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This website lays out the most common red flags when it comes to quackeries present in today's society. Flags like testimonials from people don't mean anything if there is no evidence behind it, it's possible these people got better on their own and are giving false credit to these quackeries. Another big one that I have heard before is Western Medicine, as if medicine in the eastern part of the world is any different. This "Eastern Medicine" is usually just treatments that have yet to be proven to even work.

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UPDATE: 4/30/2013 - If you're visiting from the RDF or IFLS... Hello! Welcome! I'm so sorry. I'd like to head this post off with a disclaimer: This post is really old. Ancient by internet standards. I'm fully aware of all the problems this version of the Red Flags has. I know how weak the "Doctor" panel is, for example. Rest assured, when I get around v3, you can expect a cleaner, tighter, stronger guide. Better than ever before. Until then, if you like what you see, give me a shout out on Twitter (@sciencecomic) or join the Facebook page! Enjoy!
A long while ago, I drafted what was then an unparalleled visual guide to snake oil and quackery. So the Red Flags of Quackery was born. It was deemed worthy by the intertubes, and saw it's way around the net. In the accompanying article, I stated that I would continue to build upon the guide, strengthening the criteria and adding more red flags. Today I make good with my promise.

What's new? Aside from some clearer language on panels such as "Quantum" and "Toxins," you may notice there are a slew of new panels up. I'll try to roll through them quickly, linking to appropriate examples:

Testimonials: Quack remedies are usually covered with positive anecdotes from your grandmother or best friend, but it's important to remember that this is all anecdotal evidence. It means absolutely nothing.

"Helps Your Body...": I once met an Osteopath at a small gathering. I nearly bit my tongue off as she told me about how she "helps the body heal itself." Which is a clever way of saying "I don't do anything, but feel free to thank me when you get better. Toodles!" Also note that if your body was really "off balance" or needed help "removing toxins." You'd be at a real doctor, not buying herbs at CVS, because your skin would be yellow and you wouldn't be able to stand.

Celebrity Doctor: The appeal to authority. Once somebody has attained some celebrity status or a Nobel prize or two, they feel they can say anything, and people feel they must be right. This is wrong. I'm sure Dr. Oz is a great surgeon, but when he decides to start endorsing psychics and charlatans, you have to look past any accolades he had previously garnered.

"Arguments from authority carry little weight - "authorities" have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts." -Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World

"Buy My Book": Pretty simple. A simple way to duck medical research protocol is to publish a book. Why go through all that peer-review nonsense when you can reach your credulous audience directly? Be wary of anyone who claims to know something, but makes you buy their product to find out. Another red flag is that said doctor publishes in his or her own journal, or in crappy journals centered around their woo of choice.

Burzynski is a Fraud: Sorry, that was for SEO purposes. Stanislaw Burzynski is a biochemist and physician that runs a cancer treatment center out of Texas. He has come under fire recently when word began spreading that his "treatment" involves taking tons of cash from sick, desperate cancer patients with the promise to put them in his miracle cancer cure clinical trials. Woah. WOAH. Red flags should be going up all over the place. Selling spots in your clinical trial? That's not how it works, buddy. That's already an invalidated, contaminated, worthless experiment. But if that wasn't bad enough, did I mention his "treatment" was declared ineffective as early as 1983, and oncologists have branded it "nonsense." To top it all, after he rips the money out of their cold, dying hands, he doesn't even publish his results.

His asshattery was brought to the limelight by skeptical dynamo Rhys Morgan and the Streisand Effect. Upon hearing about Morgan's blog posts, Burzynski sent some douchebag after him, making threats of litigation and even sending him pictures of his house. Supporters of Morgan, including Simon Singh and his amazing legal team, pushed back and showed the world that Burzynski is nothing but a litigious bully and a fraud.

Not a Real Doctor: Pretty simple. Chiropractors like to call themselves "Dr." I can do that too. My name is Dr. Maki Naro. I have a PHD in Fine Arts. Go ahead, look it up. I didn't go to art school for four years just to be called "Maki." The title gives them an air of legitimacy, but don't let it fool you.

