E-mail alerts of Quackery in the Newspapers

30th August, 2006 0

If you would like to receive emails whenever the quackometer finds a quack newspaper article, then provide your email address here. Email alerts will only be sent for the most quacky stories and you can choose which region of the world you want to know about. Your email address will only be used by the quackometer automatic alert engine to warn you about quack stories. The black duck is not [read more…]

Boots the Quack

29th August, 2006 11

I have recently been accused of working for the ‘drug industry’ and just picking on the ‘little guys’ who are using gentle, more human, and less capitalist healing methods. Well, as I say in my definition of quackery, quack thinking can come from all quarters and all sides of the orthodox/alternative medicine camps. ‘Big Pharma’ is a word that is pejoratively used to criticise drug companies in their pursuit of [read more…]

Quack Word #12: ‘Organic’

25th August, 2006 18

I believe that organic food is a con, is not necessarily more healthy for you, tastes no different, and is damaging to the environment. There, I have got that off my chest, but unfortunately I now feel like I have just admitted to being a child murderer, a racist or even a supporter of George Bush’s foreign policy. Let me explain… The word organic is now synonymous with everything good, [read more…]

The Guild of the Gullible?

17th August, 2006 1

I think that this may be a story of despair. It may be a story about the mountain that has to be climbed if we are to live a society where quacks find it hard to profit from their lies, misinformation and delusions. At present it is a story about how newspapers contribute significantly and fundamentally to the environment in which people are swindled out of their money by quacks [read more…]

Quack Word #37: ‘Holistic’

11th August, 2006 3

As you know, the quackometer works by counting words, or combinations of words, that strongly suggest the web site is full of quackery. I thought I would write about a few of those words and why they are dead give-aways. So, ‘Holistic’ – not in itself necessarily anything to do with medicine, but this word is often used with medicine when quackery is at work. Why is this and what [read more…]

RSS Quack Alert Feeds Now Added

9th August, 2006 1

You can now subscribe to RSS Feeds to get all the Quackiest Stories direct to your browser without scanning the news sites and papers yourself. The News Alert Engine is still being thoroughly tested and handheld. Expect a few technical glitches and bad matches for a few days yet. The biggest problems have been keeping down the false positives, that is, stopping stories being flagged as quacky when they are [read more…]

Advances in Quackometrics – News Alerts

4th August, 2006 3

The latest quackometer functionality is now being tested on the quackometer web site. Throughout the day, the little black duck will be reading the news for you and creating alerts if quackery is found. Hoards of quackbusters around the world will be alerted to potential quackery in the newsapers before it starts hitting peoples’ doormats. Together we can expose the worst offending news sources. Daily lists of quack stories will [read more…]

Do Hedgehogs Give My Cat Acupuncture?

31st July, 2006 3

I thought my post on Reiki Healing for Hedgehogs was going to be a one-off. But a recent trip to the garden centre has opened up a whole new compost heap of prickles. Now, I live in hedgehog country. I have a hedgehog hospital within feather spitting distance of my pond, and I see them around me all the time. I am fond of them. My prickly, vespertine friends come [read more…]

The Quest For The Perfect Quack!

13th July, 2006 5

Well, I’ve had a bit of time to put some effort into the Quackometer, and now it has a few new features and improvements. 1. First – ‘Am I a Quack or Not?’ will allow you to type in a name and see how Quacky that person is. More on this later… 2. Secondly, we have some tables ranking web sites and suspect quacks to give some highlights for the [read more…]

Trademarked Science Trade-Offs

10th July, 2006 43

I have written before about my assertion that if you find someone saying that you cannot get all the nutrients you need through food, then you have also found someone selling food supplements. This is the basic scam behind so many nutritionists – they make the process of eating a healthy diet look so formidable and fraught that you had better hedge your bets and scoff a lot of pills [read more…]

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