Testimony of Robert Baratz

This is testimony given to a Senate subcommittee several years ago by Robert Baratz, MD, PhD, DDS, and President of the National Council Against Healthfraud. You can see it here.

Anyone who is dismayed at the sorry state of "alternative medicine", or hope and a prayer medicine (sometimes literally true), should read it.

"In recent years there has been a movement to undo the requirement that evidence be the only standard by which medical care is judged and governed. This movement has been proposed and advanced principally by those who wish to profit from being freed from the requirements of evidence. It has also been promoted by others who claim that anything should be allowed, whether it has a rational basis or not, and that "freedom in health care" or "health freedom" is some kind of right, and an innate principle under which charlatans, quacks, and unscientific and unqualified practitioners can operate. These advocates want a system where "anything goes" without any safeguards for either safety or effectiveness, let alone the truth. To make things a bit worse, this movement has been joined by pseudoscientific zealots, and has been embraced by a growing number of profiteers."