Being a cancer surgeon and researcher, naturally I tend to write about cancer a lot more than other areas of medicine and science. It’s what I know best. Also, cancer is a very common area for unscientific practices to insinuate themselves, something that’s been true for a very long time. The ideas don’t change very rapidly, either. Drop a cancer quack from 2014 into 1979, and he would probably be right at home. Of course, part of the reason is because the “elder statesmen” of cancer quackery today were just getting their starts in 1979. Still, the same ideas keep recurring even as far back as a century ago and even older, and if you broaden your criteria, these ideas exist on a continuum, either having descended directly from various ancient ideas such as vitalism, miasmas, or humoral theory or branched off somewhere along the way. Others branch off from the progress of science, taking a germ of a seemingly reasonable idea and turning it into quackery. It is the latter with which I plan on concerning myself today, the reason being that over the weekend I heard some truly awesome news. One of the most egregiously practicing non-physicians who claim to be able to cure cancer that I’ve ever encountered was arrested—yes, arrested!—and arraigned on criminal charges. I’m referring to “Dr. Alkaline” himself, he of the pH Miracle Living program and his Articles of Health blog, “Dr.” Robert O. Young. Behold:
I so so love seeing Robert O. Young in a prison jumpsuit. My only disappointment is that it wasn’t orange. Young deserves to be paraded around in prison orange. I also can’t help but note that I always wondered what the “O.” stood for. Now I know: Oldham. Be that as it may, I’m saving that picture at the top of this post for future talks. This is the way that Robert O. Young should always be pictured.
I’ve mentioned Robert O. Young from time to time on this blog, but it’s been at least a couple of years since I’ve discussed him other than in passing. Consequently, now strikes me as an excellent time to revisit, review, and discuss what sorts of pseudoscience and quackery Young advocates to treat cancer and—as is the case with so many dubious practitioners—multiple other serious diseases, such as lupus, type I diabetes (you read that right, not type II diabetes), metastatic prostate cancer, and cancer in general. (Not surprisingly, Young is also quite antivaccine, publishing anecdotes from parents who believe their child is “vaccine damaged” and appeals to support antivaccine groups like the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).) Let’s take a look at what happened last week and why, given the law in California, I’m not sure that this case will be the slam dunk we’d all like it to be. The law in California could easily make it a difficult task for the prosecutor to secure a conviction, much less a 15 year sentence. First, however, for those who are not familiar with Dr. Young, it’s important to provide a little primer on who he is, what he does, and why I am so outraged that he’s been allowed to continue to practice for more than 20 years.
The disturbing saga of “Dr.” Robert O. Young
Robert O. Young is pretty famous as far as “alternative medicine” practitioners go, spawning acolytes like Errol Denton who’s been in a spot of similar legal trouble lately, who trained under Young and remains an admirer. Although I had heard of Young before and written about him more in an amusing than outraged manner, I really first became aware of Young through the case of a woman with breast cancer named Kim Tinkham. Not entirely coincidentally, Tinkham briefly became famous back in 2008 after having appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show in the context of her belief in The Secret, that mystical, magical, childish belief system that the universe will bring you what you want if you only want it badly enough. It’s a system of belief that goes far beyond the reasonable concept that people who want something badly enough will be more likely to try to obtain it and thus more likely to get it and into the realm of wish fulfillment, where “wishing makes it so,” a concept that is the central dogma of alternative medicine. At the time, she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, described as stage III, and was being urged to undergo surgery. She refused. In 2007, Tinkham appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show:
In this interview, Kim Tinkham attributes her decision to “heal herself” to The Secret. Oprah, to her credit, was horrified and even called Tinkham “irresponsible” for not taking advantage of modern medicine. It turns out that the “alternative” practitioner she somehow found was Robert O. Young. It also unfortunately turns out that she died of her disease three years ago, losing her battle with breast cancer. In the interim, however, she did testimonials for Young, even going so far as to agree to appear in an hour-long interview with him (now thrown down the memory hole, although I captured a copy of all six ten-minute segments of it for posterity and only wish I could put them back up on YouTube without a DMCA takedown notice and even potentially copyright charge). In any case, Tinkham is only one of Young’s victims, and she was fortunate enough to have survived longer than I would have guessed initially.
So who is “Dr.” Robert O. Young? Let’s take a look at his claimed credentials:
Before Dr. Young began his extensive nutritional research, his love for sports and science led him to the University of Dr. Robert O. Young, tennis player at the University of Utah—where he studied biology and business in the early 70’s. There he was granted a full athletic scholarship for tennis. His team was consistently one of the top 10 in the nation. He had the experience of competing with the likes of Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, and Roscoe Tanner.
In the 80’s, following his schooling at the University of Utah, Dr. Young studied medical microbiology—training under Dr. Robert Bradford at the Bradford Research Institute in Chula Vista, California (www.bradfordresearchinst.org). Dr. Bradford is now a trustee and professor at Capital University in Washington, DC, where he teaches live and dry blood microscopy (www.ability.org.uk/holistic_courses_and_schools.html). Dr. Young also studied darkfield microscopy under Dr. Maria Bleker—who was the prodigy of the great late biologist, Dr. Gunther Enderlein—in Essen, Germany.
In 1993, Dr. Young received a MS in nutrition from the American College in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1995, he received his D.Sc. with emphasis in chemistry and biology. Dr. Young’s doctoral dissertation was on Disseminated Intravascular Blood Coagulation and Pathological Blood Coagulation. In 1997, Dr. Young received a Ph.D. from Clayton College of Natural Health. His Professor, James E. Harvey from San Diego State University, reviewed and accepted his dissertation as completing all the requirements for a doctorate of philosophy degree in nutrition. Continuing his studies and research, Dr. Young later received an additional doctorate degree in naturopathy (ND) from Clayton College (1999).
As Dr. Stephen Barrett notes, two of Young’s doctoral degrees were received from diploma mills and that Robert Bradford, who was convicted of laetrile smuggling in the 1970s didn’t, even have a college degree. Also, Clayton College of Natural Health was a nonaccredited correspondence school that taught a panoply of quackery. Not long after the state of Alabama began requiring accreditation for license renewal, the Clayton College of Natural Health closed in 2010. As Dr. Barrett drolly notes, the Clayton College of Natural Health did (and does) serve one good purpose, “Its credentials are a reliable sign of someone not to consult for advice.” No kidding. And, even though he claims to have an ND degree, the school from which he obtained it was not accredited, which means that Young’s ND degree is even more worthless than an ND from an “accredited” college of naturopathic medicine, as hard as to believe that’s possible. As The Eleventh Doctor would say, “Basically… run.”
The pseudoscience of Young’s beliefs is hard to summarize in a reasonable amount of text, even taking into account my known tendency towards logorrhea, so massive are its breadth and depth. As has been noted before, Young is so full of pseudoscience that it would take a book to catalog it all, and it begins on the very same page that I cited above, in which Young creates out of whole cloth (well, not quite, but close) a whole “New Biology.” As I’ve said before, that’s always the sign of a crank from whom you should run, as is the claim on his site that over the last 25 years Young has “been widely recognized as one of the top research scientists in the world,” beginning:
In 1994, Dr. Young discovered the biological transformation of red blood cells into bacteria and bacteria to red blood cells. He has since documented several such transformations.
Seriously. If Young had really discovered such things and documented them, he’d deserve a Nobel Prize. Of course, he’s demonstrated nothing of the sort. Basically, part of what he’s selling is a form of regurgitated Antoine Béchamp, a contemporary of Louis Pasteur with a competing hypothesis. That debate was settled scientifically long ago–and not in Béchamp’s favor, for the most part, although 150 years later, germ theory denialists still invoke Béchamp and sometimes even claim that Pasteur underwent a deathbed recantation in which he admitted that Béchamp was right, a recantation that never happened. I frequently point out that, given what was known at the time, Beauchamps was not unreasonable to hypothesize what he did, but the evidence clearly favored Pasteur, which is why Pasteur’s ideas won out and the germ theory of infectious disease became widely accepted.
Béchamp’s concept was known as the pleomorphic theory of disease. It stated that bacteria change form (i.e., demonstrate pleomorphism) in response to disease. In other words, they arise from tissues during disease states. We now know, of course, that bacteria do not arise from tissue, although they might have appeared that way because normal flora can sometimes cause disease. Béchamp further postulated that bacteria arose from structures that he called microzymas, which to him referred to a class of enzymes. Béchamp postulated that microzymas are normally present in tissues and that their effects depended upon the cellular terrain. Béchamp’s hypothesis was, however, superseded by Pasteur’s germ theory of disease and Koch’s later work that resulted in Koch’s postulates. Besides not fitting with the scientific evidence, Béchamp’s idea had nowhere near the explanatory and predictive power that Pasteur’s theory did. On the other hand, there is a grain of truth in Béchamp’s ideas. Specifically, it is true that the condition of the “terrain” (the body) does matter when it comes to infectious disease. Debilitated people do not resist the invasion of microorganisms as well as strong, healthy people. Unfortunately, Bechamp remains a frequently invoked scientist by germ theory denialists like Robert O. Young.
The most prominent idea that Young promotes is encompassed in this slide I once made for a talk on alt-med quackery (click to embiggen):
Basically, to Young, acid is the cause of all disease, to the point that he states that overacidification is the cause of all disease, an overarching theory of all disease that he has dubbed The New Biology, and about which he frequently states that “the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet is a program focuses on the foundational principal that the body is alkaline by design and yet acidic by function. This make this program the ultimate program for preventing and reversing aging and the onset of sickness and dis-ease. I would say that the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet is the diet for immortality.” (Note that another of Gorski’s rules, besides the rule that health practitioner who invokes Béchamp over Pasteur is to be avoided like the plague is that anyone who uses the term “dis-ease” instead of “disease” is to be similarly shunned. It’s not for nothing that I’ve said that, compared to Robert O. Young, Andrew Weil seems like the height of reason.
For example, after a beautiful aspiring young Brazilian model named Mariana Bridi died of sepsis after a urinary tract infection so severe that she had had to have her hands and feet amputated in a desperate bid to save her life, Young wrote a post entitled Ignorance Caused Sepsis or Systemic Acidosis That Took The Life of a Young Brazilian Woman, whose utter nonsense and pseudoscience garnered a heapin’ helpin’ of not-so-Respectful Insolence. Read it if you dare, but be prepared for terms by Young like “out-fection” instead of “infection.” Elsewhere, Young uses more arguments that echo Béchamp, even going so far as to explicitly deny germ theory to the point where he writes posts like The Illusion of Germ Theory, in which he refers dismissively to “Pasteurian scientific dogma,”a construct that is just as big a warning flag for quackery as spelling the word “disease” as “dis-ease.” He also lambastes what he calls “Pasteurian scientific dogma” (which, come to think of it, would make a great name for a geek rock band) challenges “everything in the modern construct of immunology and what is said to be the immune system,” and characterizes viruses as “molecular acids.” I kid you not. He even goes so far as to state explicitly an attitude I’ve found strongly implied in various alt-med ideas, namely the idea that if you get sick it is your own fault. He even uses exactly those very words, “If you get sick, it is your own fault and not the cause of some phantom virus that you can blame to cover your own lifestyle and dietary transgressions.” I couldn’t say it more explicitly than Young did, although, amusingly, while claiming that bacteria aren’t the cause of disease and sepsis, Young then claims that there is no such thing as “good” bacteria, denying any utility to probiotics. It might be said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, but there does come a point where inconsistency can topple the mind of one who considers himself to be great enough to have created a whole “new biology.”
But what about cancer? This is what Young claims to be able to treat is most commonly associated with. I think it’s helpful to read this particular manifesto he wrote a few years ago that sums up his view of cancer, What Is The Cause of Cancer? Is There A Cure? Then read my deconstruction from nearly seven years ago. The sheer level of quackery encompassed in Young’s ideas hurts my neurons. To him, cancer is not a mass of cells that have somehow freed themselves from the normal homeostatic controls that keep human cells differentiated, happy, and not growing out of control. To young, cancer is a “poisonous acidic liquid. But he’s not even consistent, because elsewhere he refers to cancer as “cell that has been spoiled or poisoned by metabolic or gastrointestinal acids” and the tumor mass as “body’s protective mechanism to encapsulate spoiled or poisoned cells from excess acid that has not been properly eliminated through urination, perspiration, defecation or respiration” and the “body’s solution to protect healthy cells and tissues.” These concepts, which aren’t even self-consistent in many areas, are so wrong on so many levels that it would take enormous amounts of verbiage to deconstruct them again.
Young is a perfect example of one aspect of quacks that distinguishes them from practitioners of science-based medicine. Science-based medicine recognizes the complexity of disease; it delves into that complexity, trying to make sense out of it and use that knowledge to develop better treatments for disease. Quacks choose to make sense of disease another way, and that way would be insulting to disease, if disease had feelings, in that they often tend to boil all disease down to one cause or a handful of tightly related causes. I’ve often wondered why. It’s more than just the fact that they don’t understand the science behind disease. After all, Young appears to understand acid-base science, but he only understands it at a very superficial level, demonstrating once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. What I end up wondering again and again is whether Young actually believes this nonsense. I suppose that on one level it doesn’t really matter. It continues to harm patients and it needs to be stopped. But will it?
Will Young be convicted? I’d ask a more disturbing question
The story about Young’s arrest, Controversial alternative health provider charged, besides telling us the facts, provides some disturbing information about the state of the law in California that makes me worry about whether this arrest will actually stop Young. First, I can’t resist mentioning how I detest how the news anchor says that his station has “both sides of the story.” On the other hand, I guess right now it’s a legal case more than anything else; so he has to say that. However, based on science alone, as is the case in so much of what we discuss here, there are not two sides of the story. That pet peeve expressed, let’s take a look now:
A man accused of going beyond advocating dietary changes and using intravenous treatments on “patients” he housed at his avocado ranch in Valley Center pleaded not guilty Friday to 18 felony charges, including practicing medicine without a license and grand theft.
Robert Oldham Young, 61, was ordered held on $100,000 bail, and Judge David Szumowski told the defendant to surrender his passport and not have any patients stay at his ranch.
