Recently I was given a tape in which is recorded the proceedings of a committee-The Fraudulent Medical Practices Watch and Be Wary Committee at the 84th meeting of the Federation of State Medical Boards meeting in Chicago, April 11, 1996. Three presentations were made. Dr. John Renner, a self confessed undercover agent, who described his efforts to uncover fraud including disguising himself as a patient in order to access physicians offices and to attend meetings of alternative and complementary practitioners. The second speaker was Mr. R. Bell, a prosecutor in California who told the assembled group how to achieve their goal of stripping the licenses from these doctors. Finally Mr. M. Daynor from the Federal Trades Commission described what they were doing to deal with fraud and quackery.

I agree that fraud in medicine should be dealt with very seriously and some of the examples given certainly did require that action be taken to suppress these activities. The examples dealt with physicians who were medical doctors and who were innovative in their practice but in no way could they be considered alternative nor complementary. They were down the line establishment doctors who were perpetrating fraud. But the committee also dealt with complementary practitioners in the same vein. These were physicians who were recognized as honorable became suspect only because, unhappy with the results of their previous practice, they sought something which would help their patients more. It is obvious that the committee members had not the slightest conception of what complementary practitioners were attempting to do. Nor were they aware of the meaning of the word quack and how it became entrenched in modern language.