Harriet A. Hall

If her childhood was uneventful, the rest of her life was anything but. As well as bringing up two daughters, she was to become a doctor, a USAF flight surgeon and a pilot (on a ride-along, she even briefly piloted a B-52). This, at a time when there were very few women doctors, few women in the military, few women pilots and even fewer women flight surgeons. She was one of them. Dr. Hall enjoyed flying her C-172 and, as a Flight Surgeon in the USAF, was able to fly several aircraft including a B52 and the FB-111 in which she one time flew “nap-of-the-earth.” Tenaciously breaking down barriers has been a common theme in her life. That tenacity has continued over the past several years as she has taken on what she believes is a barrier to human health: the pseudoscience and, often, quackery behind complementary alternative medicine (CAM). Acupuncture, chiropractic medicine, herbal remedies, old-wave treatments such as traditional Chinese medicine and new-wave treatments such as cupping, reiki and faith-healing; if it relied on pseudoscience, you can bet it was in her crosshairs. “Dr. Harriet Hall is a treasure. She is one of our most knowledgeable critics of so-called alternative medicine. She has a gentle and congenial but clear and firm way of writing on the subject that appeals to all fair-minded readers. For the scientific viewpoint on all manner of iffy medical claims, I recommend Harriet as your source.” Dr. Hall was a contributing editor to both Skeptic magazine and the Skeptical Inquirer . She was a weekly contributor to the Science-Based Medicine blog and was one of its editors. She has also contributed to Quackwatch and to a number of other respected journals and publications. She was also the author of Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon , co-author of the textbook, Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions , and author, along with illustrator Kevin Howell, of the children’s book There’s No Such Thing as the Tooth Fairy .