Yesterday Dana commented on this blog the following:
… And while you’re there, I am still waiting for anyone here to review and critique my newest contribution to the PubMed literature: Rockefeller, the Flexner Report, and the American Medical Association: The Contentious Relationship Between Conventional Medicine and Homeopathy in America: https://www.cureus.com/articles/370572-rockefeller-the-flexner-report-and-the-american-medical-association-the-contentious-relationship-between-conventional-medicine-and-homeopathy-in-america#!/
I am far less fond than Ullman of ChatGPT, but I am also somewhat reluctant to read a long Ullman article, as it might be full of nonsense. So, in order to decide whether or not to read it, I gave the AI platform the following task:
Give me a critique of this article: https://www.cureus.com/articles/370572-rockefeller-the-flexner-report-and-the-american-medical-association-the-contentious-relationship-between-conventional-medicine-and-homeopathy-in-america#!/
This is what I got:
Here is a critical evaluation of the article “Rockefeller, the Flexner Report, and the American Medical Association: The Contentious Relationship Between Conventional Medicine and Homeopathy in America” by Dana Ullman, published in *Cureus (2025). I’ll assess it across authorship, argumentation, evidence, historiography, and scientific credibility.
1. Author background and potential bias
A major issue with the article is conflict of interest and author positioning.
- The author is the founder of Homeopathic Educational Services, which sells homeopathic products and books.
- He has “written and lectured extensively” promoting homeopathy.
- The work was partially supported by a member of the Rockefeller family.
Why this matters
This doesn’t automatically invalidate the research, but it creates a strong ideological incentive to reinterpret history in favor of homeopathy.
The article therefore reads less like neutral scholarship and more like advocacy-driven revisionist history.
2. Journal quality and peer-review context
The article appears in Cureus, which is a legitimate but controversial open-access journal.
Characteristics of the journal:
- Rapid peer-review and publication model
- Author-pay publication structure
- Generally lower prestige than major medical journals
This doesn’t mean the article is wrong, but it lacks the historiographical scrutiny typical of top history-of-medicine journals.
3. Central thesis of the article
The article argues that the decline of homeopathy in the U.S. was primarily due to institutional power and political suppression, not scientific inferiority.
Specifically it claims:
- Rockefeller funding helped institutionalize “scientific medicine”.
- The Flexner Report collaborated with the American Medical Association to marginalize homeopathy.
- Philanthropic decisions influenced which medical schools survived.
- Homeopathy declined due to economic and institutional pressure, not lack of efficacy.
These claims mix reasonable historical observations with questionable conclusions.
4. Strengths of the article
A. Interesting archival material
The paper highlights private reports written by Frederick T. Gates for John D. Rockefeller criticizing homeopathy.
If authentic and correctly interpreted, these documents do add nuance to how philanthropy shaped medical education.
B. Correct emphasis on institutional power
The article correctly notes that the Flexner reforms reshaped medical education through:
- philanthropy
- licensing standards
- laboratory science requirements
This is well established in medical historiography.
C. Recognizes economic drivers
The discussion of:
- philanthropy
- advertising revenue of the AMA
- licensing standards
reflects legitimate sociological analysis of professionalization.
5. Major weaknesses
A. Selective and misleading historiography
The article frames the history as a conspiracy or coordinated suppression.
For example, it claims the AMA secretly collaborated with Abraham Flexner on the Flexner Report.
But historians generally agree that:
- Flexner consulted many physicians
- The AMA influenced reform
- Yet the report itself was not a covert anti-homeopathy project
The paper overinterprets routine professional collaboration as conspiracy.
B. False equivalence about efficacy
The paper suggests homeopathy declined mainly due to institutional power.
However it ignores a central issue:
homeopathy failed empirical testing.
Modern evidence shows:
- Homeopathic dilutions usually contain no active molecules.
- Clinical trials show results consistent with placebo.
This is a fundamental reason the medical community rejected it.
The article largely avoids engaging with modern evidence.
