His critiques of government regulation of health risks were not limited to tobacco.

In 1963, Campbell
published an angry editorial about Frances Oldham Kelsey who, while at the FDA, refused to permit
thalidomide to be sold in the United States.[40]

In a number of other essays, Campbell supported crank medicine, arguing that government regulation was
more harmful than beneficial[41] and that regulating quackery prevented the use of many possible beneficial
medicines (e.g., krebiozen).[42][43]

Pseudoscience, parapsychology, and politics

In the 1930s Campbell became interested in Joseph Rhine's theories about ESP (Rhine had already founded
Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University when Campbell was a student there),[44] and over the
following years his growing interest in parapsychology would be reflected in the stories he published when
he encouraged the writers to include these topics in their tales,[45] leading to the publication of numerous
works about telepathy and other "psionic" abilities. This post-war "psi-boom"[46] has been dated by science
fiction scholars to roughly the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, and continues to influence many popular
culture tropes and motifs.

His increasing beliefs in pseudoscience would eventually start to isolate and alienate him from some of his
own writers. He wrote favorably about such things as the "Dean drive", a device that supposedly produced
thrust in violation of Newton's third law, and the "Hieronymus machine", which could supposedly amplify
psi powers.[47][Note 3][Note 4]

In 1949, Campbell also became interested in Dianetics. He wrote of L. Ron Hubbard's initial article in
Astounding that "[i]t is, I assure you in full and absolute sincerity, one of the most important articles ever
published."[47]

Asimov wrote: "A number of writers wrote pseudoscientific stuff to ensure sales to Campbell, but the best
writers retreated, I among them. ..."[4] Elsewhere Asimov went on to further explain,

Campbell championed far-out ideas ... He pained very many of the men he had trained
(including me) in doing so, but felt it was his duty to stir up the minds of his readers and force
curiosity right out to the border lines. He began a series of editorials ... in which he championed
a social point of view that could sometimes be described as far right (he expressed sympathy
for George Wallace in the 1968 national election, for instance). There was bitter opposition to
this from many (including me – I could hardly ever read a Campbell editorial and keep my
temper).[5]

Assessment by peers
Damon Knight described Campbell as a "portly, bristled-haired blond man with a challenging stare."[49]
"Six-foot-one, with hawklike features, he presented a formidable appearance," said Sam Moskowitz.[50] "He
was a tall, large man with light hair, a beaky nose, a wide face with thin lips, and with a cigarette in a holder
forever clamped between his teeth", wrote Asimov.[51]

Algis Budrys wrote that "John W. Campbell was the greatest editor SF has seen or is likely to see, and is in
fact one of the major editors in all English-language literature in the middle years of the twentieth century.
All about you is the heritage of what he built".[52]