Deputy District Attorney Gina Darvas unsuccessfully sought bail of $1 million, arguing that the defendant was a flight risk because he travels extensively and offers health retreats in other countries and has engaged in allegedly dangerous practices with patients.
“Alternative medicine, practiced properly in the state of California is legal,” Darvas said outside court. “But there are certain things that only physicians can do, and that includes practices that puncture the skin or harmfully invade the body, or treatment in conditions or circumstances that are … dangerous. The defendant is charged because he engaged in practices under those conditions. He did things that only a real doctor can do.”
Darvas alleged that Young sold treatment to people to people who were terminally ill, knowing that the treatment wouldn’t be effective.
Here are some key observations that came immediately to mind. First, Robert O. Young appears to be filthy rich from his business endeavors, so much so that he’s considered a flight risk because of his wealth and the numerous facilities around the world where he promotes his program. It’s mentioned elsewhere in the story that one patient paid $120,000 for treatments at his ranch. In the news report, it states that people seeking “treatment” at Young’s ranch pay up to $2,495 a night to stay there, with an image superimposed of a a price list ranging from $1,295 to $2,495 a night. There are top flight hotels in big cities that don’t charge that much for their luxury suites.
According to the Medical Board of California, here’s how the law ultimately caught up with “Dr.” Young:
The Medical Board worked in conjunction with the San Diego District Attorney’s Office after an undercover investigator infiltrated Young’s avocado ranch where he was illegally treating patients. Both the Medical Board’s investigator and an investigator from the San Diego District Attorney’s Office were diagnosed with diseases and offered very pricy treatments. Many of Young’s patients were actually chronically ill and spent sums of up to $50,000 for Young’s treatment.
Young is the author of the “pH Miracle,” a diet designed to “alkalinize the body. However, Young took it a step too far when he went beyond advocating dietary changes and began using intravenous treatments on patients housed at his avocado ranch in Valley Center.
So, basically, the law did an undercover sting operation and caught Young making bogus diagnoses and offering treatments for them. The sad thing to me, however, is the strong implication that if Young had advocated only dietary changes to treat cancer, he wouldn’t have gotten in trouble even though there is no evidence that dietary changes can cure any cancer. That is the state the law regulating medical practice, not just in California, but in many states.
More disturbing to me is the claim that alternative medicine, “practiced properly,” is legal, which ties into the description above. I’m not a lawyer (obviously), but one thing I note is that this appears either to be untrue or a gross exaggeration. For example, one of Young’s fellow alternative cancer cure advocates clearly thinks California law is the equivalent of the jack-booted fascist thugs endangering those poor benighted practitioners of naturopathy, homeopathy, Chinese and other forms of herbalism, ayurveda, reiki, and dozens of other beneficial healing modalities with the potential threat of prosecution. On the other hand, this person’s writings are a bit out of date, as California has permitted the licensure of naturopaths, with the regulation and licensure of naturopaths overseen by its Naturopathic Medicine Committee under the Naturopathic Doctors Act. Particularly depressing is what the Naturopathic Doctors Act permits naturopaths who have graduated from an “accredited” naturopathy school and become licensed in the state of California to do (paraphrased from the actual text of the law for purposes of brevity):
- Order and perform physical and laboratory examinations for diagnostic purposes, including, but not limited to, phlebotomy, clinical laboratory tests, speculum examinations, orificial examinations, and physiological function tests.
- Order diagnostic imaging studies, including X-ray, ultrasound, mammogram, bone densitometry, and others, consistent with naturopathic training as determined by the committee, but must refer the studies to an appropriately licensed health care professional to conduct the study and interpret the results.
- Dispense, administer, order, prescribe, and furnish or perform food, extracts of food, nutraceuticals, vitamins, amino acids, minerals, enzymes, botanicals and their extracts, botanical medicines, homeopathic medicines, all dietary supplements and nonprescription drugs as defined by the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; hot or cold hydrotherapy; naturopathic physical medicine inclusive of the manual use of massage, stretching, resistance, or joint play examination but exclusive of small amplitude movement at or beyond the end range of normal joint motion; electromagnetic energy; colon hydrotherapy; and therapeutic exercise; devices, including, but not limited to, therapeutic devices, barrier contraception, and durable medical equipment; health education and health counseling; repair and care incidental to superficial lacerations and abrasions, except suturing; removal of foreign bodies located in the superficial tissues.
- Utilize routes of administration that include oral, nasal, auricular, ocular, rectal, vaginal, transdermal, intradermal, subcutaneous, intravenous, and intramuscular.
So the state of California has indeed basically legalized quackery, as long as it is performed by licensed quacks in the form of those with an “ND” (“naturopathic doctor” or, as I consider more appropriate, “not a doctor”) after their names. Particularly frightening is that NDs can order real medical tests, such as mammography, imaging studies, and the like. This puts MDs in a tricky moral situation. The radiologists who do and interpret these tests know that NDs are quacks, but the law tells them that these quacks can order medical tests and are thus entitled to receive the results and use them as part of their care. Indeed, I’ve spoken with a radiologist from California who occasionally gets orders from ND naturopaths for imaging studies like mammography and expressed to me confusion and consternation over having to provide reports to the naturopath.
A lot becomes clear, however, if you know about the Naturopathic Doctors Act, and that clarity is greatly disturbing. Perhaps the most disturbing thing that become clear (to me, at least) is this. As horrific as his “medical” practices are, as big an offense against medical science as they are, the only reason that the state of California can go after Young now is because it can plausibly charge him with practicing medicine without a license. (Indeed, if you search the California database for him it becomes clear that Robert O. Young is not a licensed health practitioner of any kind in the state of California.) I would argue, however, that if Young were, as the “ND” after his name implies, actually a licensed naturopathic physician in the state of California, there would be little or nothing that the state could have done doing exactly what he has been doing for the last 25 years.
Why do I say that? Simple. Nothing in Young’s ideas are any less pseudoscientific than what a lot of naturopaths believe and use as the basis of their treatments, particularly his advocacy of vegan “alkalinizing” diets to treat all manner of disease and his germ theory denialist ideas. As Kimball Atwood has documented extensively, naturopathy is rooted in prescientific vitalism and full of ideas no less pseudoscientific than anything that Young espouses, such as the actions of ubiquitous “toxins,” imbalances of qi, iridology, applied kinesiology, electrodiagnosis, live cell analysis (which Young himself not only practices, but teaches), hair analysis for those ubiquitous “toxins,” tongue diagnosis, and many others. His idea that cancer is due to “acidosis” due to “toxins” fits right in with what naturopaths believe, and what Young does would not be out of place in a typical naturopath’s practice. True, most naturopaths probably wouldn’t be bold enough to treat cancer with an “alkalinizing diet” without letting the patient undergo conventional therapy, but a lot of them do treat diabetes and other diseases (even type I diabetes) that way.
Like anyone who supports science-based medicine and abhors cancer quackery, I fervently hope that Robert O. Young will be convicted and that the state of California will throw the book at him, so that he’s a very, very old man when he’s finally released from prison. Even as I am happy at how Young has finally been prosecuted and am cautiously optimistic that he will be convicted, there remains a disturbing question that I can’t shake from my head: Had Robert O. Young actually obtained a real ND degree from an “accredited” school of naturopathic medicine, like Bastyr, would there have been anything that the state of California could do to stop him? The answer is even more disturbing: Probably not.
237 replies on “Cancer quack Robert O. Young is arrested and arraigned, but will he be convicted?”
More disturbing to me is the claim that alternative medicine, “practiced properly,” is legal
You could sail an aircraft carrier through the loophole implicit in the words “practiced properly”. As you note later in the post, what Young did probably would have been legal if he had bothered to get his ND degree from an accredited university and filed the necessary paperwork to get a California medical license.
Over the past few years, I’ve been trying to ascertain how *another* non-doctor manages to evade similar charges- here’s some of what I’ve found:
– he calls his work ‘counselling’, ‘nutrition’, ‘lifestyle change’
– he purports to only treat the terminally ill ( although many of the conditions which he ‘counsels’ are not terminal at all- some are psychological, developmental or degenerative as well as relatively minor ills).
– he employs nutritionists and NDs who work in his shop and over the phone selling supplements (
their counselling is free)
– his treatments are mostly dietary/ exercise based
-he asks for prior medical reports from real doctors; he may demand lab work ( possibly from dodgy labs)
-he works alongside enabling doctors and nurses ( this is especially useful when ordering IV vitamins/ chelation)
– some of his ‘work’ is performed over the telephone / airwaves/ e-mail which means that it can involve people who live in *other* countries/ other jurisdictions.
– he sponsors ‘health retreats’ ( previously in Florida, now in Texas) where clients are instructed in diet, nutrition and exercise regimes as well as *listening* to his lectures/ programming about other treatments which may be supplied by enablers at other times and places ( possibly some there- this may be his future plan)
– treatments includes energy healings/ meditation
– he calls his interference ‘education”
– he has an army of lawyers
I assume “prodigy” = “protegé”, but seriously, that is just awesome.
I just looked that up—accents over both “e”s! Really?
I lived in Birmingham, AL, for many years and had never heard of an “American College”. Turns out it’s just Clayton with a different name. I never actually heard of Clayton, either. Oh, and, do you think Sylvester Stallone actually gave permission for that image to be used?
Obviously, you’ve never heard of fair use, which that obviously is.
Thanks, Orac, no, I didn’t know that. Absolutely no legal training here, except what I have to know of the state practice act, and a few federal laws regarding animal welfare in research.
“I’ve spoken with a radiologist from California who occasionally gets orders from ND naturopaths for imaging studies like mammography and expressed to me confusion and consternation over having to provide reports to the naturopath.”
I wouldn’t personally rely on a naturopath for primary care – for better reasons than their allegedly pre-Scientific nature – but if a person does choose to do so, does that mean that she should have no access to currently fashionable screening tests or to appropriate diagnostic tests if she has, e.g., a lump in her breast? The naturopath isn’t interpreting the mammogram; the MD is interpreting it. But the patient has a right to know the results, and hence, has the right to have her chosen advisors, MD or not, know the results. Or are you suggesting that she must be told that she must find an MD who will accept her as a patient and whose approach she hopes she can tolerate, then wait months for an initial appointment, before she can get any tests at all? That would surely reduce the overdiagnosis problem, but if someone’s really sick it could cost her her life.
@ jane
Maybe I understood wrongly, but the way the initial sentence is phrased,
The naturopath is the one ordering the screening and will be, indeed, the one interpreting it.
I believe there was a fashion some months ago among US alt-meds providers for ordering full-body scans. Again, no MD in sight to competently interpret the scans…
Jane…whatever are you blathering on about?
Last year I went for a mammography screening at a large Radiology practice and the following day, after my mammography was evaluated by a breast radiologist, I received a telephone call to go back for a left breast 3-D mammography and breast sonogram. I also received a copy of the breast radiologists findings (“a new dense lesion”).
Two days after my screening mammography, I returned to the radiology practice for the left breast 3-D mammography and then the sonogram. The breast radiologist was available and she came into the sonogram room to tell me that the “new dense lesion”, was, in fact, a benign cyst.
If the breast radiologist determined that the “new dense lesion” warranted a needle biopsy, the breast radiologist would have done the guided-by-sonogram needle biopsy, immediately and sent the specimen to a pathology lab to determine if the lesion was cancerous.
The pathologists who post here or any woman who has undergone a needle biopsy…or Orac…could inform you of the turn-around-time for a pathologist’s report, as well as the “wait time” for surgical consultation and lumpectomy and possible sentinel node dissection.
I have all my screening mammographies and the diagnostic 3-D mammography on discs, (provided free-of-charge), and the written breast radiologist’s reports.
Re: Mr Young
Surely not the first time it has been pointed out, but “transgression” has a big religious undertone.
Also, my computer is very lucky I was not drinking when reading this:
But there are certain things that only physicians can do, and that includes practices that puncture the skin or harmfully invade the body
Oh, how I wish that meant acupuncture was outlawed, but from the plethora of acupuncture ‘clinics’ I see around here, it seems that particular umbrella allows any doofus in CA to ‘puncture the skin.’
No, the radiologist who does the study interprets it and sends a report to the ordering physician (or, in this case, naturopath). The ordering physician then decides what to do with the results and, if he so desires, get a hard copy of the study on disk to look at.
which in California can apparently include rolling them into a tube, using it as a kazoo then inserting it into the patients ear and burning it in order to drive out the evil pixies.
apparently
Also, my computer is very lucky I was not drinking when reading this
You didn’t specify whether the beverage in question was caffeine-fortified or ethanol-fortified. I’d guess that, for that particular sentence, you may have suspected the latter.
Either would harm the keyboard if spit out as a reaction to utter disbelief. 🙂
I see that a breast cancer surgeon/researcher commented on that article that Orac, linked to:
http://www.cbs8.com/story/24544235/accused-fake-doctor-pleads-not-guilty-to-felony-charges
Now scroll down to the fourth comment below that cancer surgeon/researcher’s comment to find Erin Elizabeth’s comment:
“Erin Elizabeth · Top Commenter · 1,558 subscribers
They say six people died at his clinic. Gee they better go bust every oncologist – because you are right. Several of my close family have died at the hands of oncologists who promised they’d be well (one was going home the next day – all better- but oops they missed something and he died) I’d put my money on Dr Young (Phd not MD) over many “real doctors” any day. My better half (a real doctor- Mercola ) and i were going to visit there next week. had never been or met him. guess we’re not going now 🙁 ”
Hi Denice Walter: Joe Mercola has two residences where he lives with his wife Erin Elizabeth Mercola and two cats. (Not too shabby Florida oceanfront home)
http://rawfoodsretreat.com/director.php
Young’s ND degree is even more worthless than an ND from an “accredited” college of naturopathic medicine, as hard as to believe that’s possible.
The more you dilute the qualification, the stronger it becomes.
@HDB
only if you succuss the individual with a magic book
@Incitatus
You win the Internets for today. 🙂
Unfortunately, I can see a trial turning out to be a big positive for Young.
