Skepticism has lost one of its most influential and accomplished promoters. Anti-quackery activist William Tyler Jarvis died March 1 after suffering an embolic stroke of the cerebellum on January 19 while playing tennis. He was eighty.
Bill Jarvis cofounded the nowdefunct National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) and two predecessor quack buster organizations that he led as president from 1977 until his retirement in 2000. Under his leadership, NCAHF became the nation’s primary clearinghouse for information about health frauds and quackery. He edited the NCAHF Newsletter, archived online at ncahf. org, and a members-only newsletter called NCAHF Bulletin Board. By 2000, NCAHF had eleven state and local chapters and nine designated area network coordinators throughout the United States.
Bill emphasized that quackery (also called “health fraud”) is not merely the use of false and unproven medical procedures. The key is their deceptive promotion in the marketplace as “alternatives” or “complements” to standard medicine—whether the deception is deliberate or done without adequate knowledge or understanding. He called for recognizing quackery as a public health problem to be combatted with systematic epidemiologic investigation, legislation, law enforcement, education, and improving patient care.