Comment and Opinion

February 26, 2007
Some material on this page has been removed because someone selling books promoting quackery who used to advertise her possession of a medical degree she didn't have (from a university she didn't attend and which does not have a medical school) didn't like what was said about the situation. To get the material removed she claimed that her name was trademarked. She had been informed of the contents of this page several years ago but took a long time to decide that even a tiny bit of criticism could put her house of cards at risk. It must be a very shaky house of cards.

And did the complainer complain to me first to try to rectify the problem? Of course not! That would have required manners. The first approach was to the web hosting company, whine, whine, whine, ...

As she no longer uses the fake degree and has changed her web site to tell the truth about where she obtained her qualifications and what those qualifications are I consider that a victory for me and I am not going to waste any time or money arguing with her in court. And by the way, her name is actually trademarked but there is no Australian trademark registration for "Dr xxxxx", so I guess that she still thinks that she can say things which are not strictly true and nobody will bother to check.

Perhaps I should register my name as a trademark, and then I could threaten people who threaten me.

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The last word on letters after a name (maybe) (13/3/2004)
Following the piece I wrote last week about a doctor and her deceitful use of the letters "MD" after her name, I was provided with much information by people who believe that the promotion of alternative medicine by anyone absolves them from all wrongdoings. Here are some of the things I have been told:

• The letters “MD” just identify someone as a medical doctor and therefore mean the same thing in Australia as they do in the USA
• Australian universities issue “MD” degrees, so what is the problem? (I was given three examples, all of which were postgraduate research degrees which required at least two years practice after getting the MB,BS before even being considered for admission.)
• She doesn’t use her real name because it is illegal for doctors in Australia to publish books under their own names. (I supplied the titles and authors of several books on my bookshelf but I was told that this meant nothing as I had no proof that Dwyer, Isaacs, Kalokerinos, Mears, or McBride were the doctors' real names.)
• I can’t find her real academic record because I don’t know her real name, so I might be talking about someone else as she sometimes uses an alias. (I asked why she was listed in the telephone book under the alias but got no answer.)
• The NSW Medical Registration Board says that doctors can call themselves whatever they like, use any name they choose to practise under, and can call themselves “MD” if they want to because it is the same as MB,BS anyway.

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Dr Trademark has a cure! (17/11/2007)
This is a photograph taken at the recent Sydney MindBodySpirit Festival of a person with type 2 diabetes holding a book with the title Diabetes Type 2 You Can Reverse It Naturally!, subtitled "A book to change your life!". You might notice that the book appears out of focus even though other things at the same distance from the camera (eg, the writing on the man's shirt) are much clearer. The only assumption I can make is that the camera has, in addition to such modern magics as face and smile recognition, the ability to detect books which are being held by people who have been threatened by the author. Yes, that's right, folks, this book is the work of the famous Dr Trademark, a person so assured of the correctness of her medical claims that she uses trademark law to prevent people talking about her. At least she doesn't claim a medical degree that she doesn't have on the cover of the books any more. And does she have a method to "reverse" type 2 diabetes? Of course not, but if I tried to analyse her claims she would be forced to respond with lawyers, not with facts.

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Wash your dirty liver (25/9/2010)
I was thinking about diets this week and that reminded me about about an excellent article written a few years ago about one particular diet. I dug the article out of my comprehensive filing system and you can read it here. One thing that has changed since that time is that the author of the diet book no longer uses the "MD" after her name. Getting her to remove the degree she doesn't have from the covers of her books was one of my little victories over the years.