Double Header: Quack Plagiarizes

This week's Lake Placid Journal’s edition of Feeling Fit features a story too good to be true. For one thing, it’s quackery, plain and simple, promoted by a “master herbalist” who needs to recoup her $1800 investment in a foot-bath detoxifier from gullible spa-goers.

But more important, the Winter Haven quack has apparently plagiarized her story. The article is nearly identical to a 2006 posting by a South Carolina spa quack (scroll down about five entries). Here’s the side-by-side comparison.

Corlis Johnson of Winter Haven, writes her own top to the article, but quickly moves in her second paragraph to a nearly perfect copy of a colleague in quackery from North Carolina:
xxxxxxxxxxxxx Tired of feeling tired?
Today, it’s our good fortune to live in an age in which remarkable advances in medicine are giving us potent new tools to help us live longer healthier lives. As a pharmacist specializing in alternative treatments. I am always seeking new ways to help my clients improve their health. One new technology that I am excited about is Bio-Electric Stimulating Technique. It works to help your body strengthen and balance itself, recharging your body’s “battery.”

Here's where the copy cat enters. Our Winter Haven quack writes:
xxxThe unit works through the most basic and plentiful substance in your body — water! xxxThe human body is approximately 80 percent water.
xxxWater is an excellent conductor of electricity. The human body functions off of electromagnetic signals.
xxxThe brain sends signals to each part of the body and back to the brain. When cells have enough energy they are able to function properly. The new Bioelectric Stimulating technique uses an Energy Foot Spa that electrically charges water in a foot bath.
xxxThe water (which your feet soak in) charges your body which allows the body to absorb vital energy on a cellular level, creating cell balance.

And the North Carolina quack wrote some two years ago:
xxxThe unit works through the most basic and plentiful substance in your body: water! xxxThe human body is approximately 80% water. Water is an excellent conductor of electricity. The human body functions off of electro-magnetic signals. The brain sends signals to each part of the body and back to the brain. When cells have enough energy they are able to function properly. The Energy Foot Spa charges the water and the water (which your feet soak in) charges your body. This allows the body to absorb vital energy on a cellular level, creating cell balance.

Winter Haven Quack:
xxOnce the body receives the energy, the body starts detoxing on its own. This may happen through the feet while in the bath, or through the urinary system, bowels and skin. As the Energy Foot Spa starts detoxifying and energizing on the cellular level, the body is able to release waste products more readily.
xxxThe unit charges the water and the water charges the entire body. Similar to a car battery that charges a car, the human body greatly benefits from being re-charged.

North Carolina Quack:
xxOnce the body receives the energy, the body starts detoxing on its own. This may happen through the feet while in the bath, or through the urinary system, bowels and skin. As the Energy Foot Spa starts detoxifying and energizing the system on a cellular level, the body is able to release waste products more readily.

xxxThe Aqua Chi unit charges the water and the water (in which your feet are soaking) charges your entire body!. Similar to a car battery that charges a car, the human body greatly benefits from being re-charged.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWhat to expect
Winter Haven Quack:
xxxAn energy foot bath is a natural health modality that may help you eliminate toxins and increase your overall sense of health and well-being.
North Carolina Quack:
xxxIn just 35 minutes, the Aqua Chi unit may energize cells, may balance and strengthen the body to eliminate toxins and may increase your overall sense of health and well-being.
At this point, Winter Haven Quack departs from the script and skips the warnings about not treating clients who wear a pacemaker, might be pregnant, has had an organ transplant or takes prescription blood thinners. Instead, Winter Haven Quack prescribes the device for low energy, depression, anxiety, headaches, blood pressure, joint pain, insomnia, menopausal symptoms, muscular pain, constipation, skin conditions and indigestion.

xxxAnd just so we know, she explains away the murky water and gives us some hokus pokus about the body absorbing energy from the water:
xxxAt the end of an energizing foot spa treatment, the footbath will always be discolored. Much of this discoloration is due to the minerals in the water or the type of sea salt that is being used in the foot bath, and some of it may be due to the body releasing toxins from your skin into the water. The color changes will vary between clients and sessions.
xxxThe important thing is to realize that the machine itself is not pulling things out of the body, rather while your body absorbs the energy in the water it is absorbing vital energy on cellular level. Once the body receives the energy, it starts detoxing on its own. The results can be dramatic — eliminating the toxins and giving you more energy and vitality
Corlis Johnson is a holistic pharmacist, master herbalist, nutritionist, and weight loss
specialist. She owns My Natures Delight Natural Foods and Herb Shop at 3015 Cypress Gardens Rd., Winter Haven.

