Talk:Quackwatch

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Links

Barrett is a ACSH scienttific advisor". See : http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Council_on_Science_and_Health Quote from Barretts "Nutriwatch": "Antiquackery Web Sites

American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)"

http://www.nutriwatch.org/ --Mamma (talk) 08:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Stephen Barrett "not an expert"

At some point in the article, it says: "However, it should be mentioned that in Stephen Barrett, M.D. vs. Tedd Koren, D.C. and Koren Publications, Inc it was ruled that Stephen Barrett 'Not an Expert'", Maybe he's "not an expert" because the area he's trained is psychiatry? 85.244.3.164 (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Which he couldn't get certified for "because he had failed the certification exam." So Barrett is not even an expert in the field he trained in!--67.42.65.209 (talk) 09:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Orac's written an apologetic blog post, which says certification exams weren't necessary in Barrett's time. I don't know whether it's valid enough to be included in the article.--Krej^talk 18:11, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Angus Burger

I don't know if that person's edits are genuine, so I left them as they are. Brenden (talk) 05:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I was surprised to see the site showing a single error by Stephen, and proceeding to attempt to destroy his credibility, stating that everything on his site is effectively useless because of one error. If that were true, Price himself would not have to be considered either. And if the point about him failing his test and not being an expert are to be taken seriously, there needs to be an actual source with links to the court trial. The source given was a joke, very clearly biased in favor of "alternative" medecine. I'm happy to discuss any of this though. Angus burger (talk) 05:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to start an edit war here. If anyone can read the final part of the article, where one error is pointed out, so his crediblity is "shot to blazes", and believe there isn't any bias in that, I'd be surprised. And the point about him failing a test and not being an expert have no credible source, and the blog post above tackle that issue too. Why exactly have we let this article remain in such a horrible state? If everyone refuses to discuss this, I will eventually keep on editing the article until I get banned, or someone gives me a good reason to keep them there. There is no evidence he failed any such test, and I want a source to the trial, not some shitty homeopathy website (which clearly has a conflict of interest in reporting). Angus burger (talk) 05:58, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you could try submitting a freedom of information request for a transcript of the case? Given the nature of the lawsuit, it won't have made headlines in mainstream news sources & the only sources reporting it are likely to be ones which have a particular interest. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 06:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

On the Weston Price quotes

I believe we should add back the Weston Price quotes that were on the section about Weston Price. Even if it's for someone or a website we defend, I believe we should still have them back since they expose the distortions in Price's thought holistic dentists make and skeptics fall to. In fact, the section noted (and still notes) that this tiny mistake might be taken advantage of by alt medders. Faunas (talk) 12:02, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

This is not an article about Holistic Dentistry. Hipocrite (talk) 12:44, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course not; this is about Quackwatch, and this includes Quackwatch's flaws, of which those quotes were evidence. So they should be included. Holistic dentistry was but a minor detail in my argument. Faunas (talk) 18:21, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

It should stay on the Weston Price page. We don't need a wall of Price quotes on the Quackwatch page. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, then we should put up a note that says something like "You can read more about this on our article on Weston Price.". Faunas (talk) 18:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

The Quotes should remain as they PROVE that Quackwatch is at best misrepresenting the facts. This is especially true now that the quotes have been removed from the Weston Price artcile as well.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Add them to the Weston Price page. This is an article about Quackwatch, not Price. There is already a link to that article on this page. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

It is completely relevant on THIS page as it demonstrates Quackwatch's poor research. This seems to be sugar coating and suppression of relevant facts. Also the quotes were once removed from the Weston Price article...not to prove it won't happen again.--67.42.65.209 (talk) 07:59, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

This tactic of removing PROOF Quackwatch didn't do anything even resembling research simply proves there are some people who do not like FACTS.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:32, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Again, an example of just how poor Quackwatch did research is perfectly on topic for this article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Suppression of relevant FACTS.

I would like to point out the FACT is that Quackwatch is misrepresenting what Price did raises questions about everything they say. There were plenty of things they could have pointed to (such as Price did his research before food fortification took off (see "The History and Future of Food Fortification in the United States: A Public Health Perspective." Backstrand, J. R. Nutrition Reviews 2002;60 (1): 15-26. IDPAS# 1494) but instead they presented falsehoods as facts. I'm sorry if you have to resort to those kind of tactics your position must be really shaky.

