietro Longhi (1702-1785) was a Venetian genre painter. ... In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someones reputation. ... US,Us or us may stand for the United States of America us, the oblique case form of the English language pronoun we. ...

History

Quackery has existed throughout human history. In ancient times, theatrics were sometimes mixed with actual medicine to provide entertainment as much as healing. This mix of quackery with actual medicine has varied in its usage throughout different cultures. This is not to imply that all shamanism is quackery. The differentiation is real healing versus false hope, regardless of the medical tradition. Often it is difficult to tell the difference. Shamanism is a range of traditional beliefs and practices that involve the ability to diagnose, cure, and sometimes cause human suffering by traversing the axis mundi and forming a special relationship with, or gaining control over, spirits. ...

The nineteenth century era of the rise of mass marketing of patent medicines is usually considered to have been a "golden age" of quackery. These medicines often had little in the way of active ingredients, or had ingredients designed to make a person feel good, such as what came to be known as recreational drugs. Morphine and related chemicals were especially common, being legal and unregulated in most places at the time. Arsenic and other poisons were also included. False medicines in this era were called by the slang term snake oil. The quacks who sold them were called "snake oil peddlers", and usually sold their medicines with a fervent pitch similar to a fire and brimstone religious sermon. They often accompanied other theatrical and entertainment productions that travelled as a road show from town to town, leaving quickly before the falseness of their medicine could be discovered. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Patent medicine is the term given to various medical compounds sold under a variety of names and labels, though they were for the most part actually trademarked medicines, not patented. ... Recreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational rather than medical or spiritual purposes, although the distinction is not always clear. ... Morphine (INN), the principal active agent in opium, is a powerful opioid analgesic drug. ... General Name, Symbol, Number arsenic, As, 33 Series metalloids Group, Period, Block 15 (VA), 4, p Density, Hardness 5727 kg/m3, 3. ... Clark Stanleys Snake Oil Liniment. ... Fire and brimstone is a motif in Chrisitan preaching that uses vivid descriptions of hell and damnation to prompt its hearers to fear divine wrath and punishment. ...

Quackery today

Quackery can be found in any culture and in every medical tradition. Quackery is found today in advertisements for "miracle cures" and "faith healing", as well as the more outlandish claims made on behalf of, for example, natural remedies sold in health food stores, or certain diet and fitness regimes. Diet can refer to several things: The nutritional diet of an organism or group. ...

A variety of medicines with heavy marketing campaigns may fall under the term "quackery". Full-page ads in "health" magazines and publications that cater toward a desperate, gullible, or otherwise needy demographic are popular places to sell products or services, as well as web sites where exaggerated medical claims are common. To add to the confusion, some heavily-marketed products may actually have real therapeutic benefit.

People with no medical education often try to bypass professional medicine by self-prescribing over-the-counter remedies for problems that may need professional treatment. Most people with an e-mail account have experienced the strong-arm marketing tactics of spamming — the current trend for miraculous penis enlargement, weight-loss remedies and unprescribed medicines of dubious quality sold on the internet are perhaps the most common current form of quackery. Quackery has also become a serious problem in the field of autism, where medical sciences have has made little progress in the face of intractible neurodevelopmental disorders. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A KMail folder full of spam emails collected over a few days. ... Penis enlargement is the goal of a number of men dissatisfied for some reason with their penis size. ... Autism is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests itself in marked problems with social relatedness, communication, interest, and behavior. ...

In the field of natural medicine, many practitioners prescribe natural remedies which they sell at a profit. This common practice could be viewed as a conflict of interest. Natural medical practitioners also run the risk of prescribing pills because patients ask for them, or out of faddish popularity. The profit motive is everywhere, in every aspect of medicine. A potential conflict always exists between the desire to make a decent living, the desire to make huge sums of money, and the desire to help others. Herbal medicine has also become big business in recent years.-1... A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, a politician, or an executive or director of a corporation, has competing professional and/or personal interests. ...

In the field of alternative medicine, many professions are regulated, but some are not. Unregulated areas of medical practice often lend themselves to quackery. Alternative medicine broadly describes methods and practices used in place of, or in addition to, conventional medical treatments. ...

