Pulitzer Prize finalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling takes on the weird world of alternative medicine and the medical freedom movement in his new book, If It Sounds Like a Quack. My thanks go to Net Galley and PublicAffairs for the review copy. This book is available to the public right now.

The fact is, I have—or I had—no particular interest in alternative medicine, but I had read Hongoltz-Hetling’s last book, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, which was well researched, well written, and most importantly, completely hilarious. I have reviewed over 800 books, but the number of those that I later purchase is smaller than 10; yet I bought that book to give as a Christmas gift. So when I saw that he had another book available, I didn’t hesitate. And I wasn’t disappointed.

The book describes the bizarre programs and treatments espoused by six individuals: Larry Lytle, Toby McAdam, Robert O. Young, Alicja Kolyszko, Dale and Leilani Neumann, and The Alien. The seventh player in each section is America, and that’s where we see what U.S. laws say, and what enforcement, if any, comes down on these snake oil salesmen.

The opening section, the first of four, introduces each of these players and explains what led to them going into the businesses they have chosen. Among the various One True Cures are a laser salesman, a leech peddler, faith healers, a supplement seller, and a Mormon missionary that resurrects a long-dead theory about germs. There’s also a pair that develops a health drink; one of them is human, and one is not.

The author suggests that the success of these characters—and some of them have become wealthy beyond belief—has a good deal to do with the state of standard medical care in America. Nobody trusts Big Pharma. The disparity of what treatments we can expect is so great that in one New York hospital, there’s a wait time in the ER of nearly 6 hours for most people, whereas the wealthy can get a private room with high thread count sheets and a butler. One can see why many people conclude that anything must be better than this; yet, they are mistaken.

Apart from his sterling research and documentation, and his clear, conversational tone that at times caused me to forget, momentarily, that I was reading nonfiction, the thing that sets Hongoltz-Hetling apart from others is his ability to shift seamlessly from prose that is falling-down-funny, to that which is not only serious, but tragic, without ever breaking the boundaries of good taste. Because he did it so brilliantly in his last book, I watched for it this time—and I still couldn’t catch the segue way from one to the other.

Because I had fallen behind in my nonfiction reviews, I checked out the audio version from Seattle Bibliocommons and listened to it while I watered my plants. It is very well done, and I had no problem following the thread. The only downside is that the printed version has some humorous puns by way of spelling that the listener misses.

One way or the other, get this book and read it, even if the topic isn’t inside your usual field of interest. Highly recommended to everyone.

If It Sounds Like a Quack by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (H-H) takes readers on a bizarre journalistic journey through the world of fringe medicine. H-H's exploration of non-traditional treatments is a humorous first look at the growing "medical freedom" movement. The book delves into the realm of alternative healers, their unconventional practices, and their quest for fortune and recognition. 

American healthcare sucks, and from this trash heap, a bevy of non-traditional treatments has emerged. Hongoltz-Hetling introduces readers to a cast of characters, including an international leech smuggler a self-proclaimed zombie creator, and parents who attempt to pray the diabetes away. At first, these stories appear disjointed, but eventually, they coalesce into a mosaic showing exactly where we went wrong. 

The tone of this book is decidedly snarky. It is tempting to go into this topic with anger and disbelief, especially when we reach the inevitable human cost of these "cures". Instead, the author presents the stories of these practitioners, how they got away from reality, where the money comes from, and their challenges with regulation, all with a tone of distinctive side-eye. It would be nearly impossible to present the point of view of a self proclaimed immortal space alien without a healthy amount of incredulity, and I'm happy the author doesn't try.

H-H accurately pinpoints the true cause of our turn to alternative cures, the mainstream medical system. If quality, affordable, personal health care were available, particularly in rural areas and small towns, people would be far less likely to turn to charlatans and grifters. As if the systematic clusterfuck of our current situation wasn't bad enough we have entered an era of bizarre simultaneous erosion of and hyper skepticism. Where the "number crunchers" of science are treated with more suspicion than the idea that good vibes and a special diet will cure all ills.

This book is not a story of hope, and you wont find any uplifting endings here. Its a humorous look at a topic that is frankly depressing. H-H does a good job of making this subject as informative and entertaining as possible which alone justifies a read.

The Last Word. 

While I didn't like If It Sounds Like a Quack  as much as H-H's previous book. (seriously you should read A Libertarian Walks into a Bear) This still holds up as funny and engaging sociological writing.

