by Julia Belluz
Medical students and residents frustrated with bogus advice from doctors on TV have, for more than a year, been asking the American Medical Association to clamp down and “defend the integrity of the profession.”
Now the AMA is finally taking a stand on quack MDs who spread pseudoscience in the media.
“This is a turning point where the AMA is willing to go out in public and actively defend the profession,” Benjamin Mazer, a medical student at the University of Rochester who was involved in crafting the resolution, said. “This is one of the most proactive steps that the AMA has taken [on mass media issues].”
The AMA will look at creating ethical guidelines for physicians in the media, write a report on how doctors may be disciplined for violating medical ethics through their press involvement, and release a public statement denouncing the dissemination of dubious medical information through the radio, TV, newspapers, or websites.
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8 comments on “The American Medical Association is finally taking a stand on quacks like Dr. Oz”
I have no time for these quacks and charlatans however, they do provide a channel for the never to be under-estimated Placebo Effect.. Of course while I accept that where someone has a serious condition their “advice” may cause real harm, we should also be aware that the casual prescribing of prescription drugs certainly is the cause of more deaths. So I applaud the medical authorities willingness to take positive action on this issue, but I’d also like to see more resistance to drug lobbying where enormous perks are given to doctors in return for their support of the latest pharmacological wonder drug being pushed by slick marketing
Don’t doctors have to pass some sort of competence test to start and continue practice? Surely prescribing treatments that do not work is malpractice. What is the problem?
As I have said on these pages before, any product offered by these charletons should have a large duck prominently displayed so that every person who wishes to buy this garbage knows what they are getting. All national medical associations should take a stand against these fraudsters as it will only bring real medicine into disrepute.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/dec/23/struck-off-mmr-doctor-quackery-award
Struck off MMR doctor handed award for ‘lifetime achievement in quackery’
Andrew Wakefield, discredited over autism-MMR vaccine link claims, is named Good Thinking Society’s Golden Duck winner.
Andrew Wakefield, the doctor struck off the medical register for his discredited research that claimed to find a link between autism and the MMR vaccine, can add another honour to his list this Christmas: the inaugural Golden Duck award for lifetime achievement in quackery, set up by the science writer Simon Singh.
Runners-up for the award were Prince Charles and David Tredinnick, the Tory MP for Bosworth and member of the Commons health select committee. The Good Thinking Society, a campaign group led by Singh, set up the annual Golden Duck award to recognise those “who have supported or practised pseudoscience in the most ludicrous, dangerous, irrational or irresponsible manner“.
Wakefield continued to promote his quackery in the US after being struck off the medical register in the UK!
What kind of bad advice was he giving?
The problem is that every time a patient does not feel sufficiently “cured” he could sue the arse of the doctor. Cures are not just about adjusting chemical imbalances with (say) chemicals, it is also about empathising with the patient. A reason why homeopathy is popular is because the homeopath will usually spend an hour with the patient and thereafter the patient feels obliged to be cured. A regular family doctor will begrudge giving more than 10 minutes of his time, listen until he hears the trigger word and jot a prescription and say” Take these three times a day and if you’re no better in a week come back and see me.”.
Scientific medicine is only as good as the people who apply it and the system within which it is administered.
Pseudo-science quackery.
https://www.richarddawkins.net/2015/02/lies-fraud-conflicts-of-interest-and-bogus-science-the-real-dr-oz-effect/
https://www.richarddawkins.net/2015/04/john-oliver-dr-oz-is-the-worst-person-in-scrubs-who-has-ever-been-on-television/
Bravo!!
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