Dr A P Chandran -- deadly health advice?

[danielk]

I just stumbled over this health advice (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Homeopathy-3400/2009/6/Brain-tumor-GBM-grade-1.htm) by a Dr Chandran (http://www.allexperts.com/ep/3400-36830/Homeopathy/Dr-P-Chandran.htm) and felt I needed to do something about it. The text speaks for itself.

Look at the date -- the man may still be alive. I know very little about medicine or the law in India, and thus have absolutely no idea whether something could be done about it. To me, the recommendation by Dr Chandras reads like a death sentence.

Help!

[Rolfe]

You can't fix everything. GBM is a death sentence anyway, so I'm afraid it's all going to be a bit academic whatever he does.

Rolfe.

[Eos of the Eons]

I like how he has the nerve to say that homeopathy should have been taken before the surgery. Too late now if he dies! But, try it anyways, got nothing to lose (and nothing to gain health-wise) and there's money to be made on the homeopathy still, until the poor sap does die, that is.

[Mojo]

It isn't clear whether homoeopathy is being suggested in addition to or instead of the orthodox treatment. That's where the potential for harm lies.

[danielk]

You can't fix everything. GBM is a death sentence anyway, so I'm afraid it's all going to be a bit academic whatever he does.
OK. I feared that would be the case. It was worth the verification here, given the recent date -- just in case.

Note, however, that this isn't an isolated case -- see the list of answers (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Homeopathy-3400/indexExp_36830.htm) given by Dr Chandran. I couldn't find any mention of the guy in the JREF forum archive. However, he seems to be the same Dr Chandran who runs the Bhadra Forum (http://www.bhadrahomeo.com/bhadra.htm), which is apparently a Registered Charitable Trust.

[danielk]

It isn't clear whether homoeopathy is being suggested in addition to or instead of the orthodox treatment. That's where the potential for harm lies.
I think this advice by Dr Chandran (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Homeopathy-3400/2009/6/Cancer-treatment-1.htm) is pretty clear on that point...

[shadron]

It isn't clear whether homoeopathy is being suggested in addition to or instead of the orthodox treatment. That's where the potential for harm lies.

Only inasmuch as it may affect the amount of money that can be drained from the patient before he dies and some rational trustee takes over his estate.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Daniel, it would appear there is a need for some intervention in this web site.

About.com is typically a pretty crappy version of Wikipedia. Anyone asks and anyone answers a question and the site relies on popular vote to vouch for the validity of the answer. There are a few articles on the site that are of reasonable quality but I take it on a case by case basis. Trouble is, since they typically have people asking and answering popular questions, the site often comes up on the first page of a Google search.

This section, however, is called allexperts.com. (http://www.allexperts.com/) and the so called experts need to register ahead of time.

Health/Fitness (http://www.allexperts.com/cl1/7/Health-Fitness/) 'experts' include woo and medicine alike. I doubt the web owners give a rat's ass about false claims, they probably make money based on volume of visits. But I think we should address them about it anyway.

I wonder if anyone has already?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here's what they say on the FAQ: (http://www.allexperts.com/central/userfaq.htm) What if I am dissatisfied with an answer?

With thousands of volunteers, occasionally one or two will not perform up to par. If you're dissatisfied with the results you received, take the ultimate revenge--rate the volunteer! Your feedback will be used to help guide others away from that volunteer. Volunteers with consistently poor ratings are dropped from our service. If you still have an unanswered question, you should ask another volunteer.


Here's Dr Chandran's profile (http://www.allexperts.com/ep/3400-36830/Homeopathy/Dr-P-Chandran.htm) and it not only appears to be stuffed with fake references, I can't seem to locate where one is supposed to provide one's own rating.

Here's another rating page (http://www.allexperts.com/ep/3400-36830/Homeopathy/Dr-P-Chandran.htm) again I can't find the give feedback link. Yet there are 7 pages of high ratings. :rolleyes:


And no wonder this fraud 'volunteers' and has pages of what I assume are fake ratings, he advertises on the site.What do you like about this subject?

Homoeopathy is the Ultimate system of medicine which can cure evan Incurable diseases. Including HIV cancer etc.

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field?

We are able to achieve around 90% results in chronic cases you can see sample cases in bhadrahomeo.com We Hope to serve the suffering mass with our little knowledge in Homoeopathy with out any expectation from them for years to come.This is a total scam.

Going to his webpage (http://www.bhadrahomeo.com/) it solicits donations and, he's got a number of these free sites hawking a link to his web page. Looks like someone has spent a lot of time getting the site to come up when people are reading other web pages.

[danielk]

Daniel, it would appear there is a need for some intervention in this web site.
Yeah, it's pretty heavy stuff. And the front page does not look wooish. The heavy woo is neatly sorted into a hierarchy of innocently sounding categories. It's not a site where you'd expect great quality, but definitely not something as bad as the deadly "alternative" health advice.