I've witnessed some fringe medicine actually work and I know that there are some practitioners out there that are actually doing good and care about those they're helping, but the side of fringe medicine talked about in this book terrifies me. It's all the people who have convinced thousands to eschew real medicine and science in favor of miracle cures and unproven (most times deadly) snake oil tonics with no proof of working other than one person's ability to charm people into believing them or use pseudo-intelligent talk to make them think they're talking sense. The most interesting thing is though, that at least how they're presented here, most of them started out with noble intentions and just fell deeper and deeper into it and lost sight of the horrors they're perpetuating.
There is no doubt whatsoever where Hongoltz-Hetling stands and what he thinks of the 'so-called one cure', but you can also tell that he did his best to show both sides of the story and try to stick to the facts, such as they are. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a segment of readers who get mad about how he writes about certain individuals and his very frank opinions on situations, then again, I'm pretty sure those people won't be at all interested in reading fact-checked evidence of how crazy they sound.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and PublicAffairs for the eye-opening read!

This was an interesting and hilarious look at the medical freedom movement-alternative therapies to ailments that the traditional health care system is failing in its treatment and coverage.
I loved the author’s humor and broad scope of interviewees. As a public health graduate, my heart hurts that our healthcare system doesn’t really respect alternative treatments so kudos to the author and those searching for a better way, despite being on the bizarre side.

I requested this ARC because I'd listened to the audiobook of Hongoltz-Hetling's A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, which is a darkly hilarious history of Grafton, New Hampshire, post-takeover by hardcore libertarians. (Spoiler: it didn't go well for anyone, including the libertarians, and there was some trouble with bears, too.)

Dark hilarity + careful reporting + thoughtful analysis seems to be H-H's stock-in-trade. I'm sorry that for some reviewers the hilarity overshadows the reporting and analysis. I can understand why that might be so, if your sense of humor doesn't match his, but I find it difficult to read about topics like libertarianism or, in Quack's case, the often literally poisonous combination of medical quackery with libertarianism, QAnon, "medical freedom," and radical right-wing politics. H-H's humor does, as it happens, mesh well with mine and makes it much easier to take in information about, and analysis of, people and subjects that frankly terrify me.

I should probably add that although H-H's wit is often biting, he's also appropriately angry without being cruel. Case in point, the Neumanns, a couple who believed so strongly that prayer was, as H-H puts it, the One True Cure that they prayed over their 11-year-old daughter Kara long enough to let her die of diabetic ketoacidosis. Hongoltz-Hetling is clearly angry on Kara's behalf while (ha, miraculously) accepting that the Neumanns sincerely believed they were helping her and protecting her from the machinations of satanic people with medical degrees. He is, of course, markedly less sympathetic to cynical hucksters like the mostly Republican politicians who profit from various One True Cures.

Hongoltz-Hetling also discusses the intersection of mistrust of authority with conspiracist thinking and, crucially, the relative unavailability of healthcare in red states. This latter, it turns out, is grounded in the maneuvering by the early-20th-century AMA to limit the supply of doctors so as to increase their incomes. It's so dispiriting to read this history, for many reasons. One, I'm a frequent flyer: I've had five major surgeries in the last decade. (I can only imagine how much money my neurosurgeon makes, but I have to admit I find it hard to begrudge him even a dollar of it given that he's responsible for the fact that I can walk around taking pictures of birds instead of spending 24/7/365 in intractable pain.) Two, I'm married to a physician and consequently in a position to see how unhappy many, many (most?) present-day doctors are with the for-profit healthcare system. Not incidentally, next up in my ARCs is If I Betray These Words, which is about the moral injury suffered by healthcare workers, and which my wife has been sending me screencap after screencap of because it articulates her own experience perfectly.

... Right. To return to this book: I would put it on the shelf with Luke Mogelson's The Storm Is Here and the reporting of Jane Mayer, as well as other excellent recent discussions of the radical right in its many guises today. Don't let the fact that Hongoltz-Hetling would like to make you laugh distract you from the seriousness of his project.

-laugh out loud funny, especially with his various bits he kept up (game show host was my personal favorite)
-still managed to be very informative. obviously it had a bias, but this is a topic it would be hard to stay objective on
-extremely engaging and easy to read, especially the way it switched between the narratives to keep the story moving
-there was plenty of stuff that i wanted to know more about, but thats to be expected with any base level non fiction book. he provided more than enough information for any reader to be able to find more reading on any of the topics/people discussed
-overall, this was a really great nonfiction read. not at all uplifting or hopeful, but by injecting humor into the topic he made it much more digestible

*3.75
If It Sounds Like A Quack explores the “medical freedom” movement through various people convinced they found the “one true cure” (supplements, leeches, prayer, medical mineral solution, etc). The one nit picky thing that I wasn’t a big fan of was how the stories were split up. I found it a little hard to jump between the various perspectives. Overall, I did enjoy it and definitely recommend this to anyone looking for introduction to the medical freedom movement.
Thank you to Netgalley and PublicAffairs for the eARC.