A skilled lawyer painting him as a persecuted victim of the system, testimony(als) from supportive patients – and all it takes is one woo-headed juror* to keep him from being found guilty.
*It’s California. What are the odds?
I will merely note that Clayton College of Natural Health also awarded a doctorate to “Awful Poo Lady” Gillian McKeith.
I hope they do lock Young up for a bit, but if they don’t I hope he at least learns his lesson, and sticks to helping fat rich people lose weight by feeding them nothing but alkaline avocados for a week or two, and leaves people with serious illnesses alone.
only if you succuss the individual with a magic book
Ironically, Steve Jobs invented the Apple after a copy of Wheeler / Misner / Thorne’s 1280-page tome on “Gravitation” fell on his head. Not many people know that.
I’m still struggling with darkfield microscopy. Help me out here — I might need a few photons.
Orac wrote:
Why is it particularly surprising that he claims to treat type I diabetes? I mean, from the amount of sense his ideas make, he could just as well claim to treat ebola or delusions of being Charlie Chaplin.
Wheeler / Misner / Thorne’s 1280-page tome on “Gravitation”
Ah, yes, the beloved “telephone book”[1], a copy of which sits on my bookshelf. It’s not as thick as the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, but it is one of the heavier books in my collection.
[1]So called by big-city grad students after its thickness. Actually, MTW is several times thicker than my local telephone book–but I’m not in a big city. To get a book that thick around here, you would pretty much have to combine the entire state into one phone book, both white and yellow pages.
Computer, uhm, Orac:
Edit: the phrase “dozens of other beneficial healing modalities”
should perhaps be altered to “dozens of other financial peeling methods”
the beloved “telephone book”
Weighing 2.3 kg, I believe. Or massing 2.3 kg if you prefer.
I’m not so sure about this. Section 109365 of the California Health and Safety Code specfies that “It is unlawful for any person, with the intent to defraud, to falsely represent and provide for compensation a device, substance, method or treatment as effective to diagnose, arrest, prevent, or cure cancer.”
There’s quite a bit of material in articles 1 and 2 of chapter 4, but the simple fact of administering an IV treatment in the treatment of cancer brings down a metric assload of regulations even for an M.D.
I do have to wonder about the phrase “intent to defraud.” That could open the door to Young to claim that he really believed he was administering effective treatment (and, quite frankly, I think he does believe his quackery works).
More pertinently, I also base my assessment on how difficult it is for states to get rid of physicians who practice quackery as bad as that of Robert O. Young. For instance, in North Carolina, there’s Dr. Rashid Buttar, who liked to treat patients with cancer with chelation therapy and still has his license, having made a fool of the North Carolina Medical Board. So maybe I’m too pessimistic and cynical, but I really do believe that if Young were a naturopath the state would have been able to do very little about him. Once a person is a licensed professional, particularly a physician but perhaps even an ND, the state is very loathe to take that license away, much less prosecute on criminal charges, for practicing outside the standard of care. I could rattle off example after example, Stanislaw Burzynski being one of the most prominent. Medical boards are (sometimes) very good at going after “imminent harm”-type physician violations, such as physicians impaired by substance abuse or physicians who diddle patients, but when it comes to shutting down quacks, they suck.
Of course he’s also a networker marketer who pays affiliates to promote his training courses, products, and services. It seems to be one of the hallmarks of quackery.
One of the most disturbing things to me, as a breast cancer patient, has been discovering that the huge majority of so-called “patients” sharing information about alternative cancer treatments all turn out to be paid marketers, affiliates, or sellers of one kind of woo or another. It’s tragic and enraging and feels like betrayal to find them trawling the breast cancer websites, forums, and message boards looking for new marks. ACK!
The bogus diagnoses go a long way to establishing intent. Indeed, he’s pretty much up to his hips in intentionally misleading people, which is fraud as far as California is concerned:
“Over the past two and a half decades, Robert O. Young has been widely recognized as one of the top research scientists in the world.”
False.
“Dr. Young has been honored with an invitation to sit on the Vegetarian and Fasting Committee for NASA’s earth and space missions.”
Misleading. The “Vegetarian and Fasting Committee” is a figment of Jim Tibbetts’s imagination (PDF).
Etc. And he’d still be stuck with that little problem of regulation of what’s in the IV were he a naturopath.
Perhaps this will be put to the test:
“Prosecutors have charged two others in the case, including Bennie Stephen Johnson, 63, who according to the complaint is a medical doctor Young hired to assist with patient care.”
We can only hope. Interestingly, I find it hard to find much about Dr. Johnson. He appears to have a private practice not far from Valley Center, where Young’s ranch is, but that’s about all I can find about him.
It just occurs to me. I’m going to be in San Diego in April for the yearly AACR Meeting. (It’s a big cancer research confab.) Maybe I should rent a car and cruise up to Valley Center. 🙂
If convicted, won’t he just become a martyr? Yes, he will be off the streets, but all of his crazies will be praising his name. (and showing all the other quacks how not to get caught)
Maybe it’s this guy… the details look about right.
http://www.meetdrben.com/Portals/8/DrBen%27s%20Bio%20May%202011.pdf
Yes, that does look like it could be him…
Well, Dr. Johnson has a delinquent license. It expired 11/30/13 and his renewal fee has not been paid, according to the California Department of Consumer Affairs license lookup. He also has an active license in Georgia. He was once licensed in Arizona (1980s), Colorado (1990s), North Carolina (1980s) and Tennessee (early 2000s).
If that is the same Dr Ben Johnson (or even if it’s a whole ‘nother quack), he’d be hilariously entertaining except that it appears he’s actually allowed to “treat” cancer patients. Wow.
Bennie has an amusing history of trying to avoid the IRS with pro se litigation. I’m looking at the Georgia Final Report and Recommendation at the moment. Some interesting names of summoned parties (Bennie was trying to quash the summonses) that pop out at the beginning are Spectrum Laboratory, of Greensboro, NC; the Immune Recovery Institute and Immune Recovery Foundation, of Atlanta, GA; the Office of Viceroy for International Cancer,* of Rossville, GA; and Bremen Health Clinic and Standard Enzyme Company of North America,* of Bremen, GA.
“Mr. Johnson has not filed a response to the Government’s Motion for Summary Enforcement…. However, assuming that his arguments against summary enforcement would be similar to those asserted in his Petition to Quash – that the IRS lacks summons authority over him, that Special Agent Johnson lacks authority to issues summonses, that he is immune from a tax investigation because of a security agreement he executed on behalf of himself in favor of himself, that the IRS investigation violates his Fifth Amendment Right against self-incrimination, and that the Government is without authority to enforce federal criminal laws … those arguments are conclusory, without support in the law, and fail to meet the heavy burden imposed on those who seek to show that enforcement of a summons would be an abuse of the Court’s process.”
* These two had to be ordered to respond to the summonses.
Well, if the IRS is involved with Young in any way, Orac may get his wish. State Medical Boards are one thing, but the IRS is quite, quite another.
^ “The Office of Viceroy for International Cancer Foundation and His Successors” (WTF?) appears to be some sort of weird traveling show that is Bennie. His corporate interests are… peculiar (“Wisdom Unlimited,” “Thermography Unlimited,” real estate), although I’d double-check anything that is merely “Benjamin Johnson” without clear signals of connection.
@Rich Woods #24: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_field_microscopy . It’s a technique for dramatically improving image contrast, and even allowing unstained imaging. Because the direct (unscattered) light is blocked, the image of whatever you’re looking at appears brightly lit, overlaid on a black or dark background (field).
@ Narad #40
OK, I know I understand little of how the world is working, and the IRS doesn’t seem to buy it, but?
Does this self-inflicted immunity really had any chance to work, or are these people treating tax law the same way they treat biology?
The attempts to sue the IRS pro se were simple nuttery. They’re also about five years old, so I’m guessing the end result was his paying up.
Narad @ #32:
Just looked at the PDF. Man, that guy’s dietary guidelines are around the bend. I wonder what would happen if someone actually followed them for any length of time. Would they get sick, or could you live off it indefinitely (even though it might be a boring diet)?
Does this self-inflicted immunity really had any chance to work
If the make-your-own-tax-law approach doesn’t work, it’s because you didn’t believe in it strongly enough. Much like the therapy.
Law enforcement agencies do not commit resources to undercover operations (“UC”) unless they fully expect the results to lead to convictions and sentences. Charging Young with 18 felonies virtually guarantees that at least one of them will stick, that he will do time in state prison, and that his felony record will make it impossible for him to “do business” after his release.
The fact that he “diagnosed disease” in the UC investigators, who presumably have no such actual diagnoses from board-certified physicians, is going to come down on him like a metric ton of bricks. Fake diagnoses + offer of expensive treatment + treatment has no scientific backing = fraud conviction. Slam dunk.
I’ll guess he ends up with a 5-year sentence and gets out after 3 years. But even if he only ends up doing a few years, he will be permanently shut down and unable to see patients ever again. At that point he will attempt to paint himself as a martyr, but his status as a convicted felon will be sufficient to keep away all but the most ideologically-committed. His “martyrdom” may give him a handful of flattering followers, but any comfort he derives from them will be meaningless in the bigger picture, roughly analogous to a convicted murderer whose mother still says she loves him. In the eyes of the general public he will still be scum.
One quack down, many more to go.
But for sheer humorous delight, this item in the CBS8 story can’t be beat: Young’s defense attorney Paul Pfingst said “The tension between the traditional medical community and the homeopathic medical community has been ongoing for many years.” Right.
Rich Woods,
Legitimate hematologists mostly use dried and stained blood for regular microscopy, examined by shining light through it from below. Young and the live blood analysis people use live blood in a drop on a slide, illuminated from above to enhance contrast without staining. This technique requires much brighter illumination, and thus much more heat. Many of the videos of live blood analysis I have seen essentially show a drop of blood drying up under the heat of the lamp used.
Another problem is that objects can drift in and out of the focal field of the microscope, leading to visual anomalies that an idiot might mistake for a blood cell transforming into a bacterium or something equally unlikely, hence Young’s pleomorphism claims.
A good example is this video narrated by Young that I have mentioned here before – I caution any scientifically literate people watching this that it still infuriates me, so be prepared to find yourself shouting at your screen.
Young claims that white spots on the red blood cells are signs that they are fermenting and that this is the cause of diabetes mellitus, which he claims means “to melt into sugar”. It doesn’t; ‘diabetes mellitus’ means ‘sweet urine’ (conversely ‘diabetes insipidus’, an unrelated condition due to a lack of antidiuretic hormone), dating back ot the days when a physician would taste his patients’ bodily fluids as a diagnostic tool. Yum. There is other nonsense there too.
Notice the drying of the sample as the video progresses, with nice round RBCs at the beginning which become increasingly deformed as the video progresses, especially after 3:50, because the serum is becoming more concentrated, sucking water out of the RBCs. Blood is generally homogeneous, so the variations we see are definitely artefacts of the viewing process.
Also noteworthy, I think, is Young’s voice. Calm, confident and trustworthy-sounding, the voice of a hypnotist and consummate con artist, in my opinion.
As a final coup de grace we see that Young actually teaches this nonsense.
His “martyrdom” may give him a handful of flattering followers
As Thenewme hinted at #31, much of his present team of ardent supporters may well be financially inspired (with a similar suspicion arising whenever a flock of Simoncini supporters descend en masse upon a skeptical blogger).
As a final coup de grace we see that Young actually teaches this nonsense.
That brings back memories of this thread from three years ago. Commenter Jason made an appearance — “Holistic Wellness Consultant, a member of the International Microscopy Association, pH Miracle Trained Nutritional Microscopist” (i.e. taught by Young) — to preach the wonders of Young’s approach.
Including this part:
It was but sheer luck that the actual source for this was coughed up among the other hits, which all seemed to originate with Young himself.
As Narad pointed out, they didn’t in this case, but nothing would surprise me any more. I’m still reeling from finding out the UK government approved and promoted those useless dowsing gadgets that were supposed to detect bombs, even though they were told the gadget is a “useless lump of plastic”. Surely it’s a relatively simple matter to figure out whether a bomb detector works or not, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you want to be sure something like this was effective before putting in the field where people’s lives are on the line if it doesn’t work? Mind-boggling.
Young’s Facebook page is soliciting donations for his legal defense fund.
He was supposed to be interviewed by George Noory on “Coast To Coast” radio last night (the program that tells us all about UFOs and other paranormal doings).
Young thinks California law protects him from the charges he faces.
“…complementary and alternative services do not pose a known risk to the health and safety of California residents,and that restricting access to those services due to technical violations of the Medical Practice Act is not warranted. …” This is the California law that I have based my holistic practice on at the pH Miracle Living Center, in Valley Center, California, since 2002.”
Other gems from his FB page include his claim that he has reversed 83% of type I diabetes cases, condemning mammography as “radioactive breast poisoning” and labeling Tamiflu as an “acidic dis-ease causing vaccine”.
Of all his nuttiness, that last one gripes me the most. Why the hell can’t these people figure out that Tamiflu IS NOT A FRIGGING VACCINE? How stupid can you possibly be?*
*yeah, I know.
Would our space agency hire quacks? No I think not.
I would like to think not as well, but like any other government agency, NASA is occasionally subject to political pressure, and biomedical science is outside their area of core expertise. The people selecting members of that committee may not have had a clue about how wacky the Youngs are. The Youngs may also have had a recommendation from Darrell Issa (if he’s not their congressman, they’re in a neighboring district), and that sort of thing is hard to ignore.
On a lark, I entered Young’s street address and got a reference to Zillow which listed his home as “not for sale”
( well, not yet I suppose) but “zestimated” its value at over 3 million USD- it last sold in 2002 for over 2 million.. It has 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, nearly 9700 sq ft and 40 acres. Unfortunately , no photos except for those hints on Young’s website.
Wikipedia has some information about the town but not average incomes/ home values. It is, apparently, a rather right-leaning area in San Diego County.
