Goop contributor Dr. Habib Sadeghi is making bizarre coronavirus-themed content.
During a podcast interview last month, Gwyneth Paltrow’s longtime medical mentor and Goop regular Dr. Habib Sadeghi attributed every pandemic from the last 150 years to the “electrification of earth.” Since then, he’s been making increasingly bizarre coronavirus-themed content in a seeming attempt to get people to join his Patreon.
In one video posted on Instagram last Friday, “COVID-19: The Toxin Is The Remedy,” an analysis of the 2012 Ang Lee film Life of Pi, Sadeghi addresses viewers while sitting barefoot at the top of a staircase.
“God bless every covid virus,” he says in the video, describing the pandemic as an “opportunity to really use this […] instead of really doing the same thing you’ve been doing most of your life, blaming others, attacking others, making them wrong.”
He continues: “I give you my word that that will be the blessing for you because that psychic immunity, that psychological immunity, that psycho-spiritual robustness that you developed for yourself, no one can take away from you. No one. And this is really what you want to gift to your children […] They’ll get it because these understandings literally will bleed through genetically or epigenetically, physically or energetically, to the next generation. You have an opportunity, you’re not couped up, your school is in session.”
There’s no evidence that parents can genetically transfer thoughts to their children.
In another video posted Sunday, “How To Metabolize A Crisis,” Sadeghi eats from a plate of food while watching the 1981 Louis Malle film, My Dinner with André.
“It’s a movie that’s very rich, just like the food we eat,” Sadeghi says in the video. “If you sit down, bring your attention, and you watch it, slowly, and you hear what it’s telling you, at the end of it, you have found a new friend within yourself. You have found, and moved into, that what we refer to as evolution of consciousness.”
He ends the video by encouraging viewers to “use this time that we have, during this period of self-quarantining, or self-care-cocooning, as a way of learning to metabolise […] our thoughts, feelings, and emotions,” which are “far more important than what we metabolise in our digestive systems.”
Both videos lead with trippy visuals and shrieking horror movie music, followed by a message about “Entelechy Medicine,” a trademarked “evolutionary movement” that appears to draw on the discredited theories of the late Ryke Geerd Hamer, a disgraced German doctor who was stripped of his medical license after allegedly killing his patients.
According to Sadeghi’s Patreon page, Entelechy Medicine “holds the key to your deeper healing” and “recognizes that the body is the theater of our consciousness.” For $9.99 per month, patrons can access such dubious-sounding content as “Surgical Scarring and Blocked Meridians: The Hidden Implications of Scar Tissue.”
The page also links to a Sadeghi’s “conscious lifestyle brand and health publishing imprint,” BeingClarity.com, where customers can purchase his 2017 Goop press book, “The Clarity Cleanse.” The book includes a glowing foreword by Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow.
Dr. Habib Sadeghi, an LA-based integrative medicine practitioner and personal mentor to Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow, has linked the virus to the “electrification of earth.”
Last month, I wrote for The Daily Beast about Goop contributor/holistic psychiatrist Kelly Brogan’s coronavirus conspiracy theories. Now another high-profile Goop contributor is spreading similar theories linking the virus to 5G wireless technology.
Dr. Habib Sadeghi, who frequently writes for Goop’s site, has featured in Goop’s videos online, and, according to Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow, is a “mentor in many capacities to me,” shared his theories last Monday on the What Matters Most podcast (he’s also been sharing his theories on Instagram).
Here’s what Sadeghi had to say about wireless technology:
In 2003, that’s when the 3G technology was introduced, and shortly after, in 2003, that’s when we got SARS. And so, when we look at some of the various things that we’ve been exposed to, and the technologies that they were introduced — like you look at 2009, that’s when we had the 4G introduced to the world, and that’s when we had the, same year, 2009, we had the swine flu outbreak. So it’s not a far-fetched idea that here we are in 2020, where 5G was introduced to the world, and we’re sitting scratching our head, and we’re saying, what are we going to do with the coronavirus?
According to various experts, fact-checkers, news outlets, and other trusted sources, there is no evidence that wireless technology is responsible for the coronavirus or any other virus.