By Price's own words in this case Quackwatch doesn't know its head from a hole it the ground:

Barrett: "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition."

Price: "since 1870 the average length of life has been increased by fifteen years, that marked reduction has occurred during this period in infant mortality and in mortality due to tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox and many other diseases." ((1923) Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic)

Price: "This physician stated that there were about 800 whites living in the town and about 400 Indians, and that notwithstanding this difference in numbers there were twice as many Indian children born as white children, but that by the time these children reached six years of age there were more white children living than Indian and half-breed children. This he stated was largely due to the very high child mortality rate, of which the most frequent cause is tuberculosis." ((1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers; Chapter 6)

"The changes in facial and dental arch form, which I have described at length in this volume, develop in this age period also, not as a result of faulty nutrition of the individual but as the result of distortions in the architectural design in the very early part of the formative period. Apparently, they are directly related to qualities in the germ plasm of one or both parents, which result from nutritional defects in the parent before the conception took place, or deficient nutrition of the mother in the early part of the formative period." (Chapter 19)

"It is important to keep in mind that morbidity and mortality data for many diseases follow a relatively regular course from year to year, with large increases in the late winter and spring and a marked decrease in summer and early autumn. [...] I have obtained the figures for the levels of morbidity for several diseases in several countries, including the United States and Canada." (Chapter 20)

"Dr. Vaughan in her reference to the data on the annual report of the chief medical officer, the Minister of Health, states as follows: Our infant mortality returns show that over half the number of infants dying before they are a year old die before they have lived a month..." (Chapter 21)

Short life expectancy, high rates of infant mortality, and endemic diseases being eliminated by modern culture were addressed by Price and he even referenced his 1923 work in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (Chapters 2 and 18). Despite all this Quackwatch claims Price ignored the very things Price himself talks about. I don't know if face-palming or slamming my head on to my desk is more appropriate regarding the total NON-research regarding Price demonstrated in that article.

Yes, Price's work is being used to support highly questionable theories but to claim he didn't do things that he clearly did do is sloppy skepticism bordering on psudoscience. Contrary to the picture Quackwatch paints Price wasn't a lone nut in the 1920s or 1930s--his views were MAINSTREAM FOR HIS TIME!

In fact, at the time Price did part of his research for Nutrition and Physical Degeneration there was already a lot of research going on or done regarding the idea of a connection between nutrition and tooth decay that showed there was something there:

Agnew, M. C.; Agnew, R. G.; Tisdall, F. F. (1933) The production and prevention of dental caries. Journal of the American Dental Association, JADA 20; 193-212.

Anderson, P. G.; Williams, C. H. M.; Halderson, H.; Summerfeldt, C.; Agnew, R. (1934) Influence of vitamin D in the prevention of dental caries. Journal of the American Dental Association 21; 1349-66.

Bennett, N. G.; et al. (1931) The influence of diet on caries in children's teeth. Special Report Series - Medical Research Council, UK No. 159, 19.

Day, C. D.; Sedwick, H. J. (1934) Fat-soluble vitamins and dental caries in children. Journal of Nutrition 8; 309-28.

East, B. R. (1938) Nutrition and dental caries. American Journal of Public Health. 28; 72-6.

His Majesty's Stationery Office, London. (1936) "The influence of diet on caries in children's teeth. Report of the Committee for the Investigation of Dental Disease".

McBeath, E.C. (1938) Nutrition and diet in relation to preventive dentistry. New York Journal of Dentistry Dentistry 8; 17-21.

McBeath, E.C.; Zucker, T.F. (1938) Role of vitamin D in the control of dental caries in children. Journal of Nutrition 15; 547-64.

McBeath, F.C. (1934) Vitamin D studies, 1933-1934. American Journal of Public Health , 24 1028-30.

Mellanby, Edward (1930) The relation of Diet to Death and Disease; Some new investigations BMJ Apr 12, 1930 pg 354 ((Edward Mellanby was the discover of Vitamin D)

Mellanby, May C. Lee Pattison and C. W. Proud, (1924) "The Effect of Diet on the Development and extension of caries in the the teeth of children" BMJ Aug 1924 pg 254

Mellanby, M. (1937) The role of nutrition as a factor in resistance to dental caries. British Dental Journal, 62; 241-52.

