31 responses so far »

• steven : Oct 19, 2008 at 5:51 pm

  Hm. well I’m not a fan of Gary Null the person. I am a fan of his way of thinking. The amount of shit we put into our bodies because someone says it’s good for us is enormous. We should question more often what the so called authorities have to say. I also take issue with your interpretation of his rage. It could also be seen as passion for what he perceives to be the welfare of american children. Perhaps you have your own personal axe to grind?

• Jimbo : Oct 19, 2008 at 9:59 pm

  Losing his shit? Not really. Very spirited though.

• admin : Oct 20, 2008 at 11:10 am

  @steven. I do indeed have an axe to grind about anti-vaccinationists , a very big sharp one.

  Like creationists, holocaust deniers, people who think that the Federal Reserve is a government conspiracy, or that the earth is made of termite dung, they are not harmless delusionals but people who can undermine the foundations of a civilized society, if they are left unchallenged.

  We stepped out of the dark ages with a culture built on achieving consensus via indisputable evidence rather than selective nonsense promulgated for personal ideological gain by aggressive people with dubious credentials.

  I am busy grinding my axe till it is razor sharp to take people like Gary Null head on. I despise him.

• Chan TheJunction : Oct 20, 2008 at 12:06 pm

  I dont know this guy and i think he looks funny and is overdoing. his gestures are too big (intentionally, probably) and we all know that those guys can be dangerous…

• steven : Oct 20, 2008 at 4:24 pm

  @admin. For the most part I like your site. But after your response to my post which was equal to or perhaps even surpassed Gary Null’s reaction to, not the vaccine, but the vehicles of the vaccines such as mercury, (which I”m sure you would agree is not a great thing for any human being unless it is telling them that they have a temperature and should see a doctor), I will pay much more attention to your anger, as it seems to be quite dangerous. Let me make this very clear. I DO NOT LIKE GARY NULL. I do however champion the IDEA that we question without shame the long standing truths of this modern world. We find often when we look outside the box something new, something interesting, something that catapults us to a different dimension. We may very well still be in those dark ages if no one was willing to question what was already known.

• admin : Oct 21, 2008 at 1:09 pm

  @Steven. I agree with you, we should certainly question things from from alternative medicine to big pharma. In the latter case it requires questioning what we ingest, but in the former it quite often means that we should question people who prevent us from ingesting medicine which is good for us. People of Null’s mindset tend to question only the big pharma and not the alternative medicine, that is my problem. Null’s case is particularly bad, because he is provably wrong and makes a profit from being so.

  In other words, people of Null’s way of thinking, rather than specific viewpoints, are deemed to be at worst harmless and annoying because they peddle alternative therapies which don’t work but don’t kill you. But to do this Null says things like Polio vaccines don’t work, or that Aids is not caused by HIV, and the replacement of proven medicine with sugar pills causes people to die.

• steven : Oct 22, 2008 at 7:55 am

  @admin. I have never been sure if people who comment back and forth ever reach a point of common ground. Or if it is just a grist mill for two people who are not interested in hearing anything but their own voice. I believe we have found common ground. I agree with your last point. I took exception at the start not with your thesis, but with your tone. It seemed almost irrational, which was a surprise, since so often I find your voice to be very even handed. I enjoy the vastness of your interests, and its eclectic nature. I would also submit that some of what Null says is extremely valuable. If americans did follow more closely from an early age the nutrition guidelines he champions, we would have far fewer health concerns and far less need for big Pharma. Of course he is on the edge of being a lunatic. Sadly I think he discovered early in his career that it is the only way to be noticed!

• Tony C. : Oct 22, 2008 at 4:36 pm

  Sorry, but like Steven (at least initially), I am disappointed in this attack. I am not a particular fan of Gary Null, nor have I previously been in the position to defend him, but this is really a superficial and arguably unfair attack.

  First of all, Null is showing passion in the second clip, rather than anything resembling extreme anger. To suggest that it is hypocritical of him to lead an anger management class based on that juxtaposition strikes me as ridiculous.

