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Bolen Report ARCHIVES

It has been reported that the AMA’s Committee on Quackery was the group purportedly assigned with the task of eliminating chiropractic. 

 A sub-group of the Committee on Quackery called the Coordinating Conference on Health Information (CCHI) was also set up to perform covert activities and operated in total secrecy. According to Joseph Lisa in his book, “The Assault on Medical Freedom,” in 1974, the CCHI and its activities were turned over to regional councils against health fraud. According to Lisa, Stephen Barrett, MD, a psychiatrist in Allentown Pennsylvania was the leader of one of the affiliate groups called the Lehigh Valley Council Against Health Fraud. Notice the intentional transition from the word quackery to describe non-conventional health care, to the words health fraud. In 1977, the Allentown group merged with the California Committee Against Health Fraud to form the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) which is still in existence today and is still an advocate against chiropractic. 

Stephen Barrett is now delicensed (he voluntarily gave up his Pennsylvania medical license, the last of four medical licenses he once held, in the early 1990’s) and the Vice President of the NCAHF. He also operates at least 20 websites affiliated with his main site, Quackwatch.com. The website and its affiliate web sites are seemingly designed to spread deceitful, untruthful and malicious propaganda about chiropractic and other non-conventional health practices; similar to the way the CCHI did under the auspices of the AMA. NCAHF is also involved in similar activities. In addition, Barrett and his groups also frequently consult for major media magazines, television, radio, governmental agencies such as the FBI, FTC and FDA and even the AMA. 

One of Barrett’s anti health-choice activities is to frequently file libel lawsuits against non-conventional health care practitioners, manufacturers and publishers. He testified in court to filing lawsuits against at least forty individuals.  

One of these lawsuits was filed against well known chiropractor, Dr. Tedd Koren and his publishing company, Koren Publications in 2003. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Barrett admits that he is a consultant to the FTC who unsuccessfully tried to destroy Koren’s publishing business in the 1990’s using tactics intimately familiar to the CCHI and NCAHF. The FTC investigation was withdrawn after a full briefing of the facts to FTC officials by Dr. Koren’s attorneys.