Harald Walach (born 1957) is a German parapsychologist and advocate of alternative medicine.
Harald Walach (born 1957) is a German parapsychologist and advocate of alternative medicine.
Walach was born in 1957. He received a degree in Psychology from the University of Freiburg in 1984, a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Basel in 1991, and a PhD in History of Science from the University of Vienna in 1995. In 1998 he received his habilitation in psychology from the University of Freiburg. [1] He was affiliated for a time with the Samueli Institute [2] before its closure in 2017. [3]
He worked for a time at the University of Northampton, [4] then as director of the Institute of Transcultural Health Studies at Europa Universität Viadrina, [4] where he led a training course for doctors in complementary medicine and cultural sciences. [5] In 2012, the state of Brandenburg's commission for reviewing Universities concluded that Walach's institute should not be continued within the university. [6]
In 2017, he was a part-time associate professor at Poznań University of Medical Sciences, [7] teaching mindfulness to the international medical students. [8] In July 2021 the university cut its ties with Walach, [9] in response to a paper that he published in Vaccines, stating that Walach's work "misleadingly used data to yield conclusions that are wrong and may lead to public harm." [10]
Walach has conducted studies examining elements of complementary and alternative medicine, [11] [4] and developed the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory. [12] He was an editor of an essay series on Neuroscience, Consciousness, Spirituality, [13] and until 2021 was editor-in-chief of the Karger journal Forschende Komplementärmedizin. [14]
In 2017, he started the CHS Institute to publish his own writing, including COVID-19 satire [15] and denial. [16] [ clarification needed ]
Walach has advocated for revision of the concept of evidence-based medicine, [17] promoting holistic and homeopathic alternatives in his publications. [18]
Starting in 2001, along with theoretical physicists Hartmann Römer and Harald Atmanspacher, Walach developed a model of "weak quantum theory" or "generalised entanglement" that attempted to explain anomalous phenomena, such as non-specific therapy effects and parapsychological phenomena. [19] [20] [21] This was not taken seriously by other physicists, [22] and referenced mainly in the fields of homeopathic medicine and consciousness studies.
In 2012, Walach received the negative prize "Goldenes Brett" from Austrian skeptics, an annual award for the "most astonishing pseudo-scientific nuisance" of the year. The prize was awarded in part for a masters thesis about the Kozyrev mirror conducted under his supervision, which was widely regarded as unscientific. [23] [24]
Walach is on the scientific advisory board of a blog called "CAM-Media Watch", which is run by the alternative medicine company Heel. The blog describes itself as a "spin doctor" for promoting Complementary and Alternative Medicine ("CAM"). In 2012, it was reported that the blog had been paid to smear Edzard Ernst, a scientist critical of homeopathy. [25] [26]
In June 2021, Walach published two high profile papers containing research pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, one exaggerating the risks of vaccination, and the other concluding that children should not wear masks. Both papers were retracted the following month. [27]
In a press statement, the Poznań University of Medical Sciences dissociated itself from Walach and asserted that his vaccine study "misleadingly used data to yield conclusions that are wrong and may lead to public harm." [9] As of 2023, Walach has had two publications retracted, and one other paper has received an expression of concern. [35]
Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of pseudoscientific practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. Difficult to generalize, these treatments range from the thoroughly discredited, like homeopathy, to the widely accepted, like certain forms of psychotherapy. The ideology and methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and folk medicine rather than evidence-based medicine, although practitioners may use techniques supported by evidence. The ethics of naturopathy have been called into question by medical professionals and its practice has been characterized as quackery.
In academic publishing, a retraction is a mechanism by which a published paper in an academic journal is flagged for being seriously flawed to the extent that their results and conclusions can no longer be relied upon. Retracted articles are not removed from the published literature but marked as retracted. In some cases it may be necessary to remove an article from publication, such as when the article is clearly defamatory, violates personal privacy, is the subject of a court order, or might pose a serious health risk to the general public.
Luc Montagnier was a French virologist and joint recipient, with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen, of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He worked as a researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and as a full-time professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use, or using certain vaccines but not others. The scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats.
Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper authored by Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaxxers.
MDPI is a publisher of open-access scientific journals. It publishes over 390 peer-reviewed, open access journals. MDPI is among the largest publishers in the world in terms of journal article output, and is the largest publisher of open access articles.