This section, however, is called allexperts.com. (http://www.allexperts.com/) and the so called experts need to register ahead of time.
Oh, I didn't even realize they need to register beforehand. Ouch.

I doubt the web owners give a rat's ass about false claims, they probably make money based on volume of visits. But I think we should address them about it anyway.
I feel somewhat uneasy about this idea. All they could do is kick a couple of worst offenders out, and that would be the best case scenario. However, I think the activities of this Dr Chandran require a much stronger response than just removing his voice. I mean, what we have here are several cases of explicitly given deadly medicinal advice. And that person does seem to work in a real office in Bangalore.

OK, this is India, and India is probably as wooish as you could possibly get. But even in India, there must be some laws and regulations covering practitioners of medicine. This case is about as clear-cut as you could get!

If you can't even get that guy's license revoked, you can't get anyone's license revoked.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well there is a group of skeptics in India. Maybe they could do something.

CSICOP: Indian Skeptic (http://www.indiansceptic.in/)

I don't have the time, but why don't you contact them?

[Rolfe]

Daniel, it would appear there is a need for some intervention in this web site.

About.com is typically a pretty crappy version of Wikipedia. Anyone asks and anyone answers a question and the site relies on popular vote to vouch for the validity of the answer. There are a few articles on the site that are of reasonable quality but I take it on a case by case basis. Trouble is, since they typically have people asking and answering popular questions, the site often comes up on the first page of a Google search.

This section, however, is called allexperts.com. (http://www.allexperts.com/) and the so called experts need to register ahead of time.

Health/Fitness (http://www.allexperts.com/cl1/7/Health-Fitness/) 'experts' include woo and medicine alike. I doubt the web owners give a rat's ass about false claims, they probably make money based on volume of visits. But I think we should address them about it anyway.

I wonder if anyone has already?


I've has a run-in with Allexperts.com already. Story here. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3924762#post3924762)

Basically they had an answer published from an "expert" who was just wildly guessing. I happened to know the answer. There is a facility for readers in that position to "submit another answer" to be attached to the first one. I did this. About 20 times. Every single time it was deleted. I emailed the site about it, and they said the experts were free to delete any supplementary answer they chose.

They invited me to become an "Expert" in Latin, a subject I have only elementary school knowledge of - the problem was that the question wasn't about Latin, it was a musicology question. I don't think they cared that I have only school Latin and am not a general expert in musicology either. I did however subsequently correspond with a genuine Wikipedia expert in musicology, and he confirmed that not only was I right, I was the first person to have spotted the answer and I was now getting credit for it from any musicologists who were interested.

I wrote back, formally complaining about "Maria"'s behaviour. After that, instead of my own essay appearing for anything from 12 hours to a few days before being deleted, it never appeared at all. Someone seemed to have written a script to stop me submitting it.

Here's Maria's answer. (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Latin-2145/Medieval-Latin.htm)
And here's mine (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Latin-2145/f_3528321_163761.htm), for some reason the text is accessible although it doesn't link to the original.

(Bizarrely, I just noticed that in May, more than six months after I gave up, someone else has added an answer basically quoting me and linking to my own web page about the conundrum. This seems to have been allowed to stay, no idea why.)

Well, I was trying to make the point that they wouldn't take corrections, but I'm now a bit confused....

Rolfe.

[geni]

I feel somewhat uneasy about this idea. All they could do is kick a couple of worst offenders out, and that would be the best case scenario. However, I think the activities of this Dr Chandran require a much stronger response than just removing his voice. I mean, what we have here are several cases of explicitly given deadly medicinal advice. And that person does seem to work in a real office in Bangalore.

OK, this is India, and India is probably as wooish as you could possibly get. But even in India, there must be some laws and regulations covering practitioners of medicine. This case is about as clear-cut as you could get!


The site is illegal in the UK under the Cancer Act 1939 however I don't think that act every got into indian law before independence. The site is owned by the The New York Times Company who might well respond to the right kind of approach.

[danielk]

Well there is a group of skeptics in India. Maybe they could do something.

I don't have the time, but why don't you contact them?
Ah, thanks for the hint. It seems obvious in hindsight. :blush:

I sent them a mail, with pointers to Dr Chandran's writings as well as this forum thread for reference. Lets see if they already know about the guy.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

A little bit bit of research on allexperts.com (thanking the Gods of the Internet) I find that it appears to be owned by About Inc ( About, Inc, Hosting Operations, 249 West 17th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10011, US) they also own about.com that seems to either be the same or offer a similar "service".

Hmm. When I click on the FAQ about becoming a "Guide":

Q. I have questions about being a Guide. Where can I find answers?
A.We have a separate FAQ for Guide-hiring-related questions, including information about the status of a submitted application and how to suggest a new topic.