Of course, use your judgment. When your RN or NP tells you to take your medicine, please comply. They're all on the same side. Except for Dentists.

(Fucking) Magnets: This just needed to be here. Magnetic bracelets don't do anything. If a refrigerator magnet could affect your health, what is the Earth's magnetic field doing? This sort of belief ties in closely to belief in things like "living energy fields," chi, reiki, and auras in the sense that the claimant states that you have some sort of energy that can be manipulated to your benefit. Pfft. Powerful, rapidly oscillating magnetic fields on the other hand...

Hostility to Criticism: This is a good one that applies to many of the panels above it. Nothing says, "sore loser" like trying to sue your critics when they call you out on your bullshit. Just a note if you plan to do this (sue, that is), the law isn't really on your side anymore, and as we saw with Rhys Morgan, we're not going to take any bullying from snake-oil charlatans.

"Western Medicine": Part of a series of false dichotomies created by alternative medicine proponent. By differentiating between Western and Eastern medicine, it gives the false pretense that there is such a thing. This is false. As stated by the Minchin Declaration:

And try as hard as I like, a small crack appears in my diplomacy-dike. "By definition", I begin. "Alternative Medicine", I continue, "Has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call "alternative medicine" that's been proved to work? Medicine." -Tim Minchin, Storm

As with v1.0, I'm keeping this open to suggestions. So far my goal is to get a 5×5 bingo board going. Though you can sort of play as it is (I suggest that, like pseudoscience, you make illogical leaps and questionable connections to create a match of four). Enjoy!

Update: Legendary alt. med critic Edzard Ernst had an article in the Guardian about Britain's new "College of Medicine" and its bait-and-switch tactic of reeling people in with promises of "holistic, patient-based care" and "innovation" while basically just treating with homeopathy or other quack remedies. I bring this up because a commenter amusingly pointed us to the NCCAM website as a source, when it's really just a lobby group for quacks, meant to give legitimacy to alternative medicine in the form of "regulation" (Implying that if a modality needs regulation, then clearly it means it is efficacious). It's a quite common tactic alt. med. lobbyists use to get their foot in the door.
Alternate versions! They will include different language translations as well as a clean version (now default by massive demand). Cheers!

I have many of you to thank for suggestions, especially commenters on Pharyngula, Respectful Insolence, and Reddit. I'll begin adding names here as soon as I track you all down. Thank you for your support. We at Sci-ence.org salute you!

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UPDATE: 4/30/2013 - If you're visiting from the RDF or IFLS... Hello! Welcome! I'm so sorry. I'd like to head this post off with a disclaimer: This post is really old. Ancient by internet standards. I'm fully aware of all the problems this version of the Red Flags has.

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This website is run by a doctor who has set out to expose any quackeries that may be taking advantage of people. After posting about a possible quackery he came across they sent him a message about deleting his post or else there would be consequences. He refused to remove the post as he truly believed that this Urine Toxic Metal Test is just a quackery. Unfortunately he was sued by the company behind the urine test and is defending his case against it in court, but it goes to show what sort of things are still going on in the present day.

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Doctor's Data vs. Barrett Lawsuit Settled Amicably

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The libel suit filed by Doctor's Data (DDI) against Dr. Stephen Barrett, Quackwatch, Inc., and the National Council against Health Fraud, Inc., has been settled amicably. The suit, filed in 2010, charged that Dr. Barrett had improperly criticized DDI on Quackwatch.org and other sites that he controls.

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This is an advertisement for heroin to be used to help clear up any sort of cough one might have. In the 1900's most people did not know the dangers of heroin like we do today so people bought this to help with their cough not knowing the truth. Most coughing symptoms go away on their own so when people take heroin and these symptoms happen to go away they might think it's the heroin and recommend it to other people.

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The secret to eternal life? And weight loss?

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The secret to eternal life? And weight loss?

