Wallace Sampson (March 29, 1930 – May 25, 2015),[1] also known as Wally,[2] was an American medical doctor and consumer advocate against alternative medicine and other fraud schemes.
[4][5] The San Francisco Chronicle quotes him as saying "We've looked into most of the practices and, biochemically or physically, their supposed effects lie somewhere between highly improbable and impossible."
He was a founding editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, former chair of the Board of Directors of the National Council against Health Fraud, former Chair of the State of California Cancer Advisory Council (advisory board on health fraud schemes), and consulted on medical fraud and other fraud schemes for the Medical Board of California, Association of State Medical Boards, California State Attorney General, US Postal Service, multiple district attorneys, and multiple insurance companies.
Sampson has published numerous academic papers in various medical fields, as well as popular works including for the Saturday Evening Post.
Hall reports that Sampson first became interested in writing about skepticism topics when his patients kept asking about using Laetrile to treat cancer.