He went on to link every major outbreak from the last 150 years to the “electrification of earth.” For example, he claimed that the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic may have been caused by the “introduction of radio waves around the world” (radio waves are a naturally occurring phenomenon), that an unidentified pandemic from around the time of WW2 may have been caused by “the introduction of radar equipment all over the earth,” and that the 1968 Hong Kong flu may have been caused by orbiting “satellites emitting radioactive frequencies.”
Like Brogan, it appears Sadeghi doesn’t believe in the widely accepted germ theory of disease, claiming that its originator, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur, renounced the theory on his deathbed — a claim for which there is “no evidence,” according to a 2007 blog post by American oncologist David Gorski.
Also like Brogan, Sadeghi appears to be a follower of the late Ryke Geerd Hamer, a disgraced German doctor who had his medical license permanently revoked in Germany after several patients in his care died. On his site, Be Hive of Healing, Sadeghi says he treats “chronic illnesses such as cancer and auto-immune disease” using a “multi-disciplinary approach” including German New Medicine, Hamer’s discredited pseudoscientific theory positing that all illness and disease are caused by psychological trauma.
Goop contributor/psychiatrist Kelly Brogan has been spreading junk scientific claims and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. Here’s my latest for The Daily Beast.
Last week, Gwyneth Paltrow’s “modern lifestyle brand” Goop announced it was closing stores in the U.S. and U.K. to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus currently sweeping the globe. Meanwhile, Paltrow’s psychiatrist-associate Kelly Brogan, a high-profile Goop contributor, has racked up tens of thousands of views on social media spreading discredited pseudoscientific claims that the coronavirus might not even exist, and that symptoms attributed to the virus are likely being caused by widespread fear…
Just when you thought telling women to stick stone eggs up their vaginas was the worst medical advice she could give, a once-Manhattan-based psychiatrist, anti-vaxxer and Goop-approved pusher is going viral again. But this time, it’s for her dangerous social-media posts that call COVID-19 a hoax.
Kelly Brogan (who has an MD from Cornell University and a master’s from MIT, according to her website) said in a video posted on Facebook last week that there is “potentially no such thing as the coronavirus” and that the reported deaths from the virus are “likely being accelerated by fear itself.” Further, she “personally [doesn’t] believe in germ-based contagion…”
[Brogan] has doubled down on her words, calling her message “personal empowerment,” and suggesting that people subscribe to her newsletter if they’d like to hear more of her views. She also then posted a screenshot of the Daily Beast article and a link to the video that is now available on Vimeo.
…According to The Daily Beast, Facebook and Instagram removed Brogan’s videos after determining that they “violate our policies”.
In a recent post to Instagram, Brogan acknowledged the removal and encouraged her followers to subscribe to her newsletter “rather than just following me here, because, well, you know…”
“Because censorship is real and underway,” she continued in the caption. “Two posts removed and one blocked in the past week. What a purification process this is!”
…There is no scientific basis for any of Brogan’s claims. Speaking to the Daily Beast, British pharmacologist David Colquhoun said, “She’s a very, very dangerous fantasist. I wonder whether she takes antibiotics if she gets a bacterial infection?”
The deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer, a publication that critically examines fringe science claims similar to those that Brogan made, also weighed in. Benjamin Radford told the Daily Beast, “There’s always been this sort of populist appeal by people who reject science, and that’s exactly what’s going on here.”
“Unfortunately, outbreaks like this are exactly the wrong time to bring these things up because…they divert people from legitimate evidence-based treatments,” he continued.
…To Brogan, this was a form of censorship, which she said could potentially be part of a future government agenda to enact control. She cites the alternative narratives regarding current affairs as the remedy to her fear.
“This level of totalitarian government control that is not unlike the divide and conquer, dehumanization agendas that preceded the Holocaust,” she said. “This is where my mind can go. That is extremely fear inducing for me and probably as fear inducing as those that are washing their hands dry.”
Goop representatives have declined to comment on the video, however they did release a statement.
“We would suggest reaching out to Dr. Brogan directly as she didn’t make those comments on Goop’s platform,” they said.
