Stephen Barrett

88
Stephen Barrett bigraphy, stories - American psychiatrist

Stephen Barrett : biography

1933 –

Stephen Joel Barrett (born 1933) is a retired American psychiatrist, author, co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch. He runs a number of websites dealing with quackery and health fraud. He focuses on consumer protection, medical ethics, and scientific skepticism. Quackwatch received a 2003 award as a useful source for online consumer information.

Other activities

Barrett is also a competitive swimmer who placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in many state championship events. In April 2012, at the U.S. Masters Swimming Spring Nationals meet in Greensboro, NC, he won five medals, including two golds for men in the 75-79 age group. He finished 7th in the men’s 50- and 100-yard breaststroke events, third in the mixed 200-yard freestyle relay, and first in the men’s 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard medley relays. The men’s relay results were faster than any time recorded in the U.S. in 2011.

Selected publications

A partial list of articles Barrett was one of the authors or his authored work was cited include:

  • In 1985, Barrett was the author of the "Commercial hair analysis. Science or scam?" article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that exposed commercial laboratories performing multimineral hair analysis. He concluded that "commercial use of hair analysis in this manner is unscientific, economically wasteful, and probably illegal."Barrett SJ (August 23, 1985). JAMA Vol. 254 No. 8. His report has been cited in later articles, including one which concluded that such testing was "unreliable.", Seidel S, et al. , JAMA. 2001;285:67-72.
  • , Rosa L, Rosa E, Sarner L, Barrett SJ. (April 1, 1998). JAMA, Vol. 279, No. 13, pp 1005–1010.

A partial list of his (co)authored and (co)edited books include:

  • Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions, Barrett S, London WM, Kroger M, Hall H, Baretz R (2013). (textbook, 9th ed.) McGraw-Hill, ISBN 978-0078028489
  • Dubious Cancer Treatment, Barrett SJ & Cassileth BR, editors (2001). Florida Division of the American Cancer Society
  • The Health Robbers: A Close Look at Quackery in America, Barrett SJ, Jarvis WT, eds. (1993). Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-855-4
  • Health Schemes, Scams, and Frauds, Barrett SJ (1991). Consumer Reports Books, ISBN 0-89043-330-5
  • Reader’s Guide to Alternative Health Methods, Zwicky JF, Hafner AW, Barrett S, Jarvis WT (1993). American Medical Association, ISBN 0-89970-525-1
  • The Vitamin Pushers: How the "Health Food" Industry Is Selling America a Bill of Goods, Barrett SJ, Herbert V (1991). Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-909-7
  • Vitamins and Minerals: Help or Harm?, Marshall CW (1983). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins ISBN 0-397-53060-9 (edited by Barrett, won the American Medical Writers Association award for best book of 1983 for the general public, republished by Consumer Reports Books).

Collections of articles:

  • Paranormal Claims: A Critical Analysis, 2007, edited by Bryan Farha, University Press of America, ISBN 978-0-7618-3772-5. Three of the eighteen chapters are written by Barrett.

Consumer information

The Quackwatch website is Barrett’s main platform for describing and exposing what he and other contributors consider to be quackery and health fraud.

The website is part of Quackwatch, Inc., a nonprofit corporation founded by Barrett that aims to "combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct." Barrett's writing is supplemented with contributions from 150+ scientific, technical, and lay volunteers and includes numerous references to published research articles. Barrett defines quackery as "anything involving overpromotion in the field of health," and reserves the word fraud "only for situations in which deliberate deception is involved."