It was recently reported that the large number of quacks operating in Pakistan is causing serious public health problems.[1] For example, unqualified doctors often reuse syringes, thus spreading AIDS, hepatitis and other diseases. A syringe consists of a plunger fitted to a tube with a small opening on one end used either to inject or suck out a liquid. ... The Red Ribbon symbol is used internationally to represent the fight against AIDS. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, rarely written Aids) is a disease characterized by the destruction of the human immune system. ... In medicine (gastroenterology), hepatitis is any disease featuring inflammation of the liver. ...

Reasons quackery persists

• Ignorance: Most people really do not understand how medicine works, how their body works, or how to distinguish between real medicine and fraudulence, and can be duped again and again into spending their money for a supposed "miraculous" solution to their problems. The easy fix is a great temptation to a great many people, even though the easy fix is rarely effective. Also, a great deal of ignorance about traditional and natural medicine has made it difficult to distinguish between what is outside of the mainstream but effective, and what is simply quackery. Quacks know this and exploit this ignorance for their own benefit and perpetuate the confusion. Unfortunately, many doctors in the past have unwittingly perpetuated this misunderstanding by labeling all natural medicine or traditional medicine as quackery, which is simply false. Some doctors have been all too willing to present themselves as experts on all medicine, regardless of their ignorance on the subject of natural and traditional medicines throughout the world. This has made the situation confusing almost beyond hope for many people. It is difficult to know who to trust when it is clear somebody is lying, but everyone is pointing their fingers at someone else.
• The placebo effect. Medicines or treatments, known to have no effect on a disease, can still affect a people's perception of their illness. People report reduced pain, increased well-being, improvement and even total alleviation of symptoms. For some, the presence of a caring practitioner and the dispensation of medicine is curative in itself, analogous to faith healing. The placebo effect is extreme in the treatment of clinical depression. Some studies show up to 80% of people will report an improvement in their condition after taking a sugar pill.
• Side effects from mainstream medical treatment. A great variety of pharmaceutical medications can have very distressing side effects. Many people fear surgery, often for good reason.
• Distrust of conventional medicine. Conventional medicine does not have a clean history. Much of medicine's past was in fact quackery. Doctors are often paid a very large salary, much more than many of their patients may consider ethical. They often receive money for a consultation without giving any treatment, as well as receiving valuable perks from pharmaceutical corporations who want to indirectly reward the heavy prescription of their drugs. Mistakes made by doctors are also reported extensively by the media. Iatrogenic disease is not uncommon. The regulatory committees of medical doctors are doctors themselves, which some would consider a conflict of interest.
• Cost. Pharmaceutical companies and medical practitioners often charge a lot of money for their services. Quacks can easily undercut them, by providing what they call a better treatment for much less money, though often there is deception involved about the actual cost of treatment.
• Desperation on the part of people with a serious or terminal disease, or who have been told by their practitioner that their condition is "untreatable". This also may include patients who want to be rid of less severe conditions like perceived penis size issues, baldness, or skin aging, that medical science cannot treat or cannot treat cheaply.
• Pride. Once a person has endorsed or defended a cure, or invested time and money in it, they may be reluctant to admit their error.
• Fraud. Some practitioners, fully aware of the ineffectiveness of their medicine, may intentionally produce fraudulent scientific studies and medical test results in order to fool their customers, and avoid any objective test which would reveal their quackery.

-1... The term traditional medicine is used with two main meanings. ... The placebo effect (also known as non-specific effects) is the phenomenon that a patients symptoms can be alleviated by an otherwise ineffective treatment, apparently because the individual expects or believes that it will work. ... Faith healing is the use of solely spiritual means in treating disease, sometimes accompanied with the refusal of modern medical techniques. ... Clinical depression is a health condition of depression with mental and physical components reaching criteria generally accepted by clinicians. ... Pharmacology (in Greek: pharmacon is drug, and logos is science) is the study of how chemical substances interfere with living systems. ... A typical modern surgery operation For other meanings of the word, see Surgery (disambiguation) Surgery (from the Greek cheirourgia - lit. ... See drugs, medication, and pharmacology for substances that treat patients. ... Pharmacy (from the Greek φάρμακον = drug) is the profession of compounding and dispensing medication. ... An iatrogenic (pronounced [aI%{.tr@UdZE.nIk], SAMPA) condition is a state of ill health or adverse effect caused by medical treatment, usually due to mistakes made in treatment. ... A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, a politician, or an executive or director of a corporation, has competing professional and/or personal interests. ... Penis size is of great concern to many men. ... See also baldness treatments. ...