…The video keeps going and going, becoming more deranged as it rumbles on, but these points are probably enough to sum up why Brogan—an “expert” featured on Goop’s website and at its events—shouldn’t be listened to at all. If you want the total run-down of why Brogan and, by extension Goop, are dangerous horseshit, read the rest of the Daily Beast article.
Kelly Brogan, M.D., a New York Times bestselling author/psychiatrist who writes for Gwyneth Paltrow’s alt-med Goop newsletter, has accrued over 30,000 views on Instagram by claiming the coronavirus likely doesn’t exist. [UPDATE: Click here for my follow-up to this story in The Daily Beast.]
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is a self-proclaimed “lifestyle brand” and online newsletter aimed at “start[ing] hard conversations, crack[ing] open taboos, and look[ing] for connection and resonance everywhere we can find it.”
It’s also a major proponent of pseudoscientific claims and such questionable products as the Jade Egg, an egg-shaped gemstone that purportedly “harness[es] the power of energy work, crystal healing, and a Kegel-like physical practice” when inserted in the vagina. (In 2018, Goop was fined $145,000 in civil penalties for falsely claiming that the $66 egg was able to “balance hormones, regulate menstrual cycles, prevent uterine prolapse, and increase bladder control.”)
Now one of Goop’s high-profile contributors is spreading false claims that the novel coronavirus currently sweeping the globe, and which has caused over 20,000 deaths worldwide, potentially does not exist.
Kelly Brogan, M.D. — a Manhattan-based holistic psychiatrist and co-author of New York Times bestselling book, A Mind of Your Own: The Truth About Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives — made the claim in a March 16 video she originally shared with subscribers of her online “health reclamation” programme, Vital Life Project, then subsequently reposted on her personal site and social media accounts.
In the video, “A Message to Help Dispel Fear,” Brogan claimed that “there is potentially no such thing as the coronavirus” because “it’s not possible to prove that any given pathogen has induced death,” and that the rising death toll is “likely being accelerated by the fear [of the virus] itself.”
As of publication, the video has accrued approximately 30,000 views on Brogan’s Instagram account, and has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook. (Brogan has also twice uploaded a version of the video — “by popular request!” — with Spanish subtitles).
Brogan attributed her claims to the late Ryke Geerd Hamer, a German doctor and virulent anti-Semite whose discredited theory of disease, German New Medicine, has resulted in dozens of patient deaths in Europe, the youngest being 12-year-old Susanne Rehklau, who “suffered a painful death” in 2010 after Hamer gave her the all-clear.
According to Hamer, illness and disease are caused by unresolved psychological trauma, with specific traumatic experiences said to correlate with specific physical symptoms. For example, a child who is forced to live under the conservative – or “inflexible” – rule of an overbearing parent might develop rigid joints. A recently-divorced woman might, in the absence of intimate physical touch, develop a skin condition. And so on.
To self-heal, Hamer claimed, patients must disavow conventional western medicine (which he believed was an elaborate Jewish conspiracy involving “death chips”), and learn to overcome their unresolved trauma using non-pharmacological — or “natural” — treatment methods, including talking therapy.
Medical authorities have widely denounced Hamer’s theories as lacking “any scientific or empirical justification,” and in 1986 he had his medical license permanently revoked in Germany after a number of patients in his care died. He was later convicted and imprisoned multiple times for illegally continuing to put his theories into practice.
In her video, Brogan took a more positive view of Hamer’s contributions to science and medicine.
“German New Medicine has really given me a lot of material to work with around identifying potential emotional conflicts that […] have a method of explaining cancer and contagion that have nothing to do with pathogens,” she said. “Could it be that so-called viruses and bacteria are bystanders […] blamed for being at the scene of the crime, which has another origin that is more complex?”
She also hinted at a global conspiracy orchestrated by an unnamed pro-vaccination group, suggested that viewers should not believe mainstream news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, encouraged them to seek alternative theories in order to “feel that you can live in a story that eases your fear and stablises your nervous system,” and offered her own unfounded fears for the future, as follows:
Because I believe any story other than the one we’re being fed, I can also find myself in a place where I begin to look at future government plans to link our passports with our vaccination records and restriction of travel, and that this being a new normal of this level of totalitarian governmental control that is not unlike the divide-and-conquer dehumanization agendas that preceded the Holocaust. This is where my mind can go, and that is extremely fear-inducing for me. Right? And probably as fear-inducing as those who are washing their hands dry.
