Category: Health Fraud

Detox: What “They” Don’t Want You To Know
Before you start your New Year’s detox, here's a tip that will save you time, money, and possibly your health.

Radioactive 5G Pendants
Authorities had to warn the public not to use radioactive products to protect against harmless 5G.

BOO: Or how “magic dirt” became a MLM miracle cure scam for COVID-19
"BOO" stands for Black Oxygen Organics, a "cure" for COVID-19 that got the attention of regulators last week. Basically, it's dirt billed by its believers as "magic dirt" that sells for $110 a bag (plus shipping) through a multilevel marketing sales model. What can this latest COVID cure tell us about the relationship between alternative medicine and COVID-19 denial?

The Dawning of Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM)
For over 10 years, Friends of Science in Medicine has been fighting quackery, fraud, and pseudoscience in Australia.

How we got here with political and health misinformation: The case of “Hacker X” and Mike Adams
Ars Technica recently published a story about Hacker X, who helped Mike Adams expand his online empire of health fraud into an empire of fake news and political disinformation, thus intertwining health and political misinformation into the deadly combination we see now.

Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 6: Incompetence and fraud everywhere!
Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, a drug repurposed for COVID-19 that almost certainly doesn't work but is still being touted as a "miracle cure" by quacks, grifters, and political ideologues. Are the data supporting it all fraud?

Olympic Pseudoscience – Tokyo Edition
Pseudosciences come and go with the Olympics.

Supreme Court rules that FTC cannot seek restitution on behalf of consumers
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the FTC lacks the authority to seek consumer refunds and other monetary relief from scammers. Without a fix from Congress, the ability of the FTC, and perhaps other agencies, to redress financial injuries caused by quacks and other frauds is greatly diminished.

“Quack Protection Acts” proposed in state legislatures
Laws protecting "complementary and alternative" health care providers from state regulation have been proposed in several state legislatures under the rubric of "health freedom". These "Quack Protection Acts" harm consumers.

The “Disinformation Dozen” spreading anti-vaccine messaging on social media
Just twelve individuals are generating two-thirds of all of the anti-vaccine messaging on Twitter and Facebook.