C. Use of outdated or fringe sources
Some references include:
- 19th-century homeopathic mortality comparisons
- polemical books such as Divided Legacy
These sources are often considered unreliable by historians because:
- hospital records were inconsistent
- patient populations differed
- treatments were not comparable
The paper treats them as strong evidence.
D. Misinterpretation of historical success claims
The article claims homeopathy had dramatically lower death rates during epidemics.
This is a classic homeopathy narrative, but historians have identified problems:
- reporting bias
- different patient severity
- incomplete hospital records
So these comparisons are not reliable evidence of effectiveness.
E. Presentism and ideological framing
The article repeatedly implies:
- “scientific medicine” succeeded due to money
- homeopathy was suppressed despite effectiveness
This framing ignores a key historical reality:
By the early 20th century:
- laboratory science
- bacteriology
- pharmacology
were producing replicable results, while homeopathy remained theoretically implausible.
6. Logical problems in the argument
The paper assumes:
“Homeopathy declined because institutions suppressed it.”
But the historical process is more likely:
- Medical science became more empirical.
- Universities shifted to laboratory medicine.
- Treatments were evaluated experimentally.
- Homeopathy failed to demonstrate efficacy.
Institutional change followed scientific change, not the reverse.
7. Historians’ mainstream interpretation
Most historians of medicine interpret the Flexner era as:
- professionalization of medicine
- elimination of poorly resourced schools
- transition to research-based medicine
It did reduce diversity in medical approaches, but not primarily to suppress homeopathy.
Instead it enforced:
- laboratory training
- clinical science
- standardized education
8. Overall assessment
Strengths
- Interesting archival angle
- Raises legitimate questions about philanthropy
- Highlights institutional power in medical history
Weaknesses
- Strong author bias
- Selective evidence
- Conspiracy framing
- Avoidance of modern scientific evidence
- Misleading historical comparisons
Bottom line
The article is best understood as advocacy-oriented revisionist history, not a neutral historical analysis.
It contains some useful historical details but should be read critically and alongside mainstream scholarship on medical education reform.
✅ In short:
The paper raises valid points about power and philanthropy in medicine but overstates the case that homeopathy was suppressed rather than scientifically discredited.
______________________
I thank ChatGPT for this analysis helping my decision:
I think I don’t need to read Ullman’s new paper!
21 Responses to Dana Ullman’s “newest contribution to the PubMed literature”: a critical evaluation
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The fact that you asked for a CRITICAL review of my article simply PROVES that you did not want (or get) an “objective” review and analysis of my article.
Just as your previous request to an AI asked what my contributions were to medical science, this request PURPOSEFULLY did not review ANY of my contributions to PubMed (“How convenient,” said the ChurchLady)!
So…here’s the OBJECTIVE question I asked…and ChatGPT’s reply:
Give me a fair and balanced review and analysis of this article: https://www.cureus.com/articles/370572-rockefeller-the-flexner-report-and-the-american-medical-association-the-contentious-relationship-between-conventional-medicine-and-homeopathy-in-america#!/
Here is a fair, balanced review and analysis of the article:
“Rockefeller, the Flexner Report, and the American Medical Association: The Contentious Relationship Between Conventional Medicine and Homeopathy in America.”
I will cover:
What the article argues
Strengths of the article
Weaknesses and criticisms
Where it fits within broader historical scholarship
Overall assessment
Overview of the Article
The Cureus article argues that the marginalization of homeopathy in the United States during the early 20th century was not purely scientific, but also the result of institutional power struggles, philanthropic funding decisions, and professional politics.
Its central themes include:
The influence of John D. Rockefeller’s philanthropic organizations on medical education.
The role of Frederick T. Gates, Rockefeller’s advisor, whose internal reports criticized homeopathy.
The American Medical Association (AMA) using policies such as the “consultation clause” to isolate homeopathic physicians.
The Flexner Report (1910) reshaping medical education in ways that disproportionately harmed homeopathic and other alternative schools.
The consolidation of professional and financial power by the AMA through policies such as advertising and control over medical standards.
