This excerpt is made available courtesy of Prometheus Books (U.S.).
 
 

4
Acupuncture, Naturopathy, and Other "Health-Care" Wanna-Bes
(This page is extensive)
 

Practicing medicine is serious business because it has a major impact on people's quality of life and, at times, deals directly with life or death. To practice medicine in a competent manner, it usually is necessary to acquire a college education, attend medical school for four years, take one or more years of full-time postgraduate training, pass a licensing examination, and then participate in continuing education throughout one's entire professional career. Some medical doctors manage to deliver substandard, incompetent, or unethical care. But the large majority of consumers who seek medical care in an intelligent and responsible manner will obtain what they need.

This chapter is about people who want (or actually have) the privilege of diagnosing and/or treating others without the responsibility of knowing what they are doing. They are a mixed bag:

Acupuncturists are free to make diagnoses and administer treatment that has no scientific basis. Those who lack medical training are permitted to practice independently in some states and under medical supervision in others.

Astrologers are permitted to give people all sorts of advice about physical and emotional problems.

Ayurvedic medicine is traditional Hindu folk medicine. It is vigorously promoted in the United States and other western countries by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation (TM) movement. Physicians and lay followers of the guru market a line of products as well as services.

Christian Science practitioners claim that they can cure anything through the use of prayer and "correct thinking." They rarely are held accountable for their actions, even when death results from medical neglect.

Evangelical "healers" don't bother to make diagnoses but claim to be able to help whatever ails people. They collect money and make promises they can't keep, with virtually no legal restraint.

Homeopaths claim that the full range of human ailments can be cured by highly diluted remedies. Some practitioners are physicians or other health professionals who are licensed to practice their profession; other practitioners are unlicensed lay persons. Homeopathy also is promoted on a do-it-yourself basis through the sale of products in "health food" stores and a few drugstores.

Multilevel marketing involves person-to-person sales of products and distributorships. About forty companies are marketing vitamins, minerals, herbs, homeopathic remedies, weight-loss products, and/or other health-related items. A few of their distributors are licensed health professionals, but most are lay persons who are neither qualified nor legally allowed to advise people on health problems. Yet most of them get away with doing so.

Naturopaths are licensed in a few states, where they are permitted to function as primary-care providers, make diagnoses, and administer a wide range of treatments that have no scientific basis.

Acupuncture and Related Practices

Westerners have always been fascinated with the marvels and mysteries of the Orient, and they have been easy marks for mystical flimflam and hocus-pocus from that part of the world. The story of acupuncture illustrates this well.

The ancient Chinese practice of sticking needles into the body to influence the flow of so-called "vital energy" (also called "Qi" or "Chi") has changed little over several thousand years except that the number of acupuncture points (where Qi supposedly can be influenced) has grown from about 365 to over 2,000. The West has discovered, embraced, rejected, and rediscovered acupuncture several times in the last few centuries. Even electroacupuncture was used in France more than 150 years ago. The latest rediscovery was tied in with political events that gave acupuncture powerful momentum that will last into the twenty-first century.

America Falls for Mao' s Hoax

Ironically, the Chinese themselves have rejected acupuncture as worthless several times in their long history, only to see it resurrected. Ancient superstitions often are hard to shake. When President Nixon and other Americans visited China in the early 1970s, acupuncture happened to be in favor. This was because Chairman Mao, unable to provide rational health care to the hundreds of millions of Chinese with only thirty to forty thousand real doctors, had reversed a twenty-year-old Kuomintang policy and declared acupuncture and other ancient practices to be valid. This provided at least an illusion of health care. Suddenly, by acknowledging its "barefoot doctors," China had no doctor shortage after all. Long live Chairman Mao and his great wisdom!

It was important to sell this illusion to the West in order to show that China. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Party, could fend for itself and take care of its people without undue Western influence. More than that, thanks to the brilliance of the Fearless Helmsman, the wisdom of China was to be shared with the West. Both acupuncture and independence were sources of great pride to the Chinese. It became politically correct (and therefore definitely beneficial to one's health) to believe in acupuncture. It is not surprising that Chinese doctors and patients put on a spectacular show for visiting American journalists and politicians. The featured attraction was acupuncture anesthesia for major surgery. Patients chatted, snacked, and praised Chairman Mao while having a brain tumor or goiter removed. A film of brain surgery was even shown at a convention of the American Medical Association.

The sensation these claims created was enough to catapult acupuncture into the limelight in the West. Unfortunately, it was all a hoax. The patients had been carefully selected and indoctrinated, and the demonstrations staged. Many if not all of the patients had been given a tranquilizer, local anesthetic, and/or painkiller in addition to the acupuncture. Even at the peak of its popularity in China, acupuncture anesthesia was used in no more than 5 percent of the operations because it usually doesn't work.1 Reliable chemical anesthesia is now back in favor in China.

During the 1970s, American entrepreneurs, both medical and non-medical, used Madison Avenue techniques to promote clinics, "quickie" seminars, demonstrations, books, correspondence courses, and do-it-yourself kits. Today, acupuncturists are treating psychoses, cancer, AIDS, infections, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, vision and hearing loss, drug addiction, obesity, arthritis, appendicitis, and virtually anything else they please. Some health insurance carriers pay for acupuncture treatment, but so far neither Medicare nor Medicaid does so. Acupuncturists are working hard to change this and may succeed.

Most states still restrict the use of acupuncture to physicians or persons operating under the direct supervision of physicians. In some states, however, it is permitted without medical supervision. Some individuals who perform acupuncture prescribe herbs and call their approach "Chinese medicine."

A Closer Look

The theories and practices of traditional acupuncture have been handed down largely unchanged from ancient Taoist China. As in all primitive animism, unseen vital forces and spirits are believed to control everything. The basic theory is that the human organs are subject to disease when there are imbalances in the Qi or vital energy flow, which has two components: yin and yang, or feminine and masculine. "Balance" between these forces can be restored by using extremely fine needles or other means to stimulate various points said to be located along fourteen (some say twelve) "meridians" running the length of the body. Each point corresponds to an organ and its functions. The needles are inserted into the skin and twirled to move the Qi into or out of different organs as deemed necessary. Then they maybe left in for several minutes. In a variation called moxibustion, small piles of moxa, the leaves of the Chinese wormwood tree, are burned at the ends of the needles or directly on the acupuncture points.

The points chosen for stimulation depend on the symptoms, the season and weather, the patient's gender, the time of day, and, above all, the results of taking the pulse at the wrist. Pulse-taking requires several minutes, but it can take much longer because it is believed that each wrist has six pulses, corresponding to twelve different organs, and that each pulse has about twenty-five qualities. So some three hundred distinct characteristics in a patient's pulse must be evaluated to make a diagnosis and commence treatment. Expert pulse-readers supposedly can detect illnesses long before there are any symptoms and cure them with acupuncture treatments. The needles are inserted rapidly or slowly, twirled clockwise or counterclockwise, used hot or cold, left in for longer or shorter periods, and removed rapidly or slowly, according to their postulated effects on yin or yang to the liver, lungs, heart, or other organ.

Using these methods, thousands of acupuncturists are now practicing throughout the United States and claiming to have effective treatments for obesity, hypertension, ulcers, neurological disorders, and many other health problems. "Colleges" (some just storefronts and office suites) of acupuncture and "oriental medicine" are training thousands more such "experts." These schools can appeal to people who want to play doctor without going to medical school or even to college. Their programs are cheaper, shorter, and easier. While medical students must train for some six to ten years after college, in some states acupuncturists can hang up their shingle two or three years after high school and treat the same diseases as medical doctors.

Many "oriental medicine" practitioners use not only acupuncture, but herbal drugs and radical diets. Some prescribe animal parts as aphrodisiacs, youth potions, and remedies for serious diseases. Their fetishes for rhino horns, black bear gallbladders, tiger penis, and the like support the slaughter of these endangered animals. Even the beloved and heavily protected panda high in the rugged and isolated mountains of West China is not safe from profiteers. Increasing numbers are being caught and killed in traps illegally set by poachers for musk deer. These little deer have scent glands which produce an oil that superstitious humans believe is a miraculous medicine and aphrodisiac. The deer-and accidentally the pandas-are slaughtered because of an ancient superstition that has spread to major Western cities.

Not surprisingly, non-M.D. acupuncturists have had some serious turf disputes with M.D. 'sand are bound to have more as they demand separate-but-equal status, including control over who can do acupuncture. Incredibly, the traditional acupuncturists seem to be slowly winning this battle. In some states they even set the requirements for M.D. 's who want to practice acupuncture for the treatment of pain.

Acupuncturists Declare War on Modern Medicine

Many acupuncturists are at war with modern medicine and make no secret of it. In 1981 the keynote speaker at a meeting of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine likened scientific medicine to death and decay and acupuncture to full liberation. "Acupuncture is part of a New Age which facilitates integral health and the flowering of our humanity," he said. His messianic address laid out a plan for advancing acupuncture while undermining the public's faith in modern medicine and educating people that they need alternative medicine.2

Some state laws authorizing acupuncture accept ancient oriental animist dogma at face value. Hawaii, for example, defines acupuncture as the art of controlling and regulating the flow and balance of the body's energy, "the most important single factor in maintaining the well-being of the organism." Training requirements emphasize learning traditional Chinese physiology "including the five elements organ theory," traditional Chinese diagnosis "including pulse diagnosis," and traditional pathology "including the six Yin and seven Chin." Other state laws have similar language.

Do you think these are flowery words that don't mean much? Do you suppose that acupuncturists aren't really practicing medicine but just treating pain syndromes? Think again. A few years ago an acupuncture clinic opened in a small town on Oahu. This "Holistic Healing Center" has no medical doctor on its staff, just an acupuncturist and a couple of massage therapists. Their ads in the local shopper claimed they have effective treatments for respiratory ailments, circulatory problems, gastrointestinal disorders, urinary tract diseases, sexual problems, obesity, and more. In an interview in the paper, the acupuncturist said:

I want to emphasize that acupuncture and herbal medicine can successfully treat a variety of ailments. Many people focus on the idea of pain management. But actually the science of acupuncture covers everything from pain control to internal disorders, from chronic illnesses to gynecological problems, respiratory disorders to skin problems.... The list can go on and on.

A slick brochure published by the Hawaii Association of Certified Acupuncturists lists "conditions and disorders treatable by acupuncture." These include acute sinusitis, the common cold, tonsillitis, asthma, cataract, gingivitis, duodenal ulcers, diarrhea, acute and chronic colitis, osteoarthritis, and bed-wetting, as well as many pain syndromes. When I asked the Hawaii State Regulated Industries Complaints Office whether the claims made by the clinic and the association were legitimate, I was told that acupuncture can be used in any condition, including cancer, and that practitioners can advertise that they treat any disease as long as they don't promise cures. Non-medical acupuncturists can't do surgery or prescribe prescription drugs, but they appear to be free to claim that their treatments are equal or superior to surgery or drugs.

Oriental medicine and acupuncture schools aren't content to teach ancient Chinese quackery; they teach "modern "quackery as well. For example, the Oriental Medical Institute of Hawaii, a clinic by day and school by night, has included Kirlian photography, iridology, and electroacupuncture (see below) in both its treatment programs and its curriculum. This school is approved by the Hawaii State Department of Education. I wrote to the Superintendent of Education, suggesting that the approval be withdrawn because, by teaching quackery as legitimate health care and by huckstering it to the public, the school was fostering fraud. In addition, warned, by endorsing fraudulent practices, the Department of Education leaves the state vulnerable to massive liability because patients harmed by the school's graduates could sue the state. I was told that the department is looking into my complaint, but I doubt if any action will be taken. My subsequent inquiries have gone unanswered.

Beware of M.D.'s Who Convert to Traditional Acupuncture

A growing number of medical doctors may be incorporating traditional acupuncture into their medical practice. Despite the fact that acupuncture is based on mystical notions of the human body, a program sponsored by the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (AAMA) has been available through the extension division of the University of California, Los Angeles. The program has taught hundreds of M.D.s to use the needles not just for pain relief, but for the treatment of disease in the Chinese tradition.3

AAMA's founding president, Joseph M. Helms, M.D., is vice president of the World Health Organization's World Federation of Acupuncture Moxibustion Society, which establishes training guidelines for the AAMA. The World Health Organization has stated that acupuncture is effective against acute bacillary dysentery, shock, cataract, myopia, acute sinusitis, tonsillitis, asthma, gingivitis, peptic ulcers, and osteoarthritis. Since there is no scientific evidence to support this position, I assume it involves political shenanigans.

According to Helms, most graduates of the UCLA program go on to use acupuncture on perhaps 80 percent of their patients with great success for such problems as "recurrent respiratory infections, irritable bowel syndrome, certain kinds of headaches and sexual dysfunctions, problems with fatigue, minor depression, and recurrent urinary tract infections." Dr. Helms says that an M.D. who completes the course can treat "a broader range of problems than he can strictly with his allopathic training."

Do you believe that a 220-hour acupuncture course can prepare its graduates to offer better treatment than they learned during four years of medical school plus years of additional postgraduate training and experience? To 80 percent of their patients? Do you think medical schools have been negligent in overlooking a miracle of healing while leaving their graduates helpless to treat 80 percent of their patients? Can you guess why Helms's course is in the department of continuing education rather than the main medical school curriculum?

Another example of an M.D. who practices traditional Chinese medicine is Dr. Cyrus Loo of Honolulu. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati Medical School, Loo practiced dermatology until the years following Chairman Mao's acupuncture anesthesia hoax. Loo says acupuncture can not only cure a cold, the flu, dizziness, acne, hair loss, epilepsy, gallbladder disease, gout, and many other common problems, but can also help in AIDS. In diagnosis, he uses a "neurometer," a galvanometer similar to the EAV device described later in this chapter. It is an unproved device but plays a key role in Loo's practice.

Loo claims to have discovered an acupuncture point, which he calls the Loo point.4 "Discovering the Loo Point was like Christopher Columbus discovering America," he says modestly. He says that needling this point, which is near the ankle, can cure a variety of aches and pains as well as herpes zoster (shingles), psoriasis and many other skin conditions, postpolio weakness, hepatitis, macular degeneration (loss of central vision, usually with aging), and even cancer. He claims to have treated thousands of cases using the Loo Point and claims a 95 percent success rate "regardless of the type of disease or injury." No peer-reviewed journal has published evidence to support these claims.