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield is a British anti-vaccine activist, former physician, and discredited academic who was struck off the medical register for his involvement in The Lancet MMR autism fraud, a 1998 study that fraudulently claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. He has subsequently become known for anti-vaccination activism. Publicity around the 1998 study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world. He was a surgeon on the liver transplant programme at the Royal Free Hospital in London and became senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free and University College School of Medicine. He resigned from his positions there in 2001, "by mutual agreement", then moved to the United States. In 2004, Wakefield co-founded and began working at the Thoughtful House research center in Austin, Texas, serving as executive director there until February 2010, when he resigned in the wake of findings against him by the British General Medical Council.
Scientific Reports is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific mega journal published by Nature Portfolio, covering all areas of the natural sciences. The journal was established in 2011. The journal states that their aim is to assess solely the scientific validity of a submitted paper, rather than its perceived importance, significance, or impact.
Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, with other offices in the United Kingdom, Spain, and China. In 2022, Frontiers employed more than 1,400 people, across 14 countries. All Frontiers journals are published under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
Food and Chemical Toxicology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering aspects of food safety, chemical safety, and other aspects of consumer product safety. It is published by Elsevier and was established in 1963. The editor-in-chief is José L. Domingo.
Stephanie Seneff is a senior research scientist at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Working primarily in the Spoken Language Systems group, her research at CSAIL relates to human-computer interaction, and algorithms for language understanding and speech recognition. In 2011, she began publishing controversial papers in low-impact, open access journals on biology and medical topics; the articles have received "heated objections from experts in almost every field she's delved into," according to the food columnist Ari LeVaux.
Complementary Medicine Research is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering complementary and alternative medicine. Established in 1994, the journal was known as Forschende Komplementärmedizin und Klassische Naturheilkunde from 2000 to 2005, and as Forschende Komplementärmedizin from then until 2017. The journal is published by Karger Publishers and the editor-in-chief is Harald Walach. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal had a 2013 impact factor of 1.053. After the journal obtained its current name in 2017, it lost its impact factor.
Anti-vaccinationism in chiropractic is widespread, but there are notable differences within the trade. Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine founded on the idea that all disease is caused by disruption of the flow of "innate" in the spine, by so-called vertebral subluxations – a pseudoscientific concept. Over time chiropractic has divided into "straights" who adhere to the subluxation theory and "mixers" who adhere more closely to a reality-based view of anatomy. "Straight" chiropractors are very likely to be anti-vaccination, but all chiropractic training tends to reduce acceptance of vaccines.
Extensive investigation into vaccines and autism spectrum disorder has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise, and that the vaccine ingredients do not cause autism. Vaccinologist Peter Hotez researched the growth of the false claim and concluded that its spread originated with Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper, with no prior paper supporting a link.
Surgisphere is an American healthcare analytics company established in 2008 by Sapan Desai. Originally a textbook marketing company, it came under scrutiny in May 2020 after it provided large datasets of COVID-19 patients that were subsequently found to be unreliable. The questionable data were used in studies published in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine in May 2020, suggesting that COVID-19 patients on hydroxychloroquine had a "significantly higher risk of death". In light of these studies, the World Health Organization decided to temporarily halt global trials of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. After the studies were retracted, the WHO trials were resumed and then discontinued shortly after.
Mark Skidmore is an American economist. He is Professor of Economics and Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, where he holds the Morris Chair in State and Local Government Finance and Policy. Skidmore completed his undergraduate education at the University of Washington and received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Colorado in 1994 for his dissertation "State Responses to Fiscal Stress"."Faculty Profile - Mark Skidmore". lincolninst.edu. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A high proportion of internet sources on the topic are "inaccurate on the whole" which can lead people searching for information to form "significant misconceptions about vaccines".
Pierre Kory is an American critical care physician who gained attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for advocating widespread off-label use of certain drugs as treatments for COVID-19, as president and co-founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). Kory testified twice to the U.S. Senate regarding COVID-19. During his testimony in December 2020, Kory erroneously claimed that the antiparasitic medication ivermectin was a "wonder drug" with "miraculous effectiveness" against COVID-19.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) is a group of physicians and former journalists formed in April 2020 that has advocated for various unapproved, dubious, and ineffective treatments for COVID-19. The group is led by Paul E. Marik and Pierre Kory. Both would later join conservative or right-wing groups promoting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.
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