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Look up Linus Pauling's confused ranting about Vitamin C as the cure for everything. See https://www.quackwatch.org/01Q... .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.quackwatch.org/11I...

From one of Price's more critical reviews:

"Price made a whirlwind tour of primitive areas, examined the natives superficially, and jumped to simplistic conclusions. While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition. While praising their diets for not producing cavities, he ignored the fact that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities."

Dude, subluxations don't exist. Nobody has ever verifiably seen or found one. They are a myth.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01Qu...

This study proves that working for a publicity-hungry quack clinic damages your ability to distinguish between association and causation.

The author http://www.amenclinics.com/sta... works for a clinic http://www.amenclinics.com/ that sells dubious treatments based on dubious SPECT diagnoses.

Quackwatch has this to say:

https://www.quackwatch.org/06R... A Skeptical View of SPECT Scans and Dr. Daniel Amen by Harriet Hall, M.D.

I believe it is improper to charge thousands of dollars for a test that has not been validated and may not be safe. I don't think any of Amen's research has provided clear evidence that patients who have had SPECT scans have superior clinical outcomes to adequately treated patients who have not been scanned. That's really the bottom lineâ"especially with an expensive test that involves significant radiation. At the very least, he should be describing the test as experimental.

Some of Dr. Amen's treatment suggestions also worry me. For example, he recommends: (a) uses for dietary supplements that are not supported by good evidence, (b) EMDR (a highly questionable approach), and (c) hyperbaric oxygen therapy for conditions not generally considered to warrant such therapy.

I don't doubt that many patients who visit the Amen Clinics are helped. The key question, however, is whether or not SPECT scanning is justifiable for most of them. I, personally, would not undergo the test at Dr. Amen's clinic even if it were free. In my opinion, based on current knowledge, the possibility of harm outweighs any potential benefit. Pictures showing that "this is your brain on drugs" may impress some people, but I am far more impressed by quantifiable data (such as tests of mental performance) and clinical consequences (such as improved behavior) than by nonspecific pictures of "holes" in the brain.

So this is an operation that is selling diagnoses and treatments not supported by legitimate scientific research. They wound up with thousands of SPECT scans and decided to do some data-dredging on them, a process that we know is guaranteed to produce false positives http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea... https://xkcd.com/882/ , along with any real causative association. They found an association with marijuana, and rushed to publish.

Once it was published in a journal, they made claims in the press release that weren't supported by the data:

According to Daniel Amen, M.D., Founder of Amen Clinics, "Our research demonstrates that marijuana can have significant negative effects on brain function. The media has given the general impression that marijuana is a safe recreational drug, this research directly challenges that notion. In another new study just released, researchers showed that marijuana use tripled the risk of psychosis. Caution is clearly in order."

Clearly false. Association is not causation.

Well played, sir. I looked at the quackwatch site, which had this quote from the Amen Clinics site "Brain-Soul connection." and found that sufficient. Not that that's not an interesting question in general; just that this current research direction seems no more likely to elucidate it than any of the others pursued over the previous 10,000 years.

This study proves that working for a publicity-hungry quack clinic damages your ability to distinguish between association and causation.

The author http://www.amenclinics.com/sta... works for a clinic http://www.amenclinics.com/ that sells dubious treatments based on dubious SPECT diagnoses.

Quackwatch has this to say:

https://www.quackwatch.org/06R...
A Skeptical View of SPECT Scans and Dr. Daniel Amen
by Harriet Hall, M.D.

I believe it is improper to charge thousands of dollars for a test that has not been validated and may not be safe. I don't think any of Amen's research has provided clear evidence that patients who have had SPECT scans have superior clinical outcomes to adequately treated patients who have not been scanned. That's really the bottom lineâ"especially with an expensive test that involves significant radiation. At the very least, he should be describing the test as experimental.