Comments on posts of the video show that many viewers accepted Brogan’s interpretation of Hamer’s theories.
“MIND BLOWN I needed this message more than I could ever say in words,” read one comment.
“Wondering what you recommend to help start transitioning thought patterns,” read another. “I’d love to look back and say, ‘Oh, that old Steph – bless her, but she believed in infections.'”
Brogan isn’t the only high-profile Goop contributor who advocates GNM. Habib Sadeghi — a California-based alternative medicine practitioner and author of “Clarity Cleanse: 12 Steps to Finding Renewed Energy, Spiritual Fulfillment, and Emotional Healing” (foreword by Paltrow), and whose fans include Hollywood actors Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Tim Robbins — on his site says that he uses GNM to treat patients with chronic illness, including cancer sufferers.
Support for Hamer’s discredited theories has been steadily building in the U.S. and Canada for the past decade. Organisations and people who practice Hamer’s theories include: The International Meta-Medicine Association (IMMA), an LA-based alt-med organisation blamed for causing patient deaths in Norway; The Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation, run by the founder of IMMA; Melissa Sell, based in California; Biologie Totale, based in Quebec; New Medicine CA/GNM Online Seminars, based in Toronto; and GNM Education, based in Vancouver.
Founder of “cult-like” alt-med cancer charity Johannes Fisslinger took donations from Clint Eastwood and other celebrities to fund breast cancer research. But now Fisslinger says the money wasn’t used to research breast cancer.
Another celebrity says Fisslinger used her name and image without her consent to promote a high-profile breast cancer research fundraising gala in LA: “If someone misleads once, they will do it again. We won’t be used.”
Johannes Fisslinger is an LA-based proponent/teacher of complementary and alternative therapies, and the founder of the Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation (LPF) medical programme, recently the subject of a report by BuzzFeed UK (click here to read).
According to a recent e-mail sent to subscribers of that programme, Fisslinger once received a donation from renowned actor Clint Eastwood intended for Fisslinger’s now-defunct breast cancer research charity, the Heal Breast Cancer Foundation (HBCF).
What Fisslinger doesn’t mention in his e-mail is that money supposedly given to him by Eastwood and other celebrities wasn’t used to research breast cancer, and might even have been used to fund a “cult-like” alternative medicine programme whose members were later blamed for causing the deaths of three cancer patients.
Another celebrity, whom it was claimed had a major role in a high-profile charity fundraising gala organised by the HBCF, now says Fisslinger misrepresented her involvement and used her name and image without her consent.
The money was supposed to fund the following research projects:
• Brain Relay Diagnostics – confirming the Organ-Brain Connection • Traumatic Life Events causing breast cancer
• Pre-tumor breast cancer diagnosis and prevention
However, Fisslinger now says he did not carry out any research with the funds raised at the gala, except for a small study that was never published in any medical journal.
“Our intention was to do research,” said Fisslinger. “But then we found out quickly that it is very, very difficult to do preventive research into breast cancer and that the needed funds are very difficult to get.”
While Fisslinger didn’t say how much money was raised at the gala, public records show that for the financial year 2006-2007, IMMA grossed over $135,000 – significantly more than the organisation has made in any one year before or since.
So where did the money go? According to Fisslinger: “We did a small research project with Prof. Reiff from Cairo University but it was actually never published in a medical journal – then we basically decided to focus on teaching/training and helping clients.”
That’s when the bodies began to pile up.
In 2009, a Norwegian television station reported that at least three cancer patients died after they were advised by high-ranking members of IMMA’s Advisory Council, Dagfrid Kolås and Bent Madsen, to stop conventional treatments.
“At this point we just don’t have double-blind studies and research to verify that specific life experiences, emotions, stresses affect specific organs,” said Fisslinger.
