Comment and Opinion

Doctor's Data

Doctor's Data (3/7/2010)
On June 18th, 2010, Doctor's Data, an organisation which conducts fraudulent medical tests on behalf of charlatans and crooks, filed suit against Dr Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch, the National Council Against Health Fraud, Inc., Quackwatch, Inc., and Consumer Health Digest, accusing them of restraint of trade, trademark dilution, business libel, tortious interference with existing and potential business relationships, fraud or intentional misrepresentation, and violating federal and state laws against deceptive trade practices. (On June 29th, Consumer Health Digest was dropped as a defendant.) The complaint asks for more than $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The suit objects to seven articles on Dr Barrett's web sites. Dr Barrett asked them on at least two occasions to specify the inaccuracies on his site, but of course they didn't (because they couldn't) and instead reached for lawyers. As a service to the public, and in case Dr Barrett is forced to remove the pages from his sites, here are the seven articles:

• How the "Urine Toxic Metals Test" Is Used to Defraud Patients
• CARE Clinics, Doctor's Data, Sued for Fraud
• Be Wary of CARE Clinics and the Center for Autistic Spectrum Disorders (CASD)
• Three brief articles in Consumer Health Digest:
  • Slate article blasts the urine toxic metals test
  • Shady clinic and lab under legal assault
  • "Autism specialists" sued
• Laboratories Doing Nonstandard Laboratory Test

And a bonus, just for good measure:

• Doctor's Data Facing Multiple Lawsuits

Those fighting quackery and medical nonsense have known about Doctor's Data for a long time. They are the champions in testing for things that supposedly cause harm and always finding what they are asked to find. As an example, I was offered test results from Doctor's Data back in 2004 as evidence that vaccines contained mercury. The "laboratory" had tested some vaccines without any form of blinding and with the manufacturers' specification sheets available to the testers. Remarkably, they even detected mercury in a vaccine which has no mercury used in any stage of manufacture, but it was unclear whether this false positive was due to sloppy laboratory work, miscalibrated equipment or simply lying to give the client the desired result. You can see my correspondence with the anti-vaccination liar client here.