Old Word Wolf isn't going to take the time or effort to debunk the idea that the body is absorbing "vital energy" on a "cellular level" from a salty foot wash and all the devolves from there. Maybe later.

More Evidence Reading, Style Knowledge Not Required

The ability to copy a person's name accurately from story to headline is not a required job skill for Web news editors at The Charlotte Sun. Brittany's father gains financial control until Valentine's Day. The story's first word "Britney." The "editor" manages to introduce three errors -- count 'em -- into a name that has been in the news since the late 20th century. Update: The editor writes me that he's fixed it.

Further, the story uses the appropriate AP style, referring to the entertainer by her last name. The Charlotte Sun "editor" takes it upon himself to infantalize a woman by using her first name in the headline.

"Feeling Fit" Tab Features Dr. Beth Quack:
"Dr. Beth" Claims Acupuncture Works Better Than Diets for Weight Loss

Charlotte Sun tab Editor Dawn Krebs has cultivated a reputation for knowing less than most about general science, general personal health and general critical thinking. So it’s no surprise to find she lets Elizabeth Adams style herself as “Dr.” and “Dr. Beth” in the pages of her publication. She even tucks “Dr. Beth’s” item under the headline: Ask the Experts: Local medical professionals answer health-related questions in last Sunday's edition. If I were a real doctor buying ads in Kreb’s paper, I’d vigorously protest classifying “Dr. Beth” as a medical professional.

Elizabeth “Beth” Adams has a Florida acupuncture license. Not content with a semi-legitimate credential, she claims to be a “doctor of oriental medicine” and a "physician." There’s no national standard, school or certifying agency for what probably amounts to a proprietary review of herbals, aromas and the ground horns of endangered species. This “doctor” is, essentially, prescribing without a license. Here’s her description of weight loss:

“Acupuncture for weight loss is a very different approach from the modern American diet. It is about balancing the body’s energy. A body that is in balance is well and does not crave or store foods it does not need. With acupuncture, the body stops fighting itself, and you will no longer need “will power” to not overeat or eat the wrong foods. Your body simply begins to crave only what is best for you, and only what you need. It becomes very easy not to eat, for example, the chocolate cake if you simply do not want the chocolate cake. Results are slower with acupuncture than with the crash or starvation diets, but the shift in energy is often permanent, so the weight taken off never returns.”

Adams' first, ungrammatical sentence establishes a non-sequitur as her opening pitch. Yes, acupuncture is “different” than the “modern American diet.” One is needles and the other is food. But more critically, what is this “modern American diet?” Surely it’s the one my family (we’re pretty darn modern and 100 percent American) eats: lots of leafy veggies, fruits, nuts and fish. Surely no other civilization in the history of the world has had access to the extensive, fresh, healthy varieties of the modern American diet that are offered in every grocery in every town.

Her second sentence blasts off from the launch pad of illogic into the rarified air of quackery. What kind of body energy requires balancing? Is this electrical, solar or nuclear energy? Perhaps a magnetic force of some kind? How does one balance energy? By standing on one foot or by hovering on a balance scale? The good “doctor” doesn’t say.

What evidence does “Dr. Beth” have for claiming this mysteriously balanced body won’t crave or store foods “it does not need?” Surely “Dr. Beth” and Editor Krebs learned about human metabolism in high school biology, or if not there, surely their grown-up reading and interest in the field would yield some basic, evidence-based understanding of the process. The body, “balanced energy” or not, is quite efficient at storing fats for future use, from everything I’ve read.

So, what is the acupuncture’s mechanism that makes the body “stop fighting” itself? What’s the definition of “fighting itself?” Cause and effect, doctor; show us the cause and effect you claim.

I’m willing to swallow that “results are slower with acupuncture,” because (a) there’s no demonstrable effect from acupuncture at all on anyone’s weight and (b) it will take a long time and many $essions with the Doctor of Oriental Medicine before the naïve client figures that out.