He added: “The reality is that over 1,000 health professionals [use] this knowledge daily in their work with clients. They wouldn’t do that if it [didn’t] help them in their analysis and in helping clients heal.”
I also spoke with some of those said to have been involved in the 2007 gala.
Centre: Dr. Dean Ornish at the HBCF Awards & Gala (source)
Dr. Robert M. Goodman, professor of Applied Science at Indiana-Bloomington University, said he had “very limited contact from the Foundation and did not contact them” or do any breast cancer research while on HBCF’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Marc Neveu, PhD, an honorary fellow at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health, said he only had “a minor role on the advisory board and was not able to attend the event.”
One famous actress whom it was claimed had a major role in the gala and whose name I’ve agreed to withhold, said Fisslinger misrepresented her involvement and later used her name and image, without her consent, in a 2015 promotional video for an event in Hawaii.
Here’s what her agent told me:
[Fisslinger] misstated and admitted to [redacted] NOT being involved with the breast cancer event.
He used her name in the Hawaii conference without approval in order to generate business.
He used her name/image (unauthorized) for the video.
I’ve told him that if he removes [redacted]’s name from any and all references to him, his company, mission, etc, I will be still.
He said he would do it.
I don’t like misrepresentations at all.
Clearly those who do it use [redacted] to enrich themselves and in so doing, they are misrepresenting her name, goal, intents, etc.
I don’t want to be further involved and will never have anything to do with this man/org. moving forward.
I know many of those with whom he deals.
If someone misleads once, they will do it again. We won’t be used.
Fisslinger didn’t reply when asked to clarify if he used other celebrities’ names and images without their consent, but here’s a list of those who were said to have been involved:
Benefit Committee
Ben Stiller Geena Davis
Tommy Lee Jones
Sir Ben Kingsley Rosie O’Donnell
Kathy Griffin
Paula Abdul
Teri Polo
Lisa Vidall
Shaun Toub
Mario Lopez
Alfre Woodard
Harold Perrineau
Kendall Payne
Allison Janney
Tyler Hilton
Lourdes Benedicto Antonio Sabbato Jr.
Laura Innes
Honorees Dr. Dean Ornish
Eckhart Tolle
Susan Ryan Jordan
William Arntz
Dr. Christian Northrup
Dr. O. Carl Simonton
Celebrity Guests
Laura Dern
Ben Harper
Seane Corn
Ron Moss
Jon Seda
Lili Haydn
Caitlin Crosby
Elaine Hendrix Kelly McCarthy
Dr. Raj Kanodia
Scientific Advisory Board
Robert M. Goodman, PhD, MPH, MA
Friedemann Schaub MD, PhD
Andrew S. Baum, PhD
Bruce Lipton, PhD
John C. Pan, MD
John Gray, PhD
Gerhard Schwenk, MD
Richard Flook, PhD
Ruediger Dahlke, MD
Mark Neveu, PhD
Nicki Monti, PhD
HP Christa Uricher
Board of Directors
Erich Haeffner
Anton Bader, MD
Johannes R. Fisslinger, PhD
Danijela Haric, MA
HP Jutta M. Fisslinger
Fisslinger previously ran the “cult-like” International Meta-Medicine Association (IMMA).
A 2009 report by a Norwegian television station said that three cancer sufferers died after being advised by members of IMMA’s Advisory Council to stop conventional treatments.
According to Hamer, specific traumatic experiences cause specific physical symptoms. For example, a child raised by conservative, or “inflexible,” parents might develop rigid joints.
Medical authorities have widely denounced Hamer for his theories and illegal treatment of cancer patients, most famously in the case of six-year-old Olivia Pilhar.
Headline: A Dangerous Saviour – Once again, the judiciary has to deal with the controversial “cancer healer” Ryke Geerd Hamer, who is no longer allowed to work as a doctor or a naturopath. Nevertheless his followers trust him blindly.
The Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation itself recently attracted criticism when it held an event at Regent’s University London, a prestigious British university.
Speaking to BuzzFeed UK, British MP Matt Warman (of the UK parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee), said that the Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation promotes “unproven quack cures.”