@Krebiozen, 49
I occasionally use dark field microscopy for small particles (not RBCs though) and yes, artifacts are a big problem. Any spec of dust or other particle floating in the liquid at a different level than what you’re focusing at is going to be lit up like a miniature sun, not to mention the fact that you will see every single tiny scratch on the slide. It’s a complete pain, and I don’t understand why anyone would ever use it unless they absolutely had to (though it can make for some rather pretty pictures I suppose).
@ Indigo_Fire:
re ” artifacts”…”pretty pictures”..
Uh oh. Don’t tell Mikey.
a rather right-leaning area in San Diego County.
Which means it’s very conservative indeed. *shudder*
@Denice Walter
Heh, I can easily predict where that would go. Considering that some of the pictures I’ve taken have kind of looked like something Hubble might spit out, I can imagine Mikey or his ilk using it as proof of the circularity of existence, or predicting your future health based on which galaxy they think a dark field picture of your saliva looks like (maybe call it “The New Astrology: How To Harness the Galactic Power Inside You”) or some other gobbledygook.
You know, I could probably be a pretty convincing quack if I put my mind to it 😉
That all sounds well into Sovereign Citizen territory. Which means we’re dealing with a really serious crank here.
@Lurker (#48)
I wish I could be as optimistic as you about his downfall, but my suspicion is that, assuming he does get convicted and stripped of his license, rather than just becoming a mere martyr, we will probably make use of proxies through which to treat patients, a la Buryznki’s “I didn’t oversee their treatment” defense. Some poor deluded schmucks that buy into his nonsense will do the treatment, with “tips” or “consultations” now and then from Young himself. Of course, he might still try to have direct patient interaction, but using proxies is probably the way he’d go.
Then of course there are teaching opportunities. He’ll train a new generation of “Youngs”, passing on his holy wisdom, blah, blah, blah. And don’t forget merchandizing, again, through proxies. Oh, and then there are books and informercials, a la Kevin Trudeau.
@ Indigo_Fire:
You better watch out when you mention
******Galactic Power*****
one of the major forces frequently hangs around here.
At any rate, I have actually tried my hand at writing woo-tinged copy- mostly centring on life-energy, Gaia-ism and chakras.
One of my courses included reviewing the literary products of people who have an SMI which always helps.
That de Quincy and Joyce.
NASA is occasionally subject to political pressure, and biomedical science is outside their area of core expertise. The people selecting members of that committee may not have had a clue about how wacky the Youngs are.
The point here is that the “Vegetarian and Fasting Committee for NASA’s earth and space missions” is in no way affiliated with NASA. As Narad pointed out #32, it arose from the rich fantasy life of a Biblical Nutrition fabulist by the name of Jim Tibbetts.
Mr Tibbetts had evidently received some small grants from the Maine Space Grants Consortium, which I understand is a kind of NASA community-outreach system for fostering interest in space. This inspired him to take a break from his usual busy routine (selling dietary cures for cancer and MS), and to start recruiting “some of the top vegan, raw vegan experts in the country” to provide astronauts with advice on starving themselves.
It sounds like Young found out about Tibbetts’ prospective Committee, and thought “That sounds impressive — I’m stealing it!” So now it exists only in Young’s flim-flam. There are no other members.
@ToddW: Or he could go the Andy Wakefield route and live comfortably as a guest speaker for woo-promoters.
But yes, he’ll probably put more time into his teaching. Not necessarily in California–maybe he’ll join certain other characters in Texas, or perhaps he’s thinking about somewhere south of the border (if he’s allowed to keep/renew his passport).
@Denice
Because of circumstances too dreary too relate, I find myself needing to make money in addition to my full-time job and, because of other circumstances almost as dreary, I’m considering offering I Ching readings online.
Here’s the thing, though. I refuse to claim that I have “special powers”. I won’t make claims about “predicting the future”. I emphatically believe that the I Ching is a handy little tool that tells you something you already know. It brings clarity, but that’s it.
And so I find myself severely handicapped against the competition out there, because I refuse to use wooful language. I’m trying to turn that into a selling point, actually, (“No Frills I Ching”, aka “Conks from the Cosmic Cluebat”) but I fear I just cut my potential revenue base by 98%.
If only I had no pride, no shame and flexible ethics – then I’d be offering remote reiki and chakra treatments for $50 a pop and would have my financial crisis sorted in no time…
In order to really understand disease, we need to to look at the word itself: “Disease”. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words – “Dizzy” and “zuh.” Unfortunately, no one knows what “zuh” means, so we will never really understand disease.
(grateful H/T Jack Handey)
If you will reach out right now to your monitor you will feel the Reiki goodness I am sending your way. You can also clean those fingerprints from your monitor while you’re there.
While you’re at it, MO’B, can you use your remote powers to do something about my keyboard? The Enter key never really recovered from the last coffee spill.
I hope he pays for all the damage he has done all this time.
Oh, I once used the Ching to very accurately predict the Cubs’ win-loss record over the last 50 or so games of the season. It put PECOTA to shame.
“The I Ching is the most refined synchronicity condenser available to those of us who constitute the only class for whom the I Ching was intended and for whom it works, that is, superior people. It may be thought of as the actual ‘magic book’ of the myths and fairy tales. It’s in a class by itself. If you refuse to see things in Snazzm terms, your hexagrams will urge you, one way or another, to settle for coin flipping, tarot card shuffling, daisy petal pulling, or whatever.”
Of course, only the Bollingen edition should be used.
Occasionally…
.
I stand upon a great cliff overlooking the turbulently crashing waves of some life-infused burgeoning ocean or another,
wherein I feel at peace and at oneness with the innner waveforms of my own being and those of the grandly sine-ing y mysterioso Pacifico or the energising Atalantico as the case may be- it’s all One anyway.
Yes. Seismic waves approximate our chakric integrity resonating most fortunately and reflecting personal Gaianess rising up to meet our own vibrations. I have been there you see I am a channel it seems.
If I am at Dover, the cliffs are white but golden elsewhere westward mostly and totally black and hulking basalt around
here. Not that it makes any difference.
One world. One Gaia. One energy.
herr doktor bimler – have you considered baptism for your keyboard?
@Narad
I respect the Baynes/Wilhelm translation in that it’s a classic and it paved the way for, well, pretty much every other English translation out there. But it’s hard for some folks to relate to it and so I keep half a dozen version on my shelf – including the seriously-impressive-looking Retsima/Sabbadini tome, but I must admit, that one requires a lot of brainjuice to process so I don’t reach for it when time is tight – and draw a synthesis from several sources.
My personal favorite is Thomas Cleary’s “Taoist I Ching”.
I think it was anthropologist Evans-Pritchard who concluded that the divination system used by the African tribe he was studying (something that involved killing chickens IIRC) was as good a way of making decisions as any.
I find the I-Ching inscrutable enough to force the user to consider the problem from a number of different perspective in an attempt to make sense of it, which is probably beneficial. It’s less messy too, and generates less squawking, thus annoying the neighbors less. No blame.
Back on topic, I have mentioned this before too, but one of Young’s scams that fills me with a strange mixture of disgust and admiration is his marketing strategy. For example he sells a Basic Greens Alkalizing Starter Pack for $250. Here are the ingredients (such imaginative names):
‘pHour’, a mixture of sodium bicarbonate, magnesium chloride, potassium bicarbonate, and calcium chloride, which he claims are “powerful carbonate salts […] that help maintain the alkaline design of human, plant, and animal organisms.
1 lb Doc Brock Power Plants – this is just powdered dehydrated vegetables, including grass which Young claims have been dried so carefully they (or at least their nutrients)are still alive.
8 oz pHlavor – this is a 26% solution of rock salt, from his salt mine on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake. Young says that salt is important because it transmutes into other elements, I kid you not: He states the following, which might happen in :the heart of a star, but most certainly does not occur in any living human body
4 oz Liquid ChloropHeal – this is simply a solution of chlorophyll, similar to what you might get if you mowed your lawn, took a handful of grass cuttings, blended it with water and filtered it.. Young claims that chlorophyll and hemoglobin are identical except for the Mg at the center of chlorophyll and the Fe at the center of hemoglobin, making it extremely healthy. There are similarities between chlorophyll and heme (which, to be pedantic, is what Young’s diagram actually shows, not hemoglobin) but why that should mean that chlorophyll is particularly beneficial nutritionally I don’t know. I think that actual hemoglobin in meat might be even better, and would certainly taste better.
2 oz puripHy – this is a solution of 6% sodium bicarbonate, 30 % potassium bicarbonate and 3% potassium hydroxide. Why anyone would want to ingest this beats me, unless you had a weird fixation on alkalinity I suppose. Thankfully the suggested dose is too low to do too much harm, though people do sometimes end up in the emergency room from ingesting too much of this sort of stuff. The symptoms? Respiratory collapse, because respiration is triggered by blood pH.
1 lb Terra pHirma – this is clay, yes, clay, Montmorillonite clay to be precise, which Young claims, “can improve digestion, circulation, energy levels, immune system, and help with weight loss balancing sugar levels”. Good grief. I suppose we take kaolin for diarrhea, and you might lose weight if you were committed to geophagy, but really…
pHlush Powder – this is mostly magnesium oxide, often sold by quacks to allegedly remove the imaginary mucoid plaque that they claim is coating the lining of our intestines, which is exactly what Young claims too. This stuff will induce diarrhea if you ingest enough, and if you ingest it with the Montmorillonite clay you may well pass peculiar stools that are supposed to be composed of mucoid plaque, but are actually a cast of your bowel – Google “mucoid plaque” images if you want to see revolting pictures.
Avocado Oil – Young does run an avocado ranch, and he has to unload all those avocado products somewhere. Avocado oil is actually similar to olive oil in terms of health; this is the only thing in this kit I might consider using.
Water bottle – a bottle (BPA free of course) that you can put water in.
The pH Miracle Revised and Updated – Young’s crappy book.
pH Hydrion Paper – a roll of pH paper to check your urine, which will undoubtedly be alkaline after ingesting the cocktail of alkaline chemicals above, thus convincing the mark that the pH miracle is working!
So some bicarbonates and other alkaline chemicals, dried vegetables, lawn mowing solution, salt, clay, a crappy book, a water bottle and a roll of pH paper, which I estimate you could buy separately on EBay for less than $50, much less if bought in bulk, all for $250. Brilliant but despicable, more the latter methinks, since this is the sort of thing that will cure cancer.
Magnesium Chloride is a carbonate? The mind reels.
Hmm , “since this is the sort of thing that Young claims will cure cancer”, just to be crystal clear..
Young isn’t the first person to claim the body can transmute elements. Who was that nut that claimed hens transmute silicon into calcium to make eggshells? Some of the mercury militia make similar claims to explain why years of chelation never seem to clean out all the mercury.
Reference Aesop, J. Fab. Res, or Grimm, J & Grimm, W. Folk Tales.
Asimov (1956), Ast.Sci.Fic..
herr doktor bimler – threeche, sir, threeche (a nod to Victor Borge – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6kElOYcd8).
Krebiozen wrote:
Gah, blockquote fail. The last two paragraphs are mine.
Speaking of Wrong-Way Finn, her EDNY misadventures continue apace. (She weirdly attempted to unilaterally withdraw “P.R.,” 1:13-cv-07415, by invoking FRCP 41 even though answers had been filed. I haven’t ascertained what Dina Check has been consolidated with.)
Heh.
“On the afternoon of January i, 2014, less than 48 hours before the appearance, we received by e-mail a resume of one Mary S. Holland, Esq. (copy attached), a lawyer who seems to specialize in international law and has apparently written a number of articles and amicus briefs perhaps critical of vaccinationa programs….
“[T]he purpose of an expert witness is to assist a fact-finder in matters of a technical nature that may be beyond the ken of the fact-finder, whether a jury or judge. The purported expert witness is a lawyer. We do not see any conceivable reason why a District Judge might need expert assistance as to any of the legal issues underlying this complaint…. If not legal in nature, Plaintiff will confront a significant Daubert issue.”
Note that this was a dispute over denial of a religious exemption. Attempting to drag Holland’s autism connection into it is instant failure, a level of incompetence that gave Finn a bad name at MDC years ago, as I’ve mentioned before.
OK, Dina Check has been rolled into 1:12-cv-00098 with Nicole Phillips and Fabian Mendoza-Vaca. Co-counsel is now Jonathan Victor, who assisted Finn in achieving the precedential Caviezel losses. As a highlight, the consolidated complaint was misfiled, apparently because Finn didn’t realize that the caption is the earliest-filed case, not the one that gets her the most attention.
What on earth Check (who seems to have lost her religious claim already) has to do with the two others who are carping about school exclusions during potential outbreaks is anybody’s guess. It’s vintage Finn, including “so-called ‘vaccine-preventable illness'” by page 5 and the stubborn habit of failing to be able to render boilerplate consistently. Enjoy (PDF).
^ Sorry, these belonged under this.
I remember that Asimov story well. The nut I was thinking of was Prof. Corentin Louis Kervran, and it was potassium that he believed was transmuted into calcium (not silicon, my mistake, silly me) by chickens through a low-energy transmutation process he called “frittage” (which I thought was something unpleasant that happens on the London Underground during rush-hour, but it seems I’m mistaken).
Kervran is my favorite kind of nut, as he does appear to have followed the evidence after a fashion, and the hypotheses he formulated are weird, but not as utterly implausible as homeopathy, for example. I’m intrigued by this reference in the Wiki article, which suggests that MgATP in mitochondria act as tiny cyclotrons, generating energy through frittage. Was this perhaps an April Fool gag?
which suggests that MgATP in mitochondria act as tiny cyclotrons, generating energy through frittage
You have to wonder why chickens bother with all that “pecking at seeds” business, when their biology has mastered the secrets of nuclear fusion.
something unpleasant that happens on the London Underground during rush-hour
Sodding saxophonist buskers? Kiwi tourists with backpacks taking up twice their own space?
HDB,
They can be irritating, true, though I’m fond enough of Antipodeans to forgive them a lot, and I play a little sax myself. I once encountered a young man sitting cross-legged on the floor next to one of the doors, reading a book and smoking a cigarette (post the smoking ban), completely oblivious to the rest of us rush-hour rats crammed in around him. We were all too polite to complain, apart from some bad-tempered muttering.