Tisdall, F.F. (1937) The effect of nutrition on the primary teeth. Child Development 8(1), 102-4.

If all that wasn't enough here is a quote for you form the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery 1933:

"The findings of the Agnews, Boyd and Drain, Eddy, Percy Howe, Hanke, Martha Jones, Marshall, McBeath, Klein and McCollum, May Mellanby, Price, and others show that dental disorders may be greatly reduced by a proper adjustment of the diet. Some of these investigators maintain that a lack of vitamin C is principally responsible for the activity of dental caries (Howe, Hanke). Weston Price regards vitamin B and mineral salts as the important elements in a caries free diet. Some believe that the lack of vitamin D is the offending factor (Mellanby). Finally, a disturbance in the calcium-phosphorus balance (which includes vitamin D) is the factor to which most recent investigators point as being responsible for the high activity of dental caries"("Metabolic Disturbance in Relation to the Teeth" by Charles F. Bodecker, D.D.S. from the laboratory of Histo-pathology, Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery, New York Delivered November 3. 1933)

Good grief, did anyone at Quackwatch do anything even remotely resembling research in that article with regards to Weston Price?!?

Less anyone tries to say this is Depression era research and therefore out of date in 2012 Hujoel published a study of 24 trials from the 1920s to the 1980s and found much the same pattern Mellanby did in the 1930s regarding the prevention of cavities. More over Hujoel also found a disturbing disconnect in 1950 between the American Medical Association and the U.S. National Research Council on one side and the American Dental Association on the other and concluded "Such inconsistent conclusions by different organizations do not make much sense from an evidence-based perspective." (Hujoel, P. P. (2012), Vitamin D and dental caries in controlled clinical trials: systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrition Reviews, 71: 88-97. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2012.00544.x)

Some more modern work that mirrors Price's work:

Adler, Christina J; Keith Dobney, Laura S Weyrich, John Kaidonis, Alan W Walker, Wolfgang Haak, Corey J A Bradshaw, Grant Townsend, Arkadiusz Sołtysiak, Kurt W Alt, Julian Parkhill & Alan Cooper (2013) "Sequencing ancient calcified dental plaque shows changes in oral microbiota with dietary shifts of the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions" Nature Genetics, doi:10.1038/ng.2536.

Rajakumar K, (2003) "Vitamin D, cod-liver oil, sunlight, and rickets: A historical perspective", Pediatrics, 2003 Aug;112(2):e132-5

Semba RD, (2007) ch 8 "The impact of improved nutrition on disease prevention", in Ward JW & Warren C, eds, Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth-Century America (NY: Oxford Univ Pr, 2007)

The only reason I can see removal of the Weston Price quotes is an effort to hide the fact that thanks to piss poor research Quackwatch is spreading falsehoods regarding Price.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:12, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Bruce, we get it - you believe in Holistic Dentistry. Hipo^crite 17:36, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The argument you put forward is irrelevant to the credibility of Quackwatch. As the page stands now, I think BruceGrubb's detractions should be moved to a new section called "Criticisms" and brief mention should be made, not its own time wasting section. NerdyWizard^{you believed that why?} 21:19, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

They are not "time wasting" but PROOF quackwatch either did sloppy research or LIED to its readers; which do you prefer? Why are you and Hipocrite so afraid of FACTS?--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:29, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Yawn. Hipo^crite 12:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Not surprising as efforts to defend the absolutely horrid research here are legion. But let's deal with FACTS:

It should be noted that during Price's lifetime much of the literature supposed that malnourishment and tooth decay were linked. Some such as the Interstate Medical Journal of 1913 argued that poor diet lead to bad teeth while others such as the Chicago Dental Society of 1921 argued that it was bad teeth that led to malnourishment. In 1933 Charles F. Bodecker, D.D.S. of the Laboratory of Histo-pathology, Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery, New York stated in a presentation delivered on November 3, 1933 that "The findings of the Agnews, Boyd and Drain, Eddy, Percy Howe, Hanke, Martha Jones, Marshall, McBeath, Klein and McCollum, May Mellanby, Price, and others show that dental disorders may be greatly reduced by a proper adjustment of the diet" and Harvard University physical anthropologist Earnest A. Hooron's own forward to Nutrition and Physical Degeneration stated "(a) quantity of excellent evidence has been amassed which indicates that dental caries is, to a great extent, connected with malnutrition and with deficient diet." In 1940 the United States. Children's Bureau cited bad teeth as one of the signs of a malnourished child.