Some of Dr. Amen's treatment suggestions also worry me. For example, he recommends: (a) uses for dietary supplements that are not supported by good evidence, (b) EMDR (a highly questionable approach), and (c) hyperbaric oxygen therapy for conditions not generally considered to warrant such therapy.

I don't doubt that many patients who visit the Amen Clinics are helped. The key question, however, is whether or not SPECT scanning is justifiable for most of them. I, personally, would not undergo the test at Dr. Amen's clinic even if it were free. In my opinion, based on current knowledge, the possibility of harm outweighs any potential benefit. Pictures showing that "this is your brain on drugs" may impress some people, but I am far more impressed by quantifiable data (such as tests of mental performance) and clinical consequences (such as improved behavior) than by nonspecific pictures of "holes" in the brain.

So this is an operation that is selling diagnoses and treatments not supported by legitimate scientific research. They wound up with thousands of SPECT scans and decided to do some data-dredging on them, a process that we know is guaranteed to produce false positives http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea... https://xkcd.com/882/ , along with any real causative association. They found an association with marijuana, and rushed to publish.

Once it was published in a journal, they made claims in the press release that weren't supported by the data:

According to Daniel Amen, M.D., Founder of Amen Clinics, "Our research demonstrates that marijuana can have significant negative effects on brain function. The media has given the general impression that marijuana is a safe recreational drug, this research directly challenges that notion. In another new study just released, researchers showed that marijuana use tripled the risk of psychosis. Caution is clearly in order."

Clearly false. Association is not causation.

All data were obtained for analysis from a large multisite database, involving 26,268 patients who came for evaluation of complex, treatment resistant issues to one of nine outpatient neuropsychiatric clinics across the United States

But "people with serious neuropsychiatric people who used cannabis have low blood flow to the brain" is both less clickworthy and less politically useful than "OMG pot rots yr brain!"

And I love this: "As a physician who routinely sees marijuana users..." Yeah, that's called "a physician". Cannabis use is common, every physician has seen patients who has used it.

Both Amen and this methodology are poorly regarded. He's in the addiction treatment industry -- look at this is an old marketing pitch of his quoted in a Quackwatch article:

How your brain and soul work together determines how happy you feel, how successful you become, and how well you connect with others. The brain-soul connection is vastly more powerful than your conscious will. Will power falters when the physical functioning of the brain and the health of your soul fail to support your desires, as seen by illogical behaviors like overeating, smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, and compulsive spending.

OHOH, Officials at major psychiatric and neuroscience associations and research centers say his SPECT claims are no more than myth and poppycock, buffaloing an unsuspecting public.

"There is no evidence that RF [radiofrequency] exposure is a causal factor. In a number of experimental provocation studies, persons who consider themselves electrically hypersensitive and healthy volunteers have been exposed to either sham or real RF fields, but symptoms have not been more prevalent during RF exposure than during sham in any of the experimental groups. Several studies have indicated a nocebo effect, i.e. an adverse effect caused by an expectation that something is harmful. Associations have been found between self-reported exposure and the outcomes, whereas no associations were seen with measured RF exposure."

Even "better":
http://drhubbuch.com/

Her interest in health and assisting her patients take control of their own health began with her work in the Womenâ(TM)s Self Help Health Movement.

Even more better than better...

Dr. Hubbuch is a member of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine

But the AAEM is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, and is mentioned in Quackwatch.
http://www.abms.org/member-boa...
http://www.quackwatch.org/04Co...

Ummm, Erin Brockovich doesn't have a very good record as far as using real science to help people fight against polluters. Check http://www.quackwatch.org/01Qu..., for example.

Dr. Mercola is listed on Quackwatch and is under close scrutiny by the FDA. He also keeps dodgy company:
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html

Ionizers literally drove The Sharper Image into bankruptcy. The Sharper Image produced the Ionic Breeze ionizer which Consumer Reports concluded was "ineffective" as an air cleaner and produced "almost no measurable reduction in airborne particles."

