Anthony Robbins
Anthony J. Robbins is a motivational speaker best known for his seminars which have people engage in fire walking. Robbins’ book Awaken The Giant Within brings to mind another title, The Bigness of the Fellow Withinby chiropractic guru B.J. Palmer. The gist of these books is to think and act BIG — a kind of self-imposed grandiose philosophy. Robbins attained a moment of fame when it was publicized that President Clinton had him come to Camp David to teach some of his methods for success [1]. In 1995, Robbins and his company, Robbins Research International (RRI), Inc., agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they exaggerated the profit potential of franchises for his motivational seminars. According to the FTC, prospective franchisees paid fees ranging …
Continue Reading >Raw Milk Can Be Deadly
Raw milk is unpasteurized. Milk is a highly nutritious food. As such, it is a desirable habitat for many kinds of microorganisms, some of which are beneficial to humans, and others which are not. Pasteurization reduces the number of microorganisms to a level that makes milk safe to drink without significantly altering its nutritional value. Promoters of raw milk often misrepresent the nutrient loses associated with pasteurization. Sometimes their misinformation misrepresents the nutrient losses associated with old-fashioned milk sterilization as applying to modern pasteurization. Other misinformation, such as the completely false claim that pasteurization makes calcium unavailable for absorption by the body, has no basis. The 1994 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey found that 128 of the 3,999 people surveyed reported drinking raw milk. …
Continue Reading >Radionics and Albert Abrams, M.D.
Albert Abrams, MD, imagined that the secret to health and disease lie in the nature of vibrations emanating from the body’s cells. Abrams called these theoretical vibrations “The Electrical Reactions of Abrams” (ERA). ERA also came to be known as Radionics. Abrams created a black box called the Oscilloclast which was alleged to not only measure but alter these vibrations and effect health and disease. (The Oscilloclast is the prototype of what has become known as “black box quackery.”) To franchise ERA, Abrams created the Electronic Medical Foundation (EMF) through which he marketed some 5,000 gadgets. The story of Albert Abrams and his Oscilloclast is renowned in the annuals of quackery [1-2] His many imitators included chiropractor Ruth Drown [3] and George de la Warr …
Continue Reading >Pharmacists: Questionable Practices
Drugstore pharmacists play special roles as health professionals. Like other pharmacists, they occupy an important point of a triangle with physicians and patients by providing information about medications. Unlike practitioners in hospital pharmacies, drugstore pharmacists are also engaged in rough-and-tumble businesses that must compete with health-food stores, supermarkets, and others who sell dietary supplements, nonprescription remedies, and weight-loss products. As members of an ethical health profession, drugstore pharmacists are faced with a dilemma. They must survive in an environment in which: Their customers are generally ignorant about health and nutrition, are searching for “magic bullets” to solve health problems, and are highly vulnerable to exploitation. Their competitors are aggressive, not bound by professional ethics, and are disdainful of consumer protection law and the regulatory process. …
Continue Reading >Some Notes on Quackery
Webster’s Dictionary defines quackery as “the actions or pretensions of a quack,” and a quack as “a pretender to medical skills he does not possess.” Quack is short for “quacksalver” [1] meaning literally to quack “like a duck about his ‘salves’ and remedies.” [2] The duck symbolizes quackery because it makes a lot of noise about nothing. A congressional study defined a quack as “Anyone who promote medical schemes or remedies known to be false, or which are unproven, for a profit.”[3] Quackery is as quackery does, and the defining behavior of quackery is promotionalism. To promote is “to contribute to the growth and prosperity of; to present for public acceptance through advertising and publicity.” Advertising is less pernicious than publicity because it is recognizable …
Continue Reading >“Passive Exercise” Devices
The term “passive exercise” is an oxymoron, because if something is passive, it is not exercise. Common sense alone should be enough to discredit claims that a person can gain the benefits of working out by not working out. Nevertheless, the appeal of getting something for nothing is so strong that many people are willing to believe that such is possible. Passive-exercise promotions usually involve devices such as electrical muscle stimulators, devices that move the body or limbs while a person remains relaxed, or psychological aids such as subliminal tapes — not unlike the phony “think system” of learning how to play a musical instrument introduced by “Professor Harold Hill” the con man in the delightful musical comedy, The Music Man. The most persistent passive …
Continue Reading >Physician’s Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM)
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a nonprofit association that claims to promote “optimal diet for prevention of disease,” says there is evidence that humans don’t have a specific requirement for protein, and teaches that “too much dietary protein from animal sources is detrimental to health.” [1] PCRM’s reference to “animal sources” is key to understanding its true purpose. Its leader, Neal Barnard, MD, has been identified as medical adviser to the radical animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and PCRM may be substantially funded by it. Animal activists are highly successful fundraisers. The combined budgets for 15 of the leading animal protection organizations exceeded $115 million in 1994 (PETA took in $12 million) [2]. In NCAHF’s view, …
Continue Reading >Rife Devices
Royal Raymond Rife was the chauffeur for the Bridges family of San Diego, California for many years (Mrs. Bridges was the wealthy daughter of the founder of the Timkin Roller Bearing Company). Apparently, Rife was gifted in mechanics, and Mrs. Bridges supplied him with a workshop and the best of tools. It is said that all Rife had to do was to take the widow Bridges for a ride once in a while and to play the organ for her, and that if he wanted $10,000 for a gadget he was working on, she would give it to him [1]. Rife had a keen interest in optics and developed a microscope of extraordinarily high magnification. Rife also worked on a radio wave device called the …
Continue Reading >Reflexology
Reflexology theory alleges that reflex points on the foot, hand or ear correspond to areas of the body and/or organs. Charts with organs superimposed on the foot, hand or ear allege to map these points. This monograph refers only to foot reflexology, but can be used to infer to all types. Using the chart as a guide, the practitioner probes the theorized reflex points and questions the client. (The chart does not indicate specific diseases or diagnoses but the supposed location of he problem. a differential diagnosis of a specific disease, but the location of a disease.) Instructions from a “how to” manual tells the reflexologist what to do as her/she probes the foot: Look for constrictions, or the places where the person feels pain …
Continue Reading >Osteopathy’s Sectarian Roots
William T. Jarvis, Ph.D.By his own account, at 10 o’clock on June 22, 1874, the “truth” of osteopathy illuminated the mind of Andrew Taylor Still, the son of a missionary who used to assist his father in caring for ailing Shawnee indians. Still attended medical school but never obtained a degree. Still, who had become disillusioned with doctors and drugs following the loss of his children to cerebro-spinal meningitis, hypothesized that all diseases were due to misalignments of the bones (hence, osteo bone, pathy disease). He believed that such misalignments produced muscle spasms which impeded the circulation of the blood resulting in disease (termed the Rule of the Artery). [For a review of Andrew Taylor Still’s eccentricities see: Gardner. Fads and Fallacies In The Name …
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