The books listed on this page are reliable and comprehensive. If you purchase them from Amazon Books after clicking on the links below, Quackwatch will receive a small commission for the referral.
General Subjects
- The American Dietetic Association’s Complete Food & Nutrition Guide: Focuses on fitness, health, sound nutrition and importance of enjoying what you eat. Contains many useful charts, tables, illustrations, and self-assessment tools.
- Complete Drug Reference 2001: Consumer guide to more than 11,000 currently available prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Features include the drug’s brand name, including how to pronounce it and what it is for, common and rare side effects, precautions before using, proper use, and accepted ‘off label’ uses. Includes a color drug chart with photographs and generic drug names.
- Merck Manual of Medical Information: Home Edition: Consumer edition of the Merck Manual, which is a highly respected guidebook for physicians. Covers health promotion, basic medical information, and in-depth coverage of hundreds of health problems and their treatment.
- Take Care of Yourself: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Medical Self-Care: Practical advice that includes over 100 decision charts to help decide whether medical consultation is needed.
- Taking Care of Your Child: A Parent’s Guide Illustrated Guide to Complete Medical Care: Practical advice that includes decision charts to help decide whether medical consultation is needed.
- The Yale University School of Medicine Patient’s Guide to Medical Tests: Describes hundreds of the most commonly performed diagnostic tests in clear, understandable language with easy-to-follow charts.
Specialized Health Topics
- A Consumer’s Guide to Choosing the Right Psychotherapist: An insightful look at who needs psychotherapy, how it is done, and how to locate a suitable therapist.
- American Cancer Society’s Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Methods: Brief reports on more than 100 methods, nearly all of which should be avoided.
- American Diabetes Association Complete Guide to Diabetes: Comprehensive handbook for consumers.
- Attachment Therapy on Trial: The Torture and Death of Candice Newmaker. Comprehensive report on “attachment therapy” and the effort to ban it.
- Bear’s Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning: Provides information on accredited and nonaccredited schools.
- Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine: Exposes flawed research and dubious claims that religious activities promote health.
- Caring for the Mind: The Comprehensive Guide to Mental Health: Comprehensive guide to mental and emotional problems and their treatment.
- ConsumerLab.com’s Guide to Buying Vitamins & Supplements: What’s really in the Bottle? Covers uses, quality concerns, test results, and buying tips for about 20 groups of products.
- Food Allergies for Dummies: Practical guide to diagnosing food allergies, preventing reactions, and administering emergency care.
- Living a Healthier Life with Chronic Conditions: Self-management of heart disease, arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, and others.
- Open Wider: Your Wallet Not Your Mouth: Tips on choosing and using dentists.
- Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sport and Exercise: Comprehensive advice about the drugs, dietary supplements, and other modalities claimed to improve athletic performance.
- Professional’s Handbook of Complementary & Alternative Medicines: Practical advice about herbs and dietary supplements.
- Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology: Focuses on widely used diagnostic and treatment methods that are not solidly grounded in research.
- The Skeptics Dictionary: Covers about 400 topics, of which about 100 are health-related.
- Therapeutic Claims for Multiple Sclerosis: A Guide to Treatments: Scientific status of both standard and nonrecommended methods.
Public Policy Issues
- The Cutter Incident: How trouble with America’s first polio vaccine led to the growing vaccine crisis.
- The HPV Vaccine Controversy: Dissects the arguments about administering human papillomavirus vaccine (Gardasil) to prevent cervical cancer.
- The Truth about Drug Companies: How they deceive us and what to do about it.
Quackery, Past and Present
- Autism’s False Prophets: Debunks irresponsible scare tactics used to discourage childhood immunizations.
- Copeland’s Cure: Homeopathy and the War Between Conventional and Alternative Medicine: Fascinating history of homeopathy in America and Senator Royal Copeland, who spearheaded the federal law that protects it.
- The History of Homeopathy in America: The Academic Years, 1820-1935. Details the reasons for homeopathy’s popularity during the nineteenth century and the collapse of its schools during the twentieth.
- Natural Causes: Death, Lies, Politics in America’s Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry: Highlights how the industry persuaded Congress to undermine effective regulation by the FDA.
- Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera & Books: Contains about 200 images, most of which are in black and white.
- Quacks and Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, & Harry Hoxsey
- Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Alternative and Complementary Medicine
- The Snake-Oil Syndrome: Patent Medicine Advertising: A beautifully illustrated history with about 500 images.
- Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine: A brilliant scientific and historical analysis that explains why the vast majority of “alternative” methods should be avoided.
This page was revised on August 7, 2009.