In a separate comment, British pharmacologist David Colquhoun was even less sparing, calling Fisslinger’s ideas about disease “utter bollocks.”
I asked Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, the famed American physician and one of 14 “visionary speakers” set to speak at the Lifestyle Medicine Summit, for his opinion.
In his reply to me, Dr. Esselstyn dismissed the criticism.
“A number of highly respected colleagues of mine have been on this program and like myself are eager that people should become acquainted with the hard science of proven research and evidence based scientific strategies,” said Dr. Esselstyn, adding: “I am simply not familiar with the observations you have sited [sic].”
Someone who ought to be familiar with the macabre origins of the Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation is Dr. Dean Ornish, best-selling author and White House policy adviser during the Clinton and Obama administrations.
Last year, I informed Dr. Ornish about IMMA’s association with Hamer, and asked him about his own decade-long association with Fisslinger, which he denied.
Dr. Ornish said his upcoming appearance at this year’s Lifestyle Medicine Summit is not an endorsement of the views expressed by Fisslinger or the notorious Hamer.
“I often speak at conferences – including prestigious scientific meetings – where I do not always agree with what other speakers, organizers, or affiliates may be presenting or with their views on other subjects,” said Dr. Ornish.
“I am not endorsing the conference or other speakers; I’m just presenting a summary of 40 years of research that I’ve directed, published in the leading peer-reviewed medical journals, in hopes that this may be helpful. I am responsible only for my own comments.”
Last year, I asked Dr. Katz about his relationship with Fisslinger, IMMA, and the Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation. Dr. Katz said he had “no relationship with any of these people,” insisting that he’d “never endorsed any program or product of theirs.”
This time when I asked him about Fisslinger, he said he “didn’t know this was the same person” I’d asked about previously.
“A Skype interview sets a pretty low bar- I do not conduct a background check,” said Dr. Katz. “I can only ever take responsibility for what I say – and that I do.”
He continued: “I have heard questionable commentary at almost every conference I’ve ever attended- but I have never felt that speaking at the same conference implied my endorsement of commentary by others. That said, I do tend to know far better those with whom I interact in person. This was merely an interview, and I do several a week. Sometimes I know the interviewers fairly well, but more often I do not.”
In my follow-up questions to Dr. Katz, I asked if he’d ever refused to speak at an event because of a disagreement with the scientific views of the organiser; and for his response to the argument that by speaking at a pseudoscience event he lends credibility to the organisers they wouldn’t otherwise have.
Here is Dr. Katz’s reply:
My only additional response to you at this point, Sterling, is that I have no better idea who you are, than who Johannes is. For all I know, you are his personal stalker.
He has only ever asked me about things in which I have a genuine interest, and invited me to discuss them unimpeded- whereas you have only ever asked me about him. Of the two of you, your behavior has been the more concerning to me.
I’ve asked Dr. Katz if he intends to ask Fisslinger about the issues raised in this post, but haven’t received a reply.
Homeopaths are mad at BuzzFeed for article about “pseudo-scientific events” being held at a prestigious London university + Read the angry e-mails I received from a proponent of criminal doctor Ryke Geerd Hamer’s discredited theory of disease
Last week, BuzzFeed UK published a superb article based partly on my investigation of the International Meta-Medicine Association (IMMA), a US integrative medicine organisation that has been blamed for the death of three cancer sufferers.
Science journalist Tom Chivers (formerly a writer for The Telegraph) reported that Regent’s University London – a prestigious private university and registered charity – had allowed its premises to be used for a series of events and programmes which promote pseudo-scientific treatments.
Earlier this month, Regent’s leased space for a conference by the Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation, whose founder Johannes Fisslinger – a student of ghoulish German ex-doctor Ryke Geerd Hamer, originator of the discredited Germanic New Medicine – previously ran the disreputable IMMA.
The blogger Dean Sterling Jones, who has investigated Fisslinger, claims that “lifestyle medicine” is based on “meta-medicine”, a scientifically unfounded practice that says there are links between psychological traumas and specific illnesses – for instance, a woman seeing her child in danger might get breast cancer.