Finally, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration was published by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc the Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers at that time so the whole book went through peer review by medical personal before being published. The book was praised in some circles with the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1940 not only calling the work "a masterpiece of research" but comparing comparing Price's impact on nutrition to that of Ivan Pavlov in digestion.[7] with The Laryngoscope in 1950 going even further stating "Dr. Price might well be called "The Charles Darwin of Nutrition" while describing Price's documentation of his global travel and research in a book.[8]. However, the book was criticized in other circles with Scientific Monthly saying the morality conclusions were not justified by the evidence and the Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting there was possible observational bias in Price's research.

The are the FACTS of the time Price lived in. Quackwatch's claims are refuted not only by Price's own words in the very work they are writing about but by the Chicago Dental Society, the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery, a Harvard University physical anthropologist, and the United States. Children's Bureau. There is no justification for this kind of sloppy research.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Your above statements are red herrings to the issues you brought up with Quackwatch, some of which are valid but mostly not, which I feel we've properly acknowledged and addressed. You want to defend your messiah, do it on his page. Not this one.NerdyWizard^{you believed that why?} 19:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

This is the last time I'm going to refute you, and I'll do it point by point so you don't feel like I have some ideological block to considering your arguments, I feel like I've wasted enough time reading your points and reading the documents you're sourcing.

• "It should be noted that during Price's lifetime much of the literature supposed that malnourishment and tooth decay were linked." Who cares? All that matters for your argument is what Price personally wrote.
• "Some such as the Interstate Medical Journal of 1913 argued that poor diet lead to bad teeth while others such as the Chicago Dental Society of 1921 argued that..." Again, who cares, all that matters is what Price personally wrote. Pierre Fauchard in 1728 was the first to make the link between sugar and tooth decay, so you could argue that the idea goes back 200 years before the writings you cite.
• "Earnest A. Hooron's own forward to Nutrition and Physical Degeneration..." Did Price write it.... ummm nope. I'm not finding evidence that Hooron even wrote a forward to it, please cite it for me so I can read it.
• "In 1940 the United States. Children's Bureau cited bad teeth as one of the signs of a malnourished child." Did Price write it? Nope.
• "Finally, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration... the whole book went through peer review" So what? It went through peer-review in the 1930s? Modern dentistry has been updated since then. Old, not working ideas get thrown out all the time. Price contributed to ideas in modern dentistry, he however is not beyond criticism and had a lot of junk ideas. Plus, junk articles are sometimes capable of passing peer review, it happens. Additionally, things passing peer review in the 1930s would undoubtedly contain things that are appalling to modern medicine and dentistry standards.
• "The book was praised in some circles..." Did Price write it? Nope. All that we're concerning ourselves with here is whether Quackwatch or Weston Price wrote it, not what other people think about it.

The more I read that book, the more I think Quackwatch was absolutely right. Price considered diseases, but not ones endemic to the population. The fact is modern medical dentistry has been vastly updated since many of Price's observations. A lot of them are simplistic and not informed by modern scientific methods.NerdyWizard^{you believed that why?} 20:53, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Your points are rubbish and I will refute them

• We are talking about factual accuracy here so it doesn't matter if Price himself wrote it.
• Quackwatch gives the impression from its tone that Price was one lone maverick when in fact he was main stream for his time.