Loo is not regarded as a fringe practitioner by the general public. On the contrary, he often is lionized by the press and is proud of his involvement in the community. I once criticized Loo's public claims about acupuncture in a letter to a Honolulu newspaper. In his reply he accused me of "European chauvinism tantamount to discrediting China and her people" and insisted that acupuncture is not a placebo but a physiological remedy for all the ills he mentioned before, including AIDS. Now there's one for the books. Criticizing wild claims about acupuncture makes me a racist. During all those years acupuncture was out of fashion in China, were the Chinese discriminating against themselves?

Ancient Magic, Not Science

Acupuncture originated in China some four thousand years ago, long before there was any real understanding of human physiology and anatomy or even physics and chemistry. Bodies were not dissected and studied, and each organ was either yin or yang and was likened to one of the "basic five elements": water, metal, earth, fire, or wood. No one knew what the body's actual organs do or how they do it. The network of meridians and points, claimed by the traditionalists to function independently of the nervous and circulatory systems, has never been proven to exist. The concept of twelve pulses for twelve organs is sheer fantasy.

Acupuncturists speak of moving yin and yang energies along the meridians to and from yin and yang organs, guided by scores of superstitious principles. They say, for example, that the spleen is the center of thought, the liver produces tears, and the kidneys are the seat of willpower and fear. Perhaps the height of absurdity is reached with homuncular acupuncture. This concept, which has become dogma in some circles, holds that each ear has acupuncture points for the entire body arranged in the form of an inverted dwarf curled up in the outer ear. The feet, hands, and face are also said to have points for all the organs. But not all the schools agree on these points, or even on the total number of points, which is put at anywhere from 35 to 2,500.

A Powerful Placebo, Not a Panacea

Acupuncture does appear to afford significant relief in some cases of chronic and recurrent in. It may also ease the symptoms of withdrawal from addicting drugs. This has led to speculation that the pain relief is mediated by endorphins, and further speculation that if acupuncture can affect endorphins it might affect other hormones and enzymes and thereby exert systemic effects. Acupuncture promoters take these hypotheses as established fact and use them to mislead the public. At best, however, acupuncture is nothing more than a potent placebo.

The trappings of acupuncture include a "learned clinician" aimed with the wisdom of the ancient East in a room with impressive (and fanciful) posters and models of the human form with all its meridians and acupuncture points. And the needles! In the hands of the Master, they are the magic tools that access, adjust, and balance the cosmic forces that give life. The treatment itself originated as a magico-religious ceremony, and it remains a compelling Eastern healing ritual to this day. Moreover, it's wonderfully simple and nonpolluting. There are no pills to take, no side effects to worry about, and no plastic wrappers or bottles to throw away.

The Hazards of Acupuncture

Students of traditional acupuncture are warned that a slightly misplaced needle can cause more harm than the disease they are trying to cure by moving the Qi the wrong way or by damaging a blood vessel or nerve. The needles used in the old days were more like slender knives and did pose severe risks. But most of today's needles are hardly thicker than a human hair and carry only a small risk of causing injury. Still, cases have been reported of hepatitis, AIDS, and a variety of severe bacterial infections that were contracted from improperly sterilized needles. Perhaps the greatest danger comes from relying on acupuncture instead of scientific diagnosis and treatment. It should be obvious that inhibiting pain without diagnosing the cause can be very dangerous.

We all know better than to take aspirin to, say, relieve a toothache without getting a dentist to clean out the infection and repair the tooth. It is similarly unwise to rely on an acupuncturist without consulting a medical doctor to determine the cause of the problem. Acupuncturists who are deluded about the powers of their art cannot be relied onto refer patients to real doctors in an appropriate and timely manner.

The Bizarre Case of EAV

Electroacupuncture according to Voll (EAV), which Reinhold Voll, M.D., of West Germany named after himself, is based on traditional acupuncture but goes even further off the deep end. During the 1970s, Voll developed a device that he claimed could measure "energy" flow along "acupuncture meridians." He claims that his techniques can determine the cause of any disease, immediately and precisely, without reference to any other test or to the patient's history or medical records.

He simply detects the "energy imbalance" causing the problem. Voll claims to be able to pinpoint the site of a lesion in an organ, such as the precise location of a peptic ulcer. He even claims that arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments can be traced to tuberculosis, venereal disease, or other infection in ancestors several generations ago. In one alleged case, Voll traced the cause of a stroke to smallpox vaccination decades earlier. This man was paralyzed on one side, but Voll's diagnosis and homeopathic medication had the man jogging within an hour. He was, we are told, permanently cured.

Voll's original device has undergone many modifications, but its basic make-up has not changed. It is simply a galvanometer, a device that measures changes in the electrical resistance of the patient's skin. One wire from the device goes to a brass cylinder covered by moist gauze, which the patient holds in one hand. A second wire is connected to a probe, which the doctor touches to "acupuncture points" on the patient's other hand or foot. This completes a low-voltage circuit and the device registers the flow of current The information is then relayed to a gauge that provides a numerical readout. More recent versions make sounds and provide the readout on a computer screen. The treatment selected depends on the scope of the practitioner's practice and may include acupuncture, diet, homeopathic remedies, and/or surgery, In the United States, EAV devices are most popular among homeopaths. Not long ago, I attended a conference of true believers in "electrodiagnosis" (or "electrodermal screening" or "EDS," as it was called at the conference). The conference brought together chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists, competing gadget peddlers, and marketers of all sorts of nutritional, herbal, and homeopathic remedies claimed to help correct the "imbalances" detected by the devices.

"Modern" Acupuncture: Needling Trigger Points

Many acupuncturists are medical doctors who have abandoned the fanciful ancient theories, the meridians, and most of the-acupuncture points themselves. For example, Felix Mann, M.D., a British physician who studied acupuncture for many years and helped popularize it in the West, now says that acupuncture points and meridians do not exist. He notes that if all the acupuncture texts are to be believed, "there is no skin left which is not an acupuncture point."5 He also experimented with acupuncture anesthesia and concluded that it was barely adequate in about 10 percent of cases, and, in these, "something allied to hypnosis may be taking place."

Modern medical acupuncturists use fewer points and believe these are nerve-muscle junctions rather than mystical windows to vital energy flow. Instead of twirling the needles, the doctors usually send tiny electrical currents through them. The treatments appear to be helpful against certain types of chronic pain, but the results are usually not dramatic and treatment sometimes must continue daily for months. In fact, studies involving patients with trigeminal neuralgia and miscellaneous musculoskeletal aches and pains suggest that even modern acupuncture is no more than a very good placebo.1

Another type of needle therapy for chronic pain is the so-called dry needling of "triggerpoints." These are thought to be little knots of damaged and degenerating muscle fibers that are tender to pressure and, by their effects on surrounding nerve and muscle tissue, may cause pain some distance away. Sticking a hypodermic needle into a trigger point, either dry or with injection of a little salt water, is said to speed resolution of the problem, though the mechanism is not clear. Western physicians have been experimenting with this type of needle therapy for almost a century. One theory is that needling stimulates pressure and stretch receptors in the muscles, which send impulses along sensory nerves to the brain, where they interfere with and overwhelm incoming pain impulses. But this would hardly explain long-term pain relief from ten-minute treatments.

In any case, this type of therapy has nothing to do with traditional acupuncture, though it is possible that acupuncturists sometimes unknowingly needle trigger points. Such needling might provide pain relief and lead to exaggerated testimonials and general support for acupuncture's claims. In fact, for all we know, acupuncture was originated on the strength of success in needling trigger points.

Acupressure and Reflexology

Traditional acupressure, also known as do-in or shiatsu, is similar to traditional acupuncture, but the acupuncture points are stimulated by hand rather than with needles. With a few months of training, practitioners can set themselves up as quasi-physicians and practice their brand of acupressure. In Hawaii, shiatsu therapists are eligible for payment from workers' compensation funds. A typical advertisement or business card says, "specializing in sports injuries, stress reduction, back problems, headaches, blood circulation, automobile accidents. Workers' compensation." Many also prescribe and peddle vitamins, herbs, and other assorted snake oils.

The Acupressure Institute in Berkeley, California, has trained thousands of practitioners and is approved for continuing education credit by the California Board of Registered Nurses (CBRN). Founder Michael Reed Gach, who conducts many of the institute's workshops, claims his techniques are useful for treating arthritis, PMS, and obesity, as well as a myriad of aches and pains. He also says his techniques can improve circulation and enhance alertness and productivity. CBRN also gives credits for attending seminars on crystal healing and visiting Mexican cancer clinics that dispense quack remedies that are illegal in California.

Reflexology is an offshoot of acupressure that was developed by an American physician at the beginning of this century. Also called "zone therapy," it involves pressure on areas of the hands and feet said to correspond to the body's internal organs. Using thumbs and fingers, the reflexologist rubs, massages, slaps, and applies prolonged deep pressure to specific areas, which supposedly alleviates symptoms and tones the body's organs. Books and articles on reflexology make fantastic claims about curing and preventing all manner of ailments and even injuries and poisonings. Reflexologists claim that their treatments can help prevent ulcers, migraines, and viral infections, as well as improve circulation, reasoning, and productivity, and cleanse the body of toxins. The toxins are not named, but one "registered certified reflexologist" in New York City recommends bathing after a session in order to "wash away released impurities." Her treatments cost about a dollar per minute.

As far as I know, the claims made for acupressure and reflexology have never been scientifically studied, much less proven. Anyone with persistent pain or other symptoms should consult a physician. Like ordinary foot massage, reflexology treatments can be pleasant and relaxing, and there are no potentially contaminated needles to worry about. It should also be noted, however, that acupressure treatments are sometimes painful.

Astrology

Astrology is a booming business in the United States, grossing billions of dollars each year. There are thousands of professional astrologers in the country, some making six-figure incomes, a few even more. Almost 1,500 newspapers and magazines publish astrology columns. Thousands of books and several magazines are devoted entirely to the subject, and scores of television and radio stations dispense advice based on astrology. Even telephone astrology using 900 numbers is proliferating. Some astrologers use computers to derive their advice, From the 1920s to the 1960s, about 15 to 20 percent of Americans believed in astrology. Since the sixties, astrology's popularity has grown steadily, especially with young people. Now about 50 to 60 percent of American teenagers are believers.6 Nobody knows how many millions of people base important decisions about relationships, work, travel, investments, health, and hiring and firing (an outrageous form of bigotry and discrimination) on astrological considerations. The thought that a true believer might have a finger on the trigger of a nuclear weapon or poison-gas launcher is not comforting to me.

Astrological Quackery

Astrologers have always maintained that horoscopes are important to health. "Cancers" are said to be prone to stomach disorders, "Leos" to heart disease, "Libras" to migraine headaches, and so on. Details of the horoscope allegedly provide precise information on a person's physical and mental health. None of the claims is supported by scientific evidence, yet prescriptions for diets, herbs, medicines, exercise, sex, and love are based on the horoscope and the current state of the heavens.

Psychiatrist Carl Jung, popular with today's mystical psychologists, used the horoscopes of his patients to help in diagnosis and treatment. Some Jungians and other mystically oriented psychologists still use this practice. Astrologer Joan Quigley, who counseled former president Reagan and his wife says a horoscope can tell more about a person than a psychiatrist can tell after many hours of consultations. She predicts that astrology will eventually be taught in schools and colleges and will have as much professional prestige as medicine.

Astrological advice sometimes appears in places you might not expect. A few years ago, Weight Watchers magazine carried a " horoscope" column that contained tips and encouragement for dieters. Its words of wisdom included:

"try a wild new recipe" (Taurus); "tempt your taste buds with low-calorie seafood dishes"(Pisces); "join an exercise class and learn new tricks" (Gemini); "let your mate help with your diet-it's easier with support" (Libra); "incorporate an exotic food into your menu" (Aquarius); "vitamin-rich veggies get you through the flu season sniffle-free" (Sagittarius); "the planets bring you an energy boost-use it constructively to reach fitness goals" (Aries); and "though you feel others haven't noticed your weight-loss achievements, a good friend has been singing your praises" (Aries).

If astrology were valid and could perform as advertised, it would be a marvelous tool for health professionals of all kinds. But astrology is 100 percent rubbish, and basing decisions regarding health on any false doctrine is inherently dangerous. Astrological nutrition and medicine are quackery.

Astrology Disproved

Astrology was devised thousands of years ago when humans imagined the earth and the people on it were the center of a caring universe. Stars and planets were thought to be gods and goddesses not very far away. Human fantasies attributed powers in various spheres of life to these gods. Mars governed physical energy, Mercury ruled mental energy, Venus determined love and beauty, and so on. But rational people have known better for hundreds of years. The stars and planets are not gods, and they don't care about us. They are billions of miles away. From such a distance, there is no force, energy, or mechanism by which they could possibly affect humans at the moment of birth or at any other time. The gravitational and electromagnetic effects of the earth, trees, rocks, buildings, lights, furniture, and other people are millions of times greater than those of the distant stars. Earthly forces don't affect our personality or fate, so how could distant ones?

Not only is there no theoretical basis for astrology, there is no factual basis either.7 If astrology were valid, some hard evidence should have accumulated after thousands of years. Instead, astrology has failed every scientific analysis or test to which it has been subjected.

According to astrology, the sun sign affects the personality, which affects every aspect of life, including career choice. If this were true, various professions should attract clusters of people with the same sign, but they don't. Ministers, athletes, politicians, doctors, lawyers, musicians, carpenters, police officers, research scientists, and others show a random distribution of sun signs.8

According to astrology, certain signs are said to be most compatible with each other. If this were true, this should be reflected in marriage and divorce statistics. Again, there are no data to support the superstition. Given the widespread belief in astrology, we might expect to find at least a small effect caused by the belief itself. That is, some people might avoid considering a potential partner with the "wrong" sign. But so far even this effect has not been demonstrated in the United States.

