Monday, May 22, 2017

atlasobscura.com on VtdK's AntiQuackery 137 Years

here, some excerpts:

001. at atlasobscura.com, Eric Grundhauser reports in "What’s Kept the Society Against Quackery Going for 137 Years" (2017-05-19): 

"Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (VtdK) [...is] the Society Against Quackery, possibly the world’s oldest skeptic society, have been exposing hucksters and helping to defend their marks since 1881 [...which ] formed around the same time that modern medicine began to be professionalized in the late 1800s [...] their journal [is] Nederlands Tijdschrift tegen de Kwakzalverij (Dutch Magazine Against Quackery) [...]";

hear, hear. 

"'quackery is the practicing of treatments and / or diagnostic methods of which the value has not been scientifically proven [...] this is usually accompanied by loudly praising its results' [...] says Dr. Cees Renckens, former president of the VtdK [...] fakes. Cheats. Snake oil salesmen. Quacks. From time immemorial, people have been trying to sell poorly researched or just plain made-up remedies and medicines [...] while the rise of modern medicine standards and protections has eliminated some of the more blatant flim-flam that was once passed off as medical science, Renckens says that quackery is still as much of a problem as it’s ever been, and is in some ways worse [...]today’s] quacks hide behind appeasing terms such as alternative medicine, additive medicine, holistic medicine, complementary medicine, naturopathy, integrative medicine [...]  CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) which in our view is a sCAM [...] this undeserved trust of quacks' [...]";

yes.  Quack salvers.

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