The 'Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij' (VtdK), or the Association against Quackery, is a Dutch organisation that fights quackery. They do this by providing education for the general public, but also for other organisations and politicians. Additionally, they fight irresponsible practices of charlatans by reporting this to the government, or other (para)medical instances. Their board consists of a multidisciplinary team of several physicians, a psychologist, a vet, a pharmacist, an ex-politician and a medical-judicial advisor. Once a year, they award the 'Meester Kackadoris' price to a person or organisation that very much promoted quackery that year.
On their website (https://www.kwakzalverij.nl/), they share very interesting information and news about health and quackery related topics. We highly recommend to take a look at their website if you are interested! For instance, recently they organised a webinar called 'Social media: bad for your health?'. This topic is extremely relevant now and we are thankful that we have the permission to share this with you. We also shared our own website with the VtdK: we were very curious to hear what they think of our website. Of course, we did not want to be nominated for the 'Meester Kackadorisprijs' ourselves.
We are very happy to share that VtdK supports our website and goal! They left us the following message:
"Het jaar 2020 zal de geschiedenis in gaan als het jaar van de COVID-19
pandemie. De opkomst van dit virus ging gepaard met een honger naar
correcte informatie over voorkomen en behandelen van deze infectie.
Helaas kregen we te maken met een toename van desinformatie en
misinformatie, van alternatieve feiten, opgewarmde oude fabels en
complottheorieën.
Veel mensen met klachten googelen hun symptomen. Ze bestellen zelf
pillen via internet of gaan met een uitdraai van de gevonden informatie
naar een arts. En artsen vaak hebben veel tijd nodig om de niet
kloppende ideeën opgedaan op internet te ontzenuwen.
Gelukkig is er een tegenbeweging van mensen en instanties die proberen
de waarheid en het echte verhaal boven water te krijgen. Er zijn mensen
die alle wetenschappelijke artikelen tegen het licht houden en het kaf
van het koren proberen te scheiden. Zij proberen het beste van wat de
wetenschap te bieden heeft op een gemakkelijk leesbare manier te
presenteren. Kortom, een mooi baken van waarheid in de zee van
desinformatie.
Catherine de Jong, anesthesioloog
Secretaris Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij"
The English translation:
"The year 2020 will reach the history books as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rise of the virus went hand in hand with a hunger for correct information about the prevention and treatment of this infection. Unfortunately, the we were faced with a growing amount of disinformation and misinformation, alternative facts, reheated old myths and conspiracy theories.
Many people with complaints Google their symptoms. They order pills through the internet without consultation, or go to their GP with copies of this self found information. And physicians often need a lot of time to refute these invalid ideas.
Luckily, there is a countermovement of people and instances who try to put the truth and the real story on the table. There are people who review all scientific articles and try to separate the wheat from the chaff. They try to present everything that science has to offer in a readable and accessible way. In short, a nice beacon of truth in the sea of disinformation."
You can find the webinar 'Social media: bad for your health?' here:
This webinar is only available in Dutch.
