Everything You Know is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Life
by Russ Kick (Editor)
The Disinformation Company Ltd, £17.99, ISBN 0971394202
This is a compilation of various articles on various subjects by various authors, so the first thing I looked for was the Index. There isn’t one. So I browsed around, looking for subjects I knew something about.
Kick, reviewing a book on botanical influences on illness, writes: “I keep hearing the refrain, mainly from people who like to call themselves ‘skeptics’, that there is not one bit of medical evidence supporting natural, alternative medical therapies.
This is absolutely and unequivocally wrong. Anyone who says it is either 1) lying, or 2) doesn’t know his or her ass from a hole in the ground.” Kick is also impressed by Peter R. Breggin, MD, and includes one of his articles, as well as writing a highly favourable review of one of his books. What you will not find here is Quackwatch’s assessment of Breggin as “a harmful nuisance whose views can … frighten people away from helpful treatment”. Nor will you find the words of the Milwaukee judge who found Breggin’s observations in court “totally without credibility. I can almost declare him … a fraud or at least approaching that”.
Micky Z, who gives us A Closer Look at the Meatbased Diet, tells us confidently that “contrary to popular opinion … human beings were not designed to consume animals”; that eating one egg a day raises your cholesterol level by 12%; that 40% of cancers are related to diet; that “if the beef for your burger came from the rainforest, roughly 660 pounds of living matter is destroyed”; and that Big Mac “contributes to global warming”. And there is the usual rant against nuclear power by a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
There are a few pieces in this uncritical mixture that might give you pause for useful thought (the Olympic industry; the war against drugs; untouchables; the menace of watchdog committees). But unfortunately, too many of the reference sources turn out to be pamphlets and newsletters by the same few propaganda groups. All in all, it is a patchy collection. But if you decide to turn to it for information, you should be wary of what Russ Kick knows: quite a lot of it is wrong.
