Date:   7/29/2007 10:17:59 AM ( 17 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=929500

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as posted on www.healthiertalk.com and forwarded by Dr. Saul Pressman

Quackbuster Barrett Loses Appeal, Leaves Town

Self-proclaimed Quackbuster, Stephen Barrett, MD, who was recently handed
crushing defeats by chiropractor Tedd Koren and Ilena Rosenthal, has
announced he is leaving his home town and operating base in Allentown,
Pennsylvania.

On June 11th, 2007, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a lower
court dismissal of Barrett's defamation suite against Dr. Koren. Barrett's
case was so lacking in merit the judge blocked it from going to the jury.
Barrett simply had no case against Dr. Koren.

This followed another stunning defeat last month in California. There an
appeals court ordered Barrett and crony Terry Polevoy, MD to post bonds of
more than $400,000.00 after they lost a defamation case against Illena
Rosenthal virtually identical to the Koren case.

Perhaps the fact that lawyers and judges in Allentown are catching on to his
intimidation schemes explains why Barrett is moving to Chapel Hill, North
Carolina. Barrett can run but he can't hide. Chapel Hill collection
attorneys are already being asked to locate his assets to pay his unmet
legal obligations. Assets of other Quackwatch, Inc., principals might also
be sought.

Who Is Steven Barrett, What Are Quackbusters?

Steven Barrett is an unlicensed Pennsylvania psychiatrist, who, though he
failed his psychiatric board exams and has been criticized for his lack of
expertise by several courts, still claims to often advise the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the FBI, State
Attorneys General, HMOs, Consumer Reports, medical journals and state
medical, chiropractic and dental boards.

The insurance industry cites Barrett's highly opinionated "Quackbuster"
attacks to deny paying claims for natural healthcare.

Barrett and the "Quackbusters," a vigilante group of self- proclaimed
skeptics of any medical or health modality that is not drugs, surgery or
radiation, attack almost all non-conventional healthcare practices as
quackery. Ignoring all scientific research to the contrary, they dismiss
Gulf War Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chemical Sensitivity,
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and dietary supplements as rubbish. Nobel Prize
winner Linus Pauling is on their "quack" list along with many well known
and respected doctors and scientists, including Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil,
and dozens of others.

Barrett claims to give over 500 interviews a year to newspapers, magazines,
and television shows, including CNN and the Today Show. He claims to have
been a peer reviewer for seven medical journals, including the Journal of
the American Medical Association, even though he had no license to practice
medicine when he did the reviewing.

The Quackbusters run over 70 websites. Millions of people go to them every
year. Look up chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy or even vitamin C, as
well as almost every other natural health topic, on the Internet and you
(and the public) will be led to Quackbuster sites advising you of natural
health "dangers."

In all these forums Barrett and the Quackbusters relentlessly attack the
consumer right to informed choice. These activities continue the AMA's
anti-quackery committee's activities that were struck down by federal courts
as an illegal restraint of trade in a landmark lawsuit brought by Illinois
chiropractor Chester Wilk. They also help insurance companies deny consumer
reimbursement claims.

At the same time, Barrett shills for products like aspartame (NutraSweet),
which is the subject of tens of thousands of consumer complaints.
Question (asked on Barrett's web site): "An email message is being
circulated with many statements to the effect that aspartame is dangerous.
How worried should I be?"
Answer (from Barrett): "Not at all. The message is pure rubbish."


What Did Dr. Koren Do to Provoke Barrett's Shakedown?

Dr. Tedd Koren is a well-known chiropractor, researcher, writer and
lecturer. Barrett sued Dr. Koren in 2003 for calling him a Quackpot; saying
he was in big trouble because of a racketeering law suit brought against
him; and attacking his lack of a medical license in his internet newsletter.

The trial judge and three appeals judges agreed unanimously that these
statements were so far from defamation that no jury could be legally allowed
to call them defamation. Dr. Koren also said Barrett was "*." One
of the three appeals courts judges thought a jury might be able to find this
to be defamation. However two appellate judges disagreed and jurors
interviewed after the trial said they too saw through Barrett and felt that
he was a litigious, ungrounded and biased denier of the truth.

In part jurors formed this view because Barrett testified in the Koren case
that he had sued many doctors - close to forty !- in similar cases,
demanding up to $100,000 if they wished to avoid a costly court trial. Some
paid up - how many is yet to be discovered. Drs. Koren and Rosenthal and a
few others did not. Barrett has failed to win a single lawsuit in this
shakedown scheme in any of the cases that actually went to trial.

Dr. Koren's Legal Team

Well known consumer advocate, James S. (Jim) Turner, general counsel to
Koren Publications, who several years earlier had persuaded the FTC to drop
an investigation against Dr. Koren (brought at a time when Barrett was a
consultant to the FTC), organized and coordinated the legal team that
represented Dr. Koren. Attorney Christopher Reid of Allentown, Pennsylvania
acted as associate trial counsel and appellate counsel and California health
freedom attorney Carlos Negrete acted as trial counsel.

Mr. Negrete said, "Fortunately for all of his colleagues, Dr. Koren decided
not to back down and took the case to trial. Barrett is part of a group of
intolerant individuals. I am not certain who the supporters of the so-called
Quackbusters are, but they seem to me to be just skinheads with
stethoscopes."

During heated and often dramatic courtroom proceedings, Mr. Negrete pointed
out many of the questionable statements Barrett includes on his websites
attacking chiropractic, as well as facts about Barrett's own credentials
that shocked even his supporters.

Mr. Turner says, "It is very important that a very responsible judge in
Barrett's hometown recognized that he was making false allegations and
dismissed the case. Barrett has cost unknown numbers of consumers pain,
anguish and probably serious harm by his misrepresentation of the facts
about subjects ranging from acupuncture to zinc."

Mr. Turner, who among other campaigns:
- led the team that got acupuncture needles approved as safe by FDA,
- worked with a Senate committee to abolish the dysfunctional vaccine
regulatory agency,
- worked with whistleblowers to stop the Swine Flu inoculation campaign,
- kept aspartame off the market for ten years, and
- played a key role in lobbying the Organic Food Production Act through
Congress, says,

"Our objective is to end Barrett's abuse of consumers by eliminating the
false and misleading information from his website and his entire network of
websites and replacing it with sound, useful information for consumers."

Says Dr. Koren, "This is just the beginning. Just as the FTC battle was not
about Tedd Koren alone but had ramifications for the entire chiropractic and
natural health professions so the Barrett v. Koren battle will have major
ramifications for all. We're going to give the Quackbusters a taste of their
own medicine. They'll learn how dangerous medicine can be."

"Our mission is not just about revealing the Quackbusters to be the
unscientific bigots that they are. We are fighting for health care freedom.
One of our goals is to permit parents to make sound decisions about
vaccination for their children. There are too many sound health reasons for
children to avoid vaccination and the government has recognized too many
vaccine caused deaths and maimings (over $1.5 billion of compensation has
been paid to bereaved families by the federal vaccine injury compensation
system since 1988) to allow a non-vaccinated child to be refused day care,
school, college, or employment," says Dr. Koren.
 

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