Eradicate Quackery, Save Lives - What Works for Quacks?

Most of the products developed by quacks depend on the "placebo” effect. A placebo is a drug with no active ingredient in it or a dummy drug. Sometimes a multi-vitamin is given without the patient knowing about it. Placebo are great at curing many anxiety related disorders. The placebo works because the patient beleives he is getting treatment. In medical science 30 to 35% of headaches can be cured by such dummy tablets. Placebo effect in some patients can be much more and now placebo effect cure is the scientific basis on which results of any new drug trial are assessed. The drug comes to the market only if its percentage of cure is much higher than placebo cure.

Another short cut taken by most of the quacks is treating even the minor ailments like cough, fever, or allergy with steroids, which obviously fetch them quick results. But the harms of steroid are multiple and sometimes it takes a side-effect for them to seek treatment from an actual licensed practitioner.

Quacks also use a lot of “mix-n-fix” technique. They usually give a combination of several tablets and syrups, hoping that at least one of the drugs would hit the bull’s eye and cure the patient.