Don’t Let Chiropractors Scam Medicare Patients

      The Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act (H.R. 3654) would force Medicare to cover all services that the chiropractic industry claims to be within its pseudoscientific repertoire and, ludicrously, define chiropractors as “physicians” in the Medicare program.

      This legislation would allow unqualified practitioners to deceive vulnerable patients into paying for a host of sham treatments that carry health risks while providing little or no medical benefit. It would endanger patients who need treatments that have been proven to be safe and effective in treating serious health conditions, and it would waste taxpayer dollars on snake oil. For the sake of patient health and safety, we can’t let this bill become law. But you can do something about it. Contact your representative now.

TAKE ACTION

Skeptical Inquirer against Fake Medicine

Skeptical Inquirer Goes in the Trenches against Fake Medicine

      Medical pseudoscience is rampant, promoted not only by obvious snake oil salesmen and self-help gurus promising all manner of cures from “natural” and “alternative” remedies but even by vaunted institutions of legitimate science such as the World Health Organization and the National Geographic Society. In a special expanded issue of Skeptical Inquirer, experts in science, medicine, law, and belief report from the trenches of the health wars, doing battle against the forces of fake medicine.

      Victor Benson, MD, takes on the deeply disappointing case of the National Geographic Society’s series of books promoting “natural healing remedies,” books that he discovers “are full of claims that lack scientific evidence, are inconsistent and internally contradictory, and don’t reach even minimal scientific standards.” Reviewing one particular book from the National Geographic collection, Nature’s Best Remedies, retired Air Force flight surgeon Harriet Hall concludes, “National Geographic let us down. They should be ashamed.”

Field Guide to Fake News

A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders explores the use of digital methods to study false viral news, political memes, trolling practices and their social life online. 

It responds to an increasing demand for understanding the interplay between digital platforms, misleading information, propaganda and viral content practices, and their influence on politics and public life in democratic societies. 

It is a project of the Public Data Lab with support from First Draft.

 

The guide is freely available via the link https://bit.ly/FG2FakeNews

It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license to encourage readers to freely copy, translate, redistribute and reuse the book. All the assets necessary to translate and publish the guide in other languages are available on the Public Data Lab’s GitHub page.