#2541: Cammy Benton

Cammy Benton is a physician and “integrative medicine” practitioner, anti-vaccine activist and anti-masker, who is best known for anti-vaccine and COVID-19 conspiracy screeds published on the unhinged antivaccine propaganda blog The Thinking Moms’ Revolution (yes, it’s mommyblogging, and yes – this is a hoary one – they had to put ‘Thinking’ in the name since there is no shred of evidence in the contents that there is actual thinking happening between the drone-like reproduction of anti-vaccine and pseudoscience talking points). Her article ‘To Mask or Not to Mask’ is discussed here. It’s … not an impressive display of intellect. In the article, Benton attempts to play the “reasonable” middle, claiming that 'both sides have good points', before lamenting the bullying tactics of the pro-mask crowd and suggesting that there is a conspiracy since “large sums of money and power” are at stake (ostensibly the ones who stand to benefit, power- and moneywise, are they).

 

Benton runs Benton Integrative Medicine, an “integrative medicine” practice that offers various wellness products and questionable injectables and supplements, including some to “prevent coronavirus.” She is a promoter of functional medicine, which is popular among spineless quacks because of its reliance on expensive and meaningless lab tests. As for her antivaccine activities, Benton is also a Founding Director and the Treasurer of Physicians for Informed Consent, an antivaccine physician’s group, and she pushes Paul Thomas’s antivaccine book in her practice. Moreover, Benton embraces homeopathy, anecdotally claiming it cured her daughter, and naturopathy, apparently thinking that there’s no real difference between naturopathy training and MD training. There definitely is (assuming that her own MD training wasn’t a complete scam, which is a kind of speculation we will refrain from engaging in).

 

In 2016, Benton was one of the physicians who rallied in favor of Bob Sears – under the slogan “stand with Dr. Sears” – when the Medical Board of California initiated proceedings against him, an anti-vaccine sympathizer, for failing to live up to the standard of care for two of his patients. Anti-vaccine and woo-promoting physicians understandably do not like systems that hold professionals accountable for their actions.

 

Diagnosis: Wild-eyed crackpot and promoter of more or less everything false, woo and pseudoscience. Stay far, far away.