Previously, Fisslinger ran the International Meta-Medicine Association (IMMA). A 2009 report by a Norwegian TV station said three cancer sufferers died after being advised by IMMA practitioners to stop taking conventional treatment.
Chivers also reported that Regent’s was scheduled to host a talk by Samir Chaukkar – an Indian homeopath who believes vaccines cause autism and that autism can be treated with homeopathy – and that last month the university held a screening of Vaxxed, a controversial anti-vaccination film by the disgraced, struck-off doctor Andrew Wakefield.
Via Chivers’ article:
Homeopathy is a pseudoscientific treatment that claims diseases can be treated by enormously diluted preparations of substances that cause the symptoms of those diseases – so onion juice, which causes runny eyes and sniffles, might treat the common cold.
The preparations are usually so diluted that no molecules of the original substance remain. A 2010 House of Commons investigation found that homeopathy was not effective for any diseases and described its purported mechanism as “scientifically implausible”.
…Chaukkar’s talk, “Kingdoms in Homeopathy”, was cancelled by Regent’s after an autism rights activist, Fiona Pettit O’Leary, rang to ask the university about it. He also spoke at the university last year, in a two-day, £140-a-ticket seminar on how to treat addiction and skin diseases with homeopathy.
In the comments section, proponents of homeopathy criticised Chivers’ article, claiming it was “very biased” and that homeopathy “is effective medicine used by MD’s and hospitals around the world.”
Denis MacEoin, a prominent analyst/writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland (coincidentally where I’m from), claimed that research into homeopathy had yielded positive results – a claim refuted by Quackometer blogger Andy Lewis:
Homeopathy proponent Rosyln Ross wrote that “pseudo-science” is a derogatory label used by evidence-based science “for things which it cannot explain, cannot exploit and so wishes to discredit” – a claim rebutted by chemistry student/author Dr. Elliot Mabeuse:
The Canadian homeopath Fernando Gigliotti simply wrote, “Buzzfeed=FakeNews”:
Earlier this month, I received more angry comments by a proponent of the Germanic New Medicine, Ryke Geerd Hamer’s widely discredited theory which posits that specific traumas correlate with specific physical illnesses – for instance, a woman seeing her child in danger might get breast cancer.
The anonymous commenter claimed that my September 14, 2016 item, “The Death of Itziar Orube,” contained “false information”; that Hamer didn’t have his medical licence revoked after his patients died; and that ninety percent of Hamer’s patients actually survived.
Here are the unedited e-mails:
You have a lot of false information in your note. Hamer did€t loss their medical license for cancer patients death. There are youtube interviews with the “dead patients who say that are alive thanks to their medica practice. In fact 90% of their patients lived 6 years after their treatments when the Dr. Hamer case was in the Germany courts.
You also ignore the causes of the Itziar Urebe´s death, that can be explained with the 5 laws discovered by Dr. Hamer.
You and all of the people who make false claims about the new germanic medicine should apply the science principle of: You cannot deny a scientific knowledge “a priori” but “a posteriori”.
If you did´t evaluate this knowledge, you can´t make any assumption about it.
This commenter didn’t provide evidence for their claims, and I was unable to find the video interviews with Hamer’s surviving patients, but here’s a scan of a long-lost November 1983 Der Stern article about Hamer titled “Corpses Pave His Way,” which I grabbed before it disappeared from the Internet.
The translated report reads:
The table is laid, but the female patient has no appetite. Pork roast is served in “Haus Dammersmoor” and pineapple for dessert. She has been yellow for weeks, the female patient with liver, lung, and colon cancer. But that does not matter, says the tall, wiry doctor with the pleasant voice, this will go away. “Today we already feel much better.” The patient tries to laugh. The pineapple slice on the plate is not quite as yellow as she is.
“This is completely normal,” says Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer, “even if the cancer is stopped, the injured liver must now work hard.” Her hands are so cozily warm, an unmistakable sign for her being out of the woods.
Liver, lung, and colon cancer. The others at the lunch table nod. Believing. Or devoted. Or just merely mechanically. All are dying of cancer.
