American National Council Against Health
Fraud
(NCAHF)
[back]
HealthFraud groups
Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, writing for the Vegetarian Times in August 1991, was one of the very first to write the critical truth about the American National Council Against Health Fraud. In her intelligent, even heroic article, The Health Fraud Cops - Are the Quackbusters Consumer Advocates or Medical MacCarthyites? she told the full story of the US health fraud group. Both she and Vegetarian Times paid the price when the NCAHF immediately filed suit against them. Perhaps in those early days it was too much to hope that people came running to support Bloyd-Peshkin and Vegetarian Times but today, in the wake of the quackbusters' frequent legal humiliations, as a matter of honour everyone should get hold of a copy of this article and put it up anywhere visible. Sharon, who now runs a parent/child health organisation, would rather forget the article and the suit that followed and modestly claims no accolades for her far sighted article. A Bibliographic History of the Health Freedom Movement by Martin J Walker
The American Council Against Health Fraud (CAHF), was also a major progenitor of
the British Campaign Against Health Fraud, now HealthWatch.
Stephen Barrett was
a founder member of the organisation. CAHF has had to restructure itself over
the years, after facing a number of legal actions against its most prominent
members. James Randi was forced into separating and so not attracting financial
odium to the group when he was sued by Uri Geller.
The American CAHF laid down the initial blue print for a number of organisations
that followed, this being a very loose knit organisation whose members
independently campaigned and took legal action against those with whom they
appeared to disagree. At the same time groups also wrote position papers on
everything from Homoeopathy to Cancer therapy, deriding all forms of
non-orthodox therapies while tacitly, although not openly supporting
pharmaceutical medicine and all corporate products that might have been accused
of damaging the environment and environmental health.
[Jan 2008] Shaking Hands
With Monsanto and Big Pharma: The Guardian and
Observer’s ongoing war against alternative medicine. A
review of Suckers by Rose Shapiro By Martin J Walker