I like to sometimes listen to the nuts on the radio just to see what the other side is saying. I have found that an iPhone/iPod and the Stiticher app make a great way to check out things you may not other wise hear on the local stations. Anyway this week I came across a total nutcase of a physician whom i had never heard of before. Its Doctor Meyer Eisenstein. He and his wife have a show on something called The Progressive Radio Network. He is one of these Antivaccine people who unfortunately uses his MD for evil. His show is so full of pseudoscience and non-science comments that its boggles the mind how he ever got into medical school much less through it. In addition to his antic vaccine rant his latest show in the name of Breast Cancer Awarness went on the record to say that birth control pills cause breast cancer.. not true. Theres never been a link. Shortly after denouncing the use of hormones like Birth Control Pills which have been studied extensively over the years, he then goes on to promote the use of HCG for weight loss. HCG is a hormone which has no good scientific evidence to support its safety or efficacy but somehow thats fine with him. If anyone has swallowed something poisonous and needs a little help vomiting to get it up just take a listen to his show.

Its amazing that physicians get sued daily for things they have no control over and yet someone like this who is committing a blatant violation of the hippocratic can continue to do this with no repercussions

The problem with our highly efficient information transfer by radio, television and the Internet is that people can claim anything and there’s very little way of anyone to verify it.  I could claim that I was a highly regarded gastroenterologist who graduated with honors from a top notch European university, and that my recent research has shown that everyone is quite deficient in sodium chloride, and the only way to deal with it is to drink two gallons of sea water daily.

First, it is amazing how many people would accept my “authority” and would start doing just that.  Second, it’s also weird that I would almost never be prosecuted or even have my claims successfully debunked.

Occam
[Disclaimer: I am NOT a physician.    ]

I’d never heard of Dr. Eisenstein, so I googled him and found this at the Chicago Tribune: Austism Doctor: Troubling record trails doctor treating autism, posted May 22, 2009.

In court records dating back three decades, the families of dead and brain-damaged children repeatedly alleged that doctors who work for Eisenstein made harmful mistakes—sometimes the same error more than once. His practice also has been dogged by accusations in court records that its offshore malpractice policy was phony.

Why isn’t this man in prison?

The Google search turned up a lot of links related to Eisenstein’s practices. The most disturbing are his own words.

Children that (sic) aren’t vaccinated never get autism!

Why does this man still have a medical license?

Thanks for recommending Stitcher, macgyver. I downloaded it last night.

Thanks for that information, Darron.  I had just assumed he had borrowed the name from one of the main characters in Die Fledermaus light opera. 

Occam