Worse, all ionizing purifiers generate ozone. The EPA states, "Relatively low amounts [of ozone] can cause chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath, and, throat irritation. Ozone may also worsen chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and compromise the ability of the body to fight respiratory infections".

So in reality not only are ionizers ineffective, they're actually bad for you.

I suggest you read the link provided. It seems to me, that In the original post, i kan reed, was referring to the percentage of pseudoscience characteristics exhibited by AGW and alternate theories. That's not a statistical measure of how many of the theories are correct, it's the percentage of red flags they raise from the list. Raising even one of the flags isn't a good sign, raising multiple ones is very bad. I'm not sure if there is even a single example of a theory that trips half or more of the flags and is actually science.

Your assertion that "[t]rying to assign the bulk statistic to the individual instance beforehand is simply not valid procedure" is correct but not applicable, because the percentage of red flags raised would be assigned to each individual theory after evaluating it. I'm sure that you would agree that examining and then evaluating something is reasonable.

referenced document for the below post

Yes, because most slashdotters aren't very good at applying the pseudoscience test to ideas. Climate change pretty clearly falls into the realm of 5-15% depending on how generous you are for pseudoscience characteristics. Compared against obvious pseudoscience like astrology or homeopathy which tend to score in the 95-100% range. And "skeptic" theories tend to hit in the 30-50ish% range, depending on the extent to which they allege conspiracy.

But people don't operate that way, especially techies like us. We don't apply strict rules to our understanding of things. We build mental frameworks that help us problem solve complex problems that fall back to hundreds of "what if?" solutions without necessarily caring about the validity of them. Our group is one of problem solvers, and not understanding and interpreting data as accurately as possible. We're easily taken with concepts that endorse our own perspective, and that actually helps with the kind of work many of us do. We're generally smart people here, but we fall back on our intuition, and are easily fooled by the BS the GP presented.

I'd be more inclined to believe you if you actually said WHICH chemicals (bonus points for the mechanisms involved). I haven't seen much evidence either way, though I would be surprised if over/misdiagnosis didn't play a role. Also, what is the difference between rates of increase here and other industrialized nations, or even various parts of the country (with various levels of various teratogens).

I've seen anecdotal studies, and tentative research (which is pretty much useless ffor drawing conclusions from) pointing both ways. Both some sort of nasty chemical, and normal statistical clusters.

But claiming that any of this is clear cut is a bit goofy.

Protecting me from snake oil salesmen (like your Burzynski quack) who have the one true cure for cancer is exactly why I want the government involved in health. You shouldn't be able to make shit up and pass it off as medicine, and you bet I want someone looking over real science before something goes to market where it can do real damage either if it is dangerous or if it just doesn't work and prevents people from getting real treatment. Could this lead to a a legitimate treatment being overlooked due to those big bad close minded doctors who just can't see the brilliance of (insert probable pseudoscience but possible real treatment here)? Maybe. But it's better than the alternative, and it is much more likely that they'll be preventing lots of bad treatments rather than suppressing a few good ones.

And it's funny that the people always bashing the FDA (usually because their favorite quackery didn't get approval) are always the same ones hating on the pharma companies. Uh, hello, who the hell do you think is keeping those guys in line? You really want them running amok?

Nope
Not one single injury
EVER

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/clark.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulda_Regehr_Clark

Note the redundant use of the word "fraudulent".

Quack quack.

Since Apple's "fix" is "don't hold it the way we show it held in our marketing collateral" I think that Consumer Reports is clearly in the wrong here. Maybe Apple should, instead of actually fix the problem, consider suing Consumer Union another overpriced niche-product maker did. (too bad the case was dismissed)

And, from one of the linked articles:

"If the only thing that Apple is changing in this software fix is how the bars are calculated, then this is simply a pacifier for people who like to watch bars," said Spencer Webb, president of AntennaSys, an antenna design firm. "And signal 'bar watching' is a dangerous way to draw technical conclusions about a phone's reception."

