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.”