Before you start using Quackwatch as some sort of legitimate source you might want to know who is behind it.
Failed MD Stephen Barrett
What kind of man would drop out of the medical profession and dedicate his life to STOPPING advancement in the health sciences?
Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
Location of Stephen Barrett's "quackwatch.com" - the basement of his home at 2421 West Greenleaf Street, Allentown, PA 18104
"Quackbusting" - is a Profitable Business...
Frankly, "quackbusting" is a profitable industry, and Stephen Barrett plays it to the hilt.
In a Canadian lawsuit (see below) Barrett admitted to the following:
"The sole purpose of the activities of Barrett & Baratz are to discredit and cause damage and harm to health care practitioners, businesses that make alternative health therapies or products available, and advocates of non-allopathic therapies and health freedom."
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Stephen Barrett - Professional Crackpot...
The Internet needs health information it can trust. Stephen Barrett doesn't provide it...
Barrett is one of those people whose ambitions and opinions of himself far exceeds his abilities. Without ANY qualifications he has set himself up as an expert in just about everything having to do with health care - and more.
And this from a man who is a professional failure.
Records show that Barrett never achieved any success in the medical profession. His claim to being a "retired Psychiatrist" is laughable. He is, in fact, a "failed Psychiatrist," and a "failed MD."
The Psychiatric profession rejected Barrett years ago, for Barrett could NOT pass the examinations necessary to become "Board Certified." Which, is no doubt why Barrett was, throughout his career, relegated to lower level "part time" positions.
Barrett, we know, was forced to give up his medical license in Pennsylvania in 1993 when his "part-time" employment at the State Mental Hospital was terminated, and he had so few (nine) private patients during his last five years of practice, that he couldn't afford the Malpractice Insurance premiums Pennsylvania requires.
In a job market in the United States, where there is a "doctor shortage," Stephen Barrett, after his termination by the State mental Hospital, couldn't find employment. He was in his mid-50s at the time. He should have been at the top of his craft - yet, apparently, he couldn't find work.
It is obvious, that, after one humiliation after another, in 1993 Barrett simply gave up his medical aspirations, turned in his MD license, and retreated, in bitterness and frustration, to his basement.
It was in that basement, where Barrett took up "quackbusting" - which, in reality, means that Barrett attacks "cutting-edge" health professionals and paradigms - those that ARE achieving success in their segment of health care.
And there, in "quackbusting" is where Barrett finally found the attention and recognition he seems to crave - for, a while, that is, until three California Judges, in a PUBLISHED Appeals Court decision, took a HARD look at Barrett's activities, and declared him "biased, and unworthy of credibility."
Bitterness against successful health professionals is Barrett's hallmark. To him they're all "quacks." In this, his essays are repetitive and pedestrian.
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