Who are the Soft Targets?
Generally patients who are unable to come to terms with their condition or those who have low threshold for suffering are the soft easy targets from quacks. They are game for any suggestions or treatment and are desperate to try anything for relief. The conventional established treatment methods with scientific backing has no meaning for them.
Generally the poor and uneducated are more gullible but in India even the educated fall easily into a quacks net. Obviously, a quack will charge a much lesser fee and also include concotion of medication and this may include allopathy, ayurvedic, Unani, herbal or Sidha.
Sexual diseases have always been a quack’s favorite. Majority of patients visiting a quack needs their expertise for anything and everything related to “sex”. Maybe that’s why it is said “sex sells!”
Most of the quacks are by default “sex specialists”. They have “sure shot” treatments for all the possible diseases, be it STDs, venereal diseases, premature ejaculation, infertility, male impotence, desire of giving birth to a male child or vaginal discharge. You name it, they have a cure for it.
Some of them even claim to treat
Kidney Failure – Patients suffering from it may go to quacks because the treatment like transplantation is expensive. Many of these quacks have prime time slots on television channel. Some even have recommendations from some famous politician making their case strong.
Once I remember, while traveling in a local transport, a man was trying to catch everyone’s attention by claiming that if you put even a drop of his medicine on your carious tooth, in a day’s time you will see the “black insect” crawling out of the mouth.
Being a doctor myself, I couldn’t listen to such rubbish and I raised my voice telling everyone around that in a carious black tooth, there is NO insect at all. It’s only decaying of the tooth due to bad dental hygiene. The man selling his magical invention fled away on the very next stop.
An apt saying for this type of scenario goes like, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true".