If astrology were valid, astrologers should be able to match personality profiles with natal charts. They can't do this, not even slightly better than just guessing.9 One astrologer who accepted a $100,000 challenge to determine the sun signs of twelve subjects whom he interviewed to his satisfaction, embarrassed himself on national television. He was positive he could get the sun signs of all twelve subjects right on James Randi's paranormal special on the Fox network in 1989. The odds favored his getting one of the twelve correct if he just guessed. But he failed to get even one.

If astrology were valid, people should be able to recognize expert interpretations of their horoscopes. That is, if an astrologer constructs charts for several people, then writes his interpretation of each, subjects should be able to recognize themselves and pick out the commentary that goes with their chart. But this doesn't happen. In actual tests, most people have been satisfied with whatever horoscope interpretation they have been given. In one study, approximately 150 people who responded to an ad from "Astral Electronics" were given a free "ultra-personal horoscope" interpretation. More than 90 percent were happy with the interpretation and said they recognized themselves. The horoscope was that of mass murderer Dr. Marcel Petiot10

Don't Blame the Moon

Even the moon, the closest and most likely heavenly body to exert an influence, has none of the effects long claimed by astrologers.11 Some people not generally inclined to believe in astrology give the "lunacy" concept some credence. They reason that if the moon can affect the ocean tides, surely it can affect humans. who are about 60 percent water. Actually the moon and the sun affect the tides only of unbounded oceans, not small containers of water. There are no tidal shifts in glasses, buckets, tubs, swimming pools, or small lakes. Nor do they occur in humans. Even if they did, astrologers have never explained how this would affect one's personality or fate. It seems to me this would just make us look and feel funny. Moreover, standard calculations for the gravitational pull on humans show that, for example, a mother holding her child exerts about twelve million times as much tidal force on her child as the moon. Thus, it is not surprising that no evidence supports the idea that the phases of the moon affect human behavior.

Because the media so frequently repeat the myth that people are more likely to do nutty things during a full moon, some police officers believe there is a correlation between the full moon and criminal behavior. This could lead them to be more vigilant and to make more arrests on full-moon nights, which would tend to perpetuate the illusion. Moreover, some people may be more likely to go outdoors when the moon is bright, and this could lead to more crimes. Even these factors, however, have not been strong enough to make a significant difference. Actual tabulations have acquitted the full moon of all charges of responsibility for murder and other criminal behavior. 12

"Psychic Astrology"

Would you like to "hit it big" and accrue "up to millions"? Cope better with important personal relationships? Have everything mapped out so you can "fulfill your dream of living the good life"? About a year ago, a reporter I know received this solicitation in the mail with an invitation to complete a "psychic interview form" and send it with $19.95 for his "Personal Forecast and Life Development Chart"- guaranteed to provide "full Good Luck/Money instructions" for the next year or his money would be returned.

This sales pitch-in an envelope marked "absolutely confidential"- was mailed by "psychic astrologer" Irene Hughes. "Dear Tom," the letter said:

Your name got on my special list. The moment I saw it there I had a hunch: a psychic "gut feeling." I knew I should contact you. I said to myself "things are not right with this friend. I must help my new friend."

Now I happen to be famous for spotting people in trouble, and helping them.. . . Even officials of the Church and Government call on my services. Being able to "receive" psychic impressions from anywhere in the world.. . I've been nearly 100% successful assisting important world figures in ways that amaze authorities.

Right this minute I'm concentrating on you. On how Irene Hughes should and must help you. What my gut feeling tells me is this. You have a serious personal problem. It is eating away at you....

There is no shortage of so-called psychics or astrologers out there willing to help you. . . . They will take your money and not actually do anything or tell you anything you didn't already know.... You don't know how lucky you are that a truly qualified psychic counseling expert -- someone known to be "right" as a psychic 74 out of 75 times -- is now on to your problem.... Normally my consultation services cost a client $500.00 or more, plus expenses.

I don't know whether Ms. Hughes's ability to help people has been scientifically tested. But I do know that her selection of 'Tom" was not psychic because he doesn't exist. 'Tom" is just one of many assumed names the reporter uses to obtain offbeat publications and inquire about get-rich-quick schemes. He receives a steady stream of mail from entrepreneurs who have acquired his name for their "sucker lists."

The Media Love Astrology

Astrologers churn out hundreds of forecasts regarding the fate of scores of movie and television stars, athletes, and politicians. Their predictions are almost always wrong. So are their predictions for earthquakes and other catastrophes. In spite of this, many publishers keep printing the predictions without ever comparing the previous ones with the facts. Talk-show hosts are equally unfair to their audiences. For example, in May 1988 Geraldo Rivera hosted five well-known astrologers. No skeptics were on the show.

Geraldo's illustrious stargazers were asked to predict whether, based on their horoscopes, George Bush or Michael Dukakis would be elected President of the United States. At this time Dukakis was ahead in the polls. Four of the astrologers were positive he would win-on the basis of his horoscope, of course. No one mentioned the opinion polls. The fifth, Arch Crawford, declined to make such a prediction because, he said, he specialized in financial astrology. He went on to predict a stock market crash on November 13, 1989, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average "in the area of 400 to 800." Needless to say, Geraldo didn't remind his audience of these predictions when they turned out to be incorrect.

Religion or Fraud?

Should astrology be considered a religion, a massive fraud, or something else? Some skeptics consider it a religion, but most astrologers don't consider themselves ministers; in fact, many belong to mainstream churches. Besides, astrology does not provide a coherent, comprehensive set of beliefs regarding the origins and purpose of human life, or the nature of the hereafter, if any. Nor does it provide a code of ethics and morals by which people should abide. And even people who believe in astrology rarely have astrologers preside at weddings or funerals.

Many astrologers promote themselves as professionals with knowledge of a great science and the skill to apply it to humans, institutions, corporations, and even animals. Since no evidence supports these contentions, it seems reasonable to conclude that the entire multibillion-dollar industry is based on lies. People who profit from astrology, including astrologers and all their pandering publishers and promoters, are perpetrating a fraud for the purpose of making money.

The First Amendment gives Americans the right to promote any set of beliefs no matter how thoroughly discredited they may be. The law protects Flat Earth Society members as well as astrologers and their publishers. The First Amendment, however, offers only limited protection to commercial speech, so some astrologers could be charged with fraud. In practice, though, astrologers are never prosecuted, no matter how outrageous their claims.

Is Astrology All Bad?

Do astrologers perform any useful function? What about those who use the trappings of astrology to provide advice and moral support to individual clients? Are they really practicing psychology while hiding behind the easier-to-obtain title of astrologer? Can they function appropriately as marriage, family, and career counselors? Can they help people to understand their options, clarify goals, and deal with grief?

Many astrologers who do counseling are nice, sensitive, caring people who give reasonable advice and an ego boost to confused clients. The popularity of this astropsychology may also reflect the limited availability and high cost of good psychotherapy, as well as the stigma attached to seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist. All kinds of people consult astrologers; it's chic. But popular belief says that only people with "mental problems" should consult highly trained health professionals.

Astrologers undoubtedly make matters worse in situations that call for more skilled therapists, but their form of counseling seems relatively harmless for clients who otherwise might not discuss their concerns with anyone. The danger arises when astrologers are consulted by people who need expert care. Persons who are manic-depressive, schizophrenic, or anxiety-prone and those who have sleep disorders or any kind of serious physical problem should seek the best medical care available. Using astrology as a substitute for proper therapy in such situations is akin to playing Russian roulette. However, as astrology and quackery continue to flourish, we will see more astrological quackery, including the dangerous varieties.

Astrology also harms society in a more general way. It promotes widespread superstitious, irrational, and magical thinking, which can't be good for any society. America desperately needs more scientists and a scientifically literate work force and voting public, not to mention leaders. It is ironic that as America has approached the twenty-first century, its appetite for astrology and other pseudoscience and quackery has grown faster than its appetite for astronomy and other real sciences.

Ayurvedic Medicine

Ayurvedic medicine is Indian folk medicine with roots going back about two thousand years. It is promoted in America by disciples of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the transcendental meditation (TM) guru. By far the most publicized practitioner is Deepak Chopra, M.D., a Western-educated Indian physician who turned to Ayurvedic medicine after converting to the TM religion.

Chopra's books include Creating Health: Beyond Prevention, Toward Perfection [Houghton Mifflin, 1987], Return of the Rishi: A Doctor's Search for the Ultimate Healer [Houghton Muffin, 1988], Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine [Bantam, 1989], and Perfect Health [Crown Publishers, 1990]. All are dedicated to the Maharishi, whose "extraordinary insight" and "timeless knowledge" enabled Chopra to restructure his reality.

The beliefs and practices of Ayurvedic medicine fall into three categories: (I) some that are obvious, well established, and widely accepted even by people who have never heard of Ayurveda; (2) a few that proper research may eventually prove valid and useful; and (3) absurd ideas, some of which are dangerous.

The first category includes such advice as don't over eat or over-exercise, get adequate rest and sleep, don't let your job stress you to the point of making you miserable, take time to relax in silence, and take joy in the simple things in life, In other words, moderation and happiness can help people be healthy.

The second category includes the hundreds of medicinal herbs codified in Ayurvedic texts. These are used alone and in combinations for scores of ailments. While some of these substances may be safe and effective for certain conditions, it is foolish to accept Ayurvedic dogma about them unless scientific studies have shown benefit. This is illustrated by the case of Rauwolfia serpentina, one of the few Indian medicinal herbs to find its way into Western medicine. Beginning in the 1950s, the main active component of the herb, reserpine, was used to treat psychosis and high blood pressure. Careful studies since then have shown that the drug can cause depression, headaches, nightmares, irregular heartbeat, diminished libido, aggravation of ulcers, and a variety of other adverse effects. At the same time, safer and more effective drugs were developed for treating psychosis and hypertension. The turnaround took place over a decade or two. Ayurvedic physicians, on the other hand, have used the herb for hundreds of years without a thorough understanding of its dangers and limitations. Because they don't evaluate the effects of their prescriptions in a systematic, scientific manner, the same is probably true for most of the herbs they use.

The third category of Ayurvedic medicines includes Dr. Chopra's advice for preventing and reversing cataracts.13 Each day, he advises, brush your teeth, scrape your tongue, spit into a cup of water, and wash your eyes for a few minutes with this mixture, This is about as rational as the old folk remedy for a dog bite: rubbing saliva from the dog into the wound. Both practices can induce dangerous infections. Chopra also says that a savage beating can cure epilepsy, though he doesn't say whether he recommends this.

Since Ayurveda attributes many diseases to demons and astrological influences, it is not surprising that incantations, amulets, spells, and mantras are commonly used remedies. Goat feces washed with urine is prescribed for alcoholism and indigestion, milk mixed with urine for constipation. Enemas of animal blood are recommended for hemorrhage. Enemas of urine and peacock testicles are used to treat impotence. Hundreds of such remedies are codified in Ayurvedic texts such as Caraka Samhita, translated and edited by P. V. Sharma. Other examples of Ayurvedic absurdities are discussed below.

Dubious Psychosomatics

A key aspect of Ayurvedic medicine is the determination of the patient's "body type," the combination of physical and psychological traits that supposedly indicates which of three alleged fundamental forces is predominant. Prescriptions for herbs, diet, and exercise are based on this determination. The three forces are called vata, pitta, and kapha. Vata types are said to be restless, high-strung, and prone to insomnia and hypertension. Pitta types are said to be smart, quick to anger, and prone to rashes and ulcers. Kapha types are said to be strong, even-tempered, and prone to obesity.

The traits used to determine one's type include hair color, hair oiliness, skin color, body-frame size, weight, eye size, muscle strength, preferred temperature of food, resting pulse rate, voice pitch, sex drive, and speed of eating and walking. For example, a vata type is indicated by dry hair, dark skin, small eyes, a restless mind, muscle weakness, a preference for warm food, a weak or irregular sex drive, a high-pitched voice, a fast walk, and fast eating. A kapha type is indicated by oily hair, light skin, large eyes, a calm mind, strong muscles, strong libido, a low voice, slow walking and eating, and a tendency to gain weight easily.

This system of evaluating the body is so simplistic and absurd that I see no point in attempting to catalog its weaknesses.

Chopra Chooses Ayurvedic Mysticism

Chopra's own words show how he has given up critical thinking in favor of ancient dogma. He says that a good Ayurvedic physician can tell a meditator from a nonmeditator, diagnose illness, and prescribe appropriate remedies, all by feeling the patient's pulse.

Chapter 8 of Return of the Rishi describes the work of "master Ayurvedic physician" Brihaspati Dev Triguna. Chopra says he visited Triguna accompanied by a friend named Farouk, who introduced Chopra as a "beacon of wisdom" at the great medical center in Boston. After feeling Farouk's pulse for a few seconds, Triguna concluded, "You are too thin. You don't eat. You are weak." He advised him to take time to eat regular meals, to eat more slowly, and to get adequate rest Chopra thought this was brilliant and noted, "I had always thought Farouk had a starved, sickly body myself."

Then Triguna took Chopra's pulse and concluded, "You are always trying to beat a deadline......... You have a healthy body, but your life is moving too fast." He advised Chopra to slow down, watch a sunset, spend more time with his wife and children, and move his bowels at the same time every day. Again, Chopra thought this was brilliant. "It was a pivotal moment for me," he says. "I felt as if Dr. Triguna read me well, very well... I felt that his simplicity of speech was wise. Yes, if I did these things I would be all right. . . I was deeply affected."

The chapter also notes that in seminars with corporate executives and politicians, Triguna feels their pulse and tells them to slowdown, don't worry so much, chew slowly, and move their bowels at the same time every day. He also prescribes herbs as his "chief method of actually curing illness." Chopra provides no details or follow-up information by which a reader could judge whether anything useful takes place during Dr. Triguna's consultations. But he concludes that "Dr. Triguna has peered into the whole man.... He has perfected his intuition and made one human instinct a tool of medicine."

Chopra espouses Ayurveda's mystical medicine the way one might believe in a religion:

Avurveda's approach to physical disorders is not basically physical at all.... Faced with any illness, the vaidya [Ayurvedic physician] turns directly to Nature's intelligence, where he finds the real cure. The herbs, minerals and metals that he uses think the way we do. For every part of our bodies, Nature provides a substance to complement it. Medicine then consists of letting like speak to like. Take the remedy whole, as Nature provides it, and through its similarity to ourselves, it can restore health. Ayurveda works because it corrects a distortion in consciousness-a wrong wiggle goes back into line.