Shame on you, Editor Krebs and your tacit endorsement of this phony “acupuncture physician.”

Sunday is Quack Day

Sunday is Quack Day at America's Best Community Daily. While the believers are in church, I’m home reading the “Health and Fitness” tab, an unending source of humor, better than the "funny papers" of my youth.

Today, for example, “Ask the Experts: Local medical professionals answer health-related questions and give straight answers on various subjects” contains this bit of hilarity:

“Q: I have heard a lot about internal cleansing, but why is this important? A: Internal cleansing is a common term used to describe the act of process of [sic] ridding the body of toxic substances that enter or are produced by the body. Harmful toxins existing in the body are of two types, those produced by external or environmental sources such as factories, industrial plants or mold. These are called exogenous toxins. The other -- called endogenous toxins – is caused by the body during its various processes. Accumulated toxins existing in the body are a serious problem. The results of numerous studies indicate that a number of toxic substances are responsible for many of the diseases prevalent today. Because of the vast amounts of toxins, the body is unable to naturally cleans itself completely. Internal cleansing assists the body with the removal of toxins. The process uses special herbs, foods and a number of other therapies and procedures.”

This little bit of Q&A compiled by De Soto Sun Editor Dawn Krebs (I don't believe for one moment a reader wrote in with this question), concludes with the note: “Gregory N. Whyte is a health education specialist and holistic health practitioner. He writes and lectures on topics and areas within the spectrum of fitness, holistic health and natural healing, and provides consulting counseling and training services."

Now, no one with an ounce of sense would read Whyte's Quack Day contribution without asking: what toxins? what studies? what prevalent diseases? what cleansing assists? what special herbs? what therapies? and what procedures?

But, silly me, I thought newspaper editors were supposed to ask these questions. After all "what" is about 20 percent of the five W's, right?

Here’s what the editor doesn't report about her featured "medical professional:"

Gregory N. Whyte makes no claim to having a medical degree, although he says he earned a bachelor's degree in phys ed from Hunter College in New York. Neither does he have -- or claim to have -- any health-related license in the state of Florida.

He does claim to be author of a book he has for sale: “Mold Management and Tutorial.” The book is a self-published book and costs $34.95. It is available only at his his Web site, “Advanced Health and Safety I.T.D. Inspection Testing Design." The Web site also sells home inspections for "air quality and other pollutants.” Whyte claims to identify “Environmental Disharmony” through poor interior design and decor.

A five-minute Internet search turns up Militant Islam Monitor, a Web site that lists Islamic activists and credits Whyte as “creator of Tiririka survival and development system.” That site's broken link to Whyte's bio is available in the Wayback Machine. It's a November 2005 page for The Truth Establishment Institute, listing a Chicago post office box address and several still-active links to stories about Louis Farrakhan and a mission statement about a "justified" society.

On his own bio page, Whyte says he has a master’s degree in exercise physiology from Columbia. He claims a fourth-degree black belt in Goshin-Jitsu and that he has “mastered” karate, judo, akido and weaponry. He says he developed a “personal martial arts system called Triririka [...] an African New World Martial Arts.” Whyte claims expertise in “African/Caribbean Folk medicine” based in part on “holistic health and herbology at the School of Holistic Health and Natural Living in New York City." On the same page, Whyte says he developed Modern Yoga.

I'm sure Gregory Whyte is a very nice man and well qualified to lead a phys ed or martial arts class. He may even have some unmentioned credential that qualifies him to detect and correct mold in the house, or advise me about decor or the arrangement of my landscape plants (another service he offers). But, Madam Editor, what makes this guy a "medical professional," and why have you directed a "reader's question" to him for a "straight answer?"

Doctor Who? My Caveat Emptor Organ is Wiggling

A local chiropractor ran a full-page, red-and-yellow attention grabber touting his spine-decompression machine in Monday’s Charlotte Sun newspaper. As part of the pitch, the chiro, Stephen Stokes, claims to have studied with the man who invented both the back-stretcher and a more well-known device, the heart defibrillator. I suggest the local chiropractor might be the victim a fraud. Here’s why.
In a section of the ad titled “Personal Invitation from Dr. Stokes,” the ad claims the device (brand name Vax-d) was invented by the doctor who “invented one of the most vital medical tools used in hospitals around the world today: the heart defibrillator. His name is Allan Dyer M.D.” Stephen Stokes, the local advertiser, reports “I have [...] trained personally with Dr. Dyer for many years.”

