Claus Fritzsche

Claus Fritzsche (1964-2014), resident of Meerbusch/Northrhine-Westfalia, was a German freelance copywriter, spin doctor for alternative medicine, author, and a homeopathy-lobbyist sponsored by pharmaceutical industry. Fritzsche, originally a qualified business economist, operated several internet sites on alternative medicine and esoteric issues. Among the sites maintained is "psychophysik.com" (launched in 2005), for which he managed to win authors of the "renown" of one Helmut Hille, and an H.Blog promoting homeopathy. With partners, Claus Fritzsche also operated a Network Claus Fritzsche Mentaltraining, marketing courses in mental training.

Fritzsche also was the editor of a blog which is part of the website of Deutscher Zentralverein homöopathischer Ärzte e.V. (DZVhÄ), the German Central Association of Homeopathic Physicians.

Prayer-Service

Fritzsche became known when, in May 2005, he believed to have found a market gap for remote healing on the psycho-market: An internet health prayer service Let people pray for you, a Projekt WIR (Project Us), declared an experiment, organized in cooperation with Swiss spirit healer and MLM-salesperson Perry Fehr. Following a free registration with an e-mail address, other users of the project (not Fritzsche himself) were supposed to pray for the newly registered person. To cite from Projekt WIR: "We understand "praying" in the way that you wish for something for all of the members of Project Us. How exactly you will do that is left up to you." Apparently this free offer of a prayer service was meant to become fee-based at a later point in time "to cover running cost". The project probably failed to succeed: since January 2009, Projekt WIR has been continued with Perry Fehr as its sole director.

Claus Fritzsche and German Bundestag

Homeopathy: 58% of the members of German Bundestag have positive experience with homeopathic treatment

On January 7, 2010, Fritzsche reported a "highly interesting" news item in his "H.Blog": "Homeopathy: 58% of the members of German Bundestag have positive experience with homeopathic treatment"", relying on an announcement of "Deutscher Zentralverein homöopathischer Ärzte e.V. (DZVhÄ)" dating from December 2009. Upon closer examination, the announcement of "Homöopathische Nachrichten" (Homeopathic News) actually turned out purely "homeopathic news", since it did not give any proof that 58% of the members of Bundestag (Lower House of German parliament) had conceded positive experience with homeopathy. Figures rather showed that - contrary to the claim that 360 of the 622 MPs admitted positive experience with homeopathy - a mere 61 representatives had answered the question at all (9,8%), and of these only 35 had answered "Yes" (6% of all representatives). German Scienceblogger Marcus Anhäuser disclosed this in his blog "Plazeboalarm".

Controversies with Nina Gerlach, GWUP, Psiram (EsoWatch) and others

Logo of GWUP-Blog, alleged proof of freemasonry and esotericism in skeptics' organisation GWUP according to Claus Fritzsche. Citation Fritzsche: "Note the icon reminiscent of a freemason symbol in the top left corner of GWUP-blog. This symbolism and the lurid style of the blog and its commentators is hardly different from the stuff some „esoteric“ world conspiracy and doomsday groups come up with. You can almost see the foam at their mouths."

Comments by Claus Fritzsche regarding edits of articles in German Wikipedia using the pseudonym "Rumsfeld2". According to Fritzsche, these edits were private "edit experiments". Wikipedia did not recognize them as regular writer activity and permanently banned Fritzsche for "vandalism"

Using the pseudonym of rumsfeld2, Fritzsche tried to integrate his personal views on homeopathy into Wikipedia articles, without giving valid sources as required by Wikipedia regulations. Additionally, he repeatedly attempted to place links to his website psychophysik.com into articles. When this failed, he resorted to denigrating Wikipedia entirely, and started to publish respective conspiracy theories in his blog. Fritzsche's Wikipedia activities ended with his permanent ban for vandalism. Fritzsche blamed his ban on a conspiracy led by Nina Gerlach who was a board member of Wikimedia Germany e.V. at that point in time. In retaliation, he took up internet stalking Mrs Gerlach since then, publishing her alleged misconduct in his H. Blog and in OpenPR, an open access public relations platform. Fritzsche later claimed his edits in German Wikipedia under the pseudonym Rumsfeld2 had just been private "edit experiments". Such experiments as well as linking to non-reputable sources (or blogs) do not comply with Wikipedia regulations.