• Several of the statements are factually wrong. The "He also did ignore that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities." is demonstratively wrong even by modern standards: "In the developing world, malnutrition is an important factor that contributes to dental caries." ((2009) Encyclopedia of Microbiology Academic Press); Children aged 7-9 y with stunted growth showed a significantly higher percentage of carious teeth than did well-nourished children of the same age (40 and 29%, respectively; p less than 0.005) (Alvarez, JO et al., Chronic malnutrition, dental caries, and tooth exfoliation in Peruvian children aged 3-9 years. Am J Clin Nutr. 1988 Aug;48(2):368-72.); "A similar longitudinal study suggested a cause-effect relationship between early malnutrition and increased dental caries" (Aparna Sheetal et al, "Malnutrition and its Oral Outcome – A Review" (Aparna Sheetal et al.,Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research. 2013 January, Vol-7(1): 178-180). Even modern works show this claim to be bogus as do works form Price's time...so where is it coming from?

• Many of your points can be summed up as "Price didn't write this" so why remove this:

"There was plenty Quackwatch could have used to combat the woo Price's work was being used for such as fortification of food being virtually non existent in Price's time so his "modern" food was significantly different from that of today, the advances in understanding nutrition, or any of the many things that have changed since 1939 could invalidate his research. But instead Quackwatch went with an overly broad and factually inaccurate summation and critization of Price's work leaving itself wide open to charges of "sloppy research" and being "entirely untrustworthy" especially when some of the points refuting Quackwatch's claim could be found in the very work (Nutrition and Physical Degeneration) Quackwatch was talking about."

..unless you prefer using woo to fight woo in which case no one really wins.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:57, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

NerdyWizard^{you believed that why?} 06:16, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

"He also did ignore that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities." The problem is in how you define "malnourished". Barrett could have further clarified what he meant by replacing "malnourished" with "people living in pre-industrial/undeveloped societies". Barrett's next sentence: "Price knew that when primitive people were exposed to "modern" civilization they developed dental trouble and higher rates of various diseases, but he failed to realize why." further clarifies that by "malnourished" he meant "pre-industrial society", a clarification that is arguably unnecessary given the context. For you to build a case that "Quackwatch does sloppy research" over what you see as a simple word clarification seems arbitrary, pedantic, arguably a non sequitur. Taken out of this particular context, industrial societies can contain "malnourished" people as well, for instance high sugar, low nutrient rich diets that low-income people can have, that's why you can find studies that say malnourished people are at a greater risk for caries, because in that context it is true. Its very clear that dental caries are a complex problem, not one easily solved by simple factors, a lot of variables are involved. According to the WHO 2003 Oral Health report (http://www.who.int/oral_health/media/en/orh_report03_en.pdf): "Dental caries is still a major oral health problem in most industrialized countries, affecting 60-90% of schoolchildren and the vast majority of adults. It is also a most prevalent oral disease in several Asian and Latin American countries, while it appears to be less common and less severe in most African countries." (emphasis added) The point remains that eating a low sugar, non-industrialized "feast or famine" diet puts you at lower risk for developing dental caries, Price understood that, but exactly as Barrett says, he simplifies it to be simply modern vs. primitive but fails to understand that there are compounding factors and caries are a complex problem (modern oral care, fortification of foods, fluoride and where it naturally occurs in high levels, etc.)

Completely wrong and simplistic things Price says in this document:

• "THAT modern man is declining in physical fitness has been emphasized by many eminent sociologists and other scientists..."
• "Medicine is far from having decreased human sufferings as much as it endeavors to make us believe. Indeed, the number of deaths from infectious diseases has greatly diminished. But we still must die in a much larger proportion from degenerative diseases."
• "No era in the long journey of mankind reveals in the skeletal remains such a terrible degeneration of teeth and bones as this brief modern period records."

The entire document jumps to simplistic conclusions and is thoroughly a document of outdated, useless ideas which I could quote from repeatedly but don't see the use.

I vote (do we vote here?) that the Weston Price section be removed and perhaps a link (if you can find one) to an independent third-party refutation of Barrett's Price claims in the "Woo rodeo of detractors" section.NerdyWizard^{you believed that why?} 00:45, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

None of this counters the actual issues raised in the paragraph snipped. Also things are not quite as cut and dried as you are trying to make them. The "Medicine is far from having decreased human sufferings..." part is actually a quote from Alexis Carrel and oh boy does he bring some baggage to the table even with his Nobel Prize. But Bennet also states "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition." and as shown by the quotes from Price himself there is no way to salvage that. More over here is some more from price:

"High immunity to dental caries, freedom from deformity of the dental arches and face, and sturdy physiques with high immunity to disease were all found associated with physical isolation, and with forced limitation in selection of foods. This resulted in a very liberal use of dairy products and whole-rye bread, in connection with plant foods, and with meat served about once a week.