The article concludes that these institutional forces contributed to the rapid decline of homeopathic medical schools and professional influence.
Strengths of the Article
1. Use of Primary Archival Materials
A major strength is its use of five previously unpublished reports written by Frederick T. Gates for Rockefeller.
If accurately interpreted, these documents are historically valuable because they:
Show how philanthropic advisors shaped funding policy
Provide insight into internal debates about homeopathy
Offer a rare window into Rockefeller-era medical philanthropy
Primary documents can meaningfully enrich historical analysis.
2. Attention to Institutional Power
The article highlights that medical history is shaped by institutions, not just scientific evidence.
It emphasizes:
Professional monopolies
Economic incentives
Licensing and educational control
Philanthropic funding
Most historians agree that the professionalization of medicine involved power struggles among competing medical systems.
Thus the article contributes to a sociological perspective on medicine, which is a legitimate historical approach.
3. Correctly Describes the Enormous Impact of the Flexner Report
The article correctly notes that the Flexner Report radically reshaped medical education, leading to closures or mergers of many medical schools.
Historically:
In 1904 there were ~160 medical schools
By 1920 there were ~85
By 1935 only 66 remained.
Many homeopathic and eclectic schools disappeared during this consolidation.
The article is therefore correct that the Flexner reforms dramatically altered the medical landscape.
Weaknesses and Criticisms
1. The Causal Claims May Be Overstated
The article sometimes suggests that homeopathy declined primarily because of political suppression.
However, historians generally identify multiple causes, including:
The rise of laboratory science and bacteriology
Better pharmacology and surgical techniques
Internal divisions within homeopathy
Declining enrollment in homeopathic schools
Integration of some homeopathic ideas into conventional practice
Thus the “suppression narrative” is incomplete without acknowledging these additional factors.
2. Limited Engagement With Mainstream Historiography
The article draws heavily on:
Alternative-medicine histories
Selected archival sources
But it engages less with major academic works such as:
Paul Starr – The Social Transformation of American Medicine
Kenneth Ludmerer – Learning to Heal
John Harley Warner – medical pluralism studies
These works often present more complex explanations for the decline of homeopathy.
3. Interpretation of Rockefeller’s Personal Preferences
The article emphasizes Rockefeller’s personal support for homeopathy.
This is historically plausible; Rockefeller reportedly used homeopathic physicians for many years.
However, historians caution that:
Personal medical choices of elites did not necessarily translate into institutional policy
Rockefeller philanthropy prioritized scientific research infrastructure
The article sometimes implies a contradiction between Rockefeller’s beliefs and foundation actions without fully analyzing the broader philanthropic strategy.
4. Claims About AMA Strategy Need Careful Interpretation
The article argues that the AMA deliberately marginalized homeopathy using tools such as:
Ethical rules like the consultation clause
Influence on the Flexner Report
Advertising policies
These claims have some historical basis.
However:
The Flexner Report was commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation, not the AMA directly.
The AMA did support medical education reform but did not fully control the report.
Thus the relationship was influential but not necessarily conspiratorial.
Context: What Mainstream Historians Generally Agree On
Most historians today agree on several points:
1. 19th-century American medicine was pluralistic
Multiple systems coexisted:
Homeopathy
Eclectic medicine
Osteopathy
Herbal medicine
Conventional medicine
Competition was intense.
2. Homeopathy was once extremely influential
By the late 1800s:
Many hospitals and medical schools were homeopathic
Some elite families preferred homeopathic physicians
This historical prominence is well documented.
3. Flexner helped professionalize medical education
The report pushed schools toward:
Laboratory science
University affiliation
Higher admission standards
Research-based medicine
These changes greatly improved medical training, but also caused major disruptions.
4. There were unintended consequences
The reforms led to:
Closure of many schools
Reduced access for women and Black physicians
Concentration of power in elite institutions.
These consequences are widely acknowledged by historians.
Overall Assessment
Scholarly value:
Moderate to strong in some areas, especially its archival research.
Main contribution:
Highlighting how institutional politics and philanthropy influenced the decline of homeopathy.