I don’t question that Stokes trained with someone named Allan Dyer. But I find no evidence or report that Dyer invented the heart defibrillator, or even contributed to its many improvements over the years.

I started my little research expedition with the Encyclopedia Britannica. It reports the defibrillator was developed in 1965 by Frank Pantridge, an Irishman, cardiologist, and inventor who died in 2004. Closer to home, Paul Maurice Zoll, a Boston cardiologist, “conducted pioneering research that led to the development of the cardiac defibrillator,” among other neat things related to hearts, according to EB.

Now, I hesitate to use Wikipedia as a source for much of anything, but it’s interesting to see Allan Dyer has no entry and isn't mentioned in the section that discusses the defibrillator’s invention or refinements. Here’s a summary of what the industrious Wikipedians assembled.

The entry “Defibrillation,” names several men who contributed to the development of the high-voltage heart zapper. The names begin back in 1899 when two Swiss physiologists applied electrical shocks to dogs’ hearts. Forty six years later, Claude Beck, professor of surgery at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, used the technique during an open-chest surgery on a youngster with a congenital heart defect. External defibrillation was “pioneered” by Russians V. Eskin and A. Klimov in the mid-1950s, according to the entry. Further enhancements came from Bernard Lown, Barouh Berkovits and others, culminating in a portable version credited to Pantridge. The implantable defibrillator was a team effort that included Stephen Heilman, Alois Langer, Morton Mower, Michel Mirowski, and Mir Imran, at Sinai Hosptial in Baltimore with the “help of industrial collaborator, Intex Systems of Pittsburgh,” the entry says. The general credit for inventing the external defibrillator is given to Bernard Lown.

A further Web search turns up a history of defibrillation by Igor R. Efimov of Washington University. Efimov's article (2004) is notable for its comprehensive, documented survey and its generous tone. Although there’s clearly pride in noting Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic Foundation as the “birthplace of clinical defibrillation,” Efimov quickly goes on to report “[...] generations of scientists and clinicians from many countries contributed to the success of shock therapy, which then culminated in the recent worldwide application of implantable defibrillators and external defibrillators, saving hundreds of thousands of lives in all countries around the world.”

No where does Efimov document Allan Dyer’s “invention” of the defibrillator. Of course, a man by this name may hold a patent on a part or variation of one company’s version of a defibrillator -- although my search of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office databases didn't locate his name.

If the local chiro spent money to study with the “inventor” of the defibrillator, I suggest he was defrauded. And if a man claims what isn't his, especially when there's a profit to be made, then I wonder what else he misrepresents. It’s a shame the local practitioner did not vet his ad before publishing it.

Alas, there’s more. Stokes’s ad carries a bright yellow box bearing an endorsement from “Robert Channey, M.D., Former Assistant Surgeon General of the United States.”

In the course of looking stuff up, I called the U.S. Surgeon General’s office in Maryland to ask how "former" this man might be. The nice staff (Rebecca Ayer and Jennifer Koentop, 202-690-7694) conducted a search of their records for me: No doctor or other person with that name has worked there that they can find. "And we went pretty far back into some very old records," Ayer said.

The staff also said me the U.S. Surgeon General’s office doesn’t use the title “assistant surgeon general.” However, the uniform services (Navy, etc.) may use the title if a medically qualified rear admiral or higher elects to use the title. It's sort of a self-selected, honorary thing. And finally, all the searches I conducted for Channey's name and title came back solely to Vax-d Web sites. I found no published article, no PubMed author, no government site, and not even the slimmist Wikipedia vanity entry for this name. I used about a dozen different search engines as well as my state university system's LINCC portal, to accesses scores of proprietary databases. And finally, if this person does exist, I’m not sure it’s ethical for a U.S. Surgeon General (assistant, former, or otherwise) to use his office and title to endorse one particular, privately patented device above others that might do the same job. Is he, if he exists, a paid spokesperson for Vax-d? We deserve to know this, Dr. Stokes.

I can’t pass judgment on the medical effectiveness of the contraption's claims, although one of my favorite health-fraud researchers, Stephen Barrett, M.D. has published this caution about Vax-d.

