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Quackwatch Inc. is an American non-profit organization that aims to "combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct," with its primary focus on what it characterizes as quackery. Since 1996, it has operated a website, Quackwatch.org, which contains articles and other types of information criticizing many forms of alternative medicine.

History

Quackwatch was founded by Stephen Barrett, M.D., as the Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud in 1969, and incorporated it in the state of Pennsylvania in 1970. In 1996, the organization began the Quackwatch website, renaming the organization Quackwatch in 1997 as the website attracted attention.

Mission and scope

Quackwatch is operated by Stephen Barrett with input from his board of advisors and help from volunteers that include a number of medical professionals. The website has won three awards and has been quoted in the press and medical journals.

Quackwatch reports that its activities include the following:

"investigating questionable claims, answering inquiries about products and services, advising quackery victims, distributing reliable publications, debunking pseudoscientific claims, reporting illegal marketing, improving the quality of health information on the internet, assisting or generating consumer-protection lawsuits, and attacking misleading advertising on the internet."

The website contains essays on what it deems to be misleading or fraudulent health-related therapies and enterprises, loosely termed "quackery". The essays are not, and do not claim to be, peer reviewed scientific papers, but are mainly critical descriptions of treatments, commercial products, and health providers, mainly written by Barrett and his board of advisors for the non-specialist consumer. The essays generally explain in detail the reasons Barrett considers them fraudulent, misleading, or ineffective. They usually include references and links to sources used, as well as to sources for further study. Quackwatch is especially critical of those therapies that it considers potentially dangerous.

The site contains information about specific people who perform, market, and advocate what Quackwatch considers to be dubious therapies, in many cases providing details of convictions for past marketing fraud. The website also presents lists of sources, individuals, and groups which Quackwatch considers questionable and non-recommended, sometimes without explanation or justification. Among those mentioned critically are Linus Pauling, for recommending orthomolecular "mega-dose" vitamin C treatment of colds and cancer, and integrative medicine proponent Andrew Weil.

About the site

Quackwatch engages the services of 150+ scientific and technical advisors, who author articles and help to "evaluate web sites, answer health-related questions, review books, help prepare articles, and engage in other projects that foster the spread of accurate information on the Internet." As of 2003, 67 medical advisors, 12 dental advisors, 13 mental health advisors, 16 nutrition and food science advisors, 3 podiatry advisors, 8 veterinary advisors, and 33 "other scientific and technical advisors" were listed.

Quackwatch claims that it has no salaried employees and "…operates with minimal expense, funded mainly by small individual donations, commissions from sales on other sites to which we refer, sponsored links, and profits from the sale of publications. If its income falls below what is needed for the research, the rest comes out of my pocket… The total cost of operating Quackwatch's many Web sites is approximately $7,000 per year."

The site is part of a network of related sites, such as Homeowatch (on homeopathy), Credential Watch (devoted to exposing degree mills), Chirobase (specifically devoted to chiropractic, cosponsored by the National Council Against Health Fraud and Victims of Chiropractic), and others, each devoted to specific topics.

Notability

Quackwatch has been mentioned in the media and various journals, as well as receiving numerous awards and honors, including:

In 1998, JAMA named Quackwatch one of nine "select sites that provide reliable health information and resources."

In 1999, U.S. News & World Report listed Quackwatch as one of three medical sites in their "Best of the Web".

In its "Best of the Web Directory — Health" category, Forbes online magazine listed Quackwatch among 25 sites and provided this review:

"Dr. Stephen Barrett, a psychiatrist, seeks to expose unproven medical treatments and possible unsafe practices through his homegrown but well-organized site. Mostly attacking alternative medicines, homeopathy and chiropractors, the tone here can be rather harsh. However, the lists of sources of health advice to avoid, including books, specific doctors and organizations, are great for the uninformed. Barrett received an FDA Commissioner's Special Citation Award for fighting nutrition quackery in 1984. BEST: Frequently updated, but also archives of relevant articles that date back at least four years. WORST: Lists some specific doctors and organizations without explaining the reason for their selection."

Quackwatch has also been cited or mentioned by journalists in reports on therapeutic touch, Vitamin O, Almon Glenn Braswell and his claimed baldness treatments, dietary supplements (especially when sold by health care providers), Robert Barefoot's coral calcium claims, noni juice, shark cartilage, infomercials, and the Mexican clinic where Coretta Scott King died.