Online quacks embrace all ills

By ROGER DOBSON

The therapeutic steering wheel cover seemed to have everything. Its raised bumps would not only help identify any health problems that needed treating while you were driving, it would also cure them by massaging key pressure points as the wheel moved.

Should the wheel not work for you, what about trying the Chinese health slippers, or the body contour test, or the "never been shown to be wrong" cancer test?

Gizmos like these have one thing in common. Each has made it onto Dr Stephen Barrett's list of dubious devices.

The psychiatrist, now retired, has spent more than 30 years on a crusade against dodgy medical tests and cures. Hundreds of them are listed on his websites.

Since the arrival of the internet, Dr Barrett has had his work cut out for him, with an explosion in health tests and medical gadgets. Many are expensive and most make extravagant claims - but few, if any, have been subjected to clinical trials.

Many are sold internationally, making it difficult for disgruntled buyers to track down the vendors when things go wrong.

The problem for consumers is that there is little independent advice available. There are so many tests available that family doctors are unlikely to have heard of many of the genuine ones, let alone the more dubious.

It is estimated that there are more than 500 types of test available on the internet. There are blood tests, urine screens, skin tests and health profiles for almost any condition.

There is a clot test, which purports to measure the length of time a spot of our blood takes to clot as an indicator of health. There are lymph gland sensitivity tests, nutritional blood profiles, oxygen stress tests, herbal hair analysis and saliva tests for ageing and the menopause. There are "cancer detectors" and even a "cancer zapper".

There is muscle testing for allergies, tongue diagnosis, food allergy screening and a comprehensive digestive stool analysis.

Although some of these are unlikely to hurt anything but the buyer's bank balance, many can be damaging, especially to the vulnerable and the sick.

To the healthy, these offers seem dubious - even ridiculous - but those diagnosed with a serious illness, or in chronic pain, are naturally much more ready to believe in such claims.

The terminally ill, the elderly and various cultural minorities are especially vulnerable to health frauds and quackery. Many intelligent and well-educated individuals resort to worthless methods in the belief that anything is better than nothing," said Dr Barrett, who is also vice president of the US National Council Against Health Fraud.

Two areas where there is the most concern are cancer tests and treatments, and gene testing. Some of the cancer devices are seen as particularly insidious because patients faced with few mainstream options will try almost anything.

Concerns about the risks of inherited disease have also increased demand for the growing number of gene tests on offer over the internet. Critics of these tests believe they trade on people's fears of becoming ill.

Among the purveyors of online health products, Dr Barrett is not a popular man. He has been described as arrogant, closed-minded, a bully, a thug and a Nazi.

Now he is working on another service to consumers: the Internet Health Pilot, which will be using the services of about 700 experts on health-related subjects, is aimed at creating a list of up to 500 of the best online health sites for consumers.

- INDEPENDENT