How to Spot Quack Doctors

"Quacks cannot be recognized by their appearance. They are neat, well-dressed and friendly. They greet you with warmth and give you reassurance. Some of them are MDs. With white jacket, trim nurses and scientific jargon, they seem very professional," so warned the American Cancer Society.

How do you know if your doctor is a quack? Here are some guidelines to help you weed out today's charlatans in the medical marketplace:

DON'T BE DAZZLED BY DIPLOMAS. Like real doctors, many quacks are armed with degrees to impress patients and convince the latter of their "expertise." Unlike real doctors, however, most of the quack's degrees are fraudulent and have been conferred by questionable correspondence schools or unlicensed training centers.

"During the past few years, many unaccredited correspondence schools have been issuing 'degrees' in nutrition and other health-related areas. Some require only the payment of a fee, whereas others require limited amounts of study - based on unscientific writings. The status of a school can be determined by checking with the (local) department of education," warned Dr. Stephen Barrett, a psychiatrist, prizewinning author, consumer advocate and board member of the National Council Against Health Fraud Inc.

One example of a fraudulent institution that confers dubious degrees is the renamed Palmer College of Chiropractic which was originally set up by an Iowa grocer named Daniel David Palmer who had no medical background whatsoever and was jailed for the illegal practice of medicine.

Although most chiropractic schools in the United States have been upgraded and are now accredited, chiropractic theory and practice still leaves much to be desired. And while its proponents are licensed to practice in all 50 states, their sanctioning is strictly political, not scientific.

Organizations that award degrees without requiring students to meet high educational standards are known as diploma mills. Quacks simply pay the required fees to get their fake degrees.

The California Council Against Health Fraud said many correspondence schools which offer courses in nutrition are actually fronts for purveyors of fraudulent health care schemes and may have as much as 3,700 enrollees. Their graduates end up as promoters of questionable nutritional supplements.

"Graduates advertise themselves as 'nutrition consultants' with academic credentials when they are nothing more than salespeople armed with nutritional misinformation preying on an unsuspecting public," according to Paul M. Insel and Walton T. Roth in “Core Concepts in Health. (Next: Beware of questionable degrees.)

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