On another occasion a bunch of Kiwis performed a full Maori Haka right in my face, for no apparent reason, which was terrifying, frankly. I’m English, so I pretended I hadn’t noticed, of course.
But no, I was alluding to frottage. Several female friends have been frottaged (?) on the Tube, when crammed in so tight it’s not only difficult to move away, but almost impossible to figure out who is responsible. Thankfully it has never happened to me for some reason. Both frittage and frottage (allegedly) generate energy, of course, but through different mechanisms.
As someone who has been the victim of (at least one) frotteur on public transport AND been subjected to some bastardized version of the Haka by two 20 stone ex-housemates who thought it oh, so hilarious to startle me thus: I have no idea how you pretended not to notice!
If indeed, you managed to retain your composure you have my deepest respect 😉
@ AntpodeanChic:
If you spend any time on tubes, you learn to NOT react because sometimes reaction can lead to further problems. I’ve experienced them in several different countries/ cities and have never been robbed or *really* frotted BUT I have been jostled and moved forwards 10 feet in a direction not of my own choosing.
There’s also the height thing: I think that being under 6 feet tall can lead to problems.
I don’t need them for commuting now but only use them on off-hours/ weekends which is even more bizarre: I enjoy the fashion statements, attempts at individualism and buskers. Occasionally you get a classically trained ( student) violinist or tenor performing either on the platform or in the train itself as it or an elderly Chinese man playing the pipa ( which is how I think it’s spelled) with a bow.
Some of them dance.
As someone who has been the victim of (at least one) frotteur on public transport
One mourns the demise of hat-pins.
@Denice Walter: I agree with you about not reacting when frotted, and that not being “shocked” at any flashers you may encounter on the way to the train station etc. is just as important!
I really should have been a little clearer about the “Haka” situation: it was in my own living room, I weigh about 100lb wringing wet (which I was, if memory serves). I found myself with two very large people performing the Haka both in front of & behind me on a wooden floor whilst on the way back to my bedroom after a post-swim shower. It IS very amusing in retrospect, but was terrifying at the time…
Also, I have nothing whatsoever against buskers etc. 😉
I mourn the demise of hats in general, but yeah!
Oh, I once used the Ching to very accurately predict the Cubs’ win-loss record over the last 50 or so games of the season
I’m not sure anybody needs the Ching to accurately predict the Cubs’ win-loss record over the last 50 or so games of any season, but as Krebiozen mentioned, it’s as good a method as any.
Wait…avocados grow on ranches now? I would have thought they grew in orchards or plantations or something.
My general approach to transit harassment is to grab the offending body part (in my case, usually a groping hand) and announce loudly, “I believe you misplaced this.” Such social lowlifes do it because they figure they can get away with it. I’m Canadian, and we’re nice enough normally, but (as I believe we demonstrated amply in two world wars) don’t piss us off.
Before I met her my wife once had her breast groped as she was descending a stairway in the Boston subway, by someone who was opposite and ascending it. He reached the bottom of the steps before she did, with a broken ankle. (And then when the cops showed up made the mistake of starting his outraged complaint with “All I did was grab her tit!” They told her to walk .)
Well this thread has taken a much different turn than the version on the not so secret other blog.
It did make find this very fine article about live blood analysis by Dr. Crislip:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/live-blood-analysis-the-modern-auguries/
Mr. Orac,
I am the investigator investigating Robert Young for the District Attorney’s Office. Can you please e-mail me, I would like to obtain the Kim Tinkham videos. Thank You.
Mr. Clark, you will find direct contact information here:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/author/oracknows/
Good luck.
One testimonial that remains up from a dead Robert O. Young patient is Ditte Andersen. The widower, in the comments, faults the earlier chemotherapy.
Mr Clark,
I hope you’ll include Robert O. Young’s scammy affiliate marketing program as part of your investigation. He has some raving fans on the breast cancer patient forums at BreastCancer.org and elsewhere. They may or may not be paid affiliates and several of them have recently passed on, but their posts unfortunately can and do influence other breast cancer patients.
I suppose there could be some mild amusement value in signing up with ftc.gov, etc., as the affiliate domain. The affiliate FAQ is a riot:
Or:
I’m not sure where Young gets off suggesting that he somehow avoids “western medicine,” as it certainly doesn’t seem to be “eastern medicine,” but whatever. The repeated dropping of the word “clinical,” coupled with the total absence of a disclaimer that the “Dr.” doesn’t mean what the average person would take it to mean in the context, ought to be just another nail in the coffin.
@Narad #103:
The “pH Miracle Center” certainly have some nerve. They even put out a “mini-testimonial” on Jan. 27th!
Oh, for a single conviction against this quack. Bells would ring, children would sing, dogs and cats would live together. . .
Wow! You tell people to eat more greens and less red meat and you are guilty of practicing medicine without a license. Glad my mother is dead. Otherwise she would be guilty of that crime! :O
Never heard of Nobel prizewinner Dr Otto Heinrich Warburg? He said the same thing Young says – in the 1930’s and 40’s!
Never heard of Dr Lorraine Day? This UCSF physician reversed her “terminal” breast cancer with a diet heavy in greens. You could look her up!
On the other hand, let’s talk about Malpracticing medicine WITH a license! In the 50’s and 60’s, “modern” medicine was ALL about hysterectomies and tonsillectomies. Cut it out and you will be cured of your ills. So spake the AMA. In the late 70’s-early 80’s the AMA wanted to put all vitamin supplements under their aegis, and require a doctor’s prescription for purchase. A deliberate grab for more money into the pockets of their membership. Then there was valium and prozac to calm down them hysterical women who werent really sick. Not too long after the medical profession decided that ritalin was The Answer to so called ADA and ADSA to mind control our children. Now the AMA sock puppets are all about whatever their Big Pharma Masters tell them to prescribe to us.
Sorry, but you, Doctor, need to do a little research, and you Doctor, need to search your soul as to what your goal is. To heal people? Or to follow the dictates of your AMA masters.
Sorry if there are some of us who think that folks like you are pompous asses who continue to act as gods and ignore the natural healings that God Himself has provided us. Do a little research then get back to us.
Dr. Lorraine Day. Hmm. That sounds familiar.
Chuck should try googling “Lorraine day site:respectfulinsolence.com” and see what our esteemed host, an expert on breast cancer, has to say about her story.
Chuck – Really? That’s what you took from all that’s been said above – that doctors don’t like “Not that kind of a”-Dr. Young because he tells them to eat more greens and less meat – without a license? His writing that acid causes all/most diseases, that cancer is an acid, and that red blood cells can turn into bacteria – that’s just “eat more greens”?
Regardless, what has gotten him into trouble is not dietary advice.
Chuck, please reread the following from the original post:
Providing intravenous treatment is very different from recommending less red meat and more greens. I doubt your mother was providing intravenous treatment without a license.
In other words, the accusation is that he committed fraud. I doubt your mother did that either.
Here is the most recent take down of Dr Day.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2011/12/20/one-more-lesson-on-what-antivaccine-mean/
But, there are several others.
I have followed Dr. Young’s advice for a number of years now and I find that healthwise I am way ahead of the general public. I have a checkup quarterly from a standard clinic. I never have anything to complain about, I take no drugs and I have no health problems so I can only say that Dr. Young must be doing something right and I hope he keeps up the good work. I am doing better than my friends who see their regular doctors and are taking prescription drugs. They are not healthy and I feel sorry for them.
Congratulations on your good luck, Charlotte, but that’s exactly what it is: Good luck.
That doesn’t sound too promising.
Maybe Charlotte is one of the worried well? It sounds as if, for someone who was healthy to start with and didn’t go to his ranch for a false diagnosis and unnecessary treatment, his advice would do no great harm and might do some good.
It’s like Charlotte didn’t read a word of what Orac posted. That…or else she’s clueless about Acid-Base balance and enjoys spending her money on quack advice and bogus treatments.
@LW You can be pretty darn sure Charlotte’s one of the “worried well”. I’m sure you know as well as I do they make up the majority of “sCAM” proponents/clients. I mean, if a naturopath’s had to “cure” lots of people with actual diseases, they’d be in a spot of bother.
It’s one of the primary reasons many GP’s etc. manage to remain “shruggies” imo…
*naturopath. Stupid apostrophe reflex syndrome 😉
Most of Young’s dietary advice is healthy enough. An alkaline diet means eating more vegetables, less meat (protein in general is ‘acid-generating’ as it breaks down to amino acids), and fewer high glycemic foods, which will reduce calorific intake and probably lead to weight loss, which may very well make his patients feel better.
My concern is that he uses that modest and predictable success as a kind of bait and switch to ‘prove’ his nutty ‘New Biology’ hypotheses are correct, and that he can successfully treat cancer, and reverse type 1 diabetes, which of course he can’t. I don’t believe his diet is any healthier than those recommended by dietitians, perhaps less so as it doesn’t seem very balanced to me.
BTW, did anyone see the recent Horizon episode looking at diet? SPOILER ALERT
They put one identical twin doctor on a low carb high fat diet, and the other twin on a low fat high carb diet, both with no restrictions, and monitored them for several weeks. I have seen a number of woomeisters recommending the former and condemning the latter, the idea being that the whole saturated fat/cholesterol hypothesis is nonsense (it isn’t), and that sugar is addictive and deadly.
Both subjects lost weight, and the one on the high fat, low carb diet lost the most, but it was mostly muscle mass, which obviously isn’t good. He also showed early signs of metabolic syndrome, with raised insulin levels suggesting insulin resistance, and found concentrating on complex tasks more difficult as compared to his twin.
The twin on the high carb diet did better, with reduced insulin levels suggesting reduced insulin resistance – they speculated that eating high GI foods trains the body to deal with fluctuations on blood glucose levels.
Obviously such a small sample size isn’t conclusive, but I thought it was interesting nevertheless. The results were more or less the opposite of what one might expect from reading woo-based nutritional advice – sugar is supposed to be the cause of all ills, especially insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
My reading here and elsewhere makes me think more and more that as long as a person isn’t deficient in any micro or macro nutrients, and isn’t overweight, dietary changes aren’t going to affect their health very much. Trying to lose weight by cutting out whole macro groups doesn’t seem very sensible, and I suspect that the high fat ketosis people are playing a dangerous game with possible muscle wasting.
The final point the program made is that neither fat nor sugar alone are the main culprits, it is combinations of the two that people (and rats) have serious trouble with. Foods like ice cream, cheesecake and glazed donuts with about a 50/50 ratio of fat to sugar are extremely pleasant to eat, and don’t press our satiety buttons effectively, making it very easy to gain weight. Simply avoiding these foods may be the most important dietary change anyone can make.
@Krebiozen Hmmn, I tend to agree with you regarding diet. I would’ve thought it “common sense” that one will feel better upon losing weight (being overweight is fortunately a problem I’ve never had).
The classic “bait & switch”, also, is the real concern in this particular instance, as illustrated. Sugar in and of itself, can no more be “cancer food” than I could sprout wings and fly. It is typical altie “guilt-inducement” as far as I’m concerned.
No, I haven’t seen the Horizon program to which you refer – so thanks! It confirms (despite the small sample size!) that by default, I actually have a fairly healthy diet. I’m lucky in that I have never liked greasy foods & am limited in the amount of dairy food I can consume. I might eat ice cream, say, once a year and I don’t even like stuff like donuts.
I don’t mean to shine my halo so conspicuously!
@Krebiozen:
“Simply” avoid ice cream?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It’s a daily struggle.
[…] someone like “Dr.” Robert “All-disease-is-due-to-acid” Young who has actually recently been arrested for treating cancer patients with the aforementioned sodium bicarbonate IV thing. Most human […]
[…] not referring to these groups as being strictly cults, but rather as being cult-like. Think Robert O. Young, whose defenders have popped up, although unfortunately for him, his cult of personality is nowhere […]
I sure hope this investigation covers the scores of people who have been helped (transformed) by Dr. Young’s protocol and plan for alkaline living. Aside from this particular case, it’s common place for radical, cutting edge thinkers to be thought crazy, or to be severely scrutinized. Look at history:
Simon Newcomb, professor of mathematics and astronomy, was one of the most respected scientists of his time. He was the first American since Benjamin Franklin to be made a member of the Institute of France. So, when he wrote an article in 1903 proving (yes, proving) that it was scientifically impossible that a heavier than air machine would ever be able to fly unless some yet undiscovered force of nature were found (think anti-gravity) it was taken as established fact. Good thing the Wright brothers didn’t read scientific literature, because just a few weeks later they made their first flight at Kittyhawk.
Millions of people around the world celebrate Columbus Day every October 12. The tale of Christopher Columbus, the legendary Genoese explorer and navigator, has been retold and rewritten many times. To some, he was an intrepid explorer, following his instincts to a New World. To others, he was a monster, a slave trader who unleashed the horrors of the conquest on unsuspecting natives.
With just pen, paper, and his brain, Albert Einstein revolutionized science as we know it today. In 1905, while working at the patent office, Einstein wrote five scientific papers, which were all published in the Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics, a major physics journal). He was thought to be insane.
The list is endless. So, while we’re trying to nail Dr. Young, let’s remember that most cutting edge scientists, musicians, artists, etc., have been accused of being crazy, etc., etc. I do pray for a fair and just trial for this man. I know I’ve been helped immensely by his alkaline theories.
Oh, deer, Chaco, so many things wrong.
First, the honorific for him should be Mr.. One does not become a doctor when they purchase a PhD from a diploma mill.
And it hurts my aerospace engineer brain to read these words: “Good thing the Wright brothers didn’t read scientific literature, because just a few weeks later they made their first flight at Kittyhawk.”
Prof. Newcomb was obviously commenting outside his realm of expertise. There is a wee bit of difference between astronomy and aerodynamics.
Wrong, wrong, wrongety wrong. The reason they succeeded was by reading the scientific literature going all the way back to Sir George Cayley. Plus they did testing with a small wind tunnel.