See also

• Alternative medicine
• Chiropractic
• Complementary and alternative medicine
• Crystal healing
• Falun Gong
• Food faddism
• Electrical quackery
  • Albert Abrams
• Eye related
  • Bates Method
  • Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing
  • Irlen Method
  • Pinhole glasses
  • See Clearly Method
• Homeopathy
• Magnet therapy
  • Alex Chiu
• Mantak Chia
• Medical intuitive
• New Age
• Reflexology
• Reiki
• Urine therapy

Alternative medicine broadly describes methods and practices used in place of, or in addition to, conventional medical treatments. ... Chiropractic, also known as chiropractic care, is a health discipline that seeks to prevent and treat health problems by using spinal adjustments in order to correct misalignments, or subluxations. ... Alternative medicine is a broad term for any diagnostic method, method of treatment or therapy, and products whose theoretical bases and techniques diverge from generally accepted medical methods. ... Crystal healing is the belief that crystals have energies and properties that are able to improve health. ... Falun emblem Wikinews has news related to this article: [[Wikinews:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] Falun Gong (Traditional Chinese: 法輪功; Simplified Chinese: 法轮功; pinyin: ; literally Practice of the Wheel of Law) or Falun Dafa (Traditional Chinese: 法輪大法; Simplified Chinese: 法轮大法; pinyin: ; lit. ... Food faddism and fad diet are terms which refer to the tendency for idiosyncratic diets and eating patterns. ... Electricity has long been thought to be an elemental life-force. ... Albert Abrams (1863–1924) was a San Francisco doctor who employed the practice of electricity therapy (as ERA, or Electronic Reactions of Abrams) to supposedly cure all manner of ailments. ... An eye is an organ that detects light. ... The Bates Method is a controversial system of techniques that is intended to improve vision through a set of practices that are claimed to relax the eyes. ... Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing , also known by its abreviation EMDR, claims to relieve the symptoms of Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems using originally only movements of the eyes similar to those which occur naturally in REM sleep. ... The Irlen Method is a controversial system that is intended to improve reading difficulties associated with Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome using tinted lenses and overlays. ... Pinhole glasses are eyeglasses with a series of pinhole-sized perforations filling an opaque sheet of plastic in place of each lens. ... Homeopathy (also spelled homÅ“opathy or homoeopathy), from the Greek words homoios (similar) and pathos (suffering), is a system of alternative medicine, notable for its controversial practice of prescribing water-based solutions that do not contain chemically active ingredients. ... Magnet therapy, or magnetic therapy, is a pseudoscientific form of alternative medicine based on the concept that certain medical disorders can be effectively treated by exposure to magnetic fields. ... Alexander Yuan-Chun Chiu (born February 8, 1971) is a San Francisco, California businessman who claims to have invented a number of products that achieve remarkable results, including immortality and curing of all ailments. ... Mantak Chia (b. ... In alternative medicine, a medical intuitive is a person who has allegedly learned to hone and apply skills of intuition to the field of medical diagnosis. ... New Age describes a broad movement characterized by alternative approaches to traditional Western culture. ... Reflexology (or zone therapy) is the practice of stimulating points on the feet, hands, or ears (termed reflex zones), in the hopes that it will have a beneficial effect on some other parts of the body, or will improve general health. ... Reiki is said by its practitioners to be a form of complementary or alternative medicine, developed (or rediscovered) during the Meiji period (the late 19th century) by Mikao Usui (usui mikao 臼井甕男) in Japan. ... Urine therapy is a specialized branch of alternative medicine. ...

External links

• Quackwatch — a guide and up to date information about quackery and health fraud, operated by Stephen Barrett, M.D.
• National Council Against Health Fraud
• Anti-Quackery Ring
• Healthfraud Discussion List
• "Fake Science — Episode 265". This American Life, May 21.
• Cures and Quackery: The Rise of Patent Medicines — 19th century miracle cures
• The Sciencist