Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17484

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Renckens CNM
In the Interest of All Who Value Their Purse and Their Health
Dutch Society Against Quackery 2009 Dec 1; 32:(4):343-348
http://ehp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/4/343

Abstract:

Discontentment with the massive violations of the influential Dutch Prime Minister’s (Johan Rudolf Thorbecke) health laws led to the foundation of the Dutch Society Against Quackery, in 1880. Within a few years, the Society had more than 1,100 members. Initially, quackery mostly consisted of the unauthorized practice of medicine and the peddling of industrially manufactured ‘‘secret remedies.’’ Since the 50s however, the energy of the society focused mainly on magnetizers, especially after they gained support from the field of parapsychology, lay manipulators of the back and herb doctors. The most important object of the society since 1980 has been the fight against the so-called alternative medicine, of which Chinese acupuncture, homeopathy, manipulative therapy, anthroposophical medicine, and naturopathy are prominent targets. Despite numerous costly lawsuits, the society still survives and is probably the oldest as well as the largest of its kind in the world.

Keywords:
alternative medicine • medical quackery • Sickesz-case • Moerman