Hullabaloo

Monday, September 27, 2010

 
Quackpot Dr Paul

by digby


Ok, this is getting ridiculous now:

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Rand Paul belongs to a conservative doctors’ group that, among other things, has expressed doubts about the connection between HIV and AIDS and suggested that President Barack Obama may have been elected because he was able to hypnotize voters.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, based in Tucson, Ariz., advocates conservative and free-market solutions on health care and a variety of other political issues.

But it also uses its medical journal and Website as forums for unorthodox medical views.

[...]

Speaking to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons’ annual conference last October in Nashville, Paul said he has been a member of the group since at least 1990.

“I use a lot of AAPS literature when I talk,” he told the group.

What kind of "literature" might that be?

Nichols said one of the AAPS’ most disconcerting positions is to question whether the human immunodeficiency virus is the cause of AIDS.

More than two decades ago, in 1988, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences asserted that the evidence linking AIDS and HIV is “scientifically conclusive.” Other medical authorities have reached the same conclusion.

But the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published an article in 2007 saying “both official reports and the peer-reviewed literature afford substantive grounds for doubting that HIV is the necessary and sufficient cause of AIDS and that anti-retroviral treatment is unambiguously beneficial.”

(3 of 6)

The article doesn’t otherwise suggest what would cause AIDS.

“They don’t understand science at all?” Nichols asked. “To deny that is to not be in touch with reality.”

How about this?

On its Website, the AAPS included an article in October 2008 titled, “Is Obama a Brilliant Orator … or a Hypnotist?” It cites an unsigned paper suggesting that Obama used hypnotic techniques and speech patterns in his 2008 campaign.

The paper bases its finding on the work of a controversial psychologist, Milton Erickson, who died 30 years ago and pioneered the also-controversial field of neuro-linguistic programming, which purports to use voice patterns to subliminally influence people’s decisions.

The paper claims to examine Obama’s speeches “word by word, hand gesture by hand gesture, tone, pauses, body language, and proves his use of covert hypnosis intended only for licensed therapists on consenting patients.”

The paper goes on to say that Obama’s “mesmerized, cult-like, grade-school-crush-like worship by millions is not because ‘Obama is the greatest leader of a generation’ who simply hasn’t accomplished anything, who magically ‘inspires’ by giving speeches. Obama is committing perhaps the biggest fraud and deception in American history.”

The AAPS article notes that the Obama campaign logo “might just be the letter ‘O,’ but it also resembles a crystal ball, a favorite of hypnotists.”

And it suggests that hypnosis is the reason some Jewish people backed him.

“It is also interesting that many Jews are supporting a candidate who is endorsed by Hamas, Farrakhan, Khalidi and Iran,” the article says.

Read the whole thing. Daddy belongs to this crackpot group too.

At this point I'm not sure if it isn't safer to have this quack in the Senate than practicing medicine on unsuspecting patients.

Update: Karoli at C&L has much more.

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digby 9/27/2010 11:00:00 AM