Fritzsche was a pronounced opponent of the German skeptics' organisation Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) (Society for the Scientific Investigation of Para-Sciences) based in Roßdorf near Darmstadt. GWUP is well known in Germany and e.g. organised the 6th World Skeptics Congress 2012. Fritzsche accused GWUP, in his view a "group of atheist fundamentalists", of proceeding „esoterically“, „pseudoscientifically“, and „naively“. Fritzsche saw proof of this "esoteric" nature of the organisation in the GWUP logo which reminded him of a „Freemason symbol“. Fritzsche believed GWUP to be part of a conspiracy in collaboration with German Scienceblogs and Psiram (EsoWatch). Cooperating with Rolf Finkbeiner (a climate skeptic, antivaccinationist, proponent of Germanic New Medicine, etc.) and Hans Weidenbusch (inventor of a perpetual motion device), Fritzsche was the initiator of an anti-Esowatch campaign started in early 2009. In March 2009, he transfered activities against GWUP and Nina Gerlach from his H.Blog to a new site called GWUP.WATCH, attended by anonymous "press releases". Various writers at scienceblogs.de, most notably Prof. Dr. Dr. Ulrich Berger and Florian Freistetter, were being "watched" by Claus Fritzsche.

Since November 2009, Fritzsche was also supported by Jocelyne Lopez (a layperson regarding physics criticising the theory of relativity) who quotes his publications against Psiram (EsoWatch) on GWUP.WATCH in her blog. It was presumably just by coincidence that the begin of a cooperation between Fritzsche and Lopez was marked by the exposure of a forum user "webfox" who had criticised Lopez fiercely for her undifferentiated views on antisemitism and for holocaust denial and then became a target of Fritzsche.Fritzsche "unmasked" webfox on his GWUP.WATCH blog. Without restraint and without the slightest evidence, real persons were associated with the account webfox, and IP addresses were published which he presumably received from Lopez. Fritzsche thus acted as a stooge of Jocelyne Lopez and perhaps also of Helmut Hille (a philosopher, physics layman and critic of the relativity theory).

Activities as a pharma lobbyist and author of vituperative attacks

Sponsoring of CAM Media.Watch by pharma industry (June 2012)

Article in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Source: [2])

Article in Süddeutsche Zeitung

Fritzsche also operated a pharmalobby blog www.cam-media-watch.de, whose imprint also lists Harald Walach. Walach holds an endowed chair funded by Heel, a large producer of homeopathics, which in turn supported Fritzsche's CAM Media.Watch blog. The blog maintained by Walach's Institut für transkulturelle Gesundheitswissenschaften der Europa-Universität Viadrina [Institute of Transcultural Health Sciences] in turn again refers to CAM Media.Watch.

By its own account, the PR blog was supposed to assist journalists „who want to look behind the curtain of scientific research of natural remedies, complementary medicine, as well as unconventional methods“, thus providing public relations for pseudo medicine, in particular homeopathy. Fritzsche's blog used to be sponsored by several pharmaceutical companies, e.g. Weleda AG, Deutsche Homöopathie-Union (DHU-Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe), Hevert Arzneimittel and Biologische Heilmittel Heel GmbH, Baden-Baden, with an annual amount of altogether 43.000 Euro. According to an article in German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung from June 2012, Fritzsche was an author of "vituperative articles" and "apparently responsible for the denigration of critics of homeopathy" for DZVhÄ. Upon inquiry, DZVhÄ as well as several "producers of globuli" confirmed their sponsoring of the blog which in part were volunteered by Fritzsche, while for some blogs, Fritzsche was fully responsible as an editor in charge. According to SZ there was a kind of network of Munich Neural and "Noise-field" therapist Imke Plischko (board member of Internationale Gesellschaft für Neuraltherapie IGNH [International Society for Neural Therapy]), Claus Fritzsche, and Harald Walach. An e-mail available to SZ which Fritzsche distributed to his network, containing the draft of a scorcher on renowned journalist Max Rauner with a request for "examination of contents and style", SZ commented, was not compatible with journalistic principles.

