It's easy enough to ignore - just avoid reading the posts by those trumpet-blowers!

If novice knew more about the history of this forum (I've been posting here for more than ten years), she'd realize that there have been periods here when there were many more posters with medical and scientific backgrounds who provided a check on bad and sometimes dangerous advice. One example that came up recently was this thread, in which our own daisyduckworth is the first to throw cold water on someone promoting an unproven herbal cancer remedy. In fact, daisy has said before that she posts far less frequently than formerly, largely due to people who dogmatically insist on herbal therapy in cases where it is not indicated. Apparently she feels differently now.

Be that as it may, the amount of traffic on this forum has varied over the years and the number of informed/evidence-based/skeptical posters has varied, and there doesn't seem to have been much relation between the two. The only change I have seen recently is an increase in the amount of direct personal insult and nasty insinuation against posters seen as The Enemy because they value evidence-based herbalism and complementary medicine. There wouldn't be so much of this if we had a properly moderated forum (Spike would never have tolerated it in the old days, nor the free-for-all spamming), but we don't.

It would have been wonderful if the Big Pharma Conspiracy™ had been paying me all this time to post here. I could have retired by now. Unfortunately for novice's speculations, I and many others who have posted in a skeptical vein here over the years have done it for free, not counting the satisfaction gained in promoting good, science-based herbalism and steering people away from useless and hazardous treatment. It's possible some lives were saved in the process.

By all means, if this bugs the heck out of you, novice, ignore such threads and comments. Some message boards even have an "ignore" function, which lets people short on willpower avoid ever seeing posts from those they dislike. I've never needed such a function, being perfectly able to pass over posts from those with nothing to contribute except bile.