Christopher Columbus, or has I learned about him “Cristobal Colon” was many things. I suggest you read 1491 and 1493 by Charles Mann to learn more about the complexities of history on both American Continents (and I have a different perspective having learned some of that while living in South America).
Again, you might want to acquaint yourself with the history of physics in the early part of the twentieth century. No one ever though Einstein was insane. Some of it you can learn if you take a physics course at your local community college.
Of course, Mr. Young could have benefited with a more solid background in chemistry and biology. He might have actually learned the definition of “alkaline” and “acid” (hint: lemons are not alkaline).
You’re arguing with a copy-pasting spam-bot, Chris.
Thanks. Oh, well, it was an amusing diversion. And the Wright brothers bit tends to rankle me.
Though it does show how so much wrongness is perpetuated on the internets.
I agree about the Wright brothers bit, Chris.
Also, they were already flying heavier-than-air gliders to develop their wing designs before they added a motor and propellers to allow powered flight.
I don’t think they were the only ones to fly gliders either.
Anyone, his whole argument is a complete non sequitur.
When I read a comment like #125 — where the claims of fact, ranging from merely tendentious to flatly dishonest, contrast with the reasonable grammar and spelling — then my first instinct is to check the Google to see from where it was plagiarised.
I really do hate arguing, and I really cannot stand injustice of any kind. I did not post those comments to create more controversy, but to point out a simple fact that many revolutionary thinkers have not been received by the mainstream, and that is a fact. So many aggressive thinkers and path-setters have been accused of being insane or worse. Obviously, if someone is breaking the law, then they should be stopped, but if this is merely a ploy to stop a man from exposing some falsities that have been valued as “fact” where the treatment of cancer and other diseases are concerned, that’s not right. I do find it curious that Young’s arrest came months after his book on cancer was released. I personally know several people who nailed their cancer by eating alkaline, becoming vegetarian, avoiding sugar, processed foods, white flour, etc. I have a friend who was an ER doctor for 33 years, and when she developed colon cancer, she became a vegetarian, stopped eating all processed wheat, sugar etc. When I asked her “why” she chose to do that, she said, “Because acidity feeds cancer…plain and simple.” Her cancer vanished, and 2 years later she quit her job at the hospital. She was challenged within her own profession by the lack of nutritional knowledge and lack of disease prevention that is so prevalent in the medical community (I can’t blame her).
I am no scientist, but I do love research. When I was hit with a whirlwind of health-related issues, I was forced to do my own research, especially when I got no “real” answers from the medical community, and the drugs they put me on, only caused other issues. My mother was misdiagnosed at Kaiser 3 times before going to a private clinic only to find out that her so-called chronic ailment was actually terminal. She died 10 months later. Truthfully, we should have sued Kaiser.
Chuck, I really appreciated your post, and I couldn’t agree more. Perhaps we should discuss the scores of people who have been ripped off by medical doctors (myself included), and/or who died at the hands of a doctors mistake or misdiagnosis. A good friend of mine lost 75% of her small intestines to a medical “mishap.” Her life (as you can imagine was grossly altered. The hospital sent her home with the instructions to live on white bread, white rice, milk products, etc., and told her that she would never be able to eat normally again; salads and veggies unless cooked to mush would never be able to be tolerated. It was a nightmare. I took care of her for 4 months, and listened to her cry her eyes out nightly, as she would scream out from bleeding hemorrhoids and wrenching stomach pain. One night, I was so upset that I got up out of bed and wrote Robert Young on Facebook. I wondered if what she was eating was creating so much acid that she was just burning from the pain. I honestly didn’t think he’d respond, but he did. He sent me a private message and told me exactly what to have this woman do. It began with making green drinks–alkalizing her body. At the time I wrote him, she was dangerously underweight, in fact she had nurses visiting the house daily, and I don’t even believe the doctors expected her to live. Within days of drinking homemade green drinks, pH balanced water, etc., her hemorrhoids stopped bleeding and her stomach pain and diarrhea ceased. Within 2 months she gained a significant amount of weight, and when I took her to her doctor’s appointment, he didn’t even know what to say, but was staggered at her improvement, and admitted that what Robert Young suggested was a great idea, particularly since blending green vegetables in a Vita-Mix is a form of pre-digestion, and the obvious issue with someone who has 75% of their small intestines removed would be the ability to break down food and even nutritional supplements. Three years later. My friends weight has completely returned. She now eats salads and has never felt better. She is happy and healthy, and all because she followed Dr, Young’s protocol.
I am truly sorry for the six terminally ill patients who passed away after spending money to get treated at his center. But, how many people do chemotherapy with the hope that it will deal a blow to cancer, or at least buy them more time, and it doesn’t? What of them? It’s so easy for us to scrutinize untraditional methods when they don’t work.
Medicine certainly has its place, and I’m grateful for it, but PLEASE let’s not pretend that the pharmaceutical companies are not frequently leading the populous down a dark and dreary path. Just listen to the drug commercials regularly aired on TV. The warnings are frightful.
How about the poor children with ADHD who were duped into believing they had an actual condition. According to an article posted in Natural News, “the ‘father’ of ADHD, Leon Eisenberg, would presumably say if he were still alive. On his death bed, this psychiatrist and autism pioneer admitted that ADHD is essentially a ‘fictitious disease,’ which means that millions of young children today are being needlessly prescribed severe mind-altering drugs that will set them up for a life of drug addiction and failure.”
“ADHD is fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction,” said Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, back in 1998 about the phony condition. Adding to this sentiment, psychiatrists Peter Breggin and Sami Timimi, both of whom oppose pathologizing the symptoms of ADHD, say that ADHD is more of a social construct than it is an objective “disorder.”
Here’s the link to the full article: http://www.naturalnews.com/040938_adhd_fictitious_disease_psychiatry.html##ixzz2uNGpHuOZ
I too have a number of friends who believed what they were being fed and put their kids on Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall, and their (now grown) kids are having issues with drug addiction and emotional/mental disorders. It’s disheartening.
So, while I am no scientist, I do have life experience, and I read. So far, my experience with Robert Young has been nothing but positive. I’m not saying he’s innocent, but I do hope he gets a fair trial.
ciaco, I am sorry you have fallen wholesale for so much alt med glop and conspiracy theorizing. I don’t have a ready cure for this mindset, but suggest you start by reading Orac’s excellent article on acidity, which explains that we cannot mess with our body’s natural acid-base balance through diet or supplements:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2006/09/15/your-friday-dose-of-woo-acid-base-or-woo-1/
p.s. Did you know that many alt med gurus confessed on their deathbeds that they were frauds and that mainstream medicine was right all along? It’s true!
How about the poor children with ADHD who were duped into believing they had an actual condition
What in the name of buggrit does this have to do with cancer fraudster Robert Young?
Hey Dangerous Bacon,
Thanks for your honest feedback. I will be happy to read the article about acidity. Thanks for the link. In my case, it is not about falling for something, it really does have to do with my own personal experience, and watching a number of friends experience amazing results. I’m afraid, the age-old saying, “The proof is in the pudding,” holds true, because my chronic arthritic pain issues completely vanished, and, as I mentioned in my lengthy response, I know too many who have been completely cured of cancer and diabetes as a result of embracing an alkaline diet. This is not about a conspiracy, but a reality. 🙂
Please don’t be offended, but I’m skeptical. What kind of cancer did they have? What other treatment did they have? How do you know that avoiding certain foods cured their cancers? How do they know that their cancers are indeed in remission?
Your doctor friend who said that “acidity feeds cancer” – what kind of doctor was she? What study had she done to come to that conclusion – a conclusion I’m given to understand that people who actually study cancer don’t share?
I’m sorry to hear your mother was misdiagnosed.
I’m just reading ciaco’s screed, and I call horse hockey. If his “friend” lost 75% of the small intestine, there is NO FREAKING WAY any hospital sent her home with those kinds of diet suggestions (white bread/white rice/milk products). And bleeding hemorrhoids? From WHAT?
Sorry. As a nurse, I can’t accept this and therefore don’t believe the rest of it either.
Also: pet peeve. The phrase is “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”. Please use it properly.
@ herr doktor bimler…
Thank you for your response as well. Of course, you’re right. ADHD has nothing to do with cancer fraud, however, that was not really the point. My point was that medical science doesn’t always provide accurate answers either, and in the case of many youngsters who were led to take the medication for this so-called condition, they were duped, and many of them are now paying a price as adults. I don’t believe Robert Young is a fraud, but that’s (of course) my opinion. Whether or not he violated the law, remains to be seen, but I don’t believe his findings are false. He’s not the first person to address the need for having a more alkalized diet. As Chuck mentioned, Dr. Otto Heinrich Warburg received a Nobel Prize in 1931 for his findings on acidosis. According to Warburg, ”
“Cancerous tissues are acidic, whereas healthy tissues are alkaline. Water splits into H+ and OH- ions, if there is an excess of H+, it is acidic; if there is an excess of OH- ions, then it is alkaline.” Reference Link: http://www.slideshare.net/KangenWaterH2O/dr-otto-heinrich-warburg-1931-nobel-prize-winner-the-root-cause-of-cancer
By definition, the word “fraud” means:
wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain: he was convicted of fraud | prosecutions for social security frauds.
• a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities: mediums exposed as tricksters and frauds. (Oxford Dictionary)
So, I don’t believe Warburg was a fraud, and truthfully, I don’t think Young is either.
“Obviously, if someone is breaking the law, then they should be stopped, but if this is merely a ploy to stop a man from exposing some falsities that have been valued as “fact” where the treatment of cancer and other diseases are concerned, that’s not right.”
Well, Mr. Young did break several laws. He pretended to be a medically trained doctor, albeit a “naturapathic doctor.”
First he bought his PhD from a diploma mill. Second he was not licensed as a naturopath, but pretended to be one. And third he performed medical procedures on people without being licensed.
How is that legal in the state of California. Cite the regulations that permit folks without the relevant training to pretend to be either a medical or naturopathic, and not bother with getting licensed.
You’re right in one way ciaco. We don’t know that Robert Young is a fraud, unless you consider making claims without evidence to support them fraudulent.
And you’re also right that standard medicine is not perfect. Sometimes it doesn’t have an answer. And, sometimes the first answer is not the right one. If it were ever episode of House would be over in the first 15 minutes. (irrelevant aside)
But standard medicine has evidence, real data, to show that it at least works better than doing nothing. Young’s acid-base junk does not.
And the acidic/basic food stuff is highly unlikely to affect the body’s internal chemistry because the body has its own mechanism for keeping the pH tightly controlled.
Please read Orac’s article that Dangerous Bacon linked to.
ciaco: “He’s not the first person to address the need for having a more alkalized diet.”
So? He is copying another fraudster.
By the way defined “alkalized.” Tell us you know what it means.
Chris, lots of Irish Soda Bread perhaps???
Personally, I don’t like eating lye soap.
It takes 20 seconds to check the details of Warburg’s Nobel Prize. Please make an effort to say something that isn’t bullsh1t.
@MI Dawn – that’s one of my pet peeves as well!
@MI Dawn…
I’m sorry you don’t believe my story, but it is 100% true. I was given the food list from the hospital dietician. Ensure, tapioca pudding and Jello were also on the list, as well as, mashed potatoes. Literally EVERY single food listed would break down as acid in the body. I was truthfully blown away. When I asked her doctor about the list, he explained that she would not be able to digest things like wheat bread and brown rice. Chicken and/or turkey was allowed, but baked without the skin. Bleeding hemorrhoids happened as a result of the constant diarrhea she was having “because” she couldn’t digest anything. It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen. I cried myself to sleep as well, because I couldn’t believe the pain she was in. The next step was to drug her up so she wouldn’t feel the pain, and her condition only worsened. She looked like a walking skeleton. Of course, now there is a full investigation as to why this happened, why they went in to remove scar tissue and took out 75% of her small intestines. There’s something rotten in Denmark.
Actually, Dr. Warburg won the Nobel prize “for his discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme”
Yes, he did some research into cancer treatments: that doesn’t mean that he must either have known the One True Cause and Cure of Cancer or been a fraud. As far as I know, he was an honest scientist: honest scientists often come up with and test ideas that turn out not to be correct.
If I asked 100 random people “What is the capital of Washington?” I would almost certainly get a wide variety of answers. The people who confidently said “Seattle” would not be frauds, merely mistaken.
I am hoping to see if she knows about pH.
And in my state: Suspended by state, was popular naturopath ‘cutting edge’ or cutting corners?.
The comments are interesting. There is a naturopath defending her Bastyr education, claiming she had more “science” course. Except she practices glorified handwaving (cranialsacral therapy) and provides placebos (homeopathy).
I hate newspaper comment sections, so I don’t sign up to them. But I do which someone would ask how well she scored on the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exam).
The comments are
Crud, html fail… the article:
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022986998_catanzarosuspensionxml.html
ciaco: “Literally EVERY single food listed would break down as acid in the body. I was truthfully blown away.”
Define both “acid” and “alkaline.” Explain the difference between them. Then tell us what is special about the fluids in the stomach.
@ squirrelelite
Thank you for your response. I really will read that article. I personally believe that none of us can judge a persons intent. To say that Young purposefully taught, promoted and used fraudulent theories with devious intent is a hard one. We’re not God, and really don’t know. As I have continued to say in my responses, I do hope he is allowed a “fair” trial. Everyone should have that. I also (because of personal experience) don’t believe his teaching of alkaline lifestyle to be wrong. I have a new life, and many others that I personally know have experienced the same as a result of following his protocol. There are mistakes in the medical world too. I had a really good friend who nearly died after a surgery. When they went in to find out what was going on, a sponge was left in her body, and she had a massive infection. I was given medication for something that caused me to blow-up like a balloon. I gained 90 pounds in about 6 months. It was CRAZY. I went to an MD (a specialist) that is an alternative doctor. He solved the problem.
Bottom line, no one has the full scope of things. We should all be open to learning, discovering and growing, even if that means we let go of some pre-conceived ideas. I cannot imagine a scientist being very successful in his laboratory studies, if he’s going to be bull-headed and stuck in old theories. I am not finger-pointing here, but merely discussing. I have a dear friend who is an MD, and he once told me that there is a lot of guessing in medical practice. More than he really cared to admit. Sadly, he lost his 17-year-old son to cancer many years later. He had no answers. So, if there is perhaps an alternate route that can provide an answer, then why not be open to it?