Quote from the SZ article:

"[...]Manufacturers of medicinal products finance a journalist who pillories critics of their products. For any conventional pharmaceutical company this would be regarded a scandal. [...] Fritzsche’s sponsors are popular manufacturers of homeopathic pills. Market leader is DHU, a subsidiary of Schwabe (well-known products are Kytta, Prostagutt, Tebonin).. [...] The sums they are dealing with are not peanuts: Total sales of all manufacturers amounts to 400 million Euro, 100 alone on behalf of DHU.[...] Fritzsche sees no problem in the sponsorship: “Nearly identical contracts exist with every sponsor”, he openly writes. “These contracts oblige me to respect relevant laws, to remain a neutral position regarding ideology, science and politics. Moreover they provide independency of my editorial work and my scientific advisory board.” Advertising of products is also strictly excluded.
But for a publisher of a journalistic blog the Codex of the Press applies, too. “For the responsibility of the press towards the public it is common courtesy that editorial publications must not be biased by private or economical interests of third parties or personal economical interests of journalists.” Furthermore, “Anyone who lets himself be bribed for the publishing or suppressing of news acts dishonorable and against the values of his profession." How he reconciles this with his sponsoring, Fritzsche was asked. No answer to these questions from him, though several e-mails were written in which he criticized the “leading questions” and threatened to initiate legal measures.
Fritzsche has several more websites on which he recommends esoteric therapies which are not acknowledged scientifically. Moreover he denigrated several journalists from Spiegel, Spiegel Online, Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Süddeutsche.de. And of course Edzard Ernst, again and again. The allegations are always the same: frivolous research, incompetence, lopsided and biased presentation of facts. Fritzsche counterlinks his sites to each other in order to improve their google ranking. Besides CAM Media.Watch, Fritzsche also holds the websites www.psychophysik.com, www.neuraltherapie-blog.de and www.esowatch.org.[...]"

When criticism of CAM Media.Watch was voiced on Weleda's facebook pages in July 2012, Weleda-spokesman Theo Stepp declared they were going to stop sponsoring the blog.

Quotes

• Ohne Spitzenplätze bei Google wirft das Denunziations-Geschäft allerdings nur wenig Ertrag ab. (2012) [Without a Google top ranking, the defamatory business renders only small profits]

See also

• Psychophysik 2.0

Press releases

• Jens Lubbadeh: "Homöopathie-Lobby im Netz - Schmutzige Methoden der sanften Medizin", Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30.06.2012 (German) Translation at Quackometer

Weblinks

• http://www.sales-and-marketing.biz/
• http://www.gwup.org/component/content/article/303-kritiker-der-gwup

Blogs

• Little H.:http://www.thetwentyfirstfloor.com/?p=4424
• Little H.: http://blog.psiram.com/2012/07/edzard-ernst-uber-little-h/ (German)

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• http://www.transgallaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/board.php?boardid=109
• http://blog.gwup.net/2012/05/02/mietmauler-und-co/
• http://blog.gwup.net/2012/07/01/homoopathie-lobbyisten-ohne-schamgrenzen/
• http://www.internet-law.de/2012/07/gesponsertes-blog.html
• http://brightsblog.wordpress.com/tag/www-claus-fritzsche-de/
• https://blasphemieblog2.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/homoopathiehersteller-sponsorn-netz-pranger-fur-kritiker/

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• http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2012/07/german-homeopathy-companies-pay-journalist-who-smears-uk-academic.html