Hawaii Public Radio: Health Care Professionals Should Protest Rather than Pledge

We have a serious problem in Hawaii as one of several states that have legalized the purported healing system called naturopathy. The practitioners, who call themselves naturopaths, use and promote a wide variety of worthless and often dangerous nostrums and procedures as remedies for scores of serious ailments. Most of these are not only unproved but disproved and thoroughly discredited. Most of their practices and claims, made in public promotions and private consultations, violate state and federal anti-fraud laws as well as food and drugs laws and medical device laws. 

However, their rogue profession was legalized (in very shady procedures corrupted by secret cash bribes to legislators) and naturopaths are now licensed by the state, so they are exempt from these consumer-protection laws. They can use and promote all the worthless methods they choose (and they have scores to choose from) because they would be in compliance with the naturopathic standard of care, which is this: anything goes as long as it can somehow be construed as "natural." This gives them immunity to fraud and other charges. For more detailed critiques see my book Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”, Quackwatch.com and Sciencebasedmedicine.org. 

This is the kind of legalized scam that we expect good journalists to investigate and report on. Unfortunately, since the earliest days of newspaper and radio the media have always given health fraud a free ride and profited from it by selling advertising to the scammers. We expect better from nonprofit public radio, but we rarely get it. Any purported remedy that is promoted as alternative, complementary, integrative, natural, organic, mind-body, preventive, wholistic, holistic or holy has sacred cow status and is presented by Hawaii Public Radio and most NPR affiliates as Revealed Truth.  

The “Body Talk” show on Hawaii Public Radio is a case in point and an example of egregious media irresponsibility. This call-in talk show is broadcast each Monday in the late afternoon. The host is Straub medical doctor Kathleen Kozak, who is certified NAV-positive (infected with the New Age Virus). Her medical relativism (all healing systems are equal, even those that contradict each other) puts her among a tiny minority of physicians, surely well under one percent. She thinks it is important for the public to learn the wonders of all kinds of methods not used in conventional medicine “so people can make up their own minds.”

The problem is that she presents only positive propaganda and false claims about the methods and never examines them critically, allows callers to criticize them or invites alternative-medicine skeptics as guests. People cannot make rational decisions when presented only one side of an issue. The producer of the show, the station management and the Ombudsman of National Public Radio have all ignored my complaints.  

Below I present the text of letters I have sent to Dr. Kozak and Hawaii Public Radio in the last several months. In the conclusion I make the case for protesting the Body Talk show by withholding donations.


(For another example of media sacred cows see www.bigtimepsychos.blogspot.com, post on Mad Man Deepak Chopra.)
Open letter to Dr. Kozak:

You are a serious hazard to listeners of HPR and probably also to your patients at Straub. You continue to dogmatically promote NDs (naturopaths) yet you refuse to answer reasonable questions about their philosophy and practices. Yesterday I heard you say that NDs handle some health problems better than MDs. Don't you think you owe it to your listeners to specify which problems are better dealt with by NDs? Which treatments that NDs use do you approve of? But then, you never answered the simple questions I asked months ago, to repeat:  

Did you know that at least 50% of the class time of naturopathic students is devoted to homeopathy? Did you know that no homeopathic remedy (there are hundreds) has ever been shown to be effective for anything? In fact, most of these "remedies" contain no active ingredients. Each remedy is a kind of holy water for specific symptoms. Homeopathic dogma violates firmly established laws of chemistry and replaces scientific pharmacology with impossible mystical hogwash.

Other gems of naturopathy include: no vaccinations; no anti-retrovirals; no antibiotics; blood-type diets and lots of other nutritional hooey; high colonics for many ailments; massive mega-vitamin doses for most ailments -- both prevention and treatment; and a whole lot of other worthless and dangerous woo.  

Back in the 1990s when the first effective HIV meds were being introduced, Honolulu naturopaths were screaming bloody murder -- aided and abetted by the gullible, incompetent, irresponsible local media -- and claiming that HIV could be treated with acupuncture, herbs and dietary concoctions. They claimed these things are natural and therefore good, while medical interventions are unnatural and therefore bad. They never define “natural” or explain how a treatment that works can be unnatural and bad.  