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This advertisement promises a soap capable of washing away signs of old age and fat at the same time, without dieting or exercising. This ad does not describe how the product works, or it's contents, meanwhile it describes something only comparable to magic.

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This website describes some of the most common medical procedures that took place in the 19th century. Since there were limited amount of doctors I'd imagine it was hard for doctors to communicate and collaborate with each other so learning what is effective at treating patients for different illnesses, especially the more uncommon ones. Therefore a lot of experimentation went on to find proper treatments but without proper base knowledge on how the body works, which was not available back then, a lot of these experiments are insane by today's standards.

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The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.
Go ahead and scoff at the cure-alls and tonics concocted in the 1800s, but know this: taken in large enough quantities, they'd make people forget what ailed them. THE WAY WE WERE
In the 19th century, doctors were few and far between: which may have been a good thing, since medical practices weren't anywhere near an exact science. Patients took their chances: bloodletting, purging, sweating, and freezing were standard operating procedures. Blistering was also in vogue, based on the notion that the body could harbor only one ailment at a time. The theory was that the pain of raw blisters would drive out the pain of just about anything else. Many doctors carried a supply of acid and other skin scorchers. If they ran short, a hot poker from the hearth worked just as well.
ON THE CUTTING EDGE
Amputations were also popular; hence the nickname "sawbones" for doctors. There also was something called "trepanning" that involved drilling holes in the patient's skull to relieve pressure on the brain.

When electricity came into everyday use in the late 1800s, doctors quickly discovered the healthy jolt it could provide to their incomes. One doctor advertised a range of electric brushes, corsets, hats, and belts to cure everything from constipation to malaria.
IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?
Calling a doctor was a last resort. In some communities, the doctor moonlighted as the local undertaker. Mothers, who made their own home remedies, did most of the doctoring. Sometimes an apothecary, who could grind together a more exotic medication, was consulted. But in the 19th-century spirit of unbridled and unregulated American capitalism, it wasn't long before Mom got a little mass-produced help from the medicine men.

Doctor Chilton offered a guaranteed "Fever and Ague Cure," Doctor Rowell sold an "Invigorating Tonic... unrivaled as a cathartic" -a fancy name for bowel loosener. One of the most successful medicine men was Doctor Ayer, who used saturation newspaper ads to create product demand, and mail order to meet it. No prescriptions were needed to buy Ayer's Cherry Pectoral for coughs, colds, asthma, consumption; Ayer's Cathartic Pills for constipation, dyspepsia, biliousness; Ayer's Sarsaparilla, a surefire blood purifier; or Ayer's Hair Vigor to put an end to gray hair.
OPIATE OF THE PEOPLE
Ayer and company had plenty of competition: Parker's Tonic was among the toughest, a cure for just about any internal ailment. The tonic definitely provided a quick fix -it contained 40 percent alcohol. For children's coughs, colds, and runny noses, Allen's Lung Balsam was a staple; for adult ailments there was Perry Davis's All-Purpose Pain-Killer. Doctor Thomas' Electric Oil was guaranteed to cure everything from a toothache (five minutes) to a backache (two hours) to lameness (two days) and deafness (two days). All of these tonics shared one characteristic: they contained opium. The Electric Oil was also laced with alcohol and chloroform.
SLIME FEVER SYNDROME
This army of humanitarians busily relieving the suffering of the masses contained a few charlatans and swindlers. Take the Killmer brothers, Andral and Joseph, for example. Doctor Killmer's U & O Meadow Plant Ointment allegedly eased suffering from more than 45 ailments -some of which he invented himself. Doctor Killmer's Swamp Root Kidney, Liver, and Bladder Cure worked its magic on pimples, diabetes, syphilis, and something called "internal slime fever." But best of all was Doctor Killmer's Ocean-Weed Heart Remedy, which was advertised to cure "sudden death." Maybe it worked. There's no record of anyone every demanding a refund on the money-back guarantee.
MARKETING MAGIC
The Killmer brothers became millionaires, as did several other patent medicine moguls. These "wholesale druggists" refined print media advertising, product packaging, and direct mail sales -all hallmarks of American mass-market retailing. Their free samples and revolutionary one-time-only introductory offers were very popular. They also came up with the discreet "plain brown wrapper" for milady's feminine products, many of which contained alcohol, opium, morphine, cocaine, and even arsenic (in some beauty aids).