2.5 stars rounded up. This book presents stories of eight individuals who each believe they have found the ultimate panacea, what Hongoltz-Hetling calls the "One True Cure." From leeches to prayer to a bleach compound called Miracle Mineral Supplement, each person in this book thinks that their cure is the best one out there, and they're determined to make a buck selling it, too. The book details each of these individuals' stories while commenting on gaps in our system - the Internet, legal definitions limiting jurisdiction, human stupidity and gullibility, distrust in big pharma, and most importantly, the slow bureaucracy of the FDA - that make quashing these pseudo-scientific, often dangerous "medicines" extremely difficult.

Although this is an interesting concept that showcases some truly nutty people, I didn't really vibe with the writing of this book. It's got a very goofy, millennial, sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek attitude to it (e.g., repeats of "Big if true!", a strange metasyntactic variable paragraph to test the language of One True Cures that ends in "Putting thingumies back changes thingamajigs back to somethings and stimulates metabolic processes at the wossname level. Yada yada yada, I Am Groot."). Some turns of phrase are simply baffling, such as "[I was] driving the neat, straight line of Highway 75 and cutting across Florida's tip like a circumcision."

In my opinion, the author spent far, far too much time on the backstories of these people and not enough time on what I think is more interesting: the systemic failures that allow these fringe theories to persist and succeed - perhaps I just wanted a different book.

Thank you to Public Affairs for the ARC via Netgalley.

Explorations of five distinct ~alternatives~ to traditional Western medicine (prayer, leeches, lasers, alkalinity, and supplements) through biographies and deep dives into the people who popularized them as medicinal practice. He tracks each person from their start time to present and we can see how they all weave together into the current medical freedom movement, which was my favorite part of the book.

I will say that even though I agree with the author, I found the overall tone of the book to be a little smug and off-putting. I guess that's his brand of humor but just not my cup of tea! The intel was interesting though. 3.5 stars

I absolutely loved this book. The information is both fascinating and scary. And Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling mocks both quacks and bureaucrats. The book is witty and irreverent and the author takes no prisoners. Normally when I read a book like this, I like to comment that the science is well explained, but the quackery in the book has nothing to do with science and Hongoltz-Hetling does a great job of illustrating this. The selection of quotes at the beginnings of the chapters was brilliant. There were also some laugh-out-loud moments, but great humor and sarcasm are weaved in throughout the book. Thank you to Netgalley and PublicAffairs

This was an exceptional read, and I'm preordering it for my best friend for his birthday in May. He'll absolutely love it, and so will anyone you gift this book to. Seriously, this is excellent.
The author is funny, yet still gives a detailed description of the fake medicine world in the US that leaves you worried and afraid of what the next step in this world will be... a bit of warning, though : if you're a fervent catholic, or a devout religious person that believes prayer is the One True Cure for most human diseases... maybe this book isn't for you. Just saying.

A fascinating exploration of the minds of quacks and the implications of an increasing array of untested treatments on our health care system. It is quite humbling to recognize the diverse and chaotic paths that people have taken to find and market various non-traditional and often quite bizarre treatments. Look forward to incorporating some of the insights gleaned and questions raised by this book in my research methods course.

This book is full of cure all solutions from bleach, to lasers, leeches in those who believe God is a genie and if those aren’t crazy enough there’s even an alien who believes he has a cure all solution this book is not only interesting it was very well researched is even a chapter on zombies but let’s not confuse that with the first chapter where the guy who uses lasers to cure everything says he knows how to make a zombie. I truly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. If you like crazy stories told with a bunch of LOL moments you need to read “if it sounds like a quack…“ I thoroughly enjoyed it please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review I received this book from the publisher in NetGalley but I’m leaving this review voluntarily.

Can I give less than 1 star?? This could have been so good, so interesting but once the author began MOCKING Jesus and Christianity, I deleted it off my Kindle

If It Sounds Like a Quack: A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling is an interesting and at times hard to read exploration of fringe medicine in America. The book is written in a journalistic style, and provides an overview of a wide variety of alternative medical practices, from leech therapy to zombie transformations.

Overall, I found the book to be an interesting and informative read. It provides a fascinating glimpse into a world that is often overlooked, and it is hard to put down once you start reading. It made me realize that we're truly in a bizarre period of healthcare. That said, I did find it to be somewhat hard to read at times, due to the sheer number of different topics that are covered and how over the top they are (I know, this is real life, not fiction). Additionally, I felt that the author could have spent more time exploring some of the more outlandish practices in greater detail.

It is clear that Hongoltz-Hetling did extensive research in order to write this book, and he has succeeded in painting a detailed picture of the many strange and bizarre treatments that are available to those who are willing to look beyond conventional medicine. After reading this book, I wouldn't.

That said, I would give this book 4.5 stars out of 5. It is an interesting and informative read, but it can be tough to get through at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and PublicAffairs for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.