Indeed, the bars that one sees displayed on any cell phone can be misleading. This is not just an issue for the iPhone, but for all cell phones, Webb explains.

If checking the number of bars "is a dangerous way to draw technical conclusions about a phone's reception" then a) why include the bar graph at all b) by what means do you recommend customers determine reception c) the bars are supposed to reflect dBm in a user-friendly way, and last I checked dBm is exactly what is used to determine an antenna's performance and d) when cell companies tout "more bars" as a key feature of their network, shouldn't it mean better reception and fewer dropped calls throughout their network?

Oh come on, that "power lines cause cancer" shit has been known to be bullshit for years now.

Or see Laetrile http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/laetrile.html
Of course in a way you can not blame people. Imagine if you had a known terminal condition and there was nothing that could be done.
At that point the idea of what do you have to loose becomes very real.

Yep those folks are foul and yes good for you Costa Rica.

Scientists would perhaps rarely be interested in debunking specific details about some certain religion, but for me, it's about the notion of religions itself that is conterproductive, and naturally I wish it would disappear.

Religion supports the ideas that it is good to believe in something without carefully judging possible explanations, and picking the one/ones that is/are most likely to be true. I.e. blind faith is something good. That is never ever good. .. or that something are not OK to question... or that we shouldn't try to explain things.... or that touchy-feely reasons hold grounds against logical ones.
I very strongly disagree with all of that, and I will actively work against groups that prupose such ideas. This is a very real conflict between science and religion. It's not just about religion. All pseudo-science are equally disliked by many, for very understandable reasons, and thanks to those good people who fight against such rubbish, we may save alot of innocent victims from bad decisions ( see, for example, http://www.quackwatch.org/ ). It's not a poo throwing contest where everyone is equally guilty (as you seem to want to put it).

The way you write I also get the impression that it would be wrong to not liking how other people live their life. Why would it be? Sounds perfectly fine to me, and not liking things doesn't bring you down from the moral high ground. Why would I need to respect people who holds ridicolous ideas about invisible men in the sky? If someone honestly believes in Santa, we lock them into the asylum, but God? Oh, then it all very plausible all of the sudden. Let's all stop complaining about the murdering lunatics at the churhc of scientology as well shall we? (Hint; No, we shouldn't)

If Docs aren't allowed to prescribe silver, then how do they use it?

Also, silver sounds like a rather silly idea when we have actual antibiotics.

This isn't a "MAYBE", this is a "we stopped using silver a long time ago because we developed better things and it is bad for you."

Quite possibly. But without decent data you won't be able to make an informed decision. Unless this guy actually publishes something, one ought to be very suspicious. This is an extraordinary treatment. Extraordinary claims (should) require extraordinary proof.

Let's do the math: Ask a biochemist or a physicist.
If you calculate the energy required to break a carbon-carbon molecular bond (348 kJ/mol) you can caluate the mininum frequency which can generate that energy, as > 600 THz. Your cellular antennas transmit between 0.8 and 1.99 GHz, nowhere close by over four orders of magnitude.
Now, sunlight is dangerous, but not a 20W transceiver 6' away. Police cars typically use higher power radios, and you don't see them kvetching about the risk.
If you are still concerned, put some aluminum window scren on the wall where the antennas are mounted, and stucco over the screen.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/emf.html debunks the 'power lines cause leukemia' myth, BTW.

Is that why it has been observed that children living under power lines had a 70% increased risk of leukemia?

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/emf.html

Is that why DDT has been sprayed directly onto people as a standard anti-mosquito practice?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria

History has a pretty long damning list of cases where the dangers are only known after the stuff that causes them is widely deployed.

So your solution is .... avoid everything? How much does it cost to live in a clean-room, anyway?

Just out of curiosity, I gotta ask ... why do you hate science?