But the newly minted millionaires couldn't have had as much fun as the hucksters who operated the traveling medicine shows that went from town to town like a small carnival, complete with bands, dancers, jugglers, musicians, and skit actors. The entertainment was free, but the inevitable hard sells of exclusive elixirs -a specially blended sarsaparilla, a balsam brew, or a genuine kickapoo cure-all- paid the bills.
SNAKE OIL IN YOUR FACE
Snake oil cures were very popular on the medicine show circuit until exposés by muckraking reporters decreed them to be not only useless but also lacking in authentic snake oil -about the time time that the term snake oil salesman took on its shift connotation.

But that did not stop the self-styled Rattlesnake King, Clark Stanley, from selling his snake oil at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His routine was to kill and process the rattlesnakes right in front of his potential customers.
THE GOVERNMENT GETS IN THE ACT
By the turn of the century, the great cure-all period was drawing to a close. Germs and bacteria had been discovered; bona fide medical doctoring was on the rise. There were pill-making machines that could turn out millions of pills daily, and some large wholesale drug companies were evolving into pharmaceutical giants and retail chains. In 1906 the federal Pure Food and Drug Act was passed; advertising codes of ethics and ingredient labeling weren't far behind.

Now the ailing public had to go to a drugstore to get their cure. The soda fountain -a fixture in most drugstores- served mineral water (which was thought to be curative) from carbonation machines. Though the medical connection withered away, when Prohibition was enacted, the soda fountain's success was assured -at least for a little while. Root beer and ice cream sodas were the order of the day.

Unfortunately, in the long run, soda fountains couldn't compete with the money brought in by the shelves and shelves of mass-produced cold, headache, and heartburn relievers -to say nothing of the beauty aids, school supplies, and canned goods, and batteries. Welcome to the drugstore of today.

______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of history topics. Uncle John's first plunge into history was a smash hit - over half a million copies sold! And this sequel gives you more colorful characters, cultural milestones, historical hindsight, groundbreaking events, and scintillating sagas.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

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Profile for - Member Since Dec 31st, 1969

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The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again. Go ahead and scoff at the cure-alls and tonics concocted in the 1800s, but know this: taken in large enough quantities, they'd make people forget what ailed them.

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Here are some of the more common red flags that have to do with medical pseudoscience illustrated in poster format. A lot of these are red flags we have learned about throughout the course and will help in the future when coming into contact with quackery. There also seems to be a lot of red flags that have to do with whether someone is really qualified to be giving medical advice which is important to think about, when it comes to any advice.

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Ripley's Believe It Or Not Old Fashion Medicine

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Ripley's Believe It Or Not Old Fashion Medicine

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Otelo Vizcaino from Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum shows off some medical quackery they have in their museum. Stuff like radiation therapy, something we use today but for a completely different purpose, they used it because they thought it was healthy but in reality it kills cells. He also goes over bloodletting, a common practice in the past to balance out all the fluids in the body, and the use of snake oil medicine, which was in fact majority mineral water.

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Medical Quackery - Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

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Dara O'Briain talks about quackery and his run ins with medical pseudoscience. He talks a lot about people who mix up causation with correlation, example being the woman with a headache who rubs her head on a goat and then the next day her headache is gone. Almost certainly it is not due to the goat but her body naturally getting rid of the headache, as it is supposed to do.

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Dara O'Briain with home truths about quackery

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Dara O'Briain tells it like it is (or should be) about various delusions pretending to be medicine.

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James Randi goes over the power of suggestion and talks about homeopathy medicine and whether or not it is truly is effective. He also takes six and a half days worth of sleeping pills he is sure is a quackery, without receiving ill effects.

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Homeopathy, quackery and fraud | James Randi | TED