Health Fraud Conference: Expose' from 1987

The Health Fraud Conference: Of Quacks, Missionaries and Flat Earth Medicine

[See below: Missionaries Sending Deceivers to Hell | The Wright Brothers Story | Their Fears are Killing Themselves and Us]

Retype of 1987 expose' in Townsend Letter:

The Health Fraud Conference: Of Quacks, Missionaries and Flat Earth Medicine

[This is a retype of an article from ten years ago. Original can be ordered at the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients.] I attended the Seattle presentation of the "Health Fraud Conference and Fair" [1986] and witnessed a program that your readers should be aware of. For me it was an eye-opener, first because of the speakers' obvious total belief in what they are doing. Second, I found a surprising undercurrent of religious crusading which angered me because I didn't expect it, and because it was so pervasive. They are sadly and dangerously misdirecting, pushing listeners away from many valuable, life-saving approaches to health care.

I see that we have got some work to do, to educate the public and pubic officials about what this program represents.

1. The Health Fraud Conference--A Rigged Debate

The announced content was promising enough--anyone would be interested in such topics as "Arthritis Cures", "AIDS and Sexually-Transmitted Diseases", "Cancer", "Weight Loss", "Vitamins", "Evaluating Advertising". Speakers included an oncologist, rheumatologist, surgeon, pharmacist, nutrition doctorate, and FDA/FTC/Better Business Bureau representatives. I expected to hear outlines of various approaches and how the AMA differed and felt theirs was the best approach, as well as hearing about outright impossible health schemes. But, the presentations were one-sided and no material was given from those whose therapies were being condemned. The therapies that were mentioned were sketched broadly and incompletely, compared to the literature I have read from their proponents. One reader even belittled the example of the healthy Hunza mountain people, saying they had nothing to teach us because their children and older people have the "usual" degenerative diseases (but he did not mention that this is true now only after the Chinese put in a road and brought in refined flour, sweets and auto pollution).

I felt like I was at a rigged debate, with half-truths presented as the opponent's argument, and then dismissed as "unproven" or "well-meaning but not scientific" (ignoring studies already done, or often extensive clinical successes). There was enough truth in what they said to grab at one's interest, but all they delivered to the audience was a message of how they were the only ones to be trusted to know the truth in a terrifying and complex world.

Their material on cancer was especially frightening; not in what they said, but what they did not say. The work of Harold Manners, Michio Kushi, Ann Wigmore, the Simontons, the Gersons, Emanual Revici, etc., were named only and classed as unproven or dangerous without any explanation of the work itself. The use of cancer statistics by the speakers is revealing: three charts were shown, one of patients spontaneously recovering, one of illness and periodic remission, one of steady decline and death. They said that this was the way "the disease of cancer" acts. I don't think any of us in alternative health care thinks of cancer as a "disease" but is more correctly called a condition of a body with a weakened immune system, in reaction to influences on it. The speakers' flat dismissal of the first chart as simply cases in which cancer spontaneously goes away shows their total blindness to the fact that this chart represents THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE--those who for various reasons have been able to recover from the condition. Instead of studying these people in detail, they ignore them and spend time using drugs, surgery and radiation to manipulate the health responses of those who are not able to throw off the cancerous condition.

Speakers repeatedly said that theirs was a scientific approach, and that the "unproven" therapies have not done valid double-blind studies in an acceptable scientific way. They said "we'll accept proof", but today the "Prove-It Game" takes millions of dollars, discounts clinical successes as "anecdotal" and also ignores concepts important to the wholistic approach such as biochemical individuality.

While ridiculing nutritional and psychosomatic approaches, they made only tangential reference to the ravages of chemotherapy and other drastic approaches. They warned against methods they don't use; one slide showed supplements I recognized as those sometimes given by kinesiology practitioners. The speaker stated "These were prescribed by a bizarre technique."

All through the day I watched the speakers cultivate an attitude of fear and crisis. It was almost palpable. I felt they purposely evoked the "panic response"--desperate, uncritical dependence upon their proclaimed expertise--and several in the crowd repeatedly asked "What can we do?"

2. The Quacks--"Ones who Deceive"

"Attack the quacks!", this was the aim of the Health Fraud Conference. They were encouraging the audience to file complaints, targeting the "unorthodox" practitioners and approaches they disagreed with. One pamphlet stated "Broadly speaking, quackery is misinformation about health" (FDA Consumer Memo). Several speakers also said that "economic fraud" was another danger, because people spend money on "quack" methods rather than supporting "legitimate" research and therapies. They warned about people who claim their approach is new, a breakthrough, or of being "persecuted by the Establishment".