So why exactly should I not believe the original study? From where I stand (which is little to zero knowledge on the subject) I could conclude that each of the co authors one by one were persuaded by the various pharmaceutical companies which standed to be harmed by this research.

From Quackwatch.org:

The only "evidence" linking MMR vaccine and autism was published in the British journal Lancet in 1998. An editorial published in the same issue, however, discussed concerns about the validity of the study. Based on data from 12 patients, Dr. Andrew Wakefield (a British gastroenterologist) and colleagues speculated that MMR vaccine may have been the possible cause of bowel problems which led to a decreased absorption of essential vitamins and nutrients which resulted in developmental disorders like autism. No scientific analyses were reported, however, to substantiate the theory. Whether this series of 12 cases represent an unusual or unique clinical syndrome is difficult to judge without knowing the size of the patient population and time period over which the cases were identified.

If there happened to be selective referral of patients with autism to the researchers' practice, for example, the reported case series may simply reflect such referral bias. Moreover, the theory that autism may be caused by poor absorption of nutrients due to bowel inflammation is senseless and is not supported by the clinical data. In at least 4 of the 12 cases, behavioral problems appeared before the onset of symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease. Furthermore, since publication of their original report in February of 1998, Wakefield and colleagues have published another study in which highly specific laboratory assays in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, the posited mechanism for autism after MMR vaccination, were negative for measles virus.

I was always curious about long term effects. Non-ionizing radiation is proven to cause various illnesses. For example, some schools were built on cheap property in close proximity to large power transmission lines. That caused an unusually high rate of leukemia in the students. Prolonged exposure (living or going to school) at 200 meters raised the chance of getting leukemia by 70%. 200 meters to 500 meters raised it by 20%. Obviously, no research was done with Tesla's unfinished work. And for those asking for citations, search Google for "power lines leukemia" .

I did. Fourth result: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/emf.html From the link:

3. The initial study was flawed. Wertheimer and Leeper did not actually measure magnetic fields from power lines. Instead, they classified the homes according to their wiring code. The wiring code was then used as a surrogate for the powerline magnetic field, which was unmeasured and unknown. This is a flaw in the study. Later studies actually measured the magnetic fields from power lines and found no consistent relationship between measured magnetic field and incidence of cancer [13]. It is important to realize that there are important possible confounding factors in such epidemiologic studies. For example, one possible confounding factor is an income effect. Living right under electric power lines is not a desired residence, and often is a low-income housing location. People living near power lines tend to be poorer than the control group, and there is a strong and well-known epidemiological relationship between poverty and cancer. Gurney and others showed that the homes with the presumably higher-current wiring code tended to be lower income [14]. Thus the original Wertheimer-Leeper study was biased. In addition, it was based on a relatively few cases, and the statistics were consequently rather poor.

In summary: non-ionizing radiation has not been proven to cause various illnesses.

And also sounds like complete bullshit with the eye on getting some money out of somebody. The depth and breadth of the claims are astonishing and don't really fit.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary extraordinary proof.

"CONCLUSIONS: We emphasize the lack of established effectiveness and potential toxicity of these products."

But why trust something published in Journal of Toxicology and Clinical Toxicology when anonymous coward on Slashdot says that it works and won't poison your body?

Also who don't want to carry a healthy metallic grey skin tone?
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/Gifs/argyria2.gif

Consuming silver, at least not excessively, is beneficial. It's a fact that colloidal silver can be consumed in quantities sufficient to kill off bacteria without poisoning your body.

Says anonymous coward ...

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/silverad.html

I'm lazy so I won't try to find something else.

Right, one of them is much more likely to kill you on the spot.

Wait, were you suggesting the muscle relaxants were the more dangerous approach? That's not right at all.