Anyway… I will read the article. Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Be well… Life is too short.
And so you turn to Natural News, which feeds you an inaccurate tale about a “deathbed confession,” and you run with it. Brilliant.
ciaco:
You certainly know a lot of people who have had health disasters. I’ve got a great idea on how I could preserve my health – stay the hell away from you.
I did not post those comments to create more controversy, but to point out a simple fact that many revolutionary thinkers have not been received by the mainstream, and that is a fact.
An awful lot of whackos haven’t been received by the mainstream, either.
I want ciaco to stick around to explain this mysterious illness (“something”), which caused her to blow up like a balloon…and to tell us what the alternative medicine doc prescribed that cured the 90 lbs. of flatulence…
” I was given medication for something that caused me to blow-up like a balloon. I gained 90 pounds in about 6 months. It was CRAZY. I went to an MD (a specialist) that is an alternative doctor. He solved the problem.”
I’m still surprised that anyone cannot understand that making the body “more / less acidic” isn’t possible, due to the body’s own internal mechanisms for keeping the Ph within a very narrow range (otherwise, you’d die).
ciaco, Mike Adams believes that there are actual Breatharians out there, people who seriously live on air and sunlight alone. If you believe that BS, you’re ridiculously gullible. If you don’t, why are you believing what you read from someone who IS that gullible?
ciaco, I am god. You should listen to scientific evidence and not believe what your frail human mind (and Google) mislead you into believing. And I love you.
ciaco: “I really do hate arguing, and I really cannot stand injustice of any kind. I did not post those comments to create more controversy, but to point out a simple fact that many revolutionary thinkers have not been received by the mainstream, and that is a fact. ”
Except what you wrote was very wrong. I gave you corrections.
If you are going to use historical figures, actually read about those historical figures. Then you would have known those facts were actually quite wrong before you cut and pasted them from dubious websites.
I even gave some reading suggestions, like the books by Charles Mann. Try visiting your library and picking up actual biographies of the Wright brothers (who liked to sue others) and Einstein (only those biographies that have use the Princeton Papers, fewer myths).
You might want to take a basic chemistry and/or biology course at your local community college. That way you will learn what “acid” and “alkaline” actually mean. You never gave me a definition, so I can assume you really don’t know what they mean.
@squirrelelite
They were definitely not the only ones to fly gliders. George Cayley built horse towed gliders and Otto Lilienthal made flights as long as 250 meters in a hang glider in the 19th century. The Wright brothers paid his widow a pension in recognition of his contributions to heavier than air flight.
Militant Agnostic: “George Cayley”
I believed I mentioned him in Comment #126.
“Otto Lilienthal”
Thank you! That was a name I was trying to remember (I wrote it in a comment, but for some reason most of it disappeared due to incompetent HTML coding by me). Definitely one that showed the Wrights there was a great deal of value in flight controls.
By the way, my former employer spent a great deal of energy avoiding lawsuits with the Wrights early in the twentieth century. In fact one of their first engineers to find a way to control flight that avoided Wright patents went back to China to establish their aeronautic legacy.
Aargh, bad grammar: “Wrights that there was a great deal of value in flight controls.”
Just found out about Dr young and this article was the first link that came up. This is a Poor Article. Science blog?
This has to be a joke. Just looking at some of the articles it seems that this is a blog set up to simply try to attack natural therapies.
There are some Koooks out there but lets all take a deep breath and look at what the ‘mainstream scientific’ medical offers us.
In the US, MD directed medicine, is any where from number one to number four in the league table of LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH!!! Say what?
Yes, The medical system that spends more money per year on it’s hi tech, scientific, modern medicine that many here seem to hold in such high regard, kills more people than Cancer, or Heart disease. That is what you get for spending more money than not just the other top 10 high spending nations, but instead the US spends more than ALL OF THEM PUT TOGETHER!
Last time I looked the US was something like 72nd on the list of longevity and was way down the list on births and first years survival rates. Shame on you. Babies have more chance of surviving in some third world countries!
Surgery going wrong, death by medication taken AS PRESCRIBED…… over 50% of doctors admitted in an internal survey to taking alcohol or narcotic drugs while at work…. and Dr Young is the Quack???? LOL
Maybe he is but you HAVE to be kidding me if you think the main stream medical model is any better (for chronic disease) than Dr Young or many other so called “Quacks” out there that you target. You are deluded, or simply a shill.
Now I don’t know the full ins-and-outs of this story.
I do know of Dr Young’s work and I don’t agree with everything he says but I can say that with almost a trillion dollars spent on Cancer research in the last 40 or so years, We are still doing the same things and getting the same p*ss poor results.
With all the high tech equipment we have we are still radiating people, poisoning people and cutting people (Which is the preferable option of the three) And the rates for true survival have not got better.
Do a Google search for “The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies”. and see the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in December 2004. a True scientific study showing, and I quote “The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1 % in The USA”
lets round that up and give them 3%. That is to say that the marvellous medical GODS that have legislated themselves into the forefront of medicine (refer to the Flexner report) are, drum roll please…97% NOT effective for treating cancer. Well that was worth almost a trillion dollars and countless lives.
But don’t worry, you continue mocking and being happy seeing people get arrested. Hopefully the rest of the people here will open there eyes and see that the current way isn’t working for us and is only working, and working extremely well, to make some people extremely rich and extremely powerful. With hundreds of thousands of drugs listed in the Physicians reference, tell me how many of these drugs cure anything? take out antibiotics and there is none! Just think about that. They don’t cure anything! You would think that statement was a joke if it was not for the fact it was true. Take Care of your own Health people. And please educate your self and don’t just by in to this dribble.
@John – you really should use the search function of this blog – everything you’ve just posted has been thoroughly debunked here in the past…in fact, you’ve managed to achieve, in a single post, a conglomeration of just about every woo-tastic trope we’ve ever seen Orac deconstruct.
@John,
Just a few quick questions. Where did you come across this information?
Could you perhaps provide citations for such assertions as: “With hundreds of thousands of drugs listed in the Physicians reference, tell me how many of these drugs cure anything? take out antibiotics and there is none! Just think about that. They don’t cure anything! You would think that statement was a joke if it was not for the fact it was true”?
I contend that few pharmaceutical drugs “don’t work”. In science-based medicine, there are very few incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop & distribute drugs which don’t provide outcomes much greater than those expected by the placebo effect. There are a few notable exceptions, but these tend to be pushed by “Brave Maverick” types of medical practitioners on the fringes of medicine. Yes, some may have side effects (as do many “natural/herbal therapies” for that matter) but the plain fact is that I, for one, would not be alive today were it not for modern medicine. Yes, this is a mere anecdote, but science & history have established that I am far from alone.
Perhaps one day, you too may have the misfortune to become critically ill through no fault of your own, and I put it to you that you will seek medical intervention (I assume you possess a strong instinct towards self-preservation like most human beings).
My other question: this ONE study re Cytotoxic Chemotherapy & 5-year survival in Adult Malignancies to which you refer rather vaguely is, by your own admission 10 years old. Ten years is a virtual eternity in most areas of medical research (even assuming the statistics you provided were accurate). I feel it is just a tad cheeky of you to stumble onto a blog written by a Surgical Oncologist and accuse the author and/or regular readers of being those lacking in education.
John: “Just found out about Dr young and this article was the first link that came up. This is a Poor Article. Science blog?”
Just to see where you are academically, answer the following questions:
So where did Robert Young go to medical school?
Do you think it is okay to purchase a doctorate instead of actually doing the school work?
Does the Flexner report have any impact on medical education in the UK?
What does “pH” mean? Define “acid” and “alkaline.”
Where do lemons fall in terms of pH?
“Last time I looked the US was something like 72nd on the list of longevity and was way down the list on births and first years survival rates. Shame on you. Babies have more chance of surviving in some third world countries!”
Cite your sources for these statements, John. I’d love to know in what “third world countries” babies have a better chance of surviving. Make sure you look to see just how infant mortality rates are calculated in those “third world countries.” You can bet they’re not using the same criteria.
I must admit, I fell for the infant mortality in the US is comparable to that of a third-world country trope until someone here on RI posted a very helpful bit explaining how different countries define infant mortality (most notably the fact that many EU countries record an infant’s death less than 24 hours after birth as a stillbirth) and, lo, I was enlightened.
But as for the rest of John’s rant, beats me where he’s getting that form…
@Johanna, the anti-vax nutters and the “alt-med” crowd love to pretend that the US has higher infant mortality rates, but never bother to understand that many of the infants who are counted in our rates wouldn’t have even been delivered alive in most third-world nations.
John brings up something I’ve seen other places, the notion that pharmaceuticals don’t cure anything, they only mask symptoms (he, at least, makes an exception for antibiotics – not all people who say this do).
Now, I suppose if I were more insolent I’d say this was certainly true for vitamins and supplements. After all, vitamin C doesn’t cure scurvy and niacin doesn’t cure pellagra, they only masks the symptoms. As soon as you stop getting enough of those vitamins, the disease comes right back. Likewise, food does not cure starvation, it merely holds it at bay. But I digress.
Now, I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV. I personally believe that managing symptoms is not a bad thing to do, particularly if left untreated those symptoms could lead to some of the later stages of death. Being able to control one’s blood sugar would be, I expect, considered managing symptoms and not curing the disease – but it beats not being able to control one’s blood sugar.
Naturally, prevention is better than curing which is why vaccination is so important. Indeed, for some diseases (e.g. rabies) emergency immunization (also called post exposure prophylaxis) is the only known practical treatment..
Anyone have thoughts about drugs that provide a permanent cure outside of antibiotics and, possibly, chemotherapy?
John,
Perhaps you should consider doing some basic fact checking before you make claims like these. I don’t think anything you have written stands up to scrutiny.
I think therapies that don’t do what their proponents claim they do shouldbe attacked. Which natural therapies do you think are effective and what evidence is there for this? Some 40 years ago I had an intense interest in alternative medicine and was confident that some of it would turn out to be effective. Yet despite extensive scientific study (billions of dollars worth by NCCAM and OCCAM alone), I can’t think of any form of CAM that has been proven to be effective and accepted into mainstream medicine. There are placebo treatments like acupuncture and therapeutic touch that are sometimes used in conventional medical practice, but this is despite scientific study finding them ineffective, and in my opinion is shameful.
That “mainstream scientific medical” has brought us drastically reduced infant mortality, increased life expectancy and greatly improved quality of life compared to just a few decades ago. There have been so many extraordinary breakthroughs in medical science in my lifetime alone that I sometimes wonder whether people who claim that conventional medicine doesn’t work are joking or perhaps living on a different planet.
Ironically it is the increased life expectancy that conventional medicine has brought us that has led to us seeing more cases of degenerative illness, which leads people like to complain that conventional medicine doesn’t work. If you die at 40 you are unlikely to live long enough to develop dementia, cancer or arthritis.
Please provide a reputable source for these numbers. These CDC figures give the leading causes of death in the US, but I don’t see “MD directed medicine” there. It’s usually medical errors that people claim are the 5th leading cause of death, but Wikipedia states, with references, that 39,000 patients die from medical errors, including unnecessary surgery, in the US each year. That would make it the 10th leading cause of death, just above suicide.
While this obviously needs to be improved, consider that 51.4 million inpatient procedures are carried out every year (also according to the CDC), and that many of these are high risk operations in which patients are opened up and their insides rearranged in one way or another. I think it is remarkable that only 0.08% of these inpatient procedures result in death.
No it doesn’t. Heart disease and cancer together kill about a million people each year in the US. It is ridiculous to claim that medicine kills that many people. That would mean that 1 in 50 inpatient procedures in the US end in death. I can assure you that those of us who have worked in hospitals and especially those who worked with survival statistics, as I have, would have noticed this.
It’s 35th on the WHO list, with little difference between the US with life expectancy of 79.8 years, the UK at 81 years and Monaco in first place with 86.5 years. You might note that all the countries with greater life expectancy than the US use modern scientific medicine.
Nonsense. Which 3rd world countries have a lower infant mortality than the US? The current estimated infant mortality in the US is 5.4 per 1,000, and in the UK it is 4.5 per 1,000, with only Monaco, Japan, Bermuda, Singapore, Sweden, and Hong Kong doing better than 3 per 1,000. Differences in criteria and in the premature birth rate have far more to do with this than quality of medical care. Developing countries have far greater rates; in Bangladesh, for example, infant mortality is 47.3 per 1,000.
Anticoagulant drugs taken as prescribed cause more deaths than any other, I believe, but they also save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Would you prefer these drugs to be taken off the market and for these patients to die? What alternative does “Dr” Young offer to anticoagulants? (The answer is “none, by the way.)
In the last hospital I worked at, being found intoxicated at work was a dismissable offence. You can’t blame conventional medicine for the misbehavior of individuals.
Have you read the nonsense he tells his patients about biochemistry and physiology? His New Biology is embarrassingly idiotic and shows he doesn’t know the first thing about it.
The biggest killer of the chronic diseases is cardiovascular disease, the death rate for which has better than halved over the past 50 years. Statins offer the possibility of reducing those numbers even further. It seems to me conventional medicine is doing far better than Young and his fellow quacks.
I think you’ll find the evidence says that you are the deluded one here.
In the US, MD directed medicine, is any where from number one to number four in the league table of LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH!!! Say what?
If John’s margins of error are that wide — “any where from number one to number four ” — perhaps he should do more research before venting.
@ Herr Doktor Bimler (or should I say Sehr geehrte Herr?)
I suppose he considers everyone who dies after seeing a MD as a victim of medicine.
Thanks, john, for your very public display of ignorance and stupidity. I did need a good laugh after my lunch, and your idiocy provided some good yuks.
over 50% of doctors admitted in an internal survey to taking alcohol or narcotic drugs while at work
I am SHOCKED by the absence of any citation. Perhaps the “internal survey” was so confidential that no-one but John has access to it.
