No articles have appeared that have proved so effective in accomplishing their purpose as have those on "patent medicines" by Samuel Hopkins Adams in Collier's Weekly. They set the people to thinking, and that was all that was necessary.
The sale of "patent medicines" immediately dropped off, and, in some instances, almost to the vanishing point. This is especially true of such over-advertised frauds as Peruna and Liquozone—the latter, it is stated, being almost wiped out. Coronavirus Resource Center. Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience. FB house promo. This word is still used to mean a fraud or a trickster.
Sign Up for News Updates. Sign up. And then my friend added that her friend who is studying nutrition agrees. It just does not make sense. Not only so, I firmly believe that broadcasting such claims is criminal. Yes, telling a patient that his coronary artery disease will be totally reversed if he adopts a vegan diet, or advising a cancer patient that her cancer cells will only multiply to Stage II if she eliminates animal protein from her diet is criminal.
I use such a strong word because false and wrong information such as this one can and has killed lives. Perhaps I take the issue too much to heart and got prematurely upset. But what do I do about my future patients who are seriously ill, and who obstinately choose to follow their beliefs or the latest health fad, which might or might not be of any benefit, instead of following sound medical advice?
Even legitimate medicines can be tainted by quackery. But clinical trials later revealed the drug, which can produce dangerous side effects, had little to no effect on patient outcomes. Hydroxychloroquine hit national headlines in March when an Arizona couple, terrified of contracting the disease, poisoned themselves with aquarium cleaner they mistook for the drug. The husband died of a heart attack. Desperation, poverty, and lack of access to care drive the consumers of modern nostrums, as they have for generations.
Likewise, as in past plague years, unlicensed practitioners and community helpers have stepped in to fill the gaps of a strained global health network. In rural India, so-called quacks or village healers have been essential in establishing quarantines and sharing information about handwashing and distancing protocols in remote areas that lack health care infrastructure.
In the United States, mutual aid networks, mask makers, food delivery drivers, and other nonmedical but essential workers have kept services running and helped maintain the health and safety of millions. Though every plague or pandemic is unhappy in its own way, their histories should make us mindful of the ways in which we remain vulnerable, both to quacks and the diseases that summon them forth.
We may have medical reference texts at our fingertips, but in a world where roughly half of the planet regularly goes without basic medical care —or is frequently forced to choose between medicine and food—we can assume that some of that gap is still being filled with dubious remedies, unregulated practitioners, and wishful thinking.
The best way to fight quackery might not be pamphlets or punishments after all, but a far more potent tonic: the eradication of poverty. Without that most stubborn and entrenched of plagues, plenty of quacks would need a new line of work.
The MIT chemical engineer and entrepreneur talks about Moderna Therapeutics, a company he helped start, and his work developing a way for vaccines to self-boost in the body. How a steam-powered automobile in snuffed out the life of the brilliant naturalist and astronomer Mary Ward. Skip to main content. Podcast Video About Subscribe.
0コメント