More legal bullying must be met with public outcry

Dr. Stephen Barrett of QuackWatch is the world’s most prominent anti-quackery activist. As such, he is often a target of legal threats. However, the most recent threat is more serious and the case is likely to be an important one: he is being sued by Doctor’s Data, a company that provides medical tests of questionable value to both doctors and naturopaths. Dr. Barrett responded to their legal threats by requesting specific examples of inaccurate statements he’s made, but the company never provided a single such example and just barged ahead and filed suit. This is blatant legal bullying, and in my opinion Doctor’s Data doesn’t stand a chance in court — but it will cost Dr. Barrett a lot of cash to defend himself.

Please support Dr. Barrett with a donation. Here’s Dr. Barrett’s own summary of the case so far, and here’s one from ScienceBasedMedicine.org.

There are three things I’d like to point out about this case and Dr. Barrett, particularly to those of you who don’t like him.

• Please do not believe everything you hear about Dr. Barrett. For obvious reasons, he has many enemies, and some of them have perpetrated smear campaigns. These are well-documented, but unfortunately the truth never spreads as far or as fast as a good lie. I am privileged to know Dr. Barrett a little, and believe him to be a gentleman and about as smart as they come.
• Dr. Barrett is generally reviled by alternative medicine practitioners. To my own readers who define themselves as “alternative” — and I have many — please know that Dr. Barrett has an excellent track record of criticizing all kinds of health care fraud, both within mainstream medicine itself and on its fringes.
• This kind of legal bullying is genuinely discouraging to those of us who try to provide the public with the facts about about health care. Dr. Barrett writes: “Very few people provide the type of information I do. One reason for this is the fear of being sued. Knowledgeable observers believe that Doctor's Data is trying to intimidate me and perhaps to discourage others from making similar criticisms.”

I am one of those few. But even though I do publicly criticize many products and services of questionable value, I do so with extreme caution compared to Dr. Barrett, and there are many more that I do not dare to criticize at all — and they tend to be the ones that need criticizing the most, the nastiest frauds perpetrated by the most profitable companies, which are obviously the most dangerous ones to criticize.

It’s an appalling situation, and the best defense we’ve got is to discourage such lawsuits with negative publicity — to make legal bullies regret their choice to sue. So blog this. Tweet it. Facebook it. Tell your friends. And send Dr. Barrett a few dollars.