One slide showed a dazzling array of quack approaches including as I recall--megavitamins, gerovital, laetrile, hypnotherapy, naturopathy, homeopathy, herbal therapy, reflexology, Therapeutic Touch, EAV, SOT, DMSO, iridology, chelation, hair analysis, Toftness device, applied kinesiology, and more. They spent a long time showing slides of a plastic disposable colonic irrigation tube (the long uncontoured variety) and drawing gasps from the crowd as they described colon irrigation in uncomfortable detail. They specifically targeted naturopathic physicians, showing a Winnie-The-Pooh doll holding a "My Doctor is a Naturopathic Physician" bumper sticker, and telling derisive stories about the casual, unscientific appearance and inappropriate enthusiasm of some naturopaths the speaker had met. Naturopaths and other "quacks" were condemned as being "deceivers". This was the point at which I felt a distinct shift into a religious crusade.

An encouraging note I want to interject at this point is that one speaker admitted that "Health fraud is on the rise, the quacks are gaining. Fraud will continue to grow; more and more well-known people with impressive credentials are coming out and supporting unproven or fraudulent therapies." To me, this is encouraging. They know something is wrong, something they stand for is not being accepted any longer. I ask you, why are there more "quacks"? I think the nation's vital question at this point should be "Who decides what constitutes quackery?"

3. The Missionaries--Sending the Deceivers to Hell

I was surprised to find attacks on therapies associated with "eastern" thought. One speaker seemed almost smug when he showed that slide of Pooh-Bear promoting naturopathy, and later showed that same slide and remarked "And some say Winnie-The-Pooh is a Taoist" referring to a fanciful book using eastern philosophy to analyze this make-believe character, The Tao of Pooh. This remark struck a resonant chord in some of the conference organizers, and a few in the audience also nodded, as if possible association with eastern thinking and health approaches were some kind of evil pathway. I then recalled that one of the radio announcements about the Fraud Conference warned the public about health treatments which were Oriental or Eastern.

I discovered that the most vocal of the anti-quack organizations, The National Council Against Health Fraud, is based in Loma Linda, and is largely a missionary outreach of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, supported by church members. A friend of mine once attended a conference featuring their most outspoken member William Jarvis, Ph.D., and he described this as almost a prayer meeting, calling people to rally against the influence of the devil in the holistic health care field. It is the NCAHF which created the "Quack-Buster" T-shirt; at the Health Fraud Conference I found these T-shirts being worn by the video camera crew and others on the support staff. They responded enthusiastically whenever a speaker mentioned how God's order should be followed, or condemned or ridiculed some eastern-related therapy. I was startled when a speaker talked about naturopaths and others as being "deceivers" of the public with their false information, and then flashed onto the screen illustrations from Dante's Inferno and the place Dante said God reserved in Hell for deceivers--a fiery cavern with pits in the floor in which the evil ones were interred head-first for an eternity of punishment. The laughter, nodding heads, and even a few handclaps gave me the impression that this was a reality that they would hasten to bring about!!

I feel the NCAHF is hiding their key controlling role; the official government-printed flyer did not include them as participants, but at the Conference they were listed (as the Washington Council Against Health Fraud) in the packet handed to us.

The impact of the NCAHF on freedom of information and access to health care cannot be over-estimated. They spend a lot of money to defeat health alternatives which threaten their beliefs. They have had members take part in the Consumer Reports Expert Panel on Unproven Health Remedies. Their presence was clearly seen in the Health Fraud Conference presentations.

The NCAHF has a "hidden agenda" behind their protestations and the confusion and fear they are creating; the public and public officials need to know of their extreme bias in statements attacking health care methods. They state they want to protect us from "fraud", but then define this as basically anything which is contrary to their beliefs. I feel that in "protecting" people, they are actually holding us all as "health care hostages", denying effective health care to a majority of people because of their own religious-based fears and short-sighted world view.

4. How Their Fears are Killing Themselves--And Us

The NCAHF reminds me of a sad incident I read about--from around the time of Stanley Livingston, a group of British adventurers became lost in the African bush. They wandered for several weeks amid the harsh landscape, wild animals, and furtive heathens, who sometimes came near with magic concoctions and ritual artifacts. Rations gone, delirious, they lay huddled together, their weapons driving away the "cunning black pagans". Their log book tells of the ways the enemy tried to tempt them and poison them, and how their faith remained unwavering. Months later, their graves were found by a team of explorers, led there--by the gentle pygmies who had tried so hard to heal their diseases and offer the holiest food they had.

I think fears of alternative approaches are needless. Religious crusaders--whether they hold scientific credentials or are trusting parishioners funding a mission to save the world from "deceivers"--who condemn methods which are different from their current beliefs about health and medical care are hurting us all. They mislead and misinform the public about important health and life approaches which we in alternative fields believe are necessary for the survival of our planet. Fear of the philosophy of users of a valid therapy should not keep health care practitioners and researchers from studying it. There will be plenty of room for religion in the developing, expanded view of health care.

5. "Flat Earth Medicine"--The Fundamentalist Legacy

The Health Fraud Conference disclosed the "tunnel vision" of the doctors who spoke, and the refusal-to-see of the religious crusaders who slanted the conference so dramatically. I propose we use a new term to graphically depict what their restrictions would do to health care in the future; these would force us to practice "Flat Earth Medicine". This denies anything which challenges current medical theory in the west, and especially those approaches which rely on the interactive approach to health and life which is also inherent in eastern medicines and models of existence.

