Randi's Encyclopedia As Randi says on p. 197 in his brief discussion of medical quackery, "political and legal considerations have prevented open discussion or even the questioning of procedures that are clearly without merit. The highly litigious nature of American society has effectively provided the quacks with protection, and the public suffers because it cannot afford to defend itself...." Randi has been the recent victim of a long chain of frivolous litigations which have virtually wiped out his life savings, even as he won every case. This goes a long way toward explaining and justifying the hasty, sloppy and incomplete, and strangely restrained, aspects of this book