The Rational Mind is a Lonely Hunter

It has been a lonely business being an outspoken skeptic since the early days of the Great New Age/Alternative Medicine Mania, continuing today on New-Age Maui. In the early 1980s I and a few friends, most notably Honolulu Meals on Wheels Executive Director Alicia Leonhard and University of Hawaii Professor (Emeritus) Victor Stenger formed the Quackery Action Council (QAC), aka Hawaii Skeptics.

We affiliated with the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) and the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). We organized lectures, seminars, workshops, and demonstrations. We walked on hot coals to mock and expose Tony Robbins and his scams. (We cost him so many customers he threatened to sue us.) On the day of the “Harmonic Convergence,” organized to celebrate New Age silliness and fantasies, we had our Skeptical Convergence with magic demonstrations, rationalist speakers and challenges to superstitious notions. We had taste tests to debunk the claim made by anti-fluoridationists that fluoride makes water taste bad.

We spoke to groups of health professionals, secularists and civic groups such as the Rotarians, and anyone else who would listen. Once we were invited to speak to a gardening club where we drifted into a fascinating conversation about quackery in agriculture and its parallels to quackery in human and veterinary medicine. We brought dedicated rationalists such as James Randi and William Jarvis to Honolulu for conferences and media appearances.

In spite of our best efforts QAC never grew to more than thirty members and only a handful of us did most of the work. State authorities ignored our complaints about chiropractors, naturopaths, “health food” stores and rogue medical doctors perpetrating brazen frauds on the public.

When Leonhard entered law school and a “psychic” spooked Stenger by suing us for libel (we eventually won with sanctions against the plaintiff), the group of rationalists disbanded. I was left as the only consistently active skeptic in Hawaii. I continued to write letters and commentaries in local publications and give occasional talks, but I knew my puny efforts were being overwhelmed. Think Woman of the Dunes.

As Dr. Stephen Barrett said a few years ago, we are still just entering the Golden Age of Quackery. Things will get worse for a long time before they start to get better. Preparing for a long fight, Dr. Barrett created QuackWatch.org, the world’s largest collection of detailed information and resources that expose and combat health fraud.

Dr. Barrett’s early masterful collection of bullshit exposure, The Health Robbers (edited with William Jarvis), inspired me to submit a proposal to his publisher Prometheus Books. I called it An Encyclopedia of Quackery. I was elated when they agreed to publish it and arranged for Dr. Barrett to be the editor.

Prometheus changed the title to A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine” (I insisted on the quotation marks) for legal and marketing purposes. They got me on a few TV and radio talk shows (mostly by phone), but the hosts were usually hostile and they shortened or cancelled my appearance once they realized that I was opposed to most of the hogwash people were coming to believe in. The ambiguous and somewhat misleading title of the book got me on the air, but ultimately did little for sales.

Soon after publication I was shocked to learn that in Berkeley and San Francisco bookstores copies of the book were being vandalized – scrawled all over with angry reactions to my rationalist challenges, and pages torn out. I suspect some of this was done by chiropractors, naturopaths, and assorted snake-oil sellers, but I can’t rule out their true-believer clients and fans.

My talk show appearances were also sabotaged. Chiropractors and pill peddlers would call to rant and rave against me, and in favor of their nostrums. The hosts would let them ramble on, eat up most of my time on the shows and hardly let me get a word in. Sometimes it was obvious that the producer’s motive from the start had been to discredit me in a sleazy way, to set me up and ambush me with a self-promoting sophist (usually an advertising client) with propaganda script in hand.

My frustration with the media treatment of me, and their bias against rationalism and consumer protection, led me to carefully study mass media coverage of alternatoid medicine. For years I watched, listened to, and read every health-related item on radio, television, newspapers and magazines, and I took careful notes.

In this large survey the alternatoid nostrums were given at least 100 times the positive and promotional time skeptical views of them were given. There was no pretense of balance; this was a massive brain-washing operation. I realized that this extreme media bias is the main driver of the health fraud juggernaut and the cause of the mass delusion about the wonders of “alternative medicine.” If exposed to nothing but lying propaganda, even geniuses can’t find their way to the truth.

So I wrote Lying for Fun and Profit; the Truth about the Media, a book that exposes the corrupt symbiosis between the media giants and the health fraud industries. I skewered Phil Donahue, Oprah, Larry King, Dr. Oz, Sonya Friedman, Bill Moyers 60 Minutes, ABC News, the largest book publishers and dozens of other enablers, aiders, abettors and conspirators. 