Orrin Hatch and his 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act which did the following:
It expanded the types of products that could be marketed as "supplements." The most logical definition of "dietary supplement" would be something that supplies one or more essential nutrients missing from the diet. DSHEA went far beyond this to include vitamins; minerals; herbs or other botanicals; amino acids; other dietary substances to supplement the diet by increasing dietary intake; and any concentrate, metabolite, constituent, extract, or combination of any such ingredients.
Since its passage, even hormones, such as DHEA and melatonin, are being hawked as supplements.
DSHEA also prohibits the FDA from banning dubious supplement ingredients as "unapproved food additives." Before DSHEA's passage, the FDA considered this strategy more efficient than taking action against individual manufacturers. Now the only way to banish an ingredient is to prove it is unsafe. Ingredients that are useless but harmless are protected. Nor is there any practical way for the FDA to ensure that the ingredients listed on product labels are actually in the products.

All of these quotes are pulled from Quackwatch but If you want to look up more information about it, it's pretty widely attacked for what it allows Supplement suppliers to pawn off as safe/effective. Another movie that mentions it is "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" (which is about steroids mostly) where they fill pills with sugar and trace amounts of compounds and then could legally sell it on the market without any real label information, other than "contains:".

I found that colloidal silver

Colloidal silver? Hahahahahaha. Quackwatch

I have food allergies too and what to point out that blood tests for food allergies are mostly frauds. None have been verified in a properly blinded scientific study. If your insurance doesn't cover it, it's probably because they don't believe it works. After all, having you avoid foods that cause you problems would save lots of money over the long run. More info here.

Quackwatch has a good section on how pseudoscience does not make progress, unlike real science.

That's the real problem. Homeopathy isn't any better understood than it was fifty years ago. Nor does it work better. Nor does is ESP. In real science, if you have some phenomenon that's near the noise threshold, people work to design experiments that yield a more definitive result. In psuedoscience, the results stay near the noise threshold forever.

So you never get a working technology out of psuedoscience. And that's the real problem.

Consider electricity. Early researchers, back in the "rubbing fur" era of electric generation, were barely able to get anything to happen. And sometimes, on humid days, it didn't work. It almost looked like psuedoscience. But there was progress. von Guericke in 1650 put a sulfur ball on a rotating shaft and started to build up serious static charges. Then von Kleist made a glass-jar capacitor, and charge could be stored. No question about whether it worked; that setup could deliver a serious zap. From then on, progress was steady.

Orsted discovered electromagnetism in 1820, and that, too, was a flaky phenomenon at first. A wire near a compass would move a compass needle when current flowed, but just barely. But more current caused more needle movement, an indication that this was real. (That's what to watch for - if there's something you can do that makes the effect stronger, it's probably real. If not, probably not.) By 1821, Faraday was able to demo the first electric motor. By 1835, motors had progressed from demo size to demo electric railway size.

"Evian: apply directly to the naive."

Fixed it for ya. I always wondered if having your product be "Naive" spelled backwards was an inside joke on the part of some marketroid.

With that out of the way, my go-to site for debunking quack medicine is Quackwatch. Debunks all the health scams from homeopathy to ear candling to colloidal silver to chiropracty, all on one convinient page.

Look, low-carb diets do produce weight loss, and you should not eat an excessive amount of carbs, but Atkins-style diets will cause ketosis, which is (1) inefficient and (2) can lead to cardiovascular damage.

If you really want to lose weight, reduce calorie intake, get more aerobic and anaerobic exercise daily, and change your diet to avoid processed foods.

Dunbal>>> "There is no medical evidence that it helps prevent or cure colds, etc."

The BBC reported a year or more ago that the latest research suggests that supplements can reduce the duration of a cold once you've got it but don't do anything for prevention - my current use of Vit.C follows this, I take on orange juice and citrus fruit when I have a cold and occassionally even have tablets.

Member of the Finnish DOH and an epidemiology expert >>>"Duration of cold episodes that occurred during prophylaxis was significantly reduced in both children and adults. For children this represented an average reduction of 14% in symptom days, while in adults the reduction was 8%."

