Medical Deception Quotes

This warning from the New York City Department of Health Fraud: Be suspicious of any doctor who tries to take your temperature with his finger.

In practice … presidential physicians have lied, often blatantly. Ross McIntyre, Roosevelt’s first White House physician, continually characterized his patient’s shortness of breath — from congestive heart failure — as a sinus problem. The most egregious lie, perhaps, was one of omission. When Paul Tsongas was running for president in 1992, his hematologist confirmed his patient’s history of lymphoma but not that the disease had recently recurred and thus probably was incurable. Tsongas died two days before what would have been the end of his first term in office.

Treat persons who profess to be able to cure disease as you treat fortune tellers.

Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?

Quacks are the greatest liars in the world except their patients.

But however mysterious is nature , however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science , the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments.

I still am amazed that people would never buy a car if they were told it gets 75 miles to the gallon - they're absolutely clear on what's a scam. But when it comes to their health they will immediately fall for somebody telling them, "Take this pill and you'll live to be a hundred years old." There's something about medicine that allows us to fall for stupid sales pitches more easily.

Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is.

There is a major problem with reliance on placebos, like most vitamins and antioxidants. Everyone gets upset about Big Science, Big Pharma, but they love Big Placebo.

From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains, Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains; These first induce him the vile trash to try, Then lend his name, that other men may buy.

There is actually quite a lot of crossover between the quacks and drug companies. They use the same tricks and tactics to bamboozle people into buying their pills, but drug firms can afford to use slightly more sophisticated versions.

Did you know that there was a study in 1961 that found that 90 percent of physicians wouldn't tell you if you were diagnosed with cancer?

Compassionate doctors sometimes lie to patients about the severity of their condition, and it is not always wrong to do so.