Should Quack Busters and Other Rationalists Contribute to the Society for Science Based Medicine?

After the death of Wallace Sampson, MD, Stanford Professor of Medicine (Wally, as his friends knew him), the founding editors of the Society for Science Based Medicine (SfSBM) website, including Dr. Steven Novella, Dr. Harriet Hall and Dr. David Gorski, heaped praise on him.  Here is some of what they wrote:

“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, and his is one of the giant shoulders on which SBM currently rests” 

“Wally was keen to identify and nurture new people interested in promoting science in medicine. As a much younger skeptic, prior to social media, when I was only running a new and obscure local skeptic group, Wally invited me to speak at conferences, and eventually to be one of the assistant editors for The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. Such nurturing was not common in my experience. He gave me the experience and platform upon which I eventually built Science-Based Medicine.”

“Wally continued to provide encouragement, praise, and support. His e-mails validated my work and kept me going.  ….. He was kind, gentle, grandfatherly, professorial, approachable, modest, and a true gentleman…..  Wallace Sampson was my mentor. He was responsible for launching my writing career and for making me who I am today.”

In 2001 I sent Dr. Sampson a copy of my self-published book Lying for Fun and Profit; the Truth about the Media. It’s about the critical role the mainstream media, including all the major broadcast and cable networks, as well as major print media, have played in indoctrinating the public to embrace the scams of fraudulent alternative medicine. There is no other work like it, no other thorough documentation of the irresponsibility of journalists who have violated their own professional code of ethics for decades.

Dr. Sampson wrote a full-page rave review of the book in The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine for the Spring, 2001, edition. Here are some excerpts from that review.

“Some books are indispensable reference works. Some are just plain fun to read – either for their literary value or entertainment. This work has both these qualifications. It is a shame it had to be self-published because it could use a few key reviews and be on everyone’s best-seller list….

“In addition to Butler’s immaculately recorded experiences with media coverage of medical, health, and nutrition matters, the book is written in a lucid, entertaining style. The style is neither coy nor understated; to the contrary, almost every paragraph hits with hammer force. Yet Butler has an easy and unforced humor that jumps out through ones own reactions, sucking the reader along in his skipping cynicism. Words like hoax and nitwit are sprinkled gaily and appropriately throughout. The whole thing is just done in an airy way and with a Beethoven-like relentless rhythm that keeps the reader turning pages, pumping fists, laughing, and calling out, ‘Yeah, More!’

“Butler shows how surreptitiously the influence of relativism and deconstruction / postmodernism have warped the presses’ handling of even the most mundane and simple principles of common sense. …The way he presents these episodes with every language turn carefully thought out is reason enough for this pearl of a book to be widely read.”

Years later I converted the work to an e-book and made it available to everyone for free at Smashwords.com. I notified all the editors and contributors of the SBM site, and mentioned Dr. Sampson’s review as well as these words from another legendary quack buster, Dr. Victor Herbert:

“This book puts Kurt Butler in the pantheon of the greats in exposure of the lucrative promotion of fads and frauds by the deluded and the dishonest who peddle pseudoscience in the media.”

I hoped for a brief mention and recommendation from at least one of them to boost the number of downloads. Much to my disappointment, not one of the SBMers gave the book a nod or even acknowledged my email. I tried a second round, again to no avail.

I joined Twitter.com and promoted the book there. I made several appeals to SBM tweeters for a re-tweet but again got nothing; no re-tweets, no replies. I have only about 100 followers, while some of them have many thousands. A single re-tweet could give the book an enormous boost, but none of them would give me a crumb.

I wrote about my disappointment and bafflement in a blog post (see below) and sent them each a link. Again, not a word in reply. I have given them re-tweets and linked to their site many times, but after I practically begged for more than a year they haven’t returned the favor even once.

Now SBM has started a Patreon account to raise money for its operations.  Of course, it would be unseemly and unethical for them to write a positive review of my book in exchange for a contribution to their Patreon account, so I offered them $100 to write a negative review. I want to know what they think is so bad about the book that they can’t give me a single re-tweet. Once again I got no reply.

They could say something like, “Wally Sampson loved this book, as did Victor Herbert. We disagree with them and don’t think the media are major drivers of the CAM mania. But read it and decide for yourself. Here’s the link…”

But, no. They treat me exactly the same as the mainstream media have always treated me – ignore and shun. (I should note that Dr. Steven Novella did send me a kind email, but he wouldn’t give me a retweet or mention the book in a blog.)

Together the SBM bloggers have posted tens of thousands of tweets and blogs. David Gorski alone has averaged about 15 tweets each day for eight years, on all kinds of subjects besides health fraud, including his puppies and his political views. But he can’t give me a single re-tweet to help spread the truth about the role of the media in spreading the plague of fraudulent alternative medicine.

These people praised Wally Sampson to the hilt, but they are not at all like him and they haven’t followed his example. They are not kind, courteous, nurturing, approachable or encouraging to other skeptics and quack busters. They have no interest in serving as mentors or recruiters to a movement.

Dr. Gorski, for one, borders on narcissistic, frequently tweeting about how many likes and re-tweets he gets, how many adoring fans he has. He claims to be a surgeon, but it’s a wonder he has time to practice medicine considering how much time he spends admiring and promoting himself.

So, to answer the question posed by the title of this post, I wouldn’t give SfSBM a dime. It pains me to say this because I think their blogs are consistently right on and their website is well organized, comprehensive and has a very good search function. But as human beings they are deeply flawed and, because of this, unlikely to make much progress in what should be their goal, rolling back the gains made in recent decades by the quackery mafia, which is strong largely because its members support each other.