See http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request =get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020168; also http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ DSH/colds.html is a slightly less positive review that still agrees that duration can be reduced by supplementing ascorbic acid intake.

That all sounds like it "helps ... cure colds" to me.

Well, the SPECT test you mention seems a bit... erm... contraversial.

http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/amen. html

The Internet is a hypochondriacs wet dream.....

This site is quite a good read if you are sick of seeing commercials for riduculous "Fad Medicine": http://www.quackwatch.org/

It's a really entertaining site! It's scary to know that there are people stupid enough out there to make money for the "doctors" out there that offer such bogus "remedies/treatments/therapies" etc.

A really scary site is Aetna's IntelliHealth section on "Complimentary & Alternative Medicine". I can't belive that a major medical provider is allowed to post/advertise such unbelievably stupid things.

Aetna InteliHealth URL:

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/8513 /34968.html

quick, post their case history to refute sites such as:

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ Cancer/laetrile.html

Yes, but the benefit of this particular research is that it's actual science, while "BarleyGreen" is quackery. And while some argue that it's essentially harmless and might give people hope, quackery kills people. Take that shit somewhere else.

Here's an excellent review of the Bates Method!

-h-

Promising findings were reported today showing that the combination of thalidomide and dexamethasone (Thal/Dex) when used as initial therapy for multiple myeloma, slowed disease progression almost two-fold compared to dexamethasone alone.

I don't know if this is what you were implying, but it isn't really society's fault that people get so caught up in the persuit of physical wealth.

The problem:

Big Business
Big Media
Big Government
Big TROUBLE!!!

I disagree. In a nutshell:

Big Business - The undisputed engine of modern civilization. Without it....'Dark Ages' (pre late 18th century, the time of the Industrial Revolution)

Big Media - The megaphone of Big Business which are the true customers of it. Inescapable (advertising everywhere -- even in bathrooms!) Persuasive (image/emotional/'branding' based ads instead of concise, product facts and benefits based advertising). Rapacious (pop culture is cannibalized to sell stuff i.e. CHEVY TRUCK'S 'LIKE A ROCK' campaign -- Why did Bob Seger let Chevrolet use his song for that (in)famous ad campaign? Surely he didn't need the money and the 1983 film Risky Business made him (and Tom Cruise) household names). Wasteful (U.S. commercial TV is about 25% advertising. How much postal junk mail did you throw away today? How many full-page magazine ads did you flip past today?). Assinine (the worst offender is probably the Enzite commercials and the hot water the company is in....). When Big Media is used in the service of Big Government, the results can be disturbing yet eye-opening! (Remember the fuss over Willie Horton or Lyndon Johnson's infamous 'Daisy' campaign ad attacking opponent Barry Goldwater?)

Big Government - An outgrowth of the above two items. USA's bipartisan political system is essentially 'two sides of the same coin'. Doesn't matter if the Republicans or Democrats (or both) are in power in Washington D.C., big business is always running the show behind the scenes. Just look at how the U.S. tax code balloned from a few pages when it was introduced in 1914 to several feet of shelf space!...

Big TROUBLE!!! - Unless people 'vote with their wallets' and stop patronizing the handfull of 'big businesses' out there, there could then be genuine competition in a marketplace inhabited by dozens...even hundreds of smaller businesses in various industries. Real innovation could take place instead of being suppressed by 'dirty tricks' and lots of cash.... Decentralization appears to be our only hope to 'undo' this mess in a controlled, peaceful, economically oriented manner.

...read Perfect Vision without Glasses (now in the public domain) by William H. Bates. It works.

Right on! Just like that perpectual motion machine that I'm going to patent!

-h-

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ eyequack.html

This isn't quite as bad as that ridiculous "See Clearly" crap that's hawked all over the airwaves (because it's free), but it's similarly useless.

and my optomotrist explained it to me as my eyes being too lazy to focus correctly.

Start here.