John,
You have a very long list of reasons why you don’t believe mainstream medicine has the answers. But there is one thing you did not address, and that is why you think Robert O Young does. I’d be interested to know if you have anything other than “medical science hasn’t made us immortal yet!” to support him.
@169 ARE YOU SERIOUS? Quote”After all, vitamin C doesn’t cure scurvy and niacin doesn’t cure pellagra, they only masks the symptoms. As soon as you stop getting enough of those vitamins, the disease comes right back. Likewise, food does not cure starvation, it merely holds it at bay. ”
See a real Dr and his marvelous work- http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Schwarcz+Pellagra+sleuth+helped+Scourge+South/9553432/story.html
@anon,
That might depend on your definition of a “cure”.
According to your source,
So, eating foods with niacin “cures” pellagra. But, the symptoms recur if you don’t keep eating niacin regularly. So, the cure is not permanent, which is what Mephistopheles O’Brien was pointing out.
I also liked the point right after that:
This was one of several examples in a program I saw many years ago of foods that are treated by a chemical solution as in this case or by cooking so that the nutritional value is more readily available.
This makes them true superfoods, because they are more nutritious than their raw, natural progenitors. As distinct from the many various organisms that are bandied about in the health foods media as “superfoods”.
@177 LOL pellagra is a “deficiency” disease. Niacin CURES pellagra. What exactly is your definition of a “cure”? If I stop breathing I go into cardiac arrest. I guess “oxygen” cures cardiac arrest.
What caused the cardiac arrest in the first place?
@anon – What squirrelelite said.
I am certainly not anti-vitamin, and I admire the work of people like Dr. Goldberger, Dr. Lind, and others who found the links between deficiency in various vitamins (or foods) and diseases.
My point, though, is that some people seem to have a dual standard for the word cure. Recently someone in a different forum said “Drugs aren’t meant to cure anything, only to mask symptoms and to keep people taking the drugs for the rest of their lives.” My comment here is – you have to consume the various vitamins & minerals that are part of a good balanced diet for the rest of your life in order to prevent the symptoms of various “deficiency diseases”. Explain the difference. Note: saying “it’s natural” is not an explanation.
@anon – Type 1 Diabetes is a disease caused by the body’s inability to make enough insulin to regulate its blood sugar. One would not claim that insulin cures type 1 diabetes, though it does allow people with that disease to live a much longer and more normal life than they would have otherwise.
Scurvy is caused by the body’s inability to make enough vitamin C. Why would one claim that vitamin C cures scurvy?
#178 Should have said “hypoxia” not cardiac arrest.
Nutrition 101- People cannot make VitC-they only get it from food.
“over 50% of doctors admitted in an internal survey to taking alcohol or narcotic drugs while at work”
herr doktor: “I am SHOCKED by the absence of any citation. Perhaps the “internal survey” was so confidential that no-one but John has access to it.”
Maybe these doctors made telltale admissions on their deathbeds, like Pasteur rejecting his germ theory.
@anon said
Generally CPR, an electric shock, or various drugs can cure cardiac arrest. I’d be interested if you have data that says that cardiac arrest caused by not breathing can be cured by oxygen (note: no quote).
According to your statement, not breathing caused the cardiac arrest. Why do you ask?
@anon said
And this affects my comment how?
#180 Vit C en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C
@anon
Well, that makes much more sense. Depending on your definition of cure, oxygen does cure hypoxia.
#180 http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C
@anon – and that affects my statement how?
Vitamin C cures scurvy. What caused the hypoxia?
There are cures for diseases not to be confused with conditions
resulting from causes.
“over 50% of doctors admitted in an internal survey to taking alcohol or narcotic drugs while at work”
If the ‘internal survey’ involved some kind of probe, I imagine that in their place I would admit to practically anything.
Lack of oxygen. The name of the condition says it.
#192 Good luck with your awe inspiring, ground breaking epidemiology research methods.
@anon – and good luck with whatever you’re selling.
Antitoxins and friends. Naloxone.
Syphillis is caused by a germ; antibiotics cure it. A broken limb may be caused by a crowbar; setting and immobilizing the break will treat (if not necessarily cure) it. Cancer is caused by a variety of factors that lead to uncontrolled growth; a combination of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy can control or cure it. Beriberi is caused by a lack of thiamine; consuming thiamine can control or cure it.
Explain the difference.
Chloroquine, etc., as well.
Narad – excellent examples. Thanks.
Speaking for myself, if I had to deal with a patient of the likes of John in London, I would certainly be tempted to hit the bottle or the pill cabinet at work, too.
I would certainly be tempted to hit the bottle
I’d be tempted to hit John.
Yes Yes he should be put away- but so should this MD
“Allan Zarkin, a New York gynecologist, was charged with first-degree assault for carving his initials into the abdomen of a woman who had just delivered her baby by caesarean section; he surrendered his license, received five years probation in a plea agreement, and is barred from applying for a medical license for five years.
BTW Here’s his FB page-
https://www.facebook.com/1zark/about
And you can connect with him on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pub/allan-zarkin/57/399/782?trk=fbr
According to the original source, that man was sentenced to probation for five years and barred from practicing, a plea agreement that had “the blessing of his victim.” This all happened 14 years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/26/nyregion/doctor-who-carved-initials-gets-probation.html
What’s your point?
According to the original source, that man was sentenced to probation for five years and barred from practicing, a plea agreement that had “the blessing of his victim.” This all happened 14 years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/26/nyregion/doctor-who-carved-initials-gets-probation.html
What’s your point?
My point-Flushing out extremely biased commentators HE COULD REAPPLY FOR A MEDICAL LICENSE AFTER 5 YEARS!
Would any woman want her baby delivered by this man (who could relocate to another state)? The “blessing” was a 1.75 million lawsuit settlement.
How does pointing at something entirely unrelated “flush out” anything? Why are you now babbling about “extremely biased commentators” when you haven’t said a thing about Young so far?
The difference between that MD and Robert Young is that the latter never ever qualified in any form as a medical professional.
One bad doctor does not make buying a PhD from a diploma mill okay dokay.
What does one doctor suffering from Pick’s disease have to do with anything. The incident in question was the first observed manifestation of the disease. If Robert O. Young, Gary Null or Mike Adams were to develop Pick’s disease, It would be very hard to tell the difference. Robert O. Young claims that the human body can transmute elements. This is underpants on the head level bonkers.
Chris-Who said it did? To me it’s more egregious for an MD who took the Hippocratic oath. Any one with critical thinking skills would look up the backround of alt med practitioners.
I agreed with Orac if you bothered to read.
“I agreed with Orac if you bothered to read.”
We did read, you were just not terribly clear. Especially with just bringing up unrelated stuff.
My point-Flushing out extremely biased commentators HE COULD REAPPLY FOR A MEDICAL LICENSE AFTER 5 YEARS!
The possibility of a retired doctor reapplying for a medical license is gravely concerning and I implore you to start your own blog about it.
In response to Orac’s comments about Quacks. Those who think they know everything, know the least. I’ve spent my life, many thousands of hours researching medical studies. Enough to learn that many absolute conclusions take dramatic turns with time. Enough to learn that we are only in our infancy in terms of understanding the complexities and interdepencies of the body and how it functions. There is much cutting edge research Science is working on that has the potential to change the face of all medicine. An example: there is a 100 million dollar “Human Microbiome Project” underway. Science thinks this may be as important as the “Human Genome project” to determining how the body functions, and what contributes to health and disease. This isnt in text books, no one has a degree in it. Everyone is better off if we keep an open mind and keep learning.
And?
What do you think we should be doing differently, and what does it have to do with Robert O. Young?
Dr Young is not a quack some 16 years ago I followed his protocol for my mother that had cancer in five different places in a Bronchial tubes , r a spot on her kidney & liver , a tumor behind her eye and a brain tumor followed his advice and gave her the remedy that I needed to
give her along with changing her diet my mother was with in remission 6 weeks later they
gave her another additional two weeks to see
what was going to happen with the tumors ,two
weeks later the tumors were gone , disappeared my mother was in remission in 6 weeks all of
these people above that complained about Dr.
Young and his protocol must of been paid off or just dumb most people don’t even know that
they put fluoride in your water to dumb you
down to make you stupid to make you just not
look for the truth ,think you better wake up and
pay attention Dr Young is highly respected and
he has saved so many people’s lives but the
powers that be don’t want him to save lives the want you guys to just die, (theres more money in our death then living, just look at all the food
the toxins in the food in the water in the air but
you say nothing you’re so ignorant. Wake up for
real FYI the fluoride in the water has really
dumb down society, Don’t trust the media they
are owned by those people the run the world.
Just look at the people that Dr. Young has
helped people heal themselves with the acid to alkaline protocol. He should be getting a Nobel
Peace Prize instead of being attacked. I bet none of these people never watched one testimony from the people who regained their health & cancer free , Love & Light
Thanks to everyone who took the time to applaud Dr. Young’s huge efforts and longtime study to help bring true health to those who would listen. I had the privilege to have an appointment with Dr. Young and the results of my blood test were much more informative than the complete blood count and urine specimen revealed the week before. If mud is being slung at Dr. Young because his patient lost her life to cancer, I would like to ask cancer doctors how many of their patients died from cancer? It appears that the “drug it or cut it” mentality, not to mention God complex, still permeates many of those who hold the title of M.D. I am thankful that a few of them are waking up and it’s due in part to people like Dr. Young who take a stand. The rest of you, WAKE UP!
No “mud” is being slung at Robert O. Young that he doesn’t merit, given his pseudoscientific approach to disease and his outright quackery with respect to acid-base.
they put fluoride in your water to dumb you
down to make you stupid to make you just not
look for the truth
If there is a competition to be chosen as Poster Child for Crank Magnetism, Ptahnubia Byrd has made a promising start.
@obiwan
So, what in young’s approach to cancer has any actual merit in science?
And when are lemons considered alkaline?
@Ptahnubia Byrd:
Punctuation is your friend.
So, “they” were watching your mother’s case but did not intervene or force her to accept treatment. Hmm. That’s not the usual testimonial about how “they” treat cancer.
Was your mother’s case written up? You know, full case report on an unusual case of spontaneous remission?
No? It wasn’t reported anywhere and we have just your word — the word of a possibly pseudonymous commenter on the Internet — for what happened sixteen years ago?
Oh. That’s ever so convincing.
The rest of you, WAKE UP!
You forgot the ‘SHEEPLE’.
Because, I always get medical advice from a spiritual life coach and a chef:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/CONSCIOUS-CHEF-Ptahnubia-Byrd/125938730780555
From the lunatic’s Facebook page:
(Oh look! She’s an “indigo” like Jenny McCarthy!)
All the spelling and grammatical errors are hers…and boy are there a lot!
About
.info on the frequency foods we eat & how foods we eat affect our bodies, mentaly, emotionally & spiritually also tools that will aid you in your ascendsion process & info that will give you insight for 2012 & first Contact and Beyone
Namaste
Mission
Ptahnubia an Indigo, a Spiritual Life Coach & Health Coach, My mission, I am committed to sharing as much as information that has been given to me in Love Light and Truth, i’m passionate about helping my beloved brothers & sisters get intouch with who they truly are & to prepare for the earth’s changes that are before us, the Golden Age & Ascension
Company Overview
Ptahnubia Byrd the Conscious Chef , I am a Spiritual Life Coach & Health Coach I will provided you with products & information that will change your life for Optimum Health,
That whole existence of “life coach” as a niche never fails to baffle me. It seems to be a application of Shaw’s maxim that “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches”.
I make no claims to be an exemplar of common sense, reality grounding, or life skills, but if I were seeking a mentor, I think I’d look for someone with *more* of those qualities.
… I think I’d look for someone with *more* of those qualities.
I’d at least look for someone who can spell and write a simple English sentence correctly. Can’t she summon some language skills from outer space with her “indigo” abilities?
Or maybe English isn’t the mother tongue on her native planet…
More idiotic drivel from the Braindead Chef on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/consciouschef
Wow, she has all of 10 followers. What sweeping influence! I guess she communicates with her indigo minions via telepathy, not Twitter.
This Ptahnubia B?
Did you read that petition?!
“They’re coming to take me away, ha ha, to the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time…”
Hey look! Before Petunia the Unconscious Chef was a “Personal Chef/Ascension Coach/Life/Health Coach/Conscious Chef” she was a plain ol’ prep chef/cook:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ptahnubia-sandra-byrd/5/6a1/759
As Orac would say, Petunia is “target-rich” for ridicule.
Beam me up, Scotty!
Did you read that petition?!
Dear Mr. President, there are too many states these days. Please eliminate three.
I wonder how she settled upon THAT particular name:
Ptah + Nubia?
Unfortunately I can easily imagine some of the sources.
hdb: Dear Mr. President, there are too many states these days. Please eliminate three.
Weirdly, that’ll be my next petition. Hey, the House of Representatives needs a good cleaning..
It probably means “bullsh!t con artist fraudulent life coach/alkaline diet nonsense personal chef” in Klingon.
I must confess, I’d like to get a glimpse of those extraterritorial beings.
Some of us don’t live in countries with water fluoridation. I guess the Men in Black keep flying in to brain-laserize all of us. I hope they have a frequent flyer card.
If he did that huge a breakthrough into cancer treatment, shouldn’t it be a Nobel prize in medicine?
Scratch that. He would need to make sense. That’s not a prerequisite for a Peace Nobel prize.
Hi,
Back in 2011, I had my mother treated with Dr. Robert O. Young, what I can say is that she has recovered her health, was healed from her Breast Cancer at the age of 71 years old.
I follow his nutritions advices and apply to all of my family and we are indeed a very healthy family. Nobody can guess our correct age either, we have a physical body with around 15 years younger than our biological age. I am 40 and nobody ever says that I am older than 30 years old.
You can say what you want against him, but you can not say that he had not saved lives in the best healthier way as possible without the poisons from Chemotherapy.
Hopefully you and anyone else that blame his theories and treatments, will ever need to go through chemotherapy in your live and end up passing away in terrible conditions caused by the chemo, as my father did back in 2002. 😉