Limitations:
Some interpretations appear one-sided or incomplete, particularly when suggesting that political suppression alone explains homeopathy’s decline.
Bottom Line
A balanced reading would conclude:
The article raises important and sometimes neglected historical questions about philanthropy, professional power, and medical competition.
Its archival findings may provide useful evidence for understanding Rockefeller-era policy decisions.
However, its narrative may overemphasize institutional suppression and understate scientific and social factors that also contributed to homeopathy’s decline.
In other words:
The article contributes meaningfully to the debate—but should be read alongside mainstream medical history scholarship for a full picture.
a non-critical scientist is a pseudo-scientist!
And for the record, I don’t have a problem with people people critical…I have a problem when a person is hyper-biased…and not objective.
A non-objective scientist is not a scientist at all. Touche! And slam dunk.
in this case, it was not a person but AI, Dana
Hi Dana! Thanks for the laugh your first paragraph brought out. It’s a cold, wet and dreary friday and the fascist regime in your sad, ailing country are no longer laughing matter.
Cheers
Björn
And that’s the only attention that anyone will pay to Ullman’s most recent piece of laughable fantasy nonsense.
Anything but Ullman is laughable, implausible, unsustainable nonsense, this yet again shows AI to be largely untrustworthy. That it interprets philanthropic contribution to scientific advancement as a negative influence on homeopathy illustrates a lack of critical “thinking” and logical reasoning.
The AI bubble isn’t far from bursting, and hopefully before too much damage is done.
And also, my article is the FIRST article to reference and analysis the FIVE reports on homeopathy written for Rockefeller’s eyes only (!) by his leading financial advisor. No other historian OR biographer has ever analyzed this documents…and for the FIRST TIME (!), these reports are in the Appendix of my article, listed as under MEDIA: https://www.cureus.com/articles/370572-rockefeller-the-flexner-report-and-the-american-medical-association-the-contentious-relationship-between-conventional-medicine-and-homeopathy-in-america#!/media
Before this article was published, the ONLY source to access them were the Rockefeller Archives in upstate New York.
This scholarship provides an important contribution to medical history and to the life and work of JD Rockefeller.
congratulations!
but I still go with the critical assessment and call it irrelevant BS promotion
@Dana Ullman
Let’s just stick to the essential problem: in all of homeopathy’s 230 years, not a single preparation 12C+ has ever been found to have clear, consistent, and arbitrarily and independently repeatable effects(*). And not a single condition has ever been found for which homeopathy is a viable, proven effective treatment.
Waving a bunch of pamphlets around doesn’t change this.
*: And by ‘arbitrarily and independently repeatable’ of course I mean more than just 2 or 3 marginally successful replications – which I believe is the highest number of replications ever observed. So don’t insult our intelligence by pointing to a handful of trials with duckweed, childhood diarrhoea treatments and of course oscilloquackinum. A real medicine should easily show dozens or even hundreds of replications in tests and trials, and produce the claimed effects in a significant proportion of patients. Which homeopathy so far failed to do.
Oh Richard…your understanding of and respect for medical economics is non-existent. Please tell us WHO would fund research on a medicine that is dirty-cheap and non-patentable. Each of the FIVE somewhat large studies on Oscillococcinum found statistically significance. Even the LANCET once reported favorably about it.
And more of all, because Oscillococcinum is made from the heart and liver of a duck (one of THE primary sources of the BIRD FLU!), there is a clear and understandable explanation for the rationale for using this medicine.
FInally, the fact that homeopaths have used this drug since the 1920s shows that homeopaths have been on the cutting edge of epidemiology for a long long time.
It seems that the skeptics in this instances are quacking louder than the homeopaths!
Oh, Dana, sweety!
Allow me to comment on the 4 arguments you made here about Oscillococcinum.
1. The “Statistical Significance” Claim
While there have been studies, the Cochrane Library—the gold standard for high-quality meta-analyses in medicine—reviewed the data on Oscillococcinum. Their conclusion was clear. The evidence does not show that it prevents the flu. While some studies showed it might shorten the duration of the illness by about 0.28 days (roughly 6 hours), the quality of those studies was rated as low. Many of the “significant” results haven’t been reliably replicated in independent, large-scale trials that meet modern clinical standards.