Does Chopra actually believe that herbs, minerals, and metals think in the same sense that humans do?

Chopra repeatedly asserts that "for every thought there is a corresponding molecule. If you have happy thoughts, then you have happy molecules." I wonder what a happy molecule looks like under a microscope. Chopra also asserts that masters of Ayurvedic medicine can determine an herb's medicinal qualities by simply looking at it. Scientific study is therefore unnecessary.

Chopra promotes the Ayurvedic claim that certain exercises and asanas (yogic positions) can stimulate endocrine glands to excrete their hormones. Since he is an endocrinologist, he should not find it difficult to perform studies to test this concept. For example, he could take blood before, during, and after these exercises and check the levels of the hormones in question. The results could be published and the exercises tested in a variety of metabolic disorders. As far as I know, he has never conducted any such study.

Transcendental Miracles

Chopra claims that "TM scientists" have proved that group meditation, or even just the presence of regular meditators in a town or city, can cause crime rates to drop dramatically, decrease illness even among nonmeditators, and protect whole populations from falling bombs. This is called the "Maharishi effect." The most dramatic example of this effect supposedly occurred in the winter of 1983 when seven thousand TM-ers meditated together in Fairfield, Iowa, the site of Maharishi International University (MIU). The result, Chopra claims, was a worldwide decrease in crime rates and international hostilities and an increase in stock market indices across the globe. He says that meditation can be used for national defense and to end war forever. According to Fairfield police reports, however, the crime rate in the county has increased through the 1980s and is comparable to that in comparable cities. Even MIU campus is a frequent target of burglars and other criminals.'4

Chapter 13 of Return of the Rishi repeats without questioning the claim made by the Maharishi and TM-era that they can levitate by practicing meditation. Chopra says that the Maharishi began teaching "yogic flying" in 1975, but the technique was not publicly demonstrated for about ten years. On August 15,1986 (India's Independence Day), the guru arranged for demonstrations in major cities around the country and abroad. The media were informed and dutifully showed up. Chopra attended the event in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Even Chopra uses the word "hopping" to describe the crosslegged TM-ers moving across the stage, which was covered with six-inch-thick foam padding. "One after another. the six flyers bounded across the stage; the plopping sound as they landed sounded convincingly soft." (Why people who can "levitate" need foam padding to descend from an elevation of one or two feet is unstated.)

After describing how one "flyer" had hopped 150 feet in 22.5 seconds at a previously held event, Chopra says, "By comparison the Wright brothers flew 120 feet at Kitty Hawk for 12 seconds." Of course, TM-era remain airborne for about a second and travel at most six feet per hop, while the Wrights actually flew nonstop, but this distinction seems to have escaped Chopra. He even claims that 15,OOOAmericanTM-ers (including himself) have learned yogic flying by applying "the science of consciousness.. . India's legacy to human knowledge." He says that the "technology" behind yogic flying could "make the work of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein pale by comparison" and that "the evidence and proof are there in abundance." In fact, it is so easy for TM-era that for them "flying is simply a habit."

Large publishers appear to have no qualms about publishing Chopra's ideas, and major talk-show hosts have yet to challenge him on any of them. None has asked him for a demonstration of levitation or flying ability.

A Challenge to Deepak Chopra

Dr. Chopra acts as though his mission in life is to bring to America the wisdom of ancient India, as perceived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the TM cult, especially as it relates to health and disease. Since I suspect he could use a little reality testing, I have a challenge to him and all the others who perpetrate the concept of "yogic flying." Show me one person who can levitate, and I will donate the royalties from this book to Maharishi lnternational University or the American Association for Ayurvedic Medicine. Should this challenge be met, I promise to surrender the full amount of each royalty check within one week of receiving it.

I'll even make it easy. The demonstrator needn't fly, or even levitate. All he has to do is sit on an industrial-type or veterinary scale and decrease his body weight by 5 percent for fifteen seconds, using mental power alone. He will have one full hour to accomplish the feat under the observation of a panel of scientists and magicians (to rule out trickery) as well as video cameras. All I am asking is that one yogi do 5 percent of what Chopra says thousands can do, make themselves weightless by the power of mind alone.

If the chosen yogi fails, two others of Chopra's choice will be given the same opportunity. To be eligible for the prize, Chopra must first agree that, if all three yogis fail the challenge, he will publicly admit that he has been mistaken, he will advise the public to stop paying money for flying lessons, and he will ask the Maharishi to return all the money would-be flyers have paid TM organizations for levitation or flying lessons since 1975, plus 5 percent per annum interest.

Chopra's Messianic Mission

The Maharishi and his disciples have described big plans. They hope to set up Ayurvedic medical centers throughout the U. S. and to train more Ayurvedic physicians. "The potential is there," Chopra says, "for transforming the face of medicine entirely, and not just in India." Since Maharishi ceremoniously dubbed Chopra "Dhanvantari (Lord of Immortality), the keeper of perfect health for the world," he has been Ayurveda's number one evangelist and propagandist in this drive. He calls Ayurveda "a medicine for mankind."

Maharishi's Heaven on Earth Development Corporation has said it would create at least fifty "Cities of the Immortals" with homes built according to ancient Ayurvedic laws. Chopra will supervise their health clinics. Therapies will include meditation, primordial sound therapy (silent chanting), warm-oil enemas, herbal-oil massages, special baths, specific exercises that allegedly stimulate certain endocrine glands, and scores of herbal medicines. The homes planned for the Los Angeles area are expected to range from $750,000 to $2,000,000.13

Chopra is the ideal propagandist for Ayurveda because, as a medical doctor, he can give it a respectable scientific aura. He occasionally gives therapeutic drugs and surgery their due for infections, cancers, and heart conditions. Yet at other times he says that "the direct nondrug cures (especially TM) are more effective because they exhibit more complete, holistic knowledge and more pervasive correlation." On a "Sonya Live" program, he said that antibiotics and anticancer drugs don't work. He blamed chemotherapy and radiation for "an epidemic of immuno-compromised disease," which is pure poppycock.

In Return of the Rishi, Chopra criticizes Western treatment of asthma and claims to have an anti-asthma diet. He says that the diet, along with a daily routine of positive thinking, meditation, exercise, and herbs, can not only minimize attacks, but can "readjust" and bring back body physiology from "the specific imbalance that causes asthma." He fails to mention the one natural measure that is by far the most important for most asthmatics: avoidance of allergens such as animal hair and house dust, which contains allergenic insect waste and body parts. Most asthma is caused by allergies to inhaled substances. Vacuuming up dust mites may not seem very exotic, but it is far more effective than meditation and positive thinking. Desensitizing shots sometimes help, and allergies often clear up by themselves, but there is no certain cure.

Chopra also exaggerates the importance of positive thinking in cancer therapy. He says, "Physicians who regularly treat cancer patients know very well that the ones who have a strong, positive attitude do much better than those who have a negative attitude, who face their cancer feeling only helplessness and ....... . The difference between positive and negative attitudes is like having two different diseases. One we pronounce curable, the other incurable." This is not correct. Although a positive attitude may help a cancer patient feel better, comply with treatment, and have a better quality of life, no scientific study has demonstrated an effect upon the cancer itself.

Oncologist Dr. Saul Silverman has been treating cancer patients for about twenty-five years. Among the six thousand-odd people he has cared for, he has seen about a dozen cases of spontaneous remission from "terminal cancer." In these "miraculous" cases the disease was so extensive that, according to the odds, the patients should have died within months. Instead, they recovered and lived for many years without evidence of recurrence. Dr. Silverman studied these cases to determine what might account for the patients' unexpected recovery. He concluded that positive thinking had nothing to do with it; nor did prayer, meditation, or visualization.

Dr. Silverman has seen many patients whose disease progressed relentlessly, even though they expressed great determination to live. 15 He has also seen some patients who had just the opposite course. One man in his sixties, for example, had an incurable, usually lethal cancer and no optimism whatsoever. His attitude was, "Why bother treating me at all? I'm going to be dead in a month or two." Although the man remained depressed, his cancer remitted. Six years later, long after total recovery, he was just starting to cheer up and admit that maybe he was going to be okay.

It may make people feel good to believe that positive thinking and positive emotions prevent cancer deaths, but that doesn't make it true. If optimism and cheerfulness were important in the prevention or cure of cancer, large-scale studies would surely find evidence that people who are depressed have a higher incidence of cancer. But no such association has been found.16

Telling patients they can recover if only they have the right attitude and imagine the cancer receding can increase their sense of failure and inadequacy. Besides, if confidence in recovery is so important, why do people who take laetrile and other snake oils and submit to psychic-surgery hokum, with complete confidence in these quack remedies, die just the same? If faith is a powerful medicine, why would modern medicine have developed at all? The shamans and faith-healing priests and evangelicals would have obviated the need for doctors. Churches and healing temples would exist where hospitals now stand.

Chopra mentions a few patients who got better after practicing visualization techniques and positive thinking. But they also underwent conventional cancer therapy and probably would have died without it. Yet Chopra insists they were cured by mere desire. In Creating Health he states that "Disease and aging persist because of myths and prejudices that propel people into decline. Our current belief system grew through centuries of cultural conditioning and indoctrination." Yes, friends, we only get sick and die because these are cultural traditions. Funny how thousands of cultures all have these same traditions.

A Money-Making Machine

If you think modern scientific medicine with its high-tech diagnostic machinery and sophisticated drugs is expensive, wait until you see what Ayurveda can do for your bank account.17 A "detoxifying" massage can cost $130 or more; a week in an Ayurvedic center can set you back $4,000; a year's worth of the recommended "purification" treatments and herbs can easily exceed $5,000; the introductory seven-session TM course costs about $400; a crowded seminar with Chopra can cost about $100 per person. A yagya, a sacrificial ceremony to please Vedic gods, costs between $3.000 and $12,000. Such ceremonies are recommended for a wide variety of illnesses. I have seen no prices for the ass-urine treatment of epilepsy, the elephant-urine treatment of constipation, or the bloodletting treatment for impotence.

Believers who are serious about staying healthy and retarding the aging process could spend $10,000 or more per year. Many movie stars and other celebrities espouse Ayurveda, spend a great deal of money on it, and help publicize it. At age forty-six, ex-pop star Mike Love of the Beachboys claimed to have the body of an eighteen-year-old Adonis, thanks to Ayurvedic medicine. Sure, Mike.

Victims Fight Back

Not everyone who gets involved with TM and Ayurveda takes the rip-offs lying down. Some are fighting back. Several hundred former participants have formed a group called TM-EX. They say that long-term meditation has caused memory loss, confused thinking, and anxiety. Others have complained about the cultlike atmosphere at Maharishi International University, mass meditation to ward off tornadoes, and breach of contract for failing to teach them to fly as promised.

One founder of TM-EX, who taught TM for eight years, accused the movement's leadership of negligently failing to warn newcomers about possible harm, even though they were fully aware of TM's dangers. Another former TM teacher sued MIU for fraud and negligence and was awarded $139,000 by a jury.18 He testified that prolonged meditation had caused headaches, anxiety, violent impulses, hallucinations, confusion, memory loss, paranoia, and other symptoms that kept him from living a normal life. For information on TM-EX and its newsletter, write TM-EX, P.O. Box 7565, Arlington, VA 22207.

MIU promises to confer a competitive edge in the business world and used to point to alumnus Ed Beckley, the "Millionaire Maker," as an example of what they could achieve. But Beckley's Credit Card Millionaire System and No Down-Payment Real Estate schemes got him in trouble with Iowa's Attorney General, and he had to repay customers some $2.4 million. He had to lay off most of his 560 employees and declare bankruptcy. Despite all this, MLU is not only accredited (by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools) but is one of the biggest private-school recipients of state and federal education funds. This shows what a religion can get away with by posing as a science.

Christian Science

Christian Science has its roots in faith healing and continues to function as both a system of healing and a system of worship. The Christian Science Church categorically rejects all the findings of modern scientific medicine, as well as the scientific method itself.19 Although opposed to the use of all medicines, surgery, and modern diagnostic techniques, it presents itself as an effective alternative to modern medicine. There is no limit to the diseases claimed to be treatable through Christian Science.

Christian Scientists view illness as an illusion that can be dissolved by mind. This is because matter derives from mind, not vice versa. Its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, was a product of New England in the 1800s, the heyday of bohemian Boston's transcendentalist movement with its Brahmins and mystics. She was also heavily influenced by mesmerism and spiritualism, which were popular then.

Eddy's own guru for a time was Phineas Quimby, a mesmerist healer. He coined the term "Christian Science," and his writings apparently formed the basis of Mrs. Eddy's chapter on training healers in her "sacred text," Science and Health. Critics have accused here of outright plagiarism by copying into her book some thirty pages verbatim and one hundred pages in substance from The Metaphysical Religion of Hegel, by Francis Leiber. In any case, Eddy regarded disease as a manifestation of disturbed thinking that could be corrected by metaphysical means, primarily the prayers of Christian Scientists. When things went wrong, when recoveries did not take place and people died, she blamed demonic influences.

The church trains Christian Science "practitioners" who accept "patients" and administer "treatments." Mrs. Eddy promoted her religion as a system of medicine, and believers still see it as such. She advertised an "opportunity to acquire a profession by which you can accumulate a fortune" and urged her practitioners to base their fees on those of local physicians. She was a strong believer in homeopathy. She felt her system was the wave of the future, while regular medicine belonged in the dustbin of history.

