“These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
This “Quack Miranda Warning” is on every just about every woo-meister’s website. I see dozens of patients every day, and I never Mirandize them, so whats the deal?
There are three ways to look at this: the truthful way, the sinister way, and the bat-shit insane way.
- Truth: Anyone who wants to sell you something that’s a load of crap must use this statement to cover themselves legally.
- Sinister: Variation of above–someone wants to sell you something that you are supposed to believe is medically useful, but at the same time they tell you in fine print that it is not medically useful. When it doesn’t work, they don’t get sued. I wonder why anyone would buy something with that disclaimer attatched to it? When I treat someone for a medical problem, I pretty much say that I intend to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent a disease. Why would I say otherwise? It would be a lie. Also, who would go to see a doctor that told you that they didn’t intend to diagnose or treat disease. The whole thing is bizarre.
- Bat-shit insane: The FDA and Big Pharma are in cahoots with the AMA to keep you from learning all the simple ways to treat diseases. They want your money, and they’ll do anything they can to get it from you, including suppressing the knowledge than anyone can learn to heal cancer.
I can’t really help the people who believe #3, but people who are willing to suspend their paranoia should read #’s 1 and 2 a few times. Unless you’re being arrested, no one should be reading you your rights. The Quack Miranda Statement is the red flag that should send you running.
By the way, you typed, “you’re money,” in #3.
Damn it…thank you. You really are an insufferable know-it-all.
If you are a medical doctor (which you say you are) or another type of health care provider that has the legal rights to diagnose and treat medical conditions with the safety net of malpractice insurance, then, of course, you can do so without worry.
Anyone else that didn’t go that particular medical route is not afforded the same protection. Therefore, in a litigious society and one where telling someone that you can cure or treat a condition without an MD, is considered practicing medicine without a license, and punishable by the law, you can see how someone might not want to open themselves up to that. Yet, if they know of a way to help others they try to.
In addition, our system is not set-up to support much of anything other than drug research. If I find, for example, that concentrated carrot juice cures foot fungus (it doesn’t) if taken internally and applied to the foot 2x per day, then, in order to legally tell others that without risk of being sued, I have to have clinical studies that back this up. This costs money – a lot of money. Then, if I prove it – great! I can sell carrot juice to my heart’s content without fear of someone looking for a quick buck in a lawsuit.
But, guess what? So can everyone else. Chances are that some big company, or several other companies, are going to come along and overrun my little company, borrowing the benefits of my research.
If you can’t patent it, R & D to prove something works is money that most people and small companies can’t afford, & the investment is impossible to recoup. And if you are a big company that helps a lot of people with all sorts of health problems because it is a general nutrition product, well, then you could not possibly afford the R & D for all of the possibly ailments that your product might help.
Of course, we should always do our research and be critical thinkers when it comes to ingesting something or adhering to ANY expert’s advice. Blanket statements automatically discounting someone’s advice or product based solely on their desire to protect themselves legally in an inhospitable system, doesn’t make any sense at all though.
Isn’t this a Quack Warning in itself?
“. The information on this blog is intended for discussion purposes only and not as recommendations on how to diagnose or treat illnesses. I am a board certified internist. How do you know that’s true? You dont! Any personal medical issues the reader may have should be referred to the reader’s physician. If the reader freely chooses to use some random anonymous blog to make medical decisions, well, that would be just foolish. See your own doctor, damn it, he’s got boat payments to make.”
Boat payments aside, It seems you are in the same boat as many of the other “quacks,”
For a reply to Kimberly above, please see http://whitecoatunderground.com/2007/12/28/an-interesting-comment/
Doctor;
This statement is also on all vitamin supplements. Are you calling them crap too or just pointing out that “quacksites” are using this legitimate statement to sell patent medicines?
Interesting question. I suppose it’s hard to avoid over-generalization, since with government mandates, thought is rarely involved.
There is a great deal of data on vitamin supplements. Niacin has been proven to lower cholesterol and can be marketed as such, under the right circumstances. Most vitamin supplements, despite lots of testing, have not been shown to be medically beneficial (although I suppose you could market Vitamin C as “prevents scurvy in those at risk, like British pirates”).