You have repeatedly hosted a naturopath who uses a notoriously fraudulent diagnostic method, EAV (electro-dermal BS) and lots of other nonsense.  Is it gullibility or corruption? Are your shows disguised commercials for which you're getting paid by quacks? 

Intellectually dishonest, unethical, irresponsible, narrow-minded (you read only quack propaganda and refuse to read the critiques) and possibly corrupt. These traits make you a serious hazard to your patients and your listening audience.  

If you don't specify which health problems are better dealt with by NDs and which by MDs, you will leave people with the impression that they are equal professions and that every disease and symptom can be just as well treated by an ND as by an MD.  NDs would love people to believe that, and no doubt they are very grateful to you for helping them mislead the public. But surely you know it's not true.  

Shouldn't you at least tell people that for HIV/AIDS, cancers, liver disease, TB and other serious infections, blood in the stool, complications of pregnancy, suspected melanoma, and seizures one should go to an MD and not an ND? (The list should be much longer.) And what about pertussis or measles contracted because a parent believed an ND's anti-vaccine lies? Would you recommend the child be taken back to that same ND for treatment? If so, be prepared for her to be subjected to worthless treatments that amount to child abuse -- including extreme enemas, foul-tasting toxic herbal teas, toxic doses of vitamins, and painful and dangerous manipulations.


You owe it to your listeners to tell us what symptoms and diseases you believe are best diagnosed and treated by naturopaths rather than medical doctors, and why you believe it.

Letter to HPR Management and Body Talk’s Producer

Today's edition, on 8/4/14, was perhaps the worst of a long line of Kozak shows that irresponsibly and dishonestly promote outrageous, dangerous health frauds. These shows expose HPR to liability for harm that may befall people who follow the scammers' advice.

Her guest for the show was "Doctor Jack Ebner," who she deceived listeners into believing is a qualified physician. Kozak didn't inform them that he is a chiropractor, but called him "Doctor Ebner" and gave him free reign to give medical advice and run his frauds on the audience. She let him promote HIV-denying quacks Harvey and Marilyn Diamond and their health hoax book Fit for Life, which made them and Warner Books millions of illicit dollars. They call themselves "Doctor" on the basis of bogus degrees.

Kozak did not inform the listeners that Ebner has absolutely no expertise that would qualify him to sound off on human health and ailments such as HIV/AIDS and Ebola. She defended him from one critical caller by essentially saying that we all have our own truths and we should respect each others' ideas and theories. Complete medical relativity. All healing methods, theories and systems are equal. Diploma mills and chiroquackery schools are as good as accredited medical schools. She's Dr. Oz on steroids plus meth and HPR is acting like the Weekly World News in giving her and her parade of fraudster airtime.  

HPR has now been put on notice. By knowingly allowing Kozak and her guests to mislead and defraud listeners, HPR is risking getting dragged into a tort and even criminal charges of complicity in fraud and reckless endangering. Punitive damages could be imposed in a tort because HPR should know better and has all the resources to learn that many of Kozak's shows are dishonest and dangerous. HPR even has a respected medical doctor on its board of directors.

Please know that HPR editors, talkers and producers can consult with me any time they want at no charge. I'm sure other rational health-care professionals and consumer advocates would also donate time for this. There is simply no excuse for HPR to be complicit and to be aiding and abetting frauds that may harm their listeners. Kozak may be getting paid by the quacks she promotes; I hope HPR producers are above that. (END)

Letter to HPR Management and Body Talk’s Producer

I have repeatedly complained to HPR about Kozak’s relentless promotion of health fraud on her Body Talk show. I've never received a reply. On Dec 1, 2014, Kozak presented yet another example with her frequent guest, Naturopath Diana Joy Ostroff.  

On this show she expressed no skepticism, or even curiosity about the details, when Ostroff:  Claimed to have cured a man of throat cancer, using unspecified naturopathic methods, after conventional therapy had apparently failed;  Claimed to routinely cure colds using unspecified naturopathic methods;  Claimed that her naturopathic methods get at the root cause of disease by assessing "cellular health" and treating deficiencies therein;  Claimed to have tests that can be used on the spot to determine which herb an individual with a fever or other symptoms would best respond to.


