#1108: Bill Sardi

Bill Sardi is a “health journalist”, author, and something of a Kevin Trudeau-wannabe. He is probably most famous for his rants about “health freedom”, however. Sardi is an avid defender of lax restrictions on what health claims manufacturers can make for their products. For instance, when the FDA sent certified letters of warning to 29 cherry manufacturers in 2005 for making undue health claims for their cherries (that cherries flush “cancer-causing substances out of the body,” helps “stunt the growth of cancerous cells” and contain “anti-inflammatory pain relievers 10 times stronger than aspirin or ibuprofen”), Sardi went predictably hysterical, concluding for instance that the FDA has “blood on its hands” for going after the cherry growers. That cherries do none of the things claimed for them seems less relevant; Sardi’s career is, after all, apparently based on the assumption that you cannot make illegitimate health claims on behalf of the products you pander.

Of course, there is a conspiracy going on here as well. You see, there are plenty of cures for various ailments out there, particularly cancer cures, that “they” (a nebulous group, but including at least the FDA and Big Pharma) don’t want you to know about. Evidence? Well, it is apparently inconceivable that science shouldn’t have found a cure for cancer yet, so they must be hiding it. All the while “conventional medicine is collapsing,” according to Sardi, “and it’s being brought down by scientific studies which reveal modern medical treatments simply are worthless” (no, you ain’t gonna get no references to legitimate studies to back up the claim from Sardi). But if you want to know the cure, Sardi is plenty willing to tell you. Indeed, there is a number of what he terms “scientifically valid” alternative therapies, including high dose vitamin C (completely useless), and, in particular – according to Sardi – vitamin D. Indeed, he has a book on the issue, Modern Cancer Therapy Does Not Address The Causes Of Cancer, which is precisely as reality- and evidence-based as it sounds (he has also written The New Truth About Vitamins and Minerals, The Iron Time Bomb, The Red Wine Pill, In Search of the World’s Best Water and Vitamin C Report). He is also on the Board of Advisors for Purity Products.

Notable is also his attempt to argue that “natural remedies” could have helped Steve Jobs, an argument propped up by confusion and wishful thinking without the faintest trace of touch with reality or evidence. Sardi is, of course, also a rabid antivaccinationist, and Joe Mercola is apparently a fan, which alone should settle any discussion about the legitimacy of his claims.

Diagnosis: Apparently a rising star in the anti-reality movement, Sardi is a productive, zealous and overall rather dangerous figure.