Despite such claims, Christian Science remains exempt from medical licensing laws, provided its practitioners don't take up "agencies of the flesh," that is, material or physical remedies of any kind. Christian Science training deliberately omits anatomy, physiology, symptomatology, and pathology. Their practitioners are instructed not to diagnose, take a patient's temperature, or use any physical means of treatment. Yet Christian Science claims to be far superior to modern medicine. The church even discourages practitioners from reporting suspected communicable diseases to health departments. This ensures that the practitioners aren't accused of attempting to diagnose, which could lead to charges of practicing medicine without a license.20

Even though Christian Science practitioners do not diagnose. treat, administer or prescribe drugs, take pulses or temperatures, or even relieve pain and discomfort with ice packs, hot packs, and massage, their services are covered by hundreds of insurance companies, including Blue Cross/Blue Shield and many plans for government employees. What services? Singing, reading Eddy's writings to patients, and praying in their behalflj Practitioners don't even have to see their patients, but can do "absent treatments" after telephone consultations. Just as remarkable, the practitioners can sign certificates for sick leave and disability payments, even though they cannot diagnose. They need only certify that the person is "under my professional care." The IRS recognizes practitioners' charges as "medical expenses" that may be deductible for persons who itemize deductions. Medicare and Medicaid reimburse for Christian Science nursing care.

The church's most dangerous aspect is its opposition to medical care for seriously ill children. Its practitioners are not duty-bound to refer to physicians when their treatments don't work. Nor are they trained to recognize what symptoms require expert care. This ignorance, as well as the belief that symptoms are worsened by thinking about them, has led parents and practitioners to disregard or try to pray away such serious symptoms in children as high fevers, convulsions, vomiting, delirium, and severe coughing. Not surprisingly, many Christian Science children have died unnecessarily from pneumonia, meningitis, diabetes, ruptured appendix, bowel obstruction, and other diseases and complications. Nevertheless, Christian Scientists have carved out large exemptions from negligent homicide and child-neglect laws for both themselves and other anti-medical sects.

In many states, Christian Scientists have achieved exemptions from metabolic testing for newborn infants, prophylactic eye drops for newborn infants (to prevent blindness from gonorrhea), premarital and prenatal blood tests for adults, tuberculosis testing for public schoolteachers, and immunizations for school children.

For nearly a century American courts have held that parents have a duty to care for their children in health and sickness. They must provide the necessities of life, of which appropriate medical care is one. Failure to do so can result in charges of negligent homicide and manslaughter. As early as 1903, courts ruled that parents can be held criminally responsible for not obtaining proper medical care for their sick children. Faith healing has not been considered proper care, and religion is not usually a lawful excuse for negligence. The courts have also consistently held that mandatory vaccination for school children is not a violation of the Constitution, even if their family's religion frowns on immunizations.

Nevertheless, state legislatures continue to bow to pressure from the wealthy, sophisticated church. Almost all states provide religious exemptions from immunization requirements. And almost all states have exemptions in the criminal code, juvenile code, or both, that provide religious immunity from abuse and neglect laws. If a parent sees that a child is suffering severe pain, has convulsions, or is vomiting blood, the law in most states requires the parent to either obtain proper medical care for the child or to pray (or hire someone to pray) for the child. The two are considered morally, medically and legally equivalent. In one of the few challenges to immunization exemptions, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the state's religious exemption law violated the Fourteenth Amendment because it denied some children the right to equal protection from disease.

The federal government has an interesting role in this strange state of affairs. In 1974, at the urging of the Christian Science Church, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) placed a provision in the Code of Federal Regulations to the effect that parents who use prayer or faith healing instead of medical treatment cannot be considered negligent. This was a federal mandate, which means that states had to pass a version of it or risk losing federal funding for child-protection programs.

Critics believe these laws have contributed to many unnecessary and agonizing deaths of children. The laws also discourage others who might suspect child abuse and neglect from reporting it. If your Christian Science neighbors are exempt from neglect laws, you may believe it is pointless to report to health authorities that their little girl has had major seizures several times a day for months and has never been seen by a doctor. Teachers and child-protection agencies may draw similar conclusions. If the child dies, the coroner may assume that the death need not be reported to a prosecutor, or the latter may assume the case is not criminal.

The federal government reversed itself in 1983 when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), HEW's successor, removed the religious immunity provisions from the federal mandate. States are now required to define failure to provide necessary medical care as child neglect. However, HHS has not enforced this mandate as vigorously as it did the earlier policy. Today most states are still out of compliance because they have religious exemptions in their criminal and juvenile codes, but only a few have been challenged by HHS, In other states, prayer is considered fully equivalent to medical care. In most cases where a sick child is deprived of medical care and dies of a generally curable illness, his parents cannot be charged with negligence as long as they prayed for the child or hired someone else to do so.

The church continues to insist that its treatments are effective and to demand privileges and rights not accorded to others, including the right to endanger children and injure them by failing to provide necessary medical care. Christian Science children are second-class citizens since they do not have the same right to health care, both preventive and therapeutic, that other children have. And Christian Science healers continue to enjoy special privileges others do not enjoy in blatant violation of the doctrine of separation of church and state. The church still believes its healers are superior to physicians and forbids Christian Science treatments for those undergoing medical treatment. This uncompromising attitude encourages avoidance of medical care, and it will continue to kill children until the laws are changed.

Prospects for the future of Christian Science are mixed. While membership numbers are a secret, the number of congregations in the United States has declined about 2 percent a year for the past twenty years. Nevertheless, there are still several thousand churches in at least fifty countries, and the mother church in Boston remains wealthy and politically influential. Moreover, the laws it has inspired are still on the books, ready for other faith healers to exploit. Just as chiropractic's success with the legislatures opens the gates for naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, and other pseudosciences, Christian Science has established precedents for other varieties of cults that advocate avoidance of medical Care. It would not surprise me if many Protestant, Catholic, and New Age cults demand full legal equality with Christian Scientists.

Evangelical Healing

The idea that some people can magically cure illnesses in others by merely touching them, praying for them, or performing magical rituals goes back to primitive shamanism. Christian evangelical healing originated in America and Europe in the 1 800s. The characteristic fire-and-brimstone preaching sprinkled with outrageous claims and promises of miracles seems to have started with the Reverend William Branham from Indiana His great financial success inspired scores of imitators to hit the road, fleecing local sheep throughout the country.

Evangelical healing hasn't changed much since then, except that most of the traveling is now done through the airwaves. Rex Humbard and Oral Roberts set the format and style used by most of today's televangelists, some of whom have become wealthy by peddling little more than cheap tricks. In The Faith Healers [Prometheus Books, 1987], James Randi provides most of the following information.

W.V. Grant has used mnemonics, crib sheets, hand signals from confederates in the audience, and other gimmicks to lead people to believe he is receiving information about them from a divine source.21 He credits Holy Spirit Power, the Gifts of the Spirit. He proclaims that he uses no trickery, only divine power, but he actually does mentalist tricks known to magicians for many decades. He has been observed putting healthy people in wheelchairs and ordering them to walk (miraculously) after his Gift heals them. He does dramatic individual healings as well as mass healings that supposedly cure hundreds at once of arthritis, heart disease, cancer, blindness, deafness, paralysis, and everything else.

These demonstrations loosen wallets in a hurry and donations pour in. Not one of his thousands of alleged healings has ever been medically documented. On the contrary, many of those allegedly cured call him a liar and a fake who should not be allowed to steal from the public. Grant also makes money through mail-order sales of a wide variety of publications, tapes, courses, worthless diplomas, and holy knickknacks. He has even marketed herbs and supplements alleged to cure AIDS and other diseases.

Peter Popoff has grossed tens of millions of tax-free dollars through televised performances in which he called out people in the audience, named their ailment, and performed miraculous healings with the power of Jeeezzus.21 It turned out he was using a tiny radio receiver, hidden in his ear, to get the information broadcast by his wife backstage. After this was exposed by James Randi on Johnny Carson's 'Tonight Show," Popoff s syndicated program was dropped by the eighty or so metropolitan stations that had carried it for years and thus aided and abetted the swindle.

Popoff has also made millions working a huge mailing list, peddling prayer cloths, sacred gloves, holy ribbons, sacred handkerchiefs said to be imbued with Popoff's sweat, and other charms and gimmicks. Randi's book describes in exquisite detail how, in 1985, Popoff staged a claim that "Satanists and secular humanists" had broken into his headquarters and destroyed 100,000 Bibles he was planning to send to Russia. During his video production he used a cut onion to produce real tears as he appealed for donations to cover the cost of the allegedly damaged Bibles. What he actually showed, according to Randi's investigation, was not 100,000 ruined Bibles, but remains of 10,000 pamphlets that had been hosed down by Popoff' s own agents.

Oral Roberts is the founder of the Evangelistic Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His conglomerate employs some three thousand people, brings in hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, and is a major factor in the Tulsa economy. it consists of Oral Roberts University, a nursing home, a retirement center, condominiums, banks, and a variety of other businesses. Roberts has claimed to have divine visions and miraculous powers by which he can heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. His organization has declined challenges to produce evidence to support any of these claims. Roberts's success is not based on scientific evidence, but on his ability to attract donations.

In 1981 Roberts opened the City of Faith, a $250,000,000 medical complex where "prayer and scientific medicine can be merged." The complex included a medical school, a research center, and a 777-bed hospital opposed by community leaders who said that Tulsa already had enough hospitals. In 1989 Roberts announced that unfilled beds-a problem from the beginning- had forced him to close the school and shut down his hospital. At its peak, the facility had only 148 inpatients. Along the way, Roberts attracted notoriety with broadcasts portraying God as a terrorist holding him hostage and demanding millions of dollars be paid lest the dedicated evangelist be snuffed.

Pat Robertson, director and host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club," claims to have Word of Knowledge (direct messages from God) about people with diseases and the ability to direct God's healing power. Robertson claims to be able to heal broken bones, make the crippled walk, and banish advanced diseases of all kinds, including AIDS. He works in a shotgun manner so the results cannot be ascertained. For example, he'll say something like: 'There's a woman in Cincinnati with undiagnosed lymph cancer that's been making her feel unwell lately. God is now healing it. There! You'll be better now." Robertson even asserts that he can move hurricanes away from populated areas and speak to throngs of Chinese in English while they miraculously hear his words in their own regional dialects.

As far as I know, he is the only current evangelist-healer who campaigned for the U. S. Presidency (for the 1988 election) and was probably the first to do so since William Jennings Bryan. I shudder to think about the impact a faith-healer President might have on America's health-care system.

Robert Tilton, also known as Pastor Bob, grosses an estimated one million dollars per week through his televised ministry, which is carried by nearly one hundred stations across the country. His main gimmick is the ultimate in simplicity. During the healing frenzy he puts a hand up to the camera and invites viewers to put their hands on the image of his hands on their television screens. By this means, the Spirit of God goes through his hands and into them where it cures whatever might ail them, including AIDS.

Evangelicals versus Christian Scientists

While Christian Scientists deny the very existence of disease and pray for the elimination of the illusion, evangelical healers claim to cure real diseases caused by Satan. While Christian Science healers quietly and earnestly pray for friends and neighbors, and make a moderate but steady income, the modern-day Elmer Gantry's typically use trickery to make mountains of money from gullible audiences. While Christian Scientists have formal classes and credentials, work within our legal system, and lobby for greater privileges, evangelicals don't bother much with credentials, formalities, and legalities. Evangelists do pretty much what they please. Most maintain enough of a religious facade to keep tax collectors, bunko squads, and politicians faraway. They sell bogus miracles and delusional frenzy to desperate and gullible people. Since they do it in the name of Jeeezzus, however, the donations they rake in are rarely reportable to the IRS or otherwise accountable.

Despite recent scandals, many evangelicals are still doing well financially. They don't seem inclined to lobby for inclusion in health insurance programs, which might invite unwanted scrutiny. If they did, who would stop them? Legislators who consider chiropractic, naturopathy, acupuncture, Christian Science, and scientific medicine to be separate-but-equal professions? Governors and Presidents who wear religiosity on their sleeves?

Psychic Diagnosis and Healing

From time immemorial some people have claimed to be able to see, understand, and cure diseases by using psychic powers.

Edgar Cayce's disciples and imitators claim to psychically see inside the body, even from thousands of miles away, to locate, diagnose. and treat any lesion, abnormality, or sickness that is present. During the first half of the twentieth century, Cayce, originally a professional photographer, devoted several hours each day to going into a trance-like state and doing "readings," some 14,000 of which were recorded by a stenographer.22.23

No scientific study of the results of Cayce's treatments has ever been undertaken; his followers simply take Cayce's words as gospel. The transcripts have been preserved, edited, and published in various forms by the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. A.R.E. does a brisk business selling pamphlets, books, and tapes on such disorders as diabetes, allergies, obesity arthritis, multiple sclerosis, mental illness, and baldness. Even a few medical doctors are convinced Cayce was a genuine psychic who revealed important healing techniques. For example, Norman Shealy, M.D., first president of the American Holistic Medical Association, credits A.R.E. with his own "transformation towards holistic health."

It is not clear how Cayce derived his (mis)information. Supporters say he probably gleaned it telepathically from osteopaths and other "natural healers" and their texts. Skeptics suspect he was a fantasy-prone personality and a victim of self-delusion. His most common prescriptions were for manipulations, massage, baths, castor-oil packs, enemas, and various poultices.24.25 Cayce 's readings state that smoking tobacco is not only harmless, but is positively beneficial in moderation for most people.25 (I wonder how he divined that.) While Cayce may have been honest and sincere, though deluded, some contemporary "psychic" diagnosticians and healers are just con artists who make a living exploiting the gullible.

Psychic surgery is not a case of delusion, but of deceit.26.27 The scam is often promoted by film or videotape. In a typical production, a woman with inoperable spinal tumors lies on her stomach, fully conscious. The "surgeon" holds his hands just above the flesh of her lower back and then kneads the flesh with his fingers. Suddenly, blood appears as his fingers seem to sink into the flesh. They quickly withdraw with stringy bits of bloody material said to be tumors. The wound then appears to close spontaneously as the assistants sponge up the blood. The patient reports no pain.

Many patients have been shown undergoing "surgery" for tumors, heart disease, and other disorders. The pattern is always the same, from the kneading to the appearance of blood, to the pulling out of tissue, to the mopping up. Some of the patients are interviewed; all say they feel better. Some patients flew from the United States to the Philippines in a chartered jet liner and paid up to several thousand dollars each for psychic surgery treatments. The genius at work, who explained his talent in terms of mental power and cosmic vibrations, was the late Tony Agpaoa, an -- ex-magician who probably became one of the wealthiest men in the Philippines.28 Many of his imitators have also done well for themselves.

