In the Interest of All Who Value Their Purse and Their Health: A Brief History of the "Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij"--Society Against Quackery--of the Netherlands.

Eval Health Prof. 2009 Nov 18;

Authors: Renckens CN

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.

BOTTOM LINE: For those who are into conspiracy and the FDA beating up on everyone, this is a reminder that the rest of the planet struggles with a good balance between legitimate use of natural therapies and outright dis-proven quackery methods. Granted that there are problems with the way natural therapies are vilified in the US, sometimes it is with good reason. There is a LOT of great natural integrative medicine truth out there, but there are also a rather large number of people who are willing to rob you blind by offering dangerous "natural" therapies that are flat out "wrong" in every sense of the word. Explore, but be careful out there.

PMID: 19926608 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]