For today's Science Friday, I thought I would mention the Web site Quackwatch.org operated by Dr. Stephen Barrett. All of us find ourselves these days needing to become increasingly critical consumers of medical care as the medical advances get more and more bewildering. The popularity of "wellness" campaigns, promoted by corporations among others looking to reduced health insurance costs, and the increasing costs of drugs and many medical treatments also encourage everyone to look at ways to stay healthy, treat diseases and control costs, all at the same time.
"Alternative medicine" advocates are flourishing in this environment, abetted by an increasing tendency on the part of the national government to "de-regulate" supervision of drug sales and borderline medical practices. The benign-sounding concept of "alternative medicine" itself has helped create a huge market for medical scamsters, since "alternative medicine" is used to describe everything from sensible exercise to fake cures for cancer and AIDS.
Barrett's Quackwatch site provides a useful refernce point for anyone seeking information on various kinds of alternative medicine, to help distinguish the benign from the risky.
For instance, one recent article touches on possibly the ugliest, most viciously dishonest segment of the "alterative medicine" market, the promoters of fraudulent cancer drugs: Former Laetrile Peddler Disciplined Again by Stephen Barrett 02/23/05.
James R. Privitera, Jr., M.D., who served a brief prison sentence 25 years ago for conspiring to prescribe and distribute laetrile, has been reprimanded in connection with the death of a patient. ...
Laetrile is a quack cancer remedy[.] In 1975, Privitera was convicted of conspiring to prescribe and distribute it and was sentenced to six months in prison. In 1980, after the appeals process ended, he served 55 days in jail but was released after being pardoned by California Governor Jerry Brown. Then, because Privitera [had] been prescribing unapproved substances for the treatment of cancer, the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance suspended his medical license for four months, placed him on ten years' probation, and prohibited him frommaking any representation that he was able to cure cancer through nutrition. During this period, he developed a bogus diagnostic test called live blood analysis and marketed equipment for doing it.
Privatera has recently been disciplined against for the treatment of the patient who died mentioned in the quote above, partially because he relied on a fringe method of testing blood clotting.
Barrett also edits a weekly newsletter, Consumer Health Digest, whose articles are available online. In the 03/01/05 edition, he provides the following informational item:
Jeffrey H. Feingold, N.D. of Scottsdale, Arizona, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $29,400 after a jury convicted him on 185 counts of prescribing OxyContin and morphine without a legitimate medical purpose. Evidence at the trial showed that 10 patients and two undercover agents posing as patients received prescriptions for more than 14,000 doses of controlled substances such as Percocet, Vicodin, morphine and OxyContin over an 18-month period.
OxyContin is illegal? Do Rush Limbaugh and his buddies know about that?
2 comments:
Bruce,
I don't believe Mr. Limbaugh was aware that oxycontin was illegal. Surely a man of such integrity and high moral fortitude would never lower himself to committ illegal acts. I'm sure it was only a sin born of ignorance and nothing more. wink wink
dave
Dave, I'm sure you're right. How could the man Bush himself calls a "national treasure" ever had done something he new to be illegal. Like, you know, taking "hillbilly heroin" and getting his housekeeper to procure it for him? :) - Bruce
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