My conclusion: When it looks like an advertiser has been gulled by his own suppliers into publishing product endorsements by apparently fictional persons, my caveat emptor organ starts wiggling. A practitioner who advertises "pain free in four weeks" and presents himself as a "medical director" owes readers a big dose of accurate information that's not presented in a misleading way. Shame on everyone involved in this ad: the product maker that provided the endorsements, the local chiropractor for not checking things out, the newspaper that put it on the presses, and the endorsers themselves -- assuming they're not fictions.

Go buy an ad

Today, it’s a bit of business hype, reported by Bob Fliss in his column “Biz Bits.” Headline: “Enzymedica Inc. a local company with a national product.”

The column, which ran yesterday, says Enzymedica Inc. is a “producer of enzyme-based nutritional supplements,” and Tom Bohagen “founded” the company “locally” in 1998. Bohagen is reported to have been a salesman for an unnamed natural foods company before deciding “to strike out on his own,” Fliss reports.

The nice newsman writes that Bohagen’s bromides are manufactured out of state (doesn’t say where) and 30 people carry out “packaging and shipping” from a Tamiami Trail address. Feel free to argue my point, but I say slapping Bohagen’s label on a pill bottle and mailing it from Port Charlotte, Fla., are not the same as producing a product. I’m also having a hard time envisioning 30 employees kept busy five days a week, 20 days a month, 11 months a year at this little repackaging scheme.

The nice newsman says the firm’s newest product “is supposed to increase absorption of other supplements – vitamins, minerals and herbs.” Good that he used a qualifier, “supposed to.” Bad that he didn’t check a couple of medical information sources about this supposition. Also bad that he didn’t ask the obvious question: If Bohagen's customers need a supplement to supplement their supplements, then what have his desperate and hopeful clients been spending their money for all these years?

The nice newsman doesn’t appear to have used a couple of basic skeptical-reporter tools. Oww cannot find Tom Bohagen’s name in the local telephone book, despite his claim to have been in business here for nearly a decade. (Enzymedica is listed; maybe Bohagen takes all his calls at the office.) Oww finds neither Bohagen nor Enzymedica registered as a principal or business name in Florida Department of State’s on-line records search.

Brief tangent: There’s a wealth of information out there about the danger and fraud that are the earmarks of the herbal supplement market. People are lured into downing untested, unregulated, uncontrolled and unknown substances that reputable doctors and scientists warn about over and over again. Eating this stuff can interfere with genuine medical treatments and even induce illness instead of curing it. Before swallowing a salesman’s claims, one ought to ask:
1. What is the evidence that I suffer from the condition the salesman wants to treat?
2. Have I looked up the ingredients in a pharmaceutical or chemical directory that describes in terms I can understand this herb or enzyme’s properties?
3. Is the pill or powder produced in a sterile factory, free from asbestos, ratdroppings and technicians who pick their noses?
4. Is the salesman’s claim based on appropriately controlled studies or anecdotes from “satisfied customers?”

Returning to the main point: With careful wording, the nice newsman avoids endorsing or promoting this health fraud – just barely. This editor would have told the repackaging salesman to go buy an ad, preferably one with the disclaimer: “Not FDA approved.”

Oww

Letter to a Health News Editor

Dear Editor: Your article in this morning's "Feeling Fit" section of the DeSoto Sun about using hypnosis by Tim Bartley to cure fibromyalgia is an embarrassment -- and dangerous. Tim Bartley holds no current professional license in the state of Florida that I can find. Your article says he "works at" a hypnosis center but doesn't list a college degree or any specialized training. Despite these obvious red flags, you've awarded him a free platform to advertise dangerous misinformation in the form of "news." Even his Web sites seem to be disabled. Bear with me and consider the following four or five things an editor should have done with this article -- before spiking it.
The text of the full article is below.

1. Use your general science knowledge. Think back to high school science classes. You learned enough anatomy to know if someone has "holes in the stomach" as Bartley describes, the person would likely be retching blood, bleeding internally and in extreme pain. None of these symptoms are appropriate for hypnosis. Furthermore, any current "medical editor" knows that in the last 20 years, researchers have demonstrated beyond question that a bacterium causes many cases of ulcers and they develop unrelated to stress. Bartley offers no insight as to how he can possibly distinguish between a bacterial infection and a condition brought on by stress.