"The individuals in the modernized districts were found to have widespread tooth decay. Many had facial and dental arch deformities and much susceptibility to diseases. These conditions were associated with the use of refined cereal flours, a high intake of sweets, canned goods, sweetened fruits, chocolate; and a greatly reduced use of dairy products."

Elsewhere: "It is a sad commentary that with the coming of the white man the Eskimos and Indians are rapidly reduced both in numbers and physical excellence by the white man's diseases." ... "There are certain characteristics of the various dietaries of the primitive races, which are universally present when that dietary program is associated with a high immunity to disease and freedom from deformities. In general, these are the foods that provide adequate sources of body-building and body-repairing material."

Here with regards to this study Price does, admittedly in a roundabout way, explain why; so here again Price does something Barrett claims he doesn't. As I said there was plenty that Barrett could have criticized Price's work on but didn't and instead went with overly broad and factual inaccurate claims. The Is a paper (possible blog) by a psychiatrist valid regarding old claims regarding dentistry? thread over on wikipedia accepted that Barrett was NOT a RS by their standards.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:51, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Removing section 3.2 Factually inaccurate statements

Section 3.2 Factually inaccurate statements should be removed entirely. I’m a brand new editor, but I've gleaned from the article's history and talk page that this back-and-forth has been going on since 2012. Various editors have noticed the pro-woo crap and deleted it, but there’s been one editor for the most part, BruceGrubb (and an IP address that Wikipedia officially IDed as a sock for someone with an identical username), that keeps re-adding the same content back.

BruceGrubb claims that Steven Barrett of QuackWatch [allegedly] made untrue statements in his 2010 article debunking Weston Price’s research on holistic dentistry that was published in the 1920s and 30s. These are BruceGrubb’s personal arguments, because he doesn’t cite any secondary or tertiary sources. There are just 3 long block quotes from Barrett and Price that are irrelevant and taken completely out of context. Then BruceGrubb concludes that Price is right because his research was published in a peer review textbook and if any of it has been discredited, it should be overlooked because it was written a long time ago.

These accusations and quotes don’t belong on the QuackWatch page because (1) they have NO merit. Barrett is in good company with his criticisms of Price’s work and he cited very credible sources in his article. There are plenty more experts who agree as well. For example, in 2012, the American Association of Endodontists published a factsheet specifically to address how dentists can respond to patients who ask about Price’s “long-dispelled theories” that they found online and (2) every crank debunked on QuackWatch has their justification for why they’re right and Barrett’s wrong. We certainly can’t discuss each one on the QuackWatch page and there’s no reason to give special consideration to Weston Price’s dental-woo. It belongs in the Weston Price article (which probably needs attention too btw since BruceGrubb has essentially be the only editor working on it.) LaughTherapy (talk) 08:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm guessing that BruceGrubb's point is that Quackwatch was being sloppy in its debunking of an outdated theory that should have and has been debunked. While such sloppy workmanship doesn't dent the central point (that Price's work is outdated and wrong), putting on sloppy 20/20 hindsight glasses is a lazy way of addressing the situation. That said, I'm inclined to regard it as a sort of footnote'ish bit of trivia, and Bruce's reactions (replete with "FACTS" in all caps) to being challenged is getting a wee bit too close to the style used by woo promoters and cranks. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Barrett's workman ship isn't even sloppy though. Towards the end of his career, Price studied tribal cultures around the world and argued that people in Westernized societies should copy their diets because he claimed tribal communities had better physical health and less cavities. When you read it in context, Barrett's not denying that Price ever mentioned these communities had any illnesses, he's basically saying they only seem healthier than us if you cherrypick data points. LaughTherapy (talk) 14:57, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

ScepticWombat, I'm a little confused. I can't tell if you're agreeing with me about removing that section or if you just thought it needed to be edited, or neither. LaughTherapy (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I can't see how anyone can say Barrett's workman ship isn't even sloppy. Price's own words in the very work Barrett was critiquing showed Barrett's claim of "While extolling their health, he [Weston Price] ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition. While praising their diets for not producing cavities, he ignored the fact that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities." to be poorly researched to the point it was not true.