At a screening I attended, most of the two hundred or so members of the audience appeared favorably impressed. Many felt they had witnessed a miracle. Few spotted the sleight-of-hand, the subtle pressing down of the flesh to create a little pool to hold the "blood" (typically betel nut juice) that was sneaked in, probably from capsules in the cotton, and the palming of bits of animal tissue. Most people in the audience were not desperately ill, yet they were taken in by the scam. It's not surprising that cancer patients are easily victimized.

Psychic surgery has been debunked and exposed as a fraud many times. With a supply of "blood" and chicken guts, some sleight-of-hand and a lot of gall, any good magician could make a fortune with the racket. Randi has demonstrated the procedure on the 'Tonight Show." Fortunately, few magicians are such scoundrels. Unfortunately, the expos6s have not put much of a dent in the business. The power of suggestion-the placebo effect-is no doubt the basis of whatever success, or seeming success, is achieved. All that blood and guts can have a powerful impact on the mind. While the emotional impact of the treatment may be substantial, it is only temporary and cannot alter the course of a serious disease. The danger, of course, is that victims who are convinced they are cured may rely on this belief instead of getting effective medical care.

Qigong (pronounced "chi-gung") is an ancient Chinese system of healing, both oneself and others, by manipulating alleged mystical energies. Qigong masters can allegedly see into bodies without x-rays, even at a distance like Edgar Cayce, and cure all kinds of serious diseases, including cancer and AIDS. This psychic medicine has waxed and waned in popularity in response to political and cultural circumstances. Maoism, a Chinese version of Marxist materialism, could coexist with acupuncture because, with its purported meridians, points, and energies (Qi), it can at least appear natural rather than supernatural. Like acupuncture, Qigong involves the meridians that allegedly carry Qi, In the internal form of this traditional healing art, the Qi is controlled with relaxation, breathing, and concentration techniques. The external form, however, in which Qigong masters radiate healing Qi from their fingertips to affect miraculous cures, was too mystical for the Maoists, and they suppressed Qigong altogether. Since the late 1980s, Qigong, like many other mystical and superstitious concepts and movements, has experienced a strong revival. The system is used in hospitals and clinics throughout China and has recently arrived in America, Australia, and Europe. Like acupuncture and Ayurveda, it may spread and become entrenched as a part of "holistic healing" and "alternative medicine." Scientific tests 128 A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative Medicine"

Multilevel Quackery

Perhaps the fastest-growing segment of the snake-oil business consists of multilevel companies that recruit thousands (and sometimes even hundreds of thousands) of untrained individuals into the business of playing doctor with their relatives, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Often they have tried the products, concluded that they work, and become suppliers to spread the word and pick up some cash in the process.

Multilevel marketing (also called network marketing) is a form of direct sales in which independent distributors sell products, typically to their friends and acquaintances. In theory, distributors can make money not only from their own sales but also from those of the people they recruit. To become a distributor they complete a simple application and pay a small fee. This enables them to buy products "wholesale," sell them "retail," and recruit other distributors who can do the same. When enough distributors have been enrolled, the recruiter is eligible to collect a percentage of their sales. Companies suggest that this process provides a great money-making opportunity. However, people who don't join during the first few months of operation or become one of the early distributors in their community are unlikely to build enough of a sales pyramid to do well.

Most multilevel companies that market health products claim that their products can prevent or cure a wide range of diseases. A few companies merely suggest that people will feel better, look better, or have more energy if they supplement their diet with extra nutrients. When clear-cut therapeutic claims are made in product literature, the company is an easy target for government enforcement action. Some companies run this risk, hoping that the government won't take action until their customer base is well established. Other companies make no claims in their literature but rely on testimonials, encouraging people to try their products and credit them for any improvement that occurs.

Most multilevel companies tell distributors not to make claims for the products except for those found in company literature. (That way the company can deny responsibility for what distributors do.) Many companies, however, hold sales meetings and arrange telephone conference calls during which people tell how the products have helped them. Testimonials may also be trumpeted in company magazines, audiotapes, or videotapes.

Government enforcement action against multilevel companies has not been vigorous. These companies are usually left alone unless their promotions become so conspicuous and their sales volume so great that an agency feels compelled to intervene. Even then, few interventions have substantial impact once a company is well established. Here are a few facts about three multilevel companies involved in the sale of herbal remedies.

During the mid-1980s, Herbalife International, Inc., raked in hundreds of millions of dollars before government agencies intervened. Early in its operation, its various products were claimed to heal some seventy diseases, help attain and maintain a healthy weight, aid digestion, heal and "cleanse the system," increase energy and alertness, improve cardiovascular function, combat aging, and improve mood.30 At Congressional hearings in 1985, company officials admitted that many of their customers experienced unpleasant side effects, which was not surprising because the products contained laxatives. 1987 Herbalife and its president, Mark Hughes, agreed to pay $850,000 to the state of California for making false medical claims and operating an illegal pyramid-style scheme. Adverse publicity cut sales drastically, but the company still grosses over $100 million a year.

Another large company, Sunrider International, was not deterred by Herbalife's legal problems. Its literature and distributors suggest that its products can help the body heal itself, "cleanse the body," improve emotional well-being, increase alertness, decrease pain, improve circulation, and enhance immunity, fertility, stamina, and vigor, all by "nourishing" specific organs. The alleged nutrients that accomplish these wonders are not named, and no evidence is provided to support these wild claims.

Sunrider's activities illustrate how law-enforcement agencies are often ineffective in stopping quackery by large corporations. In 1983 the FDA told Sunrider, among other things, to stop claiming that its Calli Tea helps users be "slender, energetic, and full of life." In 1990 the company signed a consent agreement with California authorities to pay $175,000 in penalties for false advertising of its products.31 Yet in 1991 the company's sales materials still promoted its products for obesity, infections, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, gout, eye problems, diabetes, and more. A distributor told me the products had cured her mother's cholesterol problems, a friend's hypertension, and her cat's cancer. She suggested, as does some Sunrider literature, that the products can allow people to stop using doctor-prescribed drugs for a wide variety of serious disorders. On the strength of such claims, Sunrider has become a major player in the snake-oil industry with sales over $300 million in 1990.

The company's charismatic founder and president is Tei Fu Chen. Allegedly from a family of prominent Chinese herbalists, he claims to be a medical doctor educated in Taiwan and a pharmacist licensed in the United States. In a May 1991 telecast, "Inside Edition" reported that a lawsuit filed against Sunrider revealed that he had no credentials in either medicine or pharmacy. Sunrider literature calls Chen a "world renowned nutritionist," though he has no credentials in nutrition either. He claims his theories are supported by scientific research, but refuses to cite the studies on the grounds that "scientific evidence can always be disputed." Instead, he urges us to have faith in his (apparently bogus) credentials and "the long history of Chinese success" in medicine. He claims he has converted the wisdom of the ancient principles of yin and yang into modern molecular terms. He provides no details, just the end result: everyone needs his pills, powders, potions, teas, and ointments for maximum health. In 1992 the lawsuit described on "Inside Edition" came to trial. After deciding that Sunrider had violated Arizona's racketeering laws, the jury awarded actual and punitive damages totaling $650,000 to the plaintiff.

Nature's Sunshine Products is another fast-growing company. Its more than four hundred products include many that are claimed to "nourish" or "support" various body organs. Its salespeople, dubbed "Natural Health Counselors," are taught to use iridology, muscle-testing (a type of applied kinesiology), and other dubious methods to convince people that they need the products.32 The company also markets a "weight-loss and lifetime nutritional program" based on the "glandular body typing" of Dr. Elliot Abravanel described in Chapter 1.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a system developed in the late l700s by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician. Its basic principle is expressed in the homeopathic law, similia similibus curentur ("like cures like"). Hahnemann drew this conclusion after experimenting with cinchona bark, which contains quinine and was known to cure malaria (then called "intermittent fever"). After taking the drug, he experienced palpitations, rapid pulse, prostration, flushing, and thirst, symptoms that he believed were very similar to those of malaria. He generalized from this and asserted that if a substance given to a healthy person causes certain symptoms, small amounts of the substance will cure a person sick with those symptoms.

Based on this simple notion, Hahnemann built an enormous edifice of dogma and promoted it with the zeal of an evangelist. He vented his wrath on followers who did not toe the line exactly: "He who does not walk on exactly the same line with me, who diverges, if it be but the breadth of a straw, to the right or to the left, is an apostate and a traitor."33

Hahnemann stated that a drug-induced disease will drive out a preexisting disease if the two are similar. The entire edifice of homeopathy was then constructed by claims of similarities between various substances and diseases. For example, suppose a person is experiencing delirium, hallucinations, dilated pupils, and wild, insane behavior. The proper remedy is a little belladonna, large doses of which cause these symptoms in normal persons. Or, if signs of kidney or liver disease or anemia occur, the proper remedy is a little arsenic, which can produce these problems in healthy persons. Colds and hay fever are treated with homeopathic extracts of onion since normal amounts cause the eyes to run.

A favorite homeopathic remedy is extract of aconite (also known as monkshood, friar's cap, and wolfsbane), a plant so toxic that simply picking the flowers can cause tingling and numbness in the fingers. Just 5 mg of the active alkaloid can kill a person. Homeopathic preparations of aconite are advocated as a first aid for shock, stroke, heart attack, and other very serious conditions. It is also used in preparations for children. The "logic" behind aconite's use is that, like the effects of this extremely lethal chemical, the above-mentioned conditions generally come on suddenly and with great severity. Like cures like, remember. Strychnine is also popular with homeopaths.

How far do homeopaths carry their dogma? Do they treat lead poisoning with more lead? Incredibly, the answer is yes. Bee stings are treated with more bee venom, mercury poisoning with more mercury, and so on for many kinds of poisoning. Fortunately, as described below, homeopathic remedies are so dilute that the amounts of added toxins are insignificant.

Not all homeopathic medicines are derived from toxic substances. Extremely small doses of calcium, iron, magnesium, and other common minerals are used for severe pain and a wide variety of serious diseases and infections. People normally get far more of these minerals from small amounts of food, but the minerals in the homeopathic pills are supposedly made more potent by the methods used to prepare them. Even plain old calcium carbonate, which many people take in doses of hundreds of milligrams as an antacid or calcium supplement, becomes Calcarea carbonica, a wondrous antiviral drug at infinitesimal doses, in the hands of homeopaths.

The Magical World of Homeopathic Pharmacology

Homeopathic lore states that their remedies have been tested by administering them to healthy volunteers who recorded every physical, mental, and emotional effect they perceived over a period of time. These effects are then said to be the symptoms amenable to homeopathic doses of the substances. These tests are called "provings." Homeopaths believe they prove not only what substances do at physiological doses, but also what they do in vanishingly small doses, with the effects increasing as the dose approaches zero. In Hahnemann's guide to provings, subjects attribute every little ache, brief pain, tight muscle, bad mood, erection, and fart to the substance being tested. The provings for most of today's commonly used homeopathic remedies were done more than 150 years ago and recorded in reference books (materia medica) that practitioners use for selecting remedies. A few practitioners, however, use "electrodiagnostic" devices or computer programs to select their remedies.

Do you think that the physiological effects of herbs, minerals, and assorted toxins can be ascertained this way? Most people given a pill and encouraged to attribute all sorts of things to it will do so! This should be obvious to rational people, but homeopaths don't get it. It would be interesting to see whether subjects in a "proving" can distinguish between a substance they have just tested and a placebo. But, as far as I know, no such experiment has been done.

Some homeopaths refer to people and drugs in a manner resembling that of astrology. One textbook, for example, describes "the belladonna" as a violent character prone to "turmoil in the brain." and "the arsenicum," as a "covetous, malicious money-maker with green, putrid excretions."34 The remedies for these flawed personality traits, of course, are belladonna and arsenic. While homeopathy claims to be a "natural" healing profession, it not only has a pill for everything, but claims that thousands of substances are a remedy for something.

Homeopathic Alchemy

The magic of homeopathy lies in the process that embues mundane and lethal substances with miraculous powers during their preparation. Nonsoluble substances are repeatedly crushed and diluted with lactose, a process called trituration. Soluble substances are repeatedly diluted with alcohol or water and shaken vigorously, a process called succussion. According to homeopathic theory, these methods are essential to the activity and assimilation of the remedy, but since there is no detectable difference between substances subjected to pounding and shaking and those not so abused, there is no way to enforce this requirement. It's a question of faith, similar to questions like, "Was the holy water really properly blessed" and "How could one ever be sure?"

An even stranger feature is the assertion that the smaller the dose, the greater the potency. For example, for symptoms resembling arsenic poisoning, the homeopath (or homeopathic manufacturer) dilutes some arsenic in lactose, takes a small amount of the mixture and dilutes it with more lactose, and so on, dozens or hundreds of times. The remedy is supposed to become more potent with each dilution. For maximum potency, dilution continues even after it is mathematically impossible that a single atom of arsenic remains, and the remedy continues to get more potent! The arsenic, chamomile, or calcium carbonate that is no longer present affects the person through "vibrations" it has left behind. That's really what they say.

Homeopaths present themselves to the public as scientific practitioners, but they are really mystical cultists who believe in a "vital force," disturbance of which is the cause of disease. The supposed disturbance can be corrected by the "spirit-like essence" of homeopathic medicines. Obviously, homeopathy resembles alchemy and is absolutely incompatible with modern science. In fact, if homeopathy were true, there could be no chemistry as we know it because there would be no pure substances or recognizable chemical laws. Every substance would imprint its vibes forever on everything it ever came in contact with. Since everything and every substance would have its own unique history, it would have its own unique properties that could not be divined by all the most powerful computers in the world.

Homeopathic theory was thoroughly demolished in 1842 by Oliver Wendell Holmes in his essay, "Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions"35 and has been further refuted many times since. Nevertheless, homeopathic remedies are recognized as drugs by federal law. They were given legal status by the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which recognized as drugs all substances included in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States. The FDA has permitted homeopathic products to be marketed even though they have not been demonstrated to work. Listings in the book are not based on scientific testing but on "provings."

The number of physicians who practice homeopathy is small-at most a few hundred-but many chiropractors, naturopaths, and other fringe practitioners are prescribing and selling homeopathic remedies for the gamut of disease. And "health food" stores and a few pharmacies display scores of homeopathic preparations labeled for use in specific ailments or to strengthen specific organs. An alleged homeopathic aphrodisiac has been huckstered on program-length TV commercials that touted the substance's listing in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia as proof of its legitimacy.