You can find the FAQ here. Here http://en.allexperts.com/gi/pages/hc.htm
I get directed to: http://beaguide.about.com/faq.htm

So they are the same!

I've read a lot of what is at this url and can find nothing about evaluation or a complaints process -- I don't want to say they are not there, just that I can't find them. ;)

I did not find an instance where search on cancer lead me to anything but an MD. There does not appear to be a way to just search for "medicine" or "medical". To get to "Dr" Chandran's responses it seems you have to search for Homeopathy specifically.

I think the intent and model are reasonable but it's the Internet. :scared:

YMMV


PS
About Inc is owned by the The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/). :boggled:

[Skeptic Ginger]

Morag Kerr????????? ;)

Maybe Maria lost interest in that thread by the time Chang wrote his answer 5 years later.

[Skeptic Ginger]

A little bit bit of research on allexperts.com (thanking the Gods of the Internet) I find that it appears to be owned by About Inc ( About, Inc, Hosting Operations, 249 West 17th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10011, US) they also own about.com that seems to either be the same or offer a similar "service".

Hmm. When I click on the FAQ about becoming a "Guide":

I get directed to: http://beaguide.about.com/faq.htm

So they are the same!

I've read a lot of what is at this url and can find nothing about evaluation or a complaints process -- I don't want to say they are not there, just that I can't find them. ;)

I did not find an instance where search on cancer lead me to anything but an MD. There does not appear to be a way to just search for "medicine" or "medical". To get to "Dr" Chandran's responses it seems you have to search for Homeopathy specifically.

I think the intent and model are reasonable but it's the Internet. :scared:

YMMV


PS
About Inc is owned by the The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/). :boggled:Did you miss this in my post above?
Health and Fitness categories (http://www.allexperts.com/cl1/7/Health-Fitness/)

Because they have a Cancer (http://www.allexperts.com/cl2/254/healthfitness/Cancer/) category which has a number of subcategories including General Oncology (http://www.allexperts.com/el/Oncology-General-Cancer/), which then lists the volunteer 'experts'.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Did you miss this in my post above?
Health and Fitness categories (http://www.allexperts.com/cl1/7/Health-Fitness/)

Why, yes I did. :(

Because they have a Cancer (http://www.allexperts.com/cl2/254/healthfitness/Cancer/) category which has a number of subcategories including General Oncology (http://www.allexperts.com/el/Oncology-General-Cancer/), which then lists the volunteer 'experts'.

I must have been using a different index. :o

However, unless I had independent verification, I would not believe a single thing I read anywhere on the Internet.

Maybe someone should contact the Times or a competing newspaper? :mad:

[Eos of the Eons]

Ugh, argh argh argh. No wonder joe public is so darn misinformed. Even the internet "experts" aren't true experts at all, in anything. gah!

I'm scared to even read textbooks anymore half the time, since they can get outdated so quickly and are so fraccin expensive and, it is easier to look on the darned darned fraccin internet and frac you can't trust anything on the net.

*curls up in a ball*

[Rolfe]

Morag Kerr????????? ;)

Maybe Maria lost interest in that thread by the time Chang wrote his answer 5 years later.


I don't think my identity is a huge secret among regular forum contributors, what with letters to various editors we've composed in the forum and subsequently had published, and the Voodoo Society and so on!

My essay was regularly deleted in August and September 2008, that is a bit less than a year ago, more than four years after Maria first made up her inventive "answer". Chang submitted his answer in May this year, eight months or so after that. (I can't see where Chang gets the idea that Prokofiev was "flattering" Stravinsky though. Prokofiev was "having a go", and not in the nicest possible way - though I did downplay that a bit in my original 1994 letter.)

I've re-submitted my original essay, which has indeed appeared again, possibly because I've got a new computer and a new ISP and a new email address since the last attempt, so possibly whatever script they were running to block me no longer works. It will be interesting to see what happens now.

I think, though, that my experience with the clueless Maria, who was given free rein to delete an answer which was informative, apparently merely because it contradicted her, does not bode well for any dialogue with that site. In particular, after my complaint about Maria, it appears that the site admins actually set up a system to block my post from appearing at all.

Rolfe.

[danielk]

Narendra Nayak of the Indian CSICOP informed me that the Consumer Protection Act would be the only way to get hold of people like Dr Chandran. This requires someone who paid for a treatment and subsequently got worse to sue. In case of death the family would sue.

As to the status of his organization as a charitable trust, nothing whatsoever can be done about it unless you can prove the money is used for personal gain. This obviously very difficult.

Bah. I hate hate hate the notion that it needs to be done "on purpose" for someone to be accountable at all. I mean, are non-lawyers allowed to give legal advice? No. Does ignorance generally prevent one from being prosecuted? No. But when it comes to health, of all things, we suddenly permit a level of ignorance which we (rightly!) don't even grant ordinary craftsmen.