It is more often seen on less benign products with even less data to support them.
Good question, thanks.
Use sourKrout and a medical release…besides people only have two years to make a medical mal-practice suet…don’t be so reactionary and let nurse midwives write prescriptions and do many of the tasks that doctors do…
I think in order to really help people you need to be a little more open minded and realize that the Western system, mainly based on pharmaceuticals, is only one kind of medicine and doesn’t always work fully in every case. Sometimes using some medications and also some herbs or supplements can be the best route. This is not quackery. It has existed in other countries for thousands of years. And I’m talking industrialized nations where they would have abandoned these methods all together if they had no benefits.
I have Graves disease and currently all three of the treatment methods offered in Western medicine have side effects. I do not have a stereotypical case and therefore could only be treated by beta blockers in Western medicine. The doctors also paired that up with a variety of other medications. Trazodone to get me to sleep. A restless leg drug. The Trazodone was the only medicine that ever helped me sleep but was greatly interfering with my life. I was “out of it” for the first 3 hours at work every day and walking on the thin line of being fired. I kept asking my coworkers the same questions over and over because my memory was so bad.
Meanwhile I still felt awful every day. Run down, weak, nauseous – you name it. I felt like I didn’t really have any other options with Western Medicine so I finally started doing acupuncture/Chinese medicine and was finally able to sleep without my medicine. This has changed my life and I don’t feel as tired or weak anymore either. I have been able to go running again, something that I had to give up when I first got Graves.
Magnesium is also the only thing that has made my muscles stop twitching all over – another common result of Graves disease. And Bugleweed, an herb, is the only thing that gets rid of the intense eye pain.
I would hate to imagine the desperation I would still be feeling if I was only relying on Western pharmaceutical treatments. Please for the sake of your patients, don’t discount other treatment modalities.
This is great.
So many times in forums relating to my illness (incurable but thankfully chronic – often referred to as “the good cancer” – much to the ire of sufferers) I come across people who discover new treatments.
They ask things like -
“Has anybody tried colloidal silver / mangosteen / acai juice / megadoses of Vit C / Green Tea (clinical trials are promising in controlling the progress of the illness) / rebounding / lymph massasge / castor oil poultices (really !) / yoga / meditation / positive thinking / detox diets / woo therapy of choice*”
When I investigate, I regularly come across the medical Miranda phrase, and then I get frustrated that nobody else seems to understand what it means.
Can I have your permission to copy this in its entirety on a couple of forums, with full attribution and a link back of course. I would then be able to point this page out to woosters with some smugness and a nice self satisfied warm glow in my heart.
* Delete as appropriate.
Good luck with the boat payments.
sure, feel free. I write to satisfy my ego, as all writers do, but also to educate.
And yes, I always feel full of irony and some idiocy when I tell someone they have a “good” cancer. On the other hand, I have plenty of cardiac patients whose prognosis is worse than many cancer patients, but it doesn’t have the C word.
Someone google-translated this post, but I think the translation requires clarification, despite my horrible French:
Premiere, le Miranda s’agit d’un loi Americain–quand quel’qun est arrete et est avec les policiers, il faut que les policiers dites a l’homme qu’il a le doite d’un avocat, et le doite de reste en silence.
S’il y a plus de questions, s’il vous plait demandez-moi, et je essay les repondre sensiblement.
Merci.
[...] Quack Miranda Warning [...]
You mention that most dietary supplements have very little backing…have you heard of Omega 3 fish oils? I know in Italy if you report to the ED with chest pain, you leave with a prescrption for fish oil or a bottle of it right then. It’s considered standard of care. Simply do a Pubmed search for data to back up this wonderful nutrient. And SHAME on you for not giving it to your patients. The drug companies must have paid you off well….
LOL…very clever.
The Europeans have adopted fish oil in the setting of, as I recall, acute coronary syndrome. The American literature is not at that point, and yes, there is a difference in how different countries approach things. For fish oils to be approved for, for instance, MI or ACS, they will have to conduct appropriate studies to show safety and efficacy.