Homeopaths assert that their preparations are so potent that serious harm can come from inappropriate use. Are homeopathic drugs so powerful that they can permanently screw up the vital force? Why aren't homeopaths fighting tooth and nail against the proliferation of over-the-counter homeopathic remedies? As with the other mysteries and paradoxes of homeopathy, only the vital force knows.

Dana Ullman, Master Promoter

Dana Ullman, America's foremost promoter of homeopathy, also peddles books and a variety of products. One is a "homeopathic tranquilizer" containing passion flower, hops, and chamomile. This product violates classical homeopathic principles in several ways. Homeopathic medicines are supposed to be given only after proper "provings" and only one at a time. Here is a combination product that has not been "proved." Moreover, since these herbs are generally recognized as tranquilizers in normal doses, they should be stimulants in homeopathic doses. Yet, the product is sold as a tranquilizer. This illustrates the fact that with homeopathy the potions are whatever their peddlers say they are. Since they usually don't do anything anyway, those who buy them can imagine any effects they want.

Ullman's book, Homeopathy, Medicine for the 21st Century [North Atlantic Books, 19881, typifies the combination of fuzzy thinking and messianic attitude characteristic of homeopaths. Ullman claims the book "synthesizes homeopathy, Jungian psychology, alchemy, and the new physics." According to the book's introduction:

By providing a diagnostic system that assesses the whole organism rather than simply its parts, and by being a therapeutic system that works by stimulating a person's own immune and defense system rather than by simply controlling or suppressing symptoms, homeopathy will inevitably become an integral part of health care in the United States.

The "diagnostic system" used by homeopaths involves compiling all the patient's symptoms, personality traits, and various other attributes and finding the substance(s) that supposedly "fit" them. Homeopathy considers this superior to modern medicine's silly habits of doing a medical history, blood studies, biopsies, and bacterial cultures and assessing such things as the functioning of the heart, lungs, and other organs. Since homeopathy is entirely symptom-oriented, it matters little what the medical diagnosis is. Homeopaths concern themselves with determining what substance has been reported to cause symptoms most closely resembling those of the patient. Homeopathic doses of that substance are then administered. This, we are told again and again (and again), stimulates the immune system, resolves the problem, raises the overall level of health, and prevents recurrence.

For this reason, states Dana Ullman, homeopathic medicines are "likely to become the treatment of choice in viral conditions." He also states that "it is becoming increasingly obvious that homeopathic medicines provide a viable, safer alternative to antibiotic use." He assures us that homeopaths have already enjoyed substantial success in treating AIDS, herpes, influenza, bladder infections, ear infections, chickenpox, meningitis, plague, cholera, scarlet fever, yellow fever, typhoid, and strep throat. He predicts that homeopathic remedies will largely replace antibiotics in the twenty-first century.

Like most homeopathy promoters, Ullman asserts that immunization against infectious diseases is based on the homeopathic "law of similars." There is not a microgram of truth to this statement. Vaccines are not small doses of substances that would cause disease if given in large doses. Nor do they become more potent with decreasing dosage. On the contrary, if the dose is too small, the vaccine has no effect. Nor must they be subjected to succussion to be effective. Vaccines are killed or weakened organisms that are left sufficiently intact to stimulate the formation of specific antibodies so the body's immune system can attack if the intact organisms enter the body. In this respect, their effect is similar to that of large doses of the live microbes, not the opposite.

Homeopathic history-taking includes many questions about symptoms, feelings, likes and dislikes, moods, and behavior. Unman says that "homeopathy is the science of finding the medicine that is most similar to the ..... . a substance that matches the essence of the person's characteristics." This is called the person's "constitutional medicine." Whatever ails the person, says Ullman, the constitutional medicine is most important, and treatment starts with it. When treating infections in women, Ullman says, "it is not so important to know what microorganism has infected the woman as it is to know what kind of woman the microorganism has infected."

Another important consideration is how the herb or other substance "grows and acts in nature, and how these characteristics correspond to the person who needs the medicine." For example, "Pulsatilla is a small and delicate flower with a flexible stem that moves with the wind (moody, easily 'taken with the wind'). It grows in clusters (dependence on others) in dry, sandy soil (thirstlessness)." Therefore, "the women who need Pulsatilla are gentle, mild, yielding, agreeable, sensitive, greedy for affection, emotionally dependent, easily brought to tears, especially just prior to menstruation.... Pulsatilla women rely on feelings in making decisions ... are easily led by others and easily hurt. . . dislike warm rooms, and have unstable circulation. They are averse to eating fat and to warm food and drinks."

In contrast, consider the Sepia woman, whose constitutional medicine is homeopathically prepared cuttlefish. They are "often overworked housewives or assertive career women.. . outspoken, direct, industrious." Their "inner irritability creates a bossy and nagging personality." They are "faultfinding, easily offended, disposed to quarrel... do not enjoy sex. . . and may become indifferent to their husbands and even to their children,... may feel cold in a warm room,... tend to have low thyroid hormones, low blood pressure, and adrenal deficiency. ... common symptoms include weakness in the small of the back and headaches."

The absurdities of homeopathic theory are too voluminous to discuss in this book, but one more-the concept of "miasms"-deserves special mention. Homeopaths believe that people can inherit acquired diseases (or something "similar") from their parents. For example, if one of your parents or even a distant relative had gonorrhea before you were born, you may inherit a gonorrheal "miasm," which means you "tend to manifest symptoms of overgrowth of tissue (enlarged organs, tumors, warts, fibrous growths or cysts, excess weight), accumulation of mucus, and disturbances of the pelvic and sexual organs," and you "maybe restless, cross, irritable, absentminded, selfish, and mischievous." 36

Promotions for Ullman's book claim it presents scientific support for homeopathy. The book claims that scores of homeopathic medicines are effective for practically every disease known, yet it presents only a handful of questionable studies to support the use of a half dozen remedies in a few self-limiting conditions. This is typical of homeopathic logic. Hahnemann developed the whole theory of homeopathy after experimenting with one drug on himself, and he didn't even use a homeopathic dose in that study.

Similarly, Ullman generalizes from half-baked studies of a few medicines and concludes that the entire Homeopathic Pharmacopeia has thereby been scientifically proven safe and effective for scores of ailments. As we have seen, homeopathy makes fantastic claims that are completely contrary to very well established principles of physiology, biochemistry, and pharmacology. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, but all Ullman provides is a smidgen of flimsy evidence. Someone claiming that the earth is flat would have to marshal a mountain of very impressive evidence to outweigh what centuries of contrary evidence have established. Ullman and homeopathy are light-years away from having proved their case.

Throughout the book Ullman uses heads-I-win, tails-you-lose sophistry to support homeopathic dogma On one page he says, "Homeopaths have found that the correctly prescribed medicine tends to work immediately." Elsewhere in the book he says that patients given homeopathic medicines commonly get worse before they get better. He calls this a "healing crisis" and it too is proof that the medicine is not a placebo, that it really has physiological effects that ultimately lead to recovery.

Further insight into Ullman's reasoning abilities is provided by the following episode. Ullman claims that properly controlled scientific studies have proved the efficacy of homeopathic remedies. A few years ago, a National Council Against Health Fraud Bulletin mailing mentioned that there have been no such studies in which homeopathic medicines have been independently analyzed for adulteration (sneaking known effective drugs into the formulations). Ullman responded that when studies are double-blind and placebo-controlled there is no need for adulteration analysis. This is an inexcusable lapse in logic for someone who claims to be educating America for twenty-first-century medicine. Consider, for example, the report of an asthmatic patient who responded strikingly to Dumcap, a homeopathic remedy manufactured in Pakistan. When the remedy was analyzed, it turned out to contain medications known to be effective against asthma.37 Even a perfectly controlled study might not detect a fraud involving adulterated pills without analysis of the pills. So much for Ullman's "scientific proof."

A Pandora's Box of Snake Oils

There is no question that homeopathic products are a waste of money. But are they dangerous? If properly manufactured, they will do no direct harm because their "active" ingredient is so dilute that it exerts no effect whatsoever. More important, however, is the danger of a person with a serious health problem being under the care of an irrational practitioner. Consumer Reports has concluded:

Any system of medicine embracing the use of such (homeopathic) remedies involves a potential danger to patients whether the prescribers are M.D. 's, otherlicensed practitioners, or outright quacks. Ineffective drugs are dangerous drugs when used to treat serious or life-threatening disease. Moreover, even though homeopathic drugs are essentially nontoxic, self-medication can still be hazardous. Using them for a serious illness or undiagnosed pain instead of obtaining proper medical attention could prove harmful or even fatal.38

Naturopathy

During the late 1970s, the wife of a naturopath in Hawaii died at the age of twenty-six. The "official" cause of death was Hodgkin's disease, but it would be more accurate to say that she was killed by her husband's belief system. When her disease became apparent, he was sure he could cure her with baths, herbal teas, homeopathic remedies, and laetrile.

Since these remedies are worthless against cancer, her disease progressed. By the time she had lost confidence in naturopathy, it was too late. The physicians who examined her were sickened by what they found. They advised that the therapy they had to offer (massive radiation) at this late stage would make her miserable and was unlikely to cure her. She chose to forego the treatment and died a few months later.

The naturopath was not an unlicensed quack posing as a doctor. He was licensed and practicing within the scope permitted by his license. He was not investigated, sued, prosecuted, or even reprimanded. In the states where naturopaths are permitted to practice, they are permitted to call themselves doctors and represent themselves to be family physicians. About a year after the woman's death, driven by intense curiosity, I visited the naturopath at his home. After we discussed the weather and real-estate prices, I nervously brought up the subject of his wife's illness and death. To my surprise, he discussed the matter calmly and voiced no regrets about his efforts to help her the "natural" way.

Naturopathic Notions

Naturopathy is based on the notion that diseases are caused by the accumulation of toxins in the body and should be treated by natural methods that rid the body of these toxins. The toxins are not named, and "natural" is not defined, so anything goes except what state law prohibits, which isn't much.

Since states have written naturopathic concepts into their laws, it behooves us to examine these concepts (better late than never). The laws generally say something to the effect that naturopaths use "natural" medicines and healing methods. Does this mean that there are "unnatural" medicines and healing methods? What might they be? Can anything that improves your health or saves your life be unnatural?

Naturopathic treatment may include enemas, starvation, doses of vitamin C equivalent to a hundred oranges a day, doses of vitamin A equivalent to fifty carrots, foul-tasting and toxic herbal teas, and raw beef gland pills. Do these seem "natural" to you? Medical doctors administer vaccines, antibiotics (which are extracted and derived from a wide variety of "natural and organic" microbes), morphine (from opium poppies), and digitalis (originally extracted from foxglove plants, but now synthesized in more potent forms in laboratories). Would you consider them "unnatural"?

Immunizations against a dozen killer diseases have significantly extended human life expectancy. Vaccinations work by stimulating the immune system to make antibodies to specific viruses and bacteria, so if the organisms enter the body they will be destroyed before they can multiply. Rather than support this triumph of modern scientific preventive medicine, that is also as "natural and organic" as anything could be, naturopaths propagandize against it -- never mind that it saves lives; it doesn't fit with their dogma about toxins.

Worse yet, some naturopaths espouse an "immunization kit" containing homeopathic solutions and pills that supposedly protect against polio, measles, pertussis, tetanus, and other lethal diseases. Parents led to believe that these kits will protect their children are being fleeced, and their children are being placed at risk. This hoax is not limited to the far fringes of the cult. The Academic Dean of the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Jared Zeff, N.D., said, in reference to such products, that some naturopaths give conventional vaccines and some give homeopathic pills that "stimulate the immune system."

Common Naturopathic Methods

Naturopaths who get a foot in the door may milk the health-care system for everything they can get. For example, as I write this, a Hawaii naturopath has been treating a man with low back pain for some four years. He has been using homeopathic pills and acupuncture and charging $1 ,200 per month for them. He also has been treating this same man with chelation therapy for alleged lead poisoning. This costs another several hundred per month. The naturopath has been making about $1,200 to $1,500 per month from one patient for years, with no improvement to show for it, and he persists with no serious challenge from government authorities.

Although there is no evidence to support the toxin theory, there is no end to the crackpot methods naturopaths use to get rid of the alleged toxins. Their favorites include high colonics. fasting, an assortment of bizarre dietary regimens, megavitamins, pangamic acid and other pseudonutrients, many unproven and toxic herbal medicines, homeopathy, acupuncture, reflexology, chelation therapy, and a wide assortment of quack cancer and AIDS drugs such as laetrile, hydrogen peroxide, and miscellaneous herbs and herbal extracts. Quack diagnostic methods popular with naturopaths include iridology, applied kinesiology, Electroacupuncture according to Voll and other electronic gadgetry, hair analysis, cytotoxic testing, and live cell analysis. Chapters 1 and 5 cover most of these methods.

These worthless procedures and nostrums are the stock-in-trade of naturopathy. There are a great many of them because naturopathy is among the most eclectic of the quack systems. In this respect they are much like the majority of chiropractors, who don't confine their treatments to manipulating the spine. The use of these methods could get medical doctors sued, fired, and/or de-licensed, but in the hands of naturopaths they are "natural healing methods." Americans are wasting billions of health-care dollars on them.

Naturopathy's War on Rational Medicine and Public Health

Like chiropractic, naturopathy was born around the turn of the century. The term seems to have been coined by John H. Scheel, a German homeopath. Early practitioners were mostly European emigrants who used hydrotherapy, herbal medicines, and manipulations. Like homeopaths and chiropractors, naturopaths see themselves as superior to medical doctors because they understand special secrets of health that M.D.'s don't. Therefore, they are not only fully qualified family physicians and primary-care providers, but they also feel free to treat cancer and AIDS patients and other seriously ill people whom even the best family doctors would refer to specialists. The National College of Naturopathic Medicine catalog suggests that naturopathic techniques will lead to "a revolution in health care."

