Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
It’s hard to find legitimate resources for health information on the internet, these days. So much available is just drivel. The North American Health System is badly broken. It’s hard for consumers to get information they can trust. The key to evaluation of information provided is simple. A consumer simply asks “WHO is providing this information?”
With Medscape, a simple look at your Editorial Board, by a consumer, will instantly reduce your credibility to ZERO.
Why? As your first listed “Editor” you have North America’s top health CRACKPOT, delicensed and failed MD Stephen Barrett, the author of the questionable website quackwatch.com.
Barrett, we know, along with his website, is currently named, among other things, in a racketeering (RICO) case in Federal Court in Colorado.
He’s also being sued for his nefarious activities in Ontario, Canada.
In California, he’s been FORMALLY discredited in Superior Court, and in a PUBLISHED Appeals Court decision, where he was described, by the three Judge panel, as “biased, and unworthy of credibility.”
Yet, YOU have him, on your website, as your number one Editor. Which, of course, speaks to YOUR credibility.
Barrett, we also know, was forced to give up his medical license in Pennsylvania in 1993 when his part-time employment at the State Mental Hospital was terminated, and he had so few (nine) private patients during his last five years of practice, that he couldn’t afford the Malpractice Insurance premiums Pennsylvania requires.
In a job market in the United States, where there is a “doctor shortage,” Stephen Barrett, after his termination by the State mental Hospital, couldn’t find employment. He was in his mid-50s at the time. He should have been at the top of his craft – yet, apparently, he couldn’t find work.
In a California Court case, former Barrett peer, and fellow Board Member of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), William Jarvis PhD, testified, under oath, that Barrett and Robert Baratz conspired to use the NCAHF, without Board permission, as a Plaintiff in over 40 cases in California, where Barrett and Baratz were to testify as “expert witnesses,” and get expert witness fees. The NCAHF Board was never consulted.
One of those cases caused the NCAHF to be saddled with over $100,000 in legal fees awarded their victim – and the NCAHF doesn’t have the money to pay that debt. In fact, the NCAHF is SO DESPERATE for funds it is being run out of a cardboard box in the back room of Baratz’s Braintree, Massachusetts hair removal and ear piercing salon.
Those type of cases Barrett involved the NCAHF in were considered so heinous that the people of California just passed an initiative (Proposition #64) banning this kind of lawsuit for all time.
Barrett, in the Canadian case, has formally admitted, according to Canadian law, to a number of situations put to him by the Plaintiff, including:
“The sole purpose of the activities of Barrett & Baratz are to discredit and cause damage and harm to health care practitioners, businesses that make alternative health therapies or products available, and advocates of non-allopathic therapies and health freedom.”
“Barrett has interfered with the civil rights of numerous Americans, in his efforts to have his critics silenced.”
“Barrett has strategically orchestrated the filing of legal actions in improper jurisdictions for the purpose of frustrating the victims of such lawsuits and increasing his victims costs.”
“Barrett failed the exams he was required to pass to become a Board Certified Medical Doctor.”
Yet, YOU hold Barrett up, with your other editors, as though he were someone of substance. How insulting to your other editors.
How insulting to American consumers.
I suggest you remedy this situation. The Internet needs health information it can trust… Stephen Barrett saps your credibility.
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate