I was, to say the least , slightly perplexed the other day when, according to my internal site stats, a couple of visitors turned up at the Ministry by way of a link from a quack website called Positive Health.

I’m getting citations from quacks..? What the hell could have possibly brought that on..?

The answer, so it seems, lies in a new book by someone called Martin Walker:

The above [The Times and Sunday Times losing £40 million plus a year] is mentioned in conjunction with Martin Walker’s latest book Dirty Medicine The Handbook which I have now finished reading. Talk about scandals, tangled webs, political cronies and corporate funds to destroy – this book is a revelation of the nastiest suspicions that have never occurred to you. As one of many victims of campaigns by the Establishment, and fully engaged with Natural Health and Medicine with Positive Health PH Online, I have known and have seen attacks in the newspapers, broadcast media and through the courts against a multitude of individual practitioners, schools and organizations. You too will have witnessed many a documentary against homeopathy, theta healing, nutrition for cancer and observed reputations destroyed. However, until I read this book, I did not know the identity nor power or influence of the many individuals, organizations, website ranged and funded against natural medicine.

Martin Walker, in his latest book has forensically researched, with voluminous footnotes, the individual Health Corporatists as they are called, with an A to Z of names, with whom they went to school, of which organizations and political parties they were members, their corporate alliances and the funds of these organizations. Be prepared for a complete alphabet soup of organization names – you will be amazed at how many government, health and media names are listed.

Not only are the individuals named – and these go far beyond the most obvious individuals you might suspect, but also organizations, groups and political organizations linked to government. A bit like the Rupert Murdoch web discussed above, but also with funds and monies paid to whom. Even more sinister are the attack websites set up to target, harass and ultimately finish off individuals, therapies and professions. We may have heard the term ‘quackwatch’, but Walker presents an entire A-Z chapter, annotated with his comments of a myriad of websites with a mission www.badscience.net  http://holfordwatch.info/holford-myths  www.ministryoftruth.me.uk

Woot, I made the quacks’ hate list, and not only that, I’m also apparently a bit sinister… hehehe!

Heh, but at least I’m in excellent company, here.

This does create a minor quandary – on the one hand, I’ve been thinking that the Ministry could do with an amusing testimonial or two* but on the other I baulk at the idea of coughing over £14.95 for the self-publishing wibblings of an obvious conspiracy nut just to get hold of one.

*If that’s possible – quacks and conspiracy nuts don’t cope at all well with irony, so all I usually get is a bunch of incoherent ramblings about the name ‘Ministry of Truth’, like I never read 1984, duh-huh!

Walker is not a character I’ve come across before so, naturally enough, I ran his name through Google to get a bit of background and turned up a review of his book at Robert Verkerk’s ‘Alliance for Natural Health’ website which includes a couple of quotes that provide a neat summation of where Walker is coming from.

Of the author and science journalist Simon Singh, Walker has this to say:

Throughout 2009 and the first part of 2010, the corporate science lobby ran a campaign to change the libel laws headed up by Singh…after Singh wrote a deprecating article in the Guardian about chiropractors….the science lobby…needed to be free of the constraints of libel law so as to be able to attack in the most outrageous manner anyone who had different beliefs from them…Sense About Science…became the organiser of the Keep Libel Laws Out Of Science campaign.”. In 2011, we have Professor Edzard Ernst salivating at the prospect of his retirement, when he can be “Outspoken about quackery and charlatans. I look forward to that. Hopefully, UK libel law has [sic] changed by then.

While his entry on Skeptics kicks off with the following claims:

Their proliferation followed a classic post-war CIA template of contacting an academic or a scientist in a University or other organisation and then establishing a cell that gathers in believers or followers who are unaware of the overall plan…they…usually present themselves as aggressive male dogmatists who argue blindly in favour of corporate science…leading…Skeptics think curtailing freedom of choice in medicine and supporting corporate denial of iatrogenic [i.e. physician-caused] damage is great fun.

Wow, we’re that organised..? Who knew..?

Walker is what you get if you take one of the late, great, Douglas Adams’ Electric Monks and leave it plugged into the David Icke forums for a couple of years in full bullshit mode- but on the bright side, if I’m ever unfortunate enough to run in the guy in person I’ll know exactly what to do to get rid of him…

…poke a hole in his tinfoil hat.

As for ‘Positive Health’… the site is run by Sandra Goodman PhD, a microbiologist turned quack who specialises in the one of the more despicable branches of alt-med scumbaggery: cancer quackery.

You may already have noticed this comment from her own ‘review’ of Walker’s book:

You too will have witnessed many a documentary against homeopathy, theta healing, nutrition for cancer and observed reputations destroyed.

‘Theta Healing’ are,  of course, the bunch of scumbag faith healer fraudsters were exposed by BBC Newsnight after members of their money-making cult were caught making bullshit claims about curing cancer overnight.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRDmYY3mtj4[/youtube]

As for Goodman, her personal schtick is ‘nutrition for cancer’ or – more accurately – supplement quackery*, an industry that – quick, cover the irony meter – rakes in an estimated $50 billion a year off the back of selling gullible marks a bunch of shit that most of them don’t actually need on the back of bullshit health claims many of which lack any kind of credible supporting evidence.

*From what I can see, Goodman’s current bullshit de jour is Coenzyme Q10, which is a real enough substance but one whose name conjures up an immediate mental picture of Marvin the Martian.

Well, that’s about as much time as I’m inclined to waste on these fucknuts for the moment, so all that leaves me to do is extend any visitors who do wander by from ‘Positive Health’ the traditional skeptics greeting…

…Get in the fucking sack!!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvMb90hem8[/youtube]