Also the AAE Fact Sheet above is on Focal Infection Theory NOT Nutrition and in fact in the very work Barrett slams Price himself admits "The evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something" More as pointed out in the Focal infection theory article in wikipedia the term was sometimes so broadly defined that it would cover the mastication of tuberculosis, gonorrhea, syphilis, pneumonia, typhoid fever, mumps, and even cancer. In fact, "severe endodontic disease resembles classic focal infection theory"

Also there is more recent work then that 2012 fact sheet in support of Price's Nutrition ideas:

Adler, Christina J; Keith Dobney, Laura S Weyrich, John Kaidonis, Alan W Walker, Wolfgang Haak, Corey J A Bradshaw, Grant Townsend, Arkadiusz Sołtysiak, Kurt W Alt, Julian Parkhill & Alan Cooper (2013) "Sequencing ancient calcified dental plaque shows changes in oral microbiota with dietary shifts of the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions" Nature Genetics, doi:10.1038/ng.2536.

Hujoel, P. P. (2013), Vitamin D and dental caries in controlled clinical trials: systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrition Reviews, 71: 88-97. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2012.00544.

Nature Genetics and Nutrition Reviews are both highly respected journals and I trust them more then some fact sheet whose peer viewed process is unknown.

Is Weston Price's work abused? Yes, but that doesn't make Barrett right as Barrett claims things about Prices' nutrition work (see the long series of actual quotes above) that simply are not true and ignores the fact Price himself said his focal infection theory was wrong and that nutrition work went through the proper scholarly channels of the day.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:37, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense (for this subsection of the article) to mention the bit about Price apparently having abandoned the focal infection theory by 1939 (page 36 from his 1939 book) (E.g. just a short mention since the main article about Weston Price already deals with that in more detail)? On the other side I wonder, how much sense the Barrett quote and the three Price quotes make since I haven't seen a clear definiton for the word "primitive", "native" etc. in this discussion (and therefore people might talk about different things, which might lead to confusion).

The Barrett one seem to be about primitive areas/native, when you look at the original article.

I couldn't find the first Price quote due to a lack of a pdf file (see my note below).

The second quote (on page 111 of the 1939 book) is about Indians in Alaska (it mentions school children in Sitka. According to Price it is also the Pacific Indian village with the longest contact to modern civilisation), that had health problems, which Price blames on a modern lifestyle. On the previous two pages he talks about elderly Indians, who didn't have problems with their teeth or health in general.

The last quote appears on page 409 of the same book and while Price writes about having collected data from several countries (only USA and Canada are mentioned by name though), he doesn't show or discuss that data (maybe he only listed them in sources section at the end of the chapter though) after that and what the differences between modern civilisation and Indians are. On the previous two pages he writes about, how mortality rates (heart disease I think) are the highest in the areas with the longest exposition to modern civilisation (that looks more like a general statement about an entire country and not only about Indians or modern civilisation).

Summary: Was Barrett talking about how Price praised on one side those Indians, who weren't influenced by modern civilisation while he forgot on the other side, that in the "good old days" before any contacts to settlers etc. Indians in general probably had problems with child mortality, malnutrition or did Barrett forget, how Price talked about two different groups of Indians: those, who weren't influenced by modern civilisation and those, that were?

note: I found a searchable pdf file of "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration", that might be helpful: [1]. Sadly it doesn't have page numbers, so you have to go by the numbers of the pdf reader. The page numbers, that I used in this post are the pdf reader numbers.

I tried to find a similar pdf file for the "Dental Infections" book from 1923, but the search didn't turn up results, where you could search the entire book via Crtl+F.

Did someone else had more luck in that regard?

Amorill (talk) 17:03, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a webpage version of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration from Project Gutenberg of Australia but sadly it doesn't have page numbers either. As for "Dental Infections" that is at internet archive and is a huge book - 643 pages long. Thankfully there is a raw text version which is easily searchable.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:10, 1 June 2021 (UTC)