  More importantly, if you’re going to characterize someone as an “unstable charlatan”, you really should provide some sort of evidence to buttress your claim. Yes, Null is a skeptic of the widely accepted view on HIV, but that is not, in and of itself, evidence. Furthermore, there are doctors – and more than a few – around the world who either advise their patients not to allow their children to be vaccinated, or present evidence about safety questions which is not as clear-cut as most are led to believe, so that their patients can make informed decisions.

  It is also indisputably the case that Null advocates many things about health and nutrition which are widely understood to be both accurate and beneficial. Hardly the profile of a “charlatan”.

  The irony of this attack is that Null is rigorous in his research and always (to my knowledge) backs up his assertions in a serious manner (whether one accept the studies and sources he cites is a different question), while there is no compelling evidence presented here to back up the accusations. Instead, a shrill ticking off of his most extreme views are substituted.

  It’s easy to shout that if someone believes that the Polio vaccine doesn’t work, they must be crazy. But when the full, voluminous body of work created by Null over the years is taken into account, it becomes much more complicated.

  And speaking of the Polio issue, I did a quick search, and found a terse summary of Null’s view on the Polio vaccine. Here it is:

  “Immunization programs against polio have no benefits other than economic ones for vaccine producers. The scientist who eliminated polio now suspects that the handful of polio cases which have occurred in the U.S. since the seventies are caused by the live viruses that were used as vaccines. In Finland and Sweden, where the use of live vaccines for polio is prohibited, there has not been a single case of polio in ten years. If live viruses used as a vaccine can cause polio today when hygiene is generally high, it may well be that the polio epidemics 40 to 50 years ago were also caused by immunization against polio while hygiene, sanitation, housing, and nutritional standards were still very low.

  In the United States, cases of polio increased by 50 percent between 1957 and 1958, and by 80 percent from 1958 to 1959 after the introduction of mass immunization. In five states, cases of polio doubled after the polio vaccine was given to large numbers of the population. As soon as hygiene and sanitation improved, despite the immunization programs, the viral disease quickly disappeared. Whatever may have been the reason for polio outbreaks in the past, it is highly questionable today to immunize an entire population against a disease that does not even exist any more. It raises major questions about the motives behind polio vaccination. ”

  Now, does Null appear to be quite as crazy after you learn that they DON’T USE POLIO VACCINES IN FINLAND AND SWEDEN? I don’t want to get off on a tangent about who (and which countries) are right or wrong on the question, but hopefully it will give some context to the need to go beyond the headlines of someone’s views before attacking them viciously.

  Now, who is it, exactly, who might benefit from an anger management course?

• steven : Oct 23, 2008 at 6:49 pm

  I realize that by it’s nature this category FEBL has the bias of the author. I was not prepared for the response my initial post received. I felt as though I was someone hailing a cab, and instead of picking me up, the cab decided to run me over. I think the web in general can be a great forum for ideas and the exchange of ideas. I hold firm to my first post. What has changed though is we (admin and I) have opened a discussion. I am willing to listen to different ideas, I am also willing to entertain them and work them through in my own mind. This is perhaps my biggest wish for the world at this time. We need to hear each other, and respect each other. One of those simple ideas…

• admin : Oct 23, 2008 at 10:56 pm

  @Tony C and Steven.

  Lets make this very clear, Gary Null makes a lot of money selling pseudo medicine that doesn’t need to be legally tested. He has neither a medical nor an accredited doctorate and he believes and acts on things things which would get him disbarred if he were a medical doctor.

  Life is too short to argue with every creationist, snake oil merchant or charlatan. As Hitchens says “that which is proposed without reason can be dismissed without reason”, and this applies to Null’s hypotheses (no pun intended).

  I think it is very important, however, for people who champion reason, and who think that those who oppose the selfless community action of vaccination are a danger to a generation of children, get angry and speak out.

  In the interim, I recommend Ben Goldacre’s book, ‘Bad Science’, he states the case of reasonable people, who are concerned about the cult of anti-vaccination while still rightfully challenging the pharmaceutical industry, much better than me. He is angry too, but without being a hypocrite, since he doesn’t run a cringeworthy anger management course.

