Anti-alternative "Quackbusters" Have Giant Court Losses on Two Continents

Holland, Pennsylvania & California Courts Rule Against Them

Recent rulings in Amsterdam, Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of California are heavy blows to the Quackwatch anti-chiropractic and anti-alternative medicine organizations.

After years of being labeled a"quack," and defamed and ridiculed professionally, Dr. Maria Sickesz won a great victory in Amsterdam, Holland early June 2007.

The Netherlands Appeals Court ordered the "Vereniging tegen de Kwalzalverij" (Association Against Quackery, which is the Dutch version of the so- called "Quackbusters" ) to cease and desist from using the demeaning, subjective and pejorative term "quack." This group is linked extensively on their website with the American "quackwatch" headed by Stephen Barrett, who also has suffered several legal defeats recently.

The Justices recognized that this group's affinity for giving demeaning labels to doctors with whose practices they disagreed was a way of shutting down emerging science. They were also ordered to publish a public retraction in two widely circulated newspapers. It has been estimated this will cost them around thirty thousand euros (~US$40,350) and has been written that this will bankrupt this highly controversial association whose work is attempting to destroy alternative practioners in Holland.

Dr. Sickesz developed a kind of healing called orthomanual therapy which integrates chiropractic practices. For several decades the quackbuster organizations around the world have waged legal and public relations wars against chiropractors and other non traditional practitioners, demonizing them with their biased campaigns.

In June, for the second time, Barrett lost a case in a Pennsylvania Appeals Court against a local and respected chiropractor in his hometown of Allentown, PA.