This is all brazen criminal fraud. The latter refers to a completely discredited system of skin probes, herbs, and a computer with software akin to astrology software and common to NDs. Kozak refuses to discuss these things in an objective manner and allows only promotional questions and comments. She said to me, after her screener hung up on me for being skeptical, "You are free to believe or not believe." To her it's all a matter of faith and belief, not facts, science and evidence. One healing system is as good as another, even if they completely contradict each other. One naturally wonders why she bothered to go to medical school. 

In these quackery-promoting shows Kozak withholds critical information, which is irresponsible and unethical. She promotes the lie that NDs are on a par with MDs, and doesn't tell her audience the following facts:

NDs are licensed in only a handful of states, and there are important and valid reasons for this;  ND training in diagnosing and treating patients, especially those seriously ill or injured and in a hospital, is woefully inadequate and not comparable to MD training;  Half of ND schooling and practice is in homeopathy, a 19th Century quackery cult that has been utterly disproved and discredited;  There is no evidence for Ostroff's claim, adopted from chiroquackery, that "spinal evaluation" can help in the diagnosis or treatment of any systemic ailment; There is no evidence that ND's "body cleansing" (high enemas, fasting, etc) is an effective remedy for anything;  Naturopaths' hostility to vaccines is a dangerous dogma that most NDs adhere to; And there is certainly no evidence to support the diagnostic and treatment claims made for the unapproved gadgets and devices naturopaths rely on and fraudulently promote to the public.

Naturopathy is rooted in, and still wedded to, mysticism, cultism and 19th Century pseudoscience. It does not have a track record even remotely comparable to that of science-based medicine with its dramatic progress in the prevention and treatment of scores of diseases. Yet Kozak consistently portrays NDs as equivalent to MDs or better. She says and implies that the two routinely collaborate and refer patients to each other. This is just bullshit. Her attitude is to hell with the truth and with consumer protection.


There are, and always have been, thousands of bogus remedies available and promoted. Dr. Kozak's job is presumably to help listeners find the few pearls in the very large dung heap. But she apparently believes her job is to convince the public that there is no dung, only mountains of pearls.

It is intolerable that HPR's only regular show relating to health and medicine is largely dedicated to the uncritical promotion of misinformation, quackery and fraud while it withholds crucial information from listeners. It is irresponsible, unfair, unreasonable and unethical by any standard, and it is in gross violation of the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. It is also in violation of HPR’s mandate and mission as most people understand them.

Since HPR has been unresponsive to my legitimate concerns, I have to consider other methods. I will now embark on an effort to educate Hawaii health care professionals and ask them to protest this dreadful show and the lack of opportunity for rationalists to comment on the nonsense and fraud. (END)

 Conclusion

Dr. Kozak and Hawaii Public Radio have abandoned science and consumer protection and embraced medical relativism and quackery. Like it or not, Kozak, if allowed to continue for years, could become the face of the medical profession in the mind of the Hawaii public even though her views are way out on the fringe. She misleads and endangers the patients of legitimate health professionals while giving the profession (especially Straub Clinic) an aura of anti-science hucksterism to rational people. 

Kozak’s show is HPR’s kick in the teeth to responsible health professionals and to all rational people.

I suggest we kick back by quitting memberships, withholding contributions, and telling HPR why we’re doing it.

Addendum on 3/24/15 (too short for a separate blog post):

Coincidentally, while I sparred with HPR about its biased and dishonest promotion of naturopathy, disillusioned former ND Britt Hermes started her critical blog www.naturopathicdiaries.com. I tried to email HPR about it and suggest Hermes be invited to be a guest on Body Talk. I learned that my emails are automatically rejected as spam. I had a friend send the message from another account. This time I learned that the message had been rejected because HPR has blackballed Hermes' URL. That is what the automatic "failure notice" said, blackballed.

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Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com.