Of course, the book was too hot for publishers to handle, even Prometheus Books. Defending against libel lawsuits is expensive, so publishers are reluctant to take risks with hard-hitting exposes. I had to publish it myself. I managed to get copies to about a hundred individuals and organizations, some skeptical and some persuadable. I distributed them for free.

The book scored a rave review and endorsement by renowned quack buster Dr. Victor Herbert. And I was especially happy to hear that Stanford Medical School Professor Wallace Sampson was offering a class on quackery and that he would review the book in The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine for the Spring, 2001 edition.

In a full-page review Dr. Sampson called it a pearl of a book that should be widely read. He lamented that it couldn’t be published in large numbers and made available to all at a reasonable price. My break-even price was 12 dollars, far too high for my gifting to be sustainable.  

But that was all before the internet and cheap e-publishing. I am happy to say that the book is now available for free at www.smashwords.com. It can be downloaded and read on any computer, e-book reader or smart phone.

So far so good. But how do I get people to download it and read it? Hundreds of new books are published every day, so the competition for readers is fierce. And free is not much cheaper than the 3- or 4-dollar price of most e-books, so I don’t have a big advantage there.

But what do I care? Why do I bother? And what would I consider a success?

I care because, like most older people, I think about my legacy, especially since I don’t have children. I have long believed I could die a happy person if I were certain that my life and labors had not been in vain, and that I would leave the planet, the society and the people in my life a little better off than if I had not lived, loved and worked. I think most people feel this way.

While success could eventually mean an easy death, total failure in either love or work usually means a hard death full of bitter regrets and self-recrimination. We are social primates and we naturally prefer the approval of society or at least the approval of those we respect and admire.

Among the people I respect and admire are dedicated rationalists who have succeeded in disseminating truths about important matters, especially bogus health products and services. Along with those I have already mentioned, I would include the bloggers of ScienceBasedMedicine.org. Their essays are consistently informative and well written.

Though the site is not as comprehensive as QuackWatch.org, it’s growing fast and it’s a better read. The regular bloggers, mostly medical doctors, have a variety of writing styles and subject areas that they focus on. This makes the site more interesting than the dictionary-like dry tone of QuackWatch. It’s also well organized and has a good search function. It is a treasure trove of information on how each sCAM modality or nostrum is marketed and used, and how it misleads and manipulates, deceives and defrauds.

The common thread running through the blogs is rationalism. The writers are aware of the tsunami of bullshit that threatens to engulf us. They understand that science-based medicine has a long record of spectacular accomplishments, but the vulnerable sick as well as the Over-Washed and Under-Educated WorriedWell ignore that and fall prey to hoards of quacks, many of whom are genuine psychopaths.

The SBM bloggers are alerting people to the predators. This small group of physicians (and some non-MD science-savvy allies) have “got woke” and for that I am relieved and happy. It’s about time. Bill Jarvis’ greatest regret after decades of teaching and activism (founding NCAHF and editing its newsletter) was that his group had not managed to attract many medical doctors, most of whom just couldn’t be bothered. I have had similar frustrations, so the advent of the SBM blogs has been an encouraging development.

However, I am baffled and disappointed by some of the behavior of the SBM bloggers. I have been involved in quack busting since most of them were students. I assumed they would welcome me with open arms as an ally, and be receptive to my insights and ideas born of a great deal of study and experience. I was wrong.

I submitted an essay hoping to get it posted as an occasional guest blog. It recounted a raucous and amusing clash I had with quack Robert Atkins on a Honolulu radio talk show. I submitted the essay and waited several weeks for its publication or rejection, but I didn’t hear from the site’s editor Dr. David Gorski. I emailed him and asked about it, but got no reply. I then emailed the essay to all the other bloggers, but none of them replied either. So I gave up on the guest blogger idea.

I then submitted a proposal to the editor and to each of the bloggers asking them to endorse my effort to raise a couple thousand dollars through a crowd-funding site to get Lying for Fun and Profit; the Truth about the Media professionally formatted for publication as an e-book so it could be read on hand-held devices as well as on computers. Again, not one of them replied. (I later learned how to format it myself.)

Then I sent two of the SBM bloggers copies of my Consumer’s Guide to "Alternative Medicine" along with rave reviews from Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine, Cooking Light, The American Journal of Health Promotion and others. I asked that one of them review the book for the SBM blog site and provide me with names of health-science educators and medical school professors who might want a few free copies for their libraries and their students.

I had recently won a substantial award in a self-litigated civil rights lawsuit (brutality in jail following an unlawful arrest), and I was prepared to spend most of it on my crusade against quackery even though I had been destitute for years, sporadically homeless, and dependent on soup kitchens and food stamps. Again I got no reply. When I emailed and asked if they had received the books (through tracking I knew they had) they did not reply. I waited a few weeks and asked again, and again got no reply.

