http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderp...a-9c5ec3ea053f


Doctor proud to bust medical 'quacks'

Bruce Ward
CanWest News Service


Monday, June 27, 2005


OTTAWA -- Terry Polevoy is a medical doctor and health-care watchdog who
delights in calling himself "the Quackbuster." He uses cold, hard science to
probe the murky world of complementary and alternative health care.

Polevoy's online group -- www.healthwatcher.net -- investigates products and
services that are marketed by con artists, cranks and and medical phonies.

The treatments include electrical shocks, shark cartilage, weird chemical
cocktails, herbs and heat.

But these treatments have one thing in common, he said Saturday in a
presentation to the Canadian Humanist Association. None of them work.

He said chelation therapy, for example, is advertised as a way to prevent
hardening of the arteries.

"It is supposed to cleanse the arteries. It has never been proved that it
works. The big study has never been published."

In 2003, he co-authored an e-book called Pig Pills, Inc. The book was an
in-depth investigation into a concoction called "Empowerplus." It was sold
to gullible customers who had serious mental health problems.

Health Canada issued an advisory because the company did not provide
evidence of "safety, effectiveness or quality, and has also failed to stop
the promotion and sale of Empowerplus -- despite Health Canada's request on
several occasions that it do so."

As a result of the book, Health Canada took action against the Synergy Group
of Canada and their Truehope support organizations.

Polevoy, who has a practice in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, says quacks or
"un-doctors" are easy to spot by their advertisements.

"They all use testimonials to market themselves. They always want to sell
you something expensive -- supplements, magnets, new shoes, whatever. And
they can never back up anything that they claim."

He said quackery is pernicious because it delays proper medical diagnosis,
wastes patients' money and causes pain of suffering to the families of
seriously ill children.

Polevoy said his efforts to expose health scams have made him a target for
quacks, some of whom have smeared him on their Web sites.

Ottawa Citizen

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Still skeptical after all these years.
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One of the problems we have is that real medicine occasionally gets itself into trouble with all of its science and statistics. Look at Vioxx. We give people a pill that is supposed to be safe, and they yank it off the market. People lose faith. Then they hear from these quacks that some remedy has been around for thousands of years, and won't kill you like Vioxx. The people are skeptical of allopathic medicine, so some opt for these natural remedies. It is natural, can't hurt you, right? All-natural is good, right? Since there is NO data on these natural remedies, there is no bad data. So we have nothing to show the patient.

People forget some of the "all-natural" things out there. Opium, cocaine, nicotine, caffeine, arsenic, cyanide, rabies.....

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Bored certified
I may be a jerk, but I'm a Jedi jerk like my father.

Some say I look like Buzz Lightyear....
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DISCLAIMER: I have no financial stake in ValueMD, or any medical school.

The ones that kill me are where they tell parents of kids with terminal diseases they can help them. I am still haunted by an Amish family I knew in Missouri that raised the funds in their poor community, went to Tijuana, and tried chelation and a bunch of fake treatments when the girl could have been at home with her family at least.

That is why we must all stand up against fakes and quacks.

__________________
Moderator - State Licensing Forum

Still skeptical after all these years.
This is it. There are no hidden meanings.WYSIWYG

http://www.internetmedicalschool.homestead.com

http://www.chiropractormds.homestead.com/index.html