2. The Lancet “Favourable” Report
This is an “appeal to authority” fallacy.
3. The Bird Flu Connection
The “duck liver” ingredient was chosen by Joseph Roy in the 1920s because he believed he saw “oscillating” microbes in the blood of flu victims and ducks. Roy was actually looking at cellular debris or artifacts under a low-quality microscope. He didn’t find the flu virus; we now know the flu is caused by a virus, not the “oscillococci” bacteria he thought he saw.
Even if the duck had the flu, the dilution of Oscillococcinum is 200C. This means one part duck offal to one hundred duotrigintillion parts water. To find a single molecule of the original duck, you would need to consume a sphere of pills the size of the known universe.
4. The “Clear and Understandable” Rationale
The rationale for Oscillococcinum is based on the homeopathic principle of Similia similibus curentur (“Like cures like”). The rationale isn’t based on biology or epidemiology; it’s based on a 19th-century philosophy. Modern epidemiology relies on germ theory and immunology. There is no known mechanism in physics or chemistry that explains how a substance that is no longer present in a solution can have a biological effect on the body.
First, I never (!) said that Oscillococcinum was found to be effective in “preventing” the flu. Only one trial tested that…and it was not positive. The TREATMENT of the flu is a different story…and although the trials did not show “substantial” significance, they did show statistical significance.
As for the nanodoses used in homeopathy, ChatGPT has shown that you and other skeptics utilize 19th and early 20th century think to disparage homeopathy, but please stop embarrassing yourself with such out-date rationale.
Neither you or ANYONE on your list here has provided any real critique of the TWO dialogues that I had ChatGPT. Respond to that or simply acknowledge that you cannot do so.
@Edzard
Also note that Ullman and other water-shaking clowns seem to consider this to be homeopathy’s most successful result, bringing it up every single time. It’s like a little child proudly showing all the family the contents of his potty.
@Dana Ullman
Nope, homeopathy is not about ‘nanodoses’. There are only two possibilities:
1) You water-shaking clowns performed your dilute-and-shake ritual correctly, after which you end up with water that doesn’t do anything, or
2) You water-shaking clowns botched your dilute-and-shake ritual, ending up with a dilution that still contains some residue of the original substance – but in completely unknown concentrations, and thus unpredictable effects.
Usually, we get #1, i.e. an inert product that can relatively safely be used to fool and fleece the gullible audience (e.g. oscilloquackinum). However, #2 has also been known to happen, sometimes with devastating results.
But neither outcome results in an effective medicine.
There are more reasons why ‘nanodoses’ fail to explain anything about homeopathy:
– Many homeopathic nostrums are dilutions of substances that naturally occur in the body in large amounts, e.g. table salt or calcium phosphate, to name just a few. It is utterly impossible that administering a nanodose of these substances can have any clinical effects.
– As already touched on above, a botched dilution ritual may result in certain amounts of the original substance still present but in concentrations that are completely unknown. Which in fact renders the whole stepwise dilute-and-shake ritual meaningless: your 30C dilution may just as well be 6C, or 10C. Exit homeopathy.
– We already ingest nanodoses of literally hundreds of thousands of substances every single day – including many that are also sold as homeopathic ‘remedies’. Why don’t these have any effects at all? The answer is of course that indeed, they don’t have any effects because the dose is simply too low to do anything – just like homeopathic nostrums usually don’t do anything because there’s little or nothing in them.
So you can stop your silly blather about nanodoses. Then again, it’s always amusing to see how you twist, turn and squirm to come up with explanations how a tiny amount of homeopathically shaken salt is completely different from the ~200 grams of salt that every one of us already has in their body, and how you water-shaking clowns apparently manage to dissolve salt in water without all of it dissociating in sodium and chlorine ions – which is what it invariably does.