  @ Tony C. Regarding your claim that Sweden and Finland don’t use polio vaccines, they use IPV schedule vaccination: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3225/is_/ai_19235274?tag=untagged

• steven : Oct 24, 2008 at 3:06 pm

  @admin. we must be very prescient on this subject. I will leave a link to visit at the end of this post. I want to remind you of something you said earlier in this dialogue first.

  “I agree with you, we should certainly question things from from alternative medicine to big pharma. In the latter case it requires questioning what we ingest, but in the former it quite often means that we should question people who prevent us from ingesting medicine which is good for us. People of Null’s mindset tend to question only the big pharma and not the alternative medicine, that is my problem. Null’s case is particularly bad, because he is provably wrong and makes a profit from being so.” end quote.

  There is an article out today which indicates that of the doctors surveyed nearly 50% prescribe Placeboes. And that in fact only 3% of those placeboes prescribed. are actual sugar pills, the rest can be anything from painkillers to vitamins to antibiotics…

  I would posit we question anyone who asks us to take something that is supposed to be good for us. Your anger is focused on mr. null, and people like him who are “preventing us from taking medicine that is good for us”, however you don’t question the authorities you so strongly believe in and in fact they may also be lying to you to make a profit. I wonder if you have more than one axe in your shed?

  The more interesting aspect of this survey is that nearly 50% of doctors polled believe the mind has powerful capabilities to heal the body. What a strange and wonderful idea. ( but only when it comes from a doctor.). Of course if they told you they believed this you might not go to see them again, and if that happened, well they might not make as much profit. So instead they give you what? Another chemical.

  The portion of your post I quoted, is quite a crafty piece of work. It’s one of those pieces of work that on it’s face seems plausible, but if you take a second to actually read it you find out quickly that while you frame yourself at the start to be someone with an open mind we quickly find out that your problem is with people who, only question the theory opposing their own and don’t examine their own.

  Given this logic is it reasonable to deduce you might have a problem with yourself?

  As an unreasonable person I hope they allow me to buy mr goldacre’s book, maybe I should leave my cult membership card at home when I go to buy it. It will be refreshing to purchase a book from a non hypocrite, what with all those other authors out there writing books and then having the nerve to promote them.

  here’s the article, http://www.nursinginpractice.com/default.asp?title=USdoctorsregularlyprescriberealdrugsasplacebotreatments&page=article.display&article.id=14189

  and P.S. if anyone ever prevents you from taking your medicine call me, I’d be happy to take care of them for you.

  I was going to try to engage in dialogue with you but your language is so inflammatory about this subject I feel the need to meet it with sarcasm. It’s too bad.

• Tony C. : Oct 24, 2008 at 10:09 pm

  While I find Null to be pompous, and often insufferable, I’m afraid that your attacks remain superficial, and way over the top. In many respects, Null is nothing like a charlatan. Much of the advice that he gives is sound, and in fact in many cases it is the very same sort of advice given by more highly credentialed and palatable alternative advocates (e.g. Andy Weil). It is also the case that most of the products he sells are both perfectly safe (by anyone’s definition), and some supplements are recommended (in some form) by mainstream doctors.

  You continue to blast him on the basis of his most extreme positions, and that type of attack is not only unfair, but it degrades your credibility as well. Null is flawed, and I have little doubt that he deserves to be taken to task for some of his positions. But whether you like it or not, there are huge numbers of people who are – for good reason – disgusted with mainstream medicine, and people like Null provide a valuable service by both questioning the accepted dogma, and offering alternative approaches to health issues.

  It should also be noted that almost invariably, accepted ideas about health and illness are refined, and in some cases discarded completely by mainstream doctors and researchers over time. Those who question the accepted science of the day are often painted as loony, and yet it is not uncommon for such critics to be vindicated in the long run. Furthermore, if you believe that certified MDs are necessarily in a better position to understand and promote well-being than alternative practitioners, I’m afraid that you are badly mistaken.

  I’m certainly not suggesting that all alternative practitioners are the same, nor that care shouldn’t be taken when choosing one, but I have absolutely no doubt, for example, that the aforementioned Dr. Weil is a superior promoter of good health than the vast majority of MDs.