Like chiropractors, naturopaths try to poison the public's mind against M.D.'s. They claim that naturopaths look to the real cause of disease (toxin accumulation), while M.D. 's only cover up the symptoms. They are holistic and really care, while M.D. '5 just want to keep you sick so they can keep taking your money. It follows that naturopathic alternatives are superior, even in cases of infections, cancers, and AIDS, for which they claim to have superior treatments. Many naturopaths oppose important public-health measures such as milk pasteurization and vaccinations.

Convergence with Chiropractic

Naturopaths and mixer D.C. 's have become almost indistinguishable in their fraudulent promotion methods, in their slander of rational medicine, and in the plethora of quack methods common to their trades. It is hard to think of a snake oil commonly used by one but not the other. They both prescribe and peddle megavitamins, various pseudonutrients, homeopathic remedies, unproven herbal remedies, and raw gland extracts. Much of what is said in Chapter3 about chiropractic either already applies to naturopathy or probably will in the future. Predictably, naturopathy is imitating the strategy used by chiropractic and may eventually be legalized through the U.S.

Both chiropractors and naturopaths indulge in irrational and dangerous gadgeteering. A monument to their convergence came in 1983 when Scot Olsen, a licensed naturopath in Alberta, Canada, used a chiropractic technique.39 He inserted a balloon up the nose of a twenty-month-old girl, purportedly to enlarge her small skull. The balloon lodged in the girl's throat and she strangled. While a judge did find the naturopath guilty of criminal negligence and called the treatment "outright quackery," he sentenced Olsen to only one day in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Naturopaths and chiropractors both administer high colonics, acupuncture, and spinal and cranial manipulations for the treatment and prevention of serious diseases. They both use preposterous diagnostic techniques such as iridology and applied kinesiology. And they both wax mystical about "energy flow." The only serious difference between them is that chiropractors say they treat spinal subluxations so "nerve energy" can flow efficiently, while naturopaths say all those same treatments are necessary to cure and prevent toxin accumulation. Chiropractors have a spine fetish, while naturopaths have a colon fetish.

Naturopathic Education

There are only two full-time naturopathic schools in the United States: Bastyr College in Seattle, Washington, and the National College of Naturopathic Medicine (NCNM) in Portland, Oregon. Each has a four-year curriculum leading to the Doctor of Naturopathy (N.D.) degree. The cost is about $10,000 per year. The federal government will help pick up the tab through guaranteed student loans and other assistance. Thus, the taxpayers subsidize the training of quacks who may later defraud, sicken, or kill some of them and work to undermine tax-supported public-health measures. Some of the tab is also picked up by companies that market snake oils that the naturopaths later prescribe and peddle. For example, in 1988 John Bastyr College received about $20,000 in money and laboratory equipment from American Biologics, a company once described as the major laetrile distributor of the world.40 The college has also received large donations from dozens of manufacturers of homeopathic and food-supplement products.

But I digress. Naturopathic colleges are similar to chiropractic colleges in that they present a pseudoscientific facade while they train students to practice cult medicine. Their curricula contain courses in basic sciences (anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry), as well as several disease-related courses with names similar to those given at medical schools. But most of the clinical courses involve pseudoscientific practices. (At Bastyr College, for example, the course on oncology includes "alternative therapies for cancer.") Their libraries are poor in scientific journals and rich in self-serving cult periodicals, trade publications that promote quack remedies, and anti-science cult propaganda tracts. They carry many quackery-promoting books but few scientific rebuttals to them. NCNM's library carries several books detailing the use of laetrile for cancer.

Naturopathy and the Law

The catalogs of both naturopathic colleges say that naturopaths practice in every state under various legal provisions. Seven states, the District of Columbia, and several Canadian provinces have specific licensure laws. Several other states and provinces have right-to-practice laws. In other states, N.D. 's are tolerated but not officially permitted to practice. Naturopaths and their associations are working hard for full national legalization.

Both naturopathic colleges claim to train fully capable primary-care physicians. The NCNM catalog, for example, says, "Naturopathic physicians as primary care providers are trained to be the doctor first seen by a patient for general health advice, preventive care and diagnosis and treatment of various acute and chronic conditions." The law and the highest education officials in the nation are increasingly going along with this. The United States Department of Education (USDE) recognized the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME) on an interim basis as an accrediting agency, even though it is recognized by only a few states. Recognition was not made permanent, not because of opposition from organized medicine, but because naturopaths with lesser credentials (such as a correspondence-school diploma) fear restrictions on their practices.

As licensure spreads, critics of naturopathy may be at increasing risk for antitrust actions. There will probably not be a naturopathic parallel to the Wilk v. AMA chiropractic case discussed in Chapter 3. Organized medicine has learned its lesson and is unlikely to attempt to eliminate naturopathy or any other nonscientific type of health care that achieves licensure. A nation that condones astrology in the White House and Reaganesque anti-regulation mania in all branches of government is unlikely to tolerate "monopolistic" practices by scientific medicine. So the public will have little protection by either the government or responsible professional and scientific associations.

Naturopathy is a pseudoscientific healing cult and a hazard to the public's health. It has a symbiotic and unethical relationship with the "health food and natural therapeutics" industry, the makers and wholesalers of the snake oils they use. But this doesn't matter to the USDE. In 1974 (when it was called the U.S. Office of Education), it recognized an accrediting agency for chiropractic education-even though in 1968 the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had concluded that "chiropractic education does not prepare its practitioners to make an adequate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment."41 At that time, the Commissioner of Education said that his actions have nothing to do with the scientific validity or the usefulness of the field of training in question. The important factors are widespread acceptance and facilities, assets, and paperwork that are up to par. Although this received little publicity, the 1968 HEW report drew the same conclusion about naturopathy as it did about chiropractic.

It is frighteningly clear that as America approaches the twenty-first century, any quack healing system, and perhaps any bogus and fraudulent profession of any kind, can legitimize its scam and the teaching of its scam if it can organize itself properly and get its paperwork together sufficiently to please USDE. The mistaken dogmas of chiropractic and naturopathy can maim and kill people. If they, can gain USDE recognition without scientific support, is there any reason that crystal healing, past-life therapy, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, and dozens of other cults based on dogma and superstition can't do the same? In fact, a USDE official has stated that the department would probably recognize an accreditation agency for schools that train astrologers if one were to meet current USDE criteria.42

How about schools to teach securities and jewelry fraud? Does it make sense to outlaw selling fake stocks, gold, and diamonds while we have government-sanctioned and subsidized schools promoting bogus cancer and arthritis remedies? What are fancy certificates, metals, and stones compared to human health and life? If we're really going to deregulate to the point of madness, let's at least be consistent. Do not stock swindlers have as much right to their jobs as naturopaths have to theirs? Don't students of jewelry fraud have as much right to loans and scholarships as students of health fraud?

Why do state legislators swallow naturopathic propaganda and allow naturopaths to practice? I don't doubt that the main cause is ignorance. After all, our lawmakers were treated to the same mind-numbing and science-poor education as most Americans. Political corruption, however, may also play a role. After I testified at a Hawaii state legislative hearing regarding a bill on naturopathy, I received an anonymous phone call from a man who claimed to be a good friend of a local naturopath. He said he saw his friend and two other naturopaths each give cash to a key legislator at a campaign fundraising party. He said that his naturopathic friend later told him that the naturopaths had been told how much they had to come up with to secure the lawmaker's vote. They met and agreed on how much each would pay. It was several hundred dollars, depending on the size of the practice. This caller seemed very sincere and genuinely disgusted by the corruption he had witnessed. But I can't rule out the possibility that it may have been a dirty trick, that a naturopath was trying to goad me into libel or slander so I could be sued, discredited, and silenced. If this was the case, it seems equally corrupt.

Corrupt or not, like chiropractic before it, naturopathy has succeeded in writing some of its mystical dogma into state laws. For example, Hawaiian law defines naturopathy as:

the practice of natural medicine, natural therapeutics, and natural procedures, for the purpose of removing toxic conditions from the body and improving the quality, quantity, harmony, balance, and flow of the vital fluids, vital tissues, and vital energy; and the practice of diagnosing, treating, and caring for patients using a system of practice that bases its treatment of physiological functions and abnormal conditions on natural laws governing the human body."

This is the language of religion, not science. "Natural," "toxic," "harmony," "balance," "vital," "abnormal condition," and "natural laws" have special meanings to naturopaths-meanings rooted in their dogma rather than science. Other states that license naturopaths have similar laws.

Another frightening development is a law passed recently in Oregon that allows naturopaths to prescribe a wide variety of antibiotics, hormones, and other potent drugs for the treatment of infections, endocrine disorders, heart disease, hypertension, and other serious diseases. Even cocaine and opium are included on the list. The use of prescription drugs goes against naturopathic dogma and tradition, but it apparently occurred to naturopaths that their scope of practice was too limited. Never mind that naturopaths are not adequately trained in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions calling for the use of the drugs. This preposterous law puts powerful drugs in the hands of unscientific practitioners who now present a greater danger to the public than ever. Will they base their prescriptions of the drugs on such naturopathic diagnostic techniques as applied kinesiology, radionics, and iridology? The Oregon legislature is either corrupt, incredibly gullible, or both.

By legalizing naturopathy, legislatures have written quasi-religious dogma into state laws. It is nonsense to categorize healing methods and professions by their "naturalness." The only attributes that should count are effectiveness and safety as shown by proper studies. Healing methods are either supportable by scientific evidence or they are not. Those that are not should not be supported by public funds, and their practitioners should not be allowed to fraudulently claim that they are scientifically based when, in fact, they are based on cult dogma that is contrary to the facts and hazardous to the health of patients.

References:

1. P. Skrabanek: Acupuncture: past, present, and future. In Examining Holistic Medicine (D. Stalker and C. Glymour, eds.). Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1985.

2. National Council Against Health Fraud Bulletin Board. July/Aug. 1989.

3. Acupuncturists cross needles. Medical Tribune, Sept. 14, 1989

4. Honolulu Star-Bulletin ,Oct. 26, 1987.

5. S.T. Botek: One doctor's acupuncture odyssey. Medical Tribune, May 2, 1984.

6. K.T. Frazier: Gallup Poll of beliefs: Astrology up, ESP down. Skeptical Inquirer 13:244-245, 1989.

7. The best summaries of the case against astrology are R.B. Culver and P.A. Ianna: Astrology:True or False? A Scientific Evaluation. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1988; and L.E. Lawrence: Astrology Disproved, Prometheus Books, 1977.

8. G.A. Dean et al.: The Guardian Astrology Study: a critique and reanalysis. Skeptical Inquirer 9:327-338, 1985.

9. Carlson: A double-blind test of astrology. Nature 318:419-425, 1985.

10. M. Gauquelin: Dreams and Illusions of Astrology. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1979, pp 105-107,119-121.

11. I.W. Kelly et al.: The moon was full and nothing happened: a review of studies on the moon and human behavior and lunar beliefs. Skeptical Inquirer 10:129-143, 1985.

12. T. Hines. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1988.

13. D. Franklin: The Maharishi's medicine man. In Health, May/June, 1990.

14. TM -EX Newsletter, Spring 1991.

15. Silverman: Medical "miracles" still mysterious despite claims of believers. Scientific American (Sacramento Skeptics), Sept. 1, 1989.

16. A. B. Zonderman et al.: Depression as a risk for cancer morbidity and mortality in a nationally representative sample. Journal of the American Medical Association 262:1191, 1989.

17. Costs are revealed by TX-EX in various publications. See, for example, the essay, History of Ayurveda. Also see reference 26, below.

18. NCAHF Newsletter, Jan./Feb., 1991.

19. For an insightful discussion of the philosophy and psychology of Christian Science, see R.J. Brenneman: Deadly Blessings: Faith Healing on Trial. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1990.

20. The legal situation regarding Christian Science is examined by Rita Swan in The Law's Response When Religious Beliefs Against Medical Care Impact on Children, which is available for $10 from CHILD, P.O. Box 2604, Sioux City, LA 51106.

21. J. Randi: The Faith Healers. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1987.

22. G. Cerminara: Many Mansions. New York, New American Library, 1950.

23. T. Sugru: There Is a River. New York, Dell, 1974.

24. M.E. Carter and W.A. McGarey: Edgar Cayce on Healing. New York, Paperback Library, 1972.

25. Excerpts from the Edgar Cayce Records. A.R.E., 1957.

26. J. Randi: Flim-Flam. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1982.

27. W.A. Nolen: Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle. New York, Random House, 1974.

28. Dr. Nolen's book (reference 27) reports that a Philippine physician who tracked Agpaoa's activities closely estimated that he saw hundreds of patients each month and collected an average "donation" of at least $200 per patient, giving him an income of over $40,000 a month.

29. P. Kurtz et al.: Testing psi claims in China: visit of CSICOP delegation. Skeptical Inquirer 12:364-366, 1988.

30. Herbalife agrees to pay $850,000 penalty. Nutrition Forum 4:15, 1987.

31. NCAI-IF Newsletter, July/Aug., 1990.

32. J. Raso: The shady business of Nature's Sunshine. Nutrition Forum 9:17- 23, 1992.

33. T.L. Bradford: The Life and Letters of Samuel Hahnemann. Philadelphia, Broericke and Tafel, 1895, p. 304, as reported in reference 36, below.

34. N. Puddephatt: The Homeopathic Materia Medica: How It Should Be Studied. Rustington. England, Health Sciences Press. 1982.

35. O.W. Holmes: Homeopathy. Excerpted in Examining Holistic Medicine (D. Stalker and C. Glymour, eds.). Buffalo, Prometheus Books, 1985.

36. D. Ullman: Homeopathy for the 21st Century. Berkeley, North Atlantic Books, 1988.

37. Adulterated homeopathic cure for asthma. Lane et, April12, 1986, pp. 862-863.

38. Homeopathic remedies: these 19th century medicines offer safety, even charm, but efficacy is another matter. Consumer Reports 52:60-62, 1987.

39. Bilateral nasal specific. NCAHF Newsletter, Jan./Feb., 1985.

40. Bastyr College cites Bradford donations. The Choice 15(1,2): 33, 1989.

41. Independent practitioners under Medicare: A Report to Congress. Washington, D.C., U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1968.

42. Is the bureaucracy mooning science? NCAHF Newsletter, May/June 1990.