Huffington Post: A Hotbed of Junk Medicine

Unpaid bloggers push enemas for swine flu, vaccine hokum
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 30, 2009 7:51 AM CDT
Huffington Post: A Hotbed of Junk Medicine
Arianna Huffington testifies during a hearing on the future of journalism before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Wednesday, May 6, 2009.   (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

During the height of swine flu panic, a Huffington Post blogger advised dumping the Tamiflu and sticking with "deep-cleansing enemas," which will supposedly keep you influenza-free and help you lose weight, too. HuffPo is a hotbed of junk medicine, Dr. Rahul K. Parikh writes in Salon, with pseudoscientific columns on everything from thyroid disease to something called "distance healing." Their link: Arianna Huffington's own taste for alternative medicine.

HuffPo has given space to meaningless treatments like detox diets and energy scans, but it's most notorious for pushing the debunked theory that childhood vaccines can cause autism—as advocated by such experts as Jim Carrey. Huffington herself has tried all sorts of alternative medicine, but there's another reason for her site's slant: Contributors aren't paid, leaving serious reporters to look elsewhere and cede the platform to "sensationalism and self-promotion."
(More Arianna Huffington stories.)

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