• admin : Oct 25, 2008 at 10:01 am

  There are differences between people who buy a doctorate over the internet and people who train for years. There are also differences between doctors, good ones and bad. However, It is a spectrum where Null lies somewhere near the bottom end.

  However flawed, several years of training, in an environment whose teaching methods are public and under independent scrutiny, tends to give people a better education than a degree (from where Null has his Phd) whose teaching methods are largely secretive and unrecognized.

  For the same reason that it would be a mistake to take medicine that Null prescribes if you have cancer, it is more likely to be dangerous to take a placebo prescribed by someone like Null than a qualified doctor – and here is why:

  Null could be preventing you from taking something you probably should, but because he is not required to have any real understanding of how the body works, or validated by anyone other than people who don’t necessarily know how the body works, there is no recourse. On the other hand, a doctor who gives you a placebo who should have prescribed cancer medicine would be in serious professional trouble.

  In fact the situation is a bit more subtle, doctors are not allowed to prescribe a ‘placebo’, because a placebo is technically a non-prescription so it would be fraud. The placebo affect, however, is undeniably real, (although it tends to work in conjunction with other medical treatments. Placebo’s will rarely grow you a new heart, for example, you are probably better off with a transplant.)

  What doctors do in situations where they feel that there is no medication needed, but the placebo effect might benefit, is ‘prescribe’ something like homeopathy pills. Although homeopathy pills are just sugar pills (and therefore placebos), there are people who believe that homeopathy is medicine and doctors can use this to give out placebos (instead of handing out things like antibiotics, to people who don’t need them).

  I know many medical doctors that do this, including my sister, but if Gary Null does it, it can be very dangerous, because the person might actually need treatment.

  Anyway, I should probably stop here because I get the impression that you have decided, for emotional rather than rational reasons, that the approach used by people like Null, if not Null himself, is valid.

  Although untested medicine such as homeopathy pills can be harmless, belief in homeopathy (aggregate scores of all homeopathy tests in history show that it performs no better than prescribing nothing) kills people through unwitting neglect. Therefore it is specifically Null’s ‘way of thinking’ that is very, very dangerous.

• Tony C. : Oct 25, 2008 at 8:58 pm

  “I should probably stop here because I get the impression that you have decided, for emotional rather than rational reasons, that the approach used by people like Null, if not Null himself, is valid.”

  That’s rather ironic to say, given that I have consistently and clearly stressed the point that you are judging Null on a narrow basis, and you have consistently avoided answering that criticism. Instead, you remain focussed on judging him purely on the basis of his most extreme views and actions.

  You’re unwillingness to put those questionable actions (or failures, if you prefer) into perspective underscores that you are actually the dogmatic one in this discussion. I see Null as the complex character that he is: flawed? Yes, but one who has also espoused, and continues to espouse many things which are of potentially great benefit to people, and quite clearly not dangerous in the least. I make no apologies for the fact that he also espouses some radical views, and possibly makes recommendations (and sells some products) which could conceivably be dangerous. But unlike you, I do not vilify him on that narrow basis.

  There are countless well-credentialed MDs who lazily and/or ignorantly treat symptoms through the use of pharmaceuticals, rather than addressing the root causes of their patients’ illnesses. Are such doctors, in your view, also “charlatans”, or are they immunized from such criticism because they have better “credentials” than Null?

• admin : Oct 25, 2008 at 10:49 pm

  At least now we are at the crux of the issue.

  Yes, after 4,000 years of written culture, the enlightenment, and the replacement of bloodletting, superstition and hearsay with practices which are agreed on across social and cultural divides and testable outside of opinion or personal interest, we are in a better place.

  Violence and disease are orders of magnitude less likely to kill you today than in our pre-scientific past, even if you count the most horrific carnage of the 2 world wars, Stalinist terror famines and Pol Pot. (See Stephen Pinker)

  Science and medicine are not a conspiracy, nor are alternative medicines really an alternative, unless they are measured by the same standards. There are bad doctors, like I said, and there are politically motivated corrupt pharmaceutical companies, but in both these cases, reason creates a mechanism to flush these people out and achieve consensus.

