James Randi Foundation names CVS pharmacy and Andrew Wakefield "Pigasus Awards"

[cleanhippie]

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Written by Sadie Crabtree
Friday, 01 April 2011 00:00

JREF's 'Pigasus Awards' are a Dubious Honor for Dubious Claims

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.—The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) promotes critical thinking through grants for outstanding educators, scholarships to inspire skeptical students, and annual conferences showcasing the best of skeptical thought—but every April Fools Day, the organization honors the five worst offenders who are working to pull the wool over the public's eyes.

Since 1997, the JREF’s annual Pigasus Awards have been bestowed on the most deserving charlatans, swindlers, psychics, pseudo-scientists, and faith healers—and on their credulous enablers, too. The awards are named for both the mythical flying horse Pegasus of Greek mythology and the highly improbable flying pig of popular cliche.

These are this year’s “winners.”

--snip--

The Funder Pigasus Award goes to CVS/pharmacy, for their work to support the manufacturers of scam “homeopathic” medications who sell up to $870 million a year in quack remedies to U.S. consumers. Homeopathic remedies contain none of the active ingredient they claim, and homeopathy has been shown to be useless in randomized clinical trials. CVS/pharmacy sells these quack products in thousands of stores across the U.S., right alongside real medicine, with no warning to consumers. Instead of giving their customers the facts about homeopathy, CVS/pharmacy executives are cashing in themselves by offering their own store-brand of the popular homeopathic product oscillococcinum. Oscillococcinum is made by grinding up the liver of a duck, putting none of it onto tiny sugar pills—that’s right, none of it—and then advertising the plain sugar pills as an effective treatment for flu symptoms.

The Refusal to Face Reality Award goes to Andrew Wakefield, the researcher who launched the modern anti-vaccine panic with unfounded statements linking the MMR vaccine with autism that were not borne out by any research, even his own. In 2010, The Lancet retracted his paper on the MMR vaccine, and this year the British medical journal BMJ called Wakefield’s paper an outright fraud, finding “clear evidence of falsification of data” and that “he sought to exploit the ensuing MMR scare for financial gain,” taking more than $674,000 from lawyers who intended to sue vaccine manufacturers. Yet Wakefield continues to ask the public to believe he is the victim. In a recent article in NaturalNews, Wakefield called the American Academy of Pediatrics and The Lancet “instruments of a state that I don't really want to be associated with.”

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1260-pigasus-2011.html

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Homeopathy and Anti-vax nonsense take two of the five categories.

[Ian David]

1. I always hide the homeopathic teething and ear ache "medicine" behind things at the store.

I have no problem with adults giving themselves placebos.

However, it is unconscionable to give a placebo to a child in pain.

[BonnieJW]

2. Sorry,

I love oscillococcinum and have found it extremely effective as have family and friends.

[cleanhippie]

4. No need to apologize to me.

I am glad you find a product that has no detectable amount of "medicine" in it to be a help for you. How much do you pay for that stuff?

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[HuckleB]

5. K & R.

[varkam]

6. +1

[laconicsax]

7. Three of five, not two of five.

Dr. Oz's magical "cures" are little different than the magic water and sugar pills CVS/pharmacy sells.