@Dana Ullman
You are lying. The heart and liver of the ducks killed by Boiron cannot possibly contain bird flu viruses.
Why? Because it is absolutely prohibited by law to use animals infected with avian flu for any purpose – any infected animals must be destroyed. Also note that Boiron itself does NOT mention bird flu in this context.
So there flies your bird flu argument out the window … quack quack quack …
Then there is of course the problem that approximately half of the positive oscilloquackinum studies are in fact carried out by Boiron itself – which of course presents a HUGE conflict of interest. They will never in a million years admit that their cash
duckcow (to the tune of about $ 600 million annually) doesn’t actually work.Strange how you have no problems of accusing all of the scientific and pharmaceutical world of foul play with actual working medicines, but you blindly trust a quack company when they claim that their ‘research’ shows efficacy of their own products.
There are many more reasons supporting the notion that oscilloquackinum cannot possibly work for anything, among which of course the ludicrous dilution of 1:10^400 – meaning that you need to examine approximately 10^350 universes to find just one rotten duck particle.
And oh, talking about this magical rotten duck particle: what is it actually made of? What causes its special homeopathic effects? No, of course you can’t tell us, because you are a very stupid man, who probably never even wondered about this. You simply believe whatever any homeoquacks tell you – and what they tell you is that it works. Which is a lie.
So let me tell you. If you let mashed-up duck organs putrify for a couple of weeks, this does not exactly result in a well-defined, homogenous product. You will get a nasty sludge containing anything from simple salts and minerals, carbohydrates, fats and fatty acids, to proteins, DNA and RNA fragments, and of course hundreds or even thousands of species of viruses, bacteria and molds, many of which alive and kicking. If you start diluting this putrid soup, there is no telling what will carry over from one dilution step to the next and in what proportions – if only because it is impossible to tell in any detail what it actually is that is diluted.
But what we DO know is that after 12 such dilution steps, you’re left with plain water, without any active ingredients. Yet those dumb water-shaking clowns keep on diluting for another 188 steps, believing that they are ‘making medicines’ and ‘doing science’. Nope, they are just diluting water with more water …
Utterly pathetic.
First…thanx for VERIFYING that Oscilloccinum IS effective in reducing influenza by around 6 hours. In comparison, Tamiflu only provides benefits for 12-18 hours, and does so with a variety of side-effects, as compared with Oscillo which is not known to have any side effects.
Second…Oscillo may not have any “viruses” in it (I NEVER SAID IT DID!)…but these ducks do have immunological factors that enable the ducks to carry the flu viruses and NOT become sick from them.
CLEARLY, your understanding of immunology is in super homeopathic doses…that small. Thanx for this confirmation. SLAM DUNK
@Dana Ullman
Learn to read, you illiterate fool. I never said this. This is what I did say:
– that after 12 dilution steps, you end up with plain water that doesn’t do anything, and
– that you water-shaking clowns seem to consider oscilloquackinum to be the most efficacious ‘homeopathic medicine’ ever.
Especially the latter observation tells us how utterly pathetic as well as divorced from reality homeopaths are.
Even if, for the sake of the argument, we’d assume that those marginally positive outcomes would indeed indicate a real effect, then that would still mean that oscilloquackinum is not a very good medicine at all, given that it would only speed up patient recovery by a measly few percent. And this absolutely tiny efficacy would be the absolute best that homeopathy has achieved in 230 years.
But no, those inert sugar crumbs peddled by Boiron don’t achieve anything except needlessly killing innocent ducks and draining your wallet.
Ah, another good example of proctophasia.
Or, in other words: nonsense pulled out of your ass on the spot.
As I said: pathetic.
Does it arse. It will contribute nothing because nobody will pay it any attention. Nobody pays any heed to anything you write or say because you lack the faintest shred of credibility having demonstrated repeatedly that you are an ideological, scientifically-ignorant goon.
about the journal:
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/10/27/embattled-journal-cureus-delisted-from-web-of-science-loses-impact-factor/
@DUllman
HAHAHHA HAHA HAHA!
Is this enough? 😉