“Above all, you must not fool yourself; and you are the easiest one to fool.” – Richard Feynman

What is a BMD?

A BMD is a Brave Maverick Doctor. Unfortunately, they are a prolific species: their pronouncements make great headline-fodder, and provide fuel for (often well-meaning) readers and listeners of anti-establishment leanings.

Note that I am not referring to publicity-hounds like Dr. Mehmet Oz or Dr. Joseph Mercola, who have all but given up even pretending to be real doctors while they pursue their visions of fame, glory, and riches. The true BMD is motivated by ego and reward (with perhaps an unhealthy dose of paranoia), conducts “experiments” with real patients, and remains convinced, despite all evidence, that he (she) has found the one true answer to a perplexing medical question, usually one of enormous public health significance.

The BMD believes that the “rest of the medical profession” is in the pay of Big Pharma, has been brainwashed by the AMA, lacks the imagination to recognize true genius, or simply runs on institutional inertia without bothering to question.

Herewith, a few of the most infamous (and dangerous to the public) BMD’s:

Andrew Wakefield

It is appropriate to begin with Wakefield, as he not only contributed mightily to the mostly bogus arguments against vaccines; he did so with unethically-designed experiments, with cooked data, and without revealing his own financial interest, to the point that his study (originally published in The Lancet, a very prestigious medical journal) was retracted, and he himself lost his license to practice medicine. And yet, he is still giving lectures promoting his (now-thoroughly-discredited) ideas, appearing in anti-vax films, and is considered an honored guest at anti-vax gatherings. This despite extensive studies, well-designed and robust (and costing millions of dollars of needed research money), proving him…wrong. This article in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) details the outright fraud in Wakefield’s research.

Which leads me to…

Hugh Fudenberg

Honestly, I had never heard of Fudenberg until I saw a Facebook post quoting (of course) Joseph Mercola, citing Fudenberg’s research that supposedly proved that one’s chances of contracting Alzheimer’s disease is 10 times higher in people who regularly get flu vaccines. There are a few issues with this: 1. Fudenberg never published anything of the sort. 2. He was the originator of the MMR-autism “link”, now thoroughly discredited; he claimed to have “cured” autistic children using his own bone marrow. 3. He lost his medical license in 1995; he applied to have it reinstated in 2005 but was refused.  He continued to see patients, charging $750 for “medical records review”. He died in 2014.

Apparently, Fudenberg was once a genuine and well-respected researcher; I think that, once one goes down the rabbit hole, it is hard to climb out again.

Stanislaw Burzynski

Burzynski operates a clinic in Texas, where he administers his self-designed “antineoplaston” therapy (catchy name!) for huge dollars. Unfortunately, he refuses to provide any data on how his patients fare after his “treatments”. In fact, he enrolls patients into “clinical trials”, then fails to report the data. (A Japanese researcher proved that ANP’s do not work against colorectal cancer). This year, the Texas medical board hit Burzynski with a fine and a public reprimand. Here is a detailed story about this quack.

Max Gerson

Originator of the Gerson Protocol, a natural-foods-and-coffee-enema approach to treating cancer. Despite highly-publicised failures and zero evidence of effectiveness, it remains popular. I don’t get it. Maybe the distrust of modern medicine (some of which is justified) pushes people toward this kind of quackery. Curing cancer is hard. Inventing “cures”, and selling them to an unsuspecting public, is easy.

Why did you stop now?

This is depressing.