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The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Dr. Geeta Shroff: legitimate practitioner or quack?
Indian doctor Geeta Shroff is claiming to have helped many patients, thought incurable, by injecting them with embryonic stem cells. However, she hasn't submitted any of her work to scientific review, leading to suspicions that something fishy is going on. From timesonline.co.uk:Dr Shroff has refused to publish her research and to submit it to peer review — a practise regarded widely as a cornerstone of good science. Instead, she has patented her technique, a route more familiar in business than medicine.
Doctors say that without safety trials and randomised clinical studies, her treatments are unverifiable and potentially dangerous.
There has been no research published, for instance, to rule out placebo effects. “If somebody spends thousands of pounds, it’s pretty hard to convince them it’s not money well spent,” said Anthony Mathur, a cardiologist at the London Chest Hospital working on stem-cell research.
Doctors say that without safety trials and randomised clinical studies, her treatments are unverifiable and potentially dangerous.
There has been no research published, for instance, to rule out placebo effects. “If somebody spends thousands of pounds, it’s pretty hard to convince them it’s not money well spent,” said Anthony Mathur, a cardiologist at the London Chest Hospital working on stem-cell research.