2. Use your knowledge of history. Think back to high school history classes. They taught that Freud (Sigmund, although you-the-editor have failed to ask this writer to identify him or his daughter Anna Freud, also a practitioner) developed his psychoanalytical theories in the 1880's and 1890's -- more than a 120 years ago. This is a very distant hook for Bartley to hang his hat on. Perhaps Bartley is not familiar with any newer research regarding the fascinating and complex connections between mental and physical conditions.

3. Do basic fact checking. As an editor, you have access to any number of information resources, but even a simple "Google" quickly locates a dozen articles about fibromyalgia. Choose three, say from Mayo Clinic, NIH, and PubMed -- relatively reliable sources, all. Compare those reports about the causes and cures for this condition: cause unknown, treatment unknown. Compare those science-based medical reports with Bartley's claim to have personally "fixed" fibromyalgia "in his office yesterday." He sounds pretty silly to any editor who has done her homework.

4. Use critical thinking skills. Even cursory research turns up an important characteristic of fibromyalgia: For many suffers, it comes and goes, even to the point of being better in the afternoon! Its symptoms are often vague and mimic other serious diseases. Vauge and intermittent conditions can appear to be "fixed" when symptoms fade or change.

The people who undergo Bartley's apparently unlicensed hypnosis and seem to feel better also did a number of other things just prior to feeling better. But they were smart enough to figure out that, for example, driving U.S. 41 while listening to a Mozart concerto on PBS didn't cure their intermittent disease or even send it into remission, even though the drive and music transpired shortly before they began to feel better.

Remember, quacks claim "cures" only for intermittent conditions, ones that frequently go into remission for unknown reasons. This characteristic tempts desperate people to buy into the very strong delusion that a cause-and-effect relationship exists between spending money on a nice "healer" and feeling better a few minutes later. For example, I usually feel better after talking to my nice doctors. It feels good and reassuring to have them thump on my back, wave that cute little stethoscope over my chest, poke up my nose and peek into my ears with a warm little lamp, look me in the eyes and say "Hmmm." Afterwards, I often feel less headachy, stiff, and yes, even a little less mean and grumpy. But I may still have a terrible disease. That's what Bartley is doing, except he's probably doing it fraudulently and is clearly operating from a position of great misinformation and even ignorance.

5. I could go on. Bartley's explanation of stress and emotions wouldn't get him a pass on the state's FCAT science section. But his most dangerous claim that "unresolved emotions" causes tumors is worse than a fraud. He tempts people who may have a possible cancer to try hypnosis (cheap and accessible) instead of seeking a proper diagnosis and treatment (expensive and time-consuming).

The article:
Fibromyalgia and other physical pains that can be helped with hypnosis by Tim Bartley of Renaissance Hypnosis
Okay, I just saw a commercial with people crying because they have fibromyalgia. I also know that I just fixed this in my office yesterday, again. Is this pain real? Yes, it is. How could this be generated from the human mind? Freud stated that all psychosomatic illness -- psycho meaning mind, soma meaning body -- is hidden from the conscious mind. That is so true!

Think of a common problem, such as an ulcer. Ulcers are holes in the stomach brought on by feelings of stress. No one can feel stress unless they first feel overwhelmed, by the way. This continual stress, an emotion, can result in holes in the stomach lining. So there is a very comprehensible example. So how do I cure fibromyalgia and other physical problems? I first explain that all emotion equates to an action. If someone came into the room and started screaming at you, it might make you angry. That's a feeling. What might you do? You might yell back, you might throw something or run away. That's an action.

When these unresolved emotions become built up in the subconscious, much like a pressure cooker, it then relates to a "bodily action," which is illness, pain and tumors. Your feelings and emotions stem from your subconscious mind. There is a way to target the emotions underlying fibromyalgia, headache, IBS, and many other physical problems, a way that does not bring on the physical condition, but rather finds the feeling that is causing the symptoms. After that, the subconscious mind is then directed back to the very first time, situation or event where you ever felt such a feeling and change the perception of that event. Once the cause of the feeling is found and the pressure is released, the symptoms of the illness cease and never return.

Tim Bartley works at Renaissance Hypnosis in Charlotte County.