Entry #045: Rashid Buttar

Among the most belligerent quacks in the States, Dr. Buttar is a medical doctor who, apart from his genuine qualifications, espouses a line of treatment for autism that is as bereft of scientific rigor as transcommunication (see previous post).

Buttar has been under investigation by the North Carolina State Medical Board for a decade and for a variety of misconducts involving "unconventional treatments" to which he subjects autistic children and cancer patients - all for lots of money to line his pockets. He views the medical board, in his own words, as a "rabid dog."

Ultimately, the medical board has recommended restricting Dr. Buttar's license to prohibit him from treating children or patients with cancer. That hasn’t stopped him (discussed here; for a more neutral assessment go here).

Among his more famous autism treatments is the transdermal chelation cream (a.k.a. “Buttar’s butter”). He has been known to come up with some truly bizarre protocols to treat autism, with rumors that Dr. Buttar's armamentarium of woo even included urine injections to "boost the immune system". Of course the fees are exorbitant.

His cancer quackery is even worse, and Buttar has apparently said that ”it didn't matter what kind of cancer anybody had, he could cure it."

Uh oh.

And yes, it is there, all of it: Buttar believes most patients with cancer also have high levels of heavy metals, such as mercury, and other toxins, such as pesticides, because of environmental exposure”. His treatments include chelation, ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers – dangerous, potentially lethal devices or regimes with not the slightest trace of evidential support for any claims to efficacy. He even has an AirEnergy Machine.

His website is here.

Buttar is most prominent, however, for being a rabid anti-vaccinationist, running all the usual canards. Remember Desiree Jennings? The gal who claimed to have her walking impaired by the H1N1 vaccine (but got magically cured right after the media forgot about her?) Guess who her accomplice was, the doctor who “diagnosed her and helped her”.

Btw, his website prominently displays the following quote: "All truth passes through 3 phases: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed, and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." (Schopenhauer). Anyone who uses this quote as support for his or her ideas is a seriously delusional crackpot. That’s a law.

(Come to think of it, it’s a strikingly stupid and magnificently false claim Schopenhauer is making to begin with.)

=====
Diagnosis: Crackpot, and a severe case of confirmation bias coupled with belligerence. Very dangerous – many of his treatments are definitely harmful (and hardly beneficial), and they are being used. Should be stopped as quickly as possible.

Entry #031: Tim Bolen

a.k.a. Patrick Timothy Bolen (real name)

Bolen is a publicist for the late Hulda Clark, who for the purposes of our Encyclopedia is, in part, tried instead of her. Clark was a crackpot who claimed to have (and sold) “the cure for all disease”, in particular cancer which she said couldn’t exist if the patient had the right mindset and used her devices. Guess what Hulda Clark died of. A critical obituary can be found here, and also here.

(Clark’s healing devices, apparently cobbled together from discarded parts of Radio Shack, included the Syncrometer, the Zapper and Homeography; her medical advice included requiring that her people with fillings have them removed and people with root canals have those teeth removed as part of her "therapy." Clark was, in other words, an unintentionally repulsive human being).

Bolen, her attack poodle, desperately tried to explain her death as being due to something else, flunking all possible rules for critical thinking and understanding of science in the process. He is in general an ardent advocate of Clark’s “scientific research” (always skirting the awkward question of the whereabouts of all those people Clark supposedly cured of e.g. advanced AIDS).

Bolen is a self-proclaimed “health freedom fighter” and a tireless enemy of science and science-based medicine (a flaming conspiracy theorist), and purveyor of every crackpot alternative treatment that exists.

Covered here, and also here.

He might be somewhat neutralized at present, actually. At least rumors have it that he forgot to pay his taxes.

=====
Diagnosis: Dishonest, sleazy and absolute loon; impact uncertain, but this guy is tireless.

=====
Addendum: This post should by the way also indict Hulda Clark’s son Geoffrey Clark, who administered her business and tirelessly promotes it after her demise, including setting up a defense fund to pay for expenses associated with defending her against "legal attacks."

The entry should also indict the Swiss scientologist David Amrein, Clark’s business associate and staunch defender (who has been legally banned from making false claims about her products for advertising purposes) – Amrein is an utter loon, but disqualified from an entry in the Encyclopedia by not being American.

The whole Clark-Bolen story is also well covered here.