Flat Earth Medicine restricts the explorations of medical, biological, psychological researchers in the same way scientists were bound a few centuries ago. Just as with the daring navigators who sailed the oceans against the currents of conventional "wisdom", so it is with many of today's most brilliant thinkers about life and health. Publications such as yours are beacons of light within the darkness of denial that threatens us. The health methods attacked by the Health Fraud Conference are not all eastern, but in my own studies, the expanded vision of an interactive universe (energy flow, give-and-take, etc.) explains how so many methods currently labeled "unproven" all fit together so well.

I have examined many of the "unproven" therapies, and found connections when I integrated them with the knowledge of energy flow originally described by the Chinese as the basis for their acupuncture meridian theory and the yin/yang flow between life and the elements. It falls into place beautifully--Acupuncture Medicine, the meridian stimulation of Reflexology, muscle testing of Applied Kinesiology (changing when meridians are stimulated), chiropractic reflex points correlating with acupuncture areas, the energy in the percussed dilutions of Homeopathy (which makes changes in kinesiology tests when brought near the body), electrodiagnosis (EAV) measurement of energy at the acupuncture points (also using homeopathic preparations in testing), fiber changes in the iris of the eye with changes in energy flow, the effects of electromagnetic radiations on health (magnetic, light, color, sound, microwaves, low frequency vibrations, etc.), radial pulse changes revealing stressors near the body, Toftness device detection of body radiation imbalances, Kirlian photograph of energy, the effect of vitamins and psychological states on kinesiology tests, cancer cures by metabolic balancing, Therapeutic Touch transferring body energies, Polarity, and much more. To me, it all fits. And, it is all being denied as "quackery," or "Eastern" (ignoring the facts that homeopathy and electrodiagnosis were discovered by German medical doctors and chiropractic and applied kinesiology were developed by Americans).

6. Looking to the Future--Supporting Diversity in Healthcare

The Health Fraud Conference was more valuable for the assumptions and viewpoints it disclosed and the insights we can gain from exposing them, than for the "Flat Earth Medicine" it promoted. Humanity made it past the olden days when we feared the edges of a flat earth. Science and religion have flourished and the change in world view didn't destroy them. A similar kind of change is happening today, reflected in the observation that "The quacks are gaining...more and more well-known people with impressive credentials are coming out and supporting unproven or fraudulent therapies..." That wording reflects fear of change, but change won't destroy science or religion this time either.

In science, Quantum Physics has brought new ways to understand energy interactions, and scientists are looking at the world in a new light (even homeopathy's percussed dilutions are being considered as energy storage solutions). The subtleties of personal, nutritional balance, environmental energetics, and even psychological "vibrations" are inducing a new dimension of research, literature and clinical experience. "Energy Medicine" is a term sometimes used to describe health care applications of these new insights.

For Religion, I think fears of alternative approaches are needless. I read a paper by a minister who is also a Touch For Health (kinesiology) practitioner, Dr. Jim Reid, who says that kinesiological science allows the practitioner to function like an "electrician", and that there can be Buddhist electricians, Christian electricians, etc. Touch For Health isn't from the Devil just because some practitioners aren't evangelical Christians. Fear of the philosophy of users of a valid therapy should not keep compassionate health care practitioners from studying it; there will be plenty of room for religion in the developing, expanded view of health care.

7. Heresy--One Who Saw the Future ["The Wright Brothers Story"]

Dr. Reid also tells a wonderful story I want to give you. He answers a book attacking holistic health (The Holistic Healers, written in part by an instructor at the San Diego School of Evangelism): "Dr. Reisser makes one other statement to which I would like to respond. He says 'You will never see muscle testing written up in Scientific American or recognized by the National Institutes of Health.' I would like to respond to Dr. Reisser that yesterday's heresy often becomes tomorrow's orthodoxy. It wasn't too long ago that doctors used to bleed people to 'make them well'. Now they give them blood transfusions. In 1870, at a Methodist College, an educator said that in 50 years men would fly like birds. A Methodist bishop was present with his pregnant wife and 3-year-old son. He said 'Flight is strictly reserved for the angels and I beg you not to repeat that statement lest you be guilty of blasphemy.' That bishop's name was Milton Wright. He took his wife and son, Orville home. His second son Wilbur was born and 33 years later, his sons did what only angels were supposed to do."

Looking at the restrictions Flat Earth Medicine would place on our world, I turn to the Townsend Letter and applaud your "explorers" in health care. You are all like the Wright Brothers or a Christopher Columbus in daring to investigate where others refuse to go. You may be facing opposition and adversity, but for all of us, the message is clear : "Sail on. Sail on!"

8. Beyond Rhetoric

Let's go past the one-sided debate the Health Fraud Conference represents, and even my reaction to it here as well. The public and public officials have a key role in the future of health care. They need to look with open eyes, at a much broader view than they have been allowed to see so far and consider these elements:

1. The economic monopoly of health care by vested interests;

2. Separation of church and state in health care; and

3. Freedom of choice for health care. These are all issues that need further discussion as we move forward.