Michael Specter Quotes

Alternative therapists don't kill many people, but they do make a great teaching tool for the basics of evidence-based medicine, because their efforts to distort science are so extreme.

Acupuncture was a saving grace. It helps more than anything else I tried. Everyone with endometriosis should give acupuncture a shot, at least once.

Jenny McCarthy has used her celebrity and sex appeal to attract attention to autism. And while no one questions McCarthy's determination and passion, many scientists have debunked her anti-vaccine message and her claims that a gluten-free diet can provide a cure.

As a physician I have sympathy for patients suffering from pain and other medical conditions. Although I understand many believe marijuana is the most effective drug in combating their medical ailments, I would caution against this assumption due to the lack of consistent, repeatable scientific data available to prove marijuana's benefits. Based on current evidence, I believe that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that there are less dangerous medicines offering the same relief from pain and other medical symptoms.

Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.

We can either continue to collectively stand on the sidelines and debate what is causing autism and if it is an epidemic or we can get on the field and start addressing the real problem - a generation of children with autism. We are not focusing enough on prevention, treatments and support services.

To me, Ann Romney sounds like a better candidate than her husband. She put her MS into remission through horseback riding, alternative therapies, and a healthy diet. She knows how to pace herself. She has a sense of humor and an innate honesty, and her hair moves in the wind. Maybe she should run.

If a patient became sugar-free and blood sugar normal on a basal requirement diet, the caloric intake was gradually increased until sugar appeared in the urine. The tolerance was thus ascertained.

I hear from patients who say their doctor said, 'If you want to take Vitamin C, go ahead and do it. It won't harm you, and it may do you some good.' More and more physicians are getting convinced about the value of large doses of Vitamin C.

I'm cancer-free. And I'm on antioxidants and acupuncture and a different diet. And I have a different outlook on life. I don't have resentment any more. It's wonderful.

No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.

Society and government at all levels - the state level, the local level and, of course, the federal level - really needs to redouble its efforts if we're really going to make a difference in combating autism.

A placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomised trial of boys with autism found that two to three servings of cruciferous vegetables a day improves social interaction, abnormal behaviour and verbal communication - within a matter of weeks.

Anyone that tells you what does or what doesn't cause autism is simply not basing that on facts.

My dad studies and practices homeopathy and Ayurveda medicine. He's a strong believer in both honey and milk as forms of healing. Honey is the one food that does not die. It does not expire. Growing up, he'd always be mixing up almonds or turmeric or gram flower with milk to cure a cough or a cold.

I can't manage without homeopathy. In fact, I never go anywhere without homeopathic remedies.

The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine.

You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.

I'm not into western medicine. That to me is a complete scare tactic.

Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't. It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some alternative sense. If a therapy or treatment is anything more than a placebo, properly conducted double-blind trials, statistically analyzed, will eventually bring it through with flying colours. Many candidates for recognition as orthodox medicines fail the test and are summarily dropped. The alternative label should not (though, alas, it does) provide immunity from the same fate.

There is neither a cure for nor a way to repair autism. There is no implant like there is for the deaf.

Fasting and natural diet, though essentially unknown as a therapy, should be the first treatment when someone discovers that he or she has a medical problem.

I firmly believe that if the whole material medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.

If a healing technique is demonstrated to have curative properties in properly controlled double-blind trials, it ceases to be alternative. It simply, as Diamond explains, becomes medicine.

I see in him (Dr. Max Gerson) one of the most eminent medical geniuses in the history of medicine...he was greatly impeded by adverse political conditions.