  Gary Null cannot be measured by the same standards as a medical doctor, because he isn’t one, he cannot be struck off or sued for malpractice, and yet he places himself in the same arena as people who treat people. Being a doctor isn’t such a difficult or special thing, but neither is it nothing at all.

  Null rails against both doctors en masse and pharmaceutical companies, but unlike a doctor he owns the equivalent of his own pharmaceutical company that he prescribes from.He is a miniature, self-contained spitball of corporate quack medicine.

  As a result of the fact that Null chooses to be in the public eye and says a lot of nasty things about science and scientists, publicly, it seems reasonable to say things back.

  Yes, I repeat, I absolutely believe that Gary Null is a simplistic, dangerous charlatan with ideas from the dark ages. I don’t see why I should be nice about him, if his ideas might be killing people, indirectly.

  Of course, he would say the same thing about someone like me. But there is a difference – evidence.

• steven : Oct 26, 2008 at 11:34 am

  @Tony, I’m not sure why admin cannot see the point that you and I are trying to make. He has become caught in an incessant loop, of which I fear he will never emerge. His constant attack of null, whom we both have admitted to agreeing with him about at least a portion of his character, is missing the point completely. I do believe he is the sort of taxi driver who would rather run over his potential fare than stop to pick him up. He implores others to use reason however he sees no need for it himself. He would have been thrown out of any solid debate after his first post. This is brining to light another modern problem. Pseudo intellectualism. I’ve often encountered people who have all the statistics at hand and all the trivial knowledge to call on in any argument but given the opportunity to use the vast power of the human mind to reason and create new unique thoughts from that reason, they are unable to do so. I cringe each time I hear someone use the popular phrase genius to describe some one as common as you or I, who has the capacity to repeat information, not dissimilar to that of a parrot.

  I have taken a less dignified tone in my posts than you Tony and I commend you for your thoughtful reason. This will be my last post and probably my last visit to this site. I learned long ago in the sandbox that the selfish little know it all shit, is not open to reasonable conversation, and is terrified of new creative thoughts, and when in that terrified state, tends to gather all his/her possessions, build a wall and do exactly the opposite of why they came to the sand box in the first place.

  I think the EVIDENCE needed is here in this thread. @admin You are indeed a pedantic, narcissistic, bore.

  I came to this sandbox in search of something unique and thoughtful, which it often is. I am sad to find out that the owner, purveyor, is neither the intellectual, nor the creative eclectic he pretends to be and I shall choose not to support it. I realize I am resorting to criticism but,
  “I don’t see why I should be nice about him, if his ideas might be killing people, indirectly”.

  This began as fun but alas has ended up a pitiful exercise in monotony.

• Tony C. : Oct 26, 2008 at 5:23 pm

  Sorry, but your characterization of Null is both cartoonish and inaccurate – further irony, given how important you consider “evidence” to be.

  As far as the notion that Null’s “ideas might be killing people, indirectly”, are you so myopic as to not realize that the very same thing could be said of the medical establishment throughout history? I’m not going to waste time listing the many available examples, but let’s take an obvious, fairly recent one. Until at least the early 1950’s, smoking was not considered by the medical establishment to be dangerous. In fact, doctors were recommending different brands of cigarettes in advertisements. Needless to say, that position indirectly caused incalculable cases death and disease in people who were relying on their well-educated and impressively degreed physicians for health-promoting advice.

  The point – if you haven’t grasped it yet – is that medical science has been profoundly wrong about many important issues throughout history, and critics like Null play an extremely important role in questioning the accepted science of the day. Furthermore, given the powerfully insidious nexus between big money Pharma and doctors in our contemporary society, such criticism takes on added importance.

  With regards to your obsessive focus on cancer (given that it is a rather small aspect of Null’s teachings and business), I’ll say the following. You are, along with everyone else, of course, free to choose chemotherapy and/or radiation should you ever need treatment for cancer. But for some people, it makes neither intuitive nor intellectual sense to use highly toxic therapies which badly degrade the body’s immune system in order to reverse a diseased course. I’d add that it’s a virtual certainty that, years from now, such toxic treatments will be looked back at as having been barbaric.