Several months later (just recently) I sent tweets to Dr. Gorski and other SBM bloggers and several of their MD Twitter followers. I asked them to retweet my little promo for my free e-book. I have only 50 followers while Gorski and the others have thousands. I figured that a couple retweets from one or two of them would help me quickly reach my modest goal of one thousand downloads of the book.

Here are some of the tweets I sent. You can see them on my Twitter page (@MauiLiberty) of February 18, 2018.

“I’ve been exposing and fighting quackery since 1980 with no support from the medical profession, which never recognized the problem. I’ve spent almost 40 years, thousands of hours and thousands of dollars on the quixotic mission. I’ve endured harassment, vilification, arrests, ....”

“…police brutality, lawsuits and a severe beating that caused permanent injury. Now I’m an old man with little to show for my efforts. Quackery is rampant in Hawaii. Health fraud stores rob their customers with impunity. Naturopaths, quackupuncturists and chiroquacks have full- or….”

“….near-equivalence with MDs, & they routinely defraud & injure people, thanks to corrupt politicians & lying media. There’s nothing more I can do. But before I quit the fight I’d like to see one thousand downloads of my free e-book, Lying for Fun and Profit; the Truth about the Media.”

“This small success would let me imagine I’ve accomplished something of lasting value. With the tens of thousands of followers some rationalist tweeters have (I have only 50), they could help me reach this goal by retweeting the following tweet and endorsing the book.”

“Media-driven mass delusions re CAM are a cancer on the health care system, forcing legalization of frauds. For a rationalist view: 101 alternative medicines rated from -3 (worst) to +3 (best). See Chapter 5 in FREE e-book: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/675547 …”

I also sent a couple dozen personal tweets along the lines of this one:

“Skeptic Dr. Wally Sampson called my Lying for Fun and Profit; the Truth about the Media a pearl of a book that should be widely read. It's now a free e-book. Please read my tweets of February 18 about my 38-year struggle to expose and combat quackery and retweet the last one. Thank you.”

Unfortunately, not a single one of the SBM bloggers or their followers complied with my simple request. I got no retweets and I’m stuck at 333 downloads of the book.

This is especially surprising and disappointing since the skeptics are aware of the positive review the book received from one of their own, the late, great Dr. Wallace Sampson, or Wally as his friends knew him.

Dr. Gorski wrote this about Wally following his death:

“Dr. Wallace Sampson, one of the original authors at Science-Based Medicine, passed away on May 25th at the age of 85. Wally was a valued member of the SBM community, a mentor to many of us, and a tireless crusader against health fraud and pseudoscience in medicine. He carried the banner of defending science and reason within medicine for a generation.”

If you have read this far I’m sure you can understand why I am disappointed and baffled. Why have they so resolutely rejected me? Why do they shun, exclude, and ostracize me, and refuse me the smallest favor and the slightest common courtesy? Why were they so rude after I sent them copies of my quackery-busting book and offered them dozens more for free at great expense to me? In short, why have they treated me the same way the pro-quackery media have treated me for forty years?

If SBM bloggers have a beef with my work they should say so, either publicly or in a private communication. Do they disagree with my contention that the corrupt media are a major driver, if not the major driver of the health fraud industries? Do they disagree with Dr. Wally Sampson and Dr. Victor Herbert who say the book is an important contribution to the skeptical literature and should be read by all?  If so, why not come out and say so? A scathing critique on their site would be preferable to the silent treatment and the shunning. Are the SBM bloggers not interested in cooperating with other skeptics, but prefer to maintain a closed clique? Do they not want to encourage other skeptics and promote their work? Perhaps they resent that I criticized them for allowing lots of quack ads on their site without a disclaimer akin to that on the Consumer Reports site.

It can’t be that they are so busy they lack the time to even acknowledge me. Dr. Gorski, for one, is a prolific tweeter on a wide variety of subjects, especially health fraud, but also politics and puppies.

Nor can it be that they are a tightly closed society and unwelcoming to any new contributors. Not long ago they accepted Britt Marie Hermes as a guest blogger. She is an ex-naturopath who has confessed, “I used to be a quack.” She’s a good addition, but so far she hasn’t said anything I haven’t been saying for decades.

Sure, Hermes has “street cred”, but shouldn’t I get a little cred for having warned people not to waste time and money on naturopathic college in the first place, for having studied the curricula and realized long ago that naturopathic education is a huge swindle? Apparently not.

So the SBM bloggers remain a great mystery and a great disappointment to me. If anyone has insights, comments or advice on promoting my free e-book please leave them here or tweet them to me. Thank you.