• admin : Oct 26, 2008 at 7:38 pm

  “You are, along with everyone else, of course, free to choose chemotherapy and/or radiation should you ever need treatment for cancer. But for some people, it makes neither intuitive nor intellectual sense to use highly toxic therapies which badly degrade the body’s immune system in order to reverse a diseased course.”

  Yes, exactly, it makes “makes neither intuitive nor intellectual sense”, but this kind of thing is proven to work in trials, which in themselves, favor neither doctors, quacks or pharma company opinion, much to all of their chagrin, from time to time.

  Somewhere along the line, people have forgotten that this is not a battle between the medical establishment and new ideas, but between knowledge and superstition. There are plenty of people from all sides in each camp, but not equally so.

  The word science means knowledge, from the Latin for the same. An ‘alternative’ to science is therefore by definition and demonstration – ignorance. Something worth fighting against, even if it does hurt the feelings of people who like wishy-washy, spiritualist crap, from flat earthers to intelligent design to much of alternative medicine.

• Tony C. : Oct 26, 2008 at 9:07 pm

  You have, yet again, ignored the substance and specific questions posed in my post. Instead, you continue to attempt to paint an exceptionally complex issue in black and white terms. It’s either science, or “spiritualist crap”.

  Steve was correct about the monotony; I was apparently naïve in my optimism that it might be broken.

• admin : Oct 27, 2008 at 2:59 pm

  Sorry Tony, I am missing what your ’specific questions’ are.

• ET : Oct 28, 2008 at 10:10 pm

  Wow. See, this is why I love this site. Here we have, for the most part, actual intelligent and healthy debate. This is why I never go on YouTube, where it seems, no matter how clearly and fairly I present a comment, an inevitable backlash follows, consisting mostly of fruitless ranting. It’s like that skit from MP’s Flying Circus:
  “I came in here for an argument!”, “Oh, I’m sorry, this is ‘abuse’.” YouTube’s comment areas usually amount to little more than pointless, circular, sub-kindergarten “I know you are, but what am I?” shouting matches. And, to top it off, the character limit for each comment is usually far too short to say anything smart to begin with. Anyway, rant over, lest I spark such a debate here and infect a perfectly good thread.

  Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and agree with admin (David?) on this. Arguments like Gary’s are reminiscent of ideas like intelligent design and creationism, abstinence-only sex education, the world is flat, etc. Clearly, there are downsides to things like vaccinations. We are ridden with all sorts of chemicals, and sometimes the drugs themselves can pose a danger and trigger side effects. The idea here, though, is the weighing of options. Without vaccinations, we’d be really friggin’ screwed. Remember Polio? Shoot, yellow fever still infects a couple hundred thousand and kills tens of thousands of people in regions that lack the vaccine. I, for one, therefore say “shoot me the hell up, gimme all you got. I’d rather risk getting a little sick from some potent meds than to die incapacitated, jaundiced, and vomiting blood. Ya gotta take the good with the bad. The benefits dwarf the risks if you really look closely. I won’t argue that it doesn’t suck on some level, but I put my faith in science, which tends to improve these drugs over time, eliminating negative effects. ‘Nuf said. Props, David, on the killer site.

• admin : Oct 30, 2008 at 1:01 pm

  @ ET, yes admin is me ‘David’ – I should change that. Thanks for the kind words.

• Caves : Nov 2, 2008 at 5:37 am

  There is a lot of information publicly available on the thing that Null purports to question.

  Here is a good source for real information to address the many vaccine conspiracy theories.
  http://www.quackwatch.com/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu00.html

  Studies were made, repeated and published in peer reviewed journals. The methods were transperent and repeatable. If anyone wanted to repeat the experiment and got different results, many journals would be happy to publish them. This is science.

  What makes people like Null dangerous is that they tell people to disregard the science and buy something that they are selling instead. He perpetuates the anti-expert myth that Palin and others are selling, and is risking the lives of those who trust him.

  Could he be correct? If he was, then it would be easy for a controlled study to prove the harmfullness of the established medicines and the usefulness and safety of his. Case closed.

  I am angry at him for the same reasons I am angry at the Christian Scientists who’s children die of easily curable disease at an alarming rate. They have the excuse that they’re doing it for a misguided faith. This man, whether or not it is his primary motivation, is making an awful lot of money at it.

• Caves : Nov 2, 2008 at 5:58 am

  The fact that he is actively spreading denial of the link between HIV and Aids, really sticks in my craw.

  Here’s a basic look at evidence of HIV as the cause of Aids
  http://www.niaid.nih.gov/Factsheets/evidhiv.htm

  Here’s Nulls documentary
  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3983706668483511310

  A good number of people featured there are associated with the Dr. Rath Research Institut, created by Matthias Rath who sells his own alternative treatments for Aids in South Africa and Eastern Europe.

  Froth Rath’s wikipedia article.
  The Democratic Alliance (DA), official opposition party in South Africa, accused Rath of misrepresenting himself as a medical doctor in South Africa. The DA filed complaints with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the police. The Health Professions Council said it could not discipline Rath since its jurisdiction is restricted to registered doctors.

  So again, here are people making money by spreading demonstrably false information. Not to get too wound up, but if there were a hell, there would be a special place there for these folks.

• admin : Nov 2, 2008 at 6:31 am

  @Caves

  Re: “The DA filed complaints with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the police. The Health Professions Council said it could not discipline Rath since its jurisdiction is restricted to registered doctors.”

  Thanks. This is a good example to back up the ’soft medicine’ is dangerous argument.

  Null’s views on Aids are enough to dispute any argument that he is someone with a few dodgy ideas that speaks some truth. He is a dangerous idiot.

• robin : Jan 13, 2009 at 5:27 pm

  i had a friend who used to work for him who indeed would tell all sort of stories about his charlatanesque, moneygrubbin ways.

• Lee Phillips : Jan 27, 2009 at 2:21 pm

  David (admin):

  Everything you say about Null (and superstitious “alternative medicine”) is right on the money.

  Here is my research into his bogus Ph.D.: http://lee-phillips.org/null/phd.xhtml

  He got so angry in response to my writing about him (see your link to me in your first paragraph) that he challenged me to come on his WPFW show and debate him. I did, but he refused to debate the science, instead ranting continuously in response to my opening remarks until the show was over. Also, he and his people have repeatedly and publicly threatened to sue me for criticizing him, but so far that’s been just hot air. He does anger easily.

  In short, he’s a class act. Thank you for your efforts in educating people about this dangerous and mercenary nonsense.

• admin : Feb 2, 2009 at 6:14 am

  Thanks Lee, I really appreciate what you are doing to expose fraudsters like Null.

• Brint : Apr 13, 2009 at 6:47 pm

  I’ve been listening to Gary Null on the radio everyday for 20 years. In fact, I’m listening to him right now. Gary has high self-esteem. When you pay attention to Gary, you have to look beyond the ego, which is hard, because at times it’s all ego. But when you get past all that, there is a lot of good information. He gives really good quality health and nutrition information pulled from medical journals. He has some great anecdotes. His diatribes are priceless. I don’t take everything he says as gospel, but I’ve taken his advice on many, many things and it’s worked really well. He does look at science, he just draws different conclusions. He actually cites studies during his broadcasts. He can stray into hyperbole and self-grandiosity sometimes, but often he’s just didactic.

  IMO, Gary’s saving grace is that he can express righteous anger that doesn’t devolve into negativity. He’s actually a free thinker in a lot of ways. Like a real, looking-at-the-facts-and-making-up-his-mind-about-anything-and-everything free thinker. He’s very unique and judging him by a few clips on the infrawebs doesn’t give him a fair shake.

  Hate him if you want, but get to know him first.

• judith howard : Aug 9, 2009 at 1:44 pm

  Yeah, and I know there have been countless people who have actually got well following Gary Null's advice. Many other doctor's who subscribe to the same common sense practices as Gary talks about, some who have left mainstream medicine because of the medical system which is really not about real healing but treating symptoms in partnership with big pharma.

• joe bannon : Jun 4, 2010 at 1:10 am

  Gary Null has said that he was balding and regrew his hair with his nutritional regimen. When asked if he had before & after photos, he said his grew back so fast that he hadn't time to take photos. WHAT?? Did his hair grow back over-night?? What a QUACK!!!

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