A year ago we witnessed the same scene. Only the house at that time was not called “Dammersmoor” but “Rosenhof.” And it was in the German south, in Bad Krozingen, and not in the village Gyhum near Bremen. The same people sat around the table of Dr. Hamer: yellow in the face, emaciated or with swollen body.
The same deathly sick. Only, it is not the same. Because of those in Rosenhof nearly no one is alive anymore. And not a single one is cured by the man, who calls his colleagues Medi-Cynics and for his method of healing, the “iron rule of cancer,” without batting an eye lid, [claims] a success rate of 80 percent.
According to numerous German news sources, Hamer was stripped of his medical licence in 1986, and in 1989 a Koblenz court ruled that Hamer did not possess the mental capacity to grasp the ethical ramifications of treating patients using an unproven therapy.
In 2001, a Swiss study found “no evidence” to support Hamer’s New Medicine, describing it as “dangerous, especially as it lulls the patients into a false sense of security so that they are deprived of other effective treatments.”
In 2004, The German Cancer Society offered its “expert opinion”: Hamer’s hypothesis lacked “any scientific or empirical justification.”
The final nail came from Dr. Michael Reusch, president of the German Medical Association, who in a 2006 interview called it “a tragedy” that vulnerable cancer patients had been taken in by Hamer’s “charlatanism.”
If anyone else feels the need to explain why they think Hamer is a misunderstood genius, or why conventional medicine is a Jewish conspiracy, there’s a great website called WordPress where you can start your own blog. Good luck!
“There’s no excuse for blurring the boundaries between rigorously researched scientific work and pseudoscientific claims about unproven quack cures.” Read BuzzFeed UK’s superb article based partly on my investigation of freaky US alt-med organisation
Last year, I interviewed Fisslinger about reports that three or more cancer sufferers died after being advised by IMMA practitioners to abandon conventional treatments. Fisslinger said the conduct of practitioners Dagfrid Kolås and Bent Madsen, both former members of IMMA’s Advisory Council, was “absolutely irresponsible” and “absolutely unacceptable.”
Fisslinger recently started the Lifestyle Prescriptions Foundation, an integrative medicine organisation which, like IMMA, teaches the discredited theories of the notorious Hamer.
Regent’s University London, an independent university and registered charity, has allowed its premises to be used to host a series of events and programmes which promote “pseudoscientific” treatments.
A member of the House of Commons science and technology committee told BuzzFeed News that any universities “lending their good name” to such events risked giving credibility to “unproven quack cures”.
On Saturday, Regent’s leased space for a conference by Lifestyle Prescriptions (LP). Proponents of “lifestyle medicine” claim on the LP website to teach people how to “stop or reverse” cancer and other illnesses. Practitioners of another health programme linked to LP’s founder have been blamed for the deaths of three cancer patients in Norway who stopped taking conventional treatments.
The blogger Dean Sterling Jones, who has investigated Fisslinger, claims that “lifestyle medicine” is based on “meta-medicine”, a scientifically unfounded practice that says there are links between psychological traumas and specific illnesses – for instance, a woman seeing her child in danger might get breast cancer.
Previously, Fisslinger ran the International Meta-Medicine Association (IMMA). A 2009 report by a Norwegian TV station said three cancer sufferers died after being advised by IMMA practitioners to stop taking conventional treatment.
Science reporter Tom Chivers (previously the Assistant Comment Editor for British broadsheet newspaper The Telegraph) did a fantastic job reporting about the foundation’s weird but not-so-wonderful background, including getting some revealing comments from Fisslinger.
Fisslinger denies that LP promotes any treatments, says LP is not based on meta-medicine, and says it is “totally irresponsible” to tell patients to stop any conventional treatment. He said “it’s a scientific fact that traumatic life events and negative emotions affect our health – nobody would deny that”. He also says he has not been involved with IMMA for several years.
There’s lots to debunk here, starting with Fisslinger’s claim that his foundation does not promote any treatments.
Per the below excerpt from the university’s lengthy three-part “Meta-Health Therapy Plan,” students give advice intended to benefit patients’ mental, physical (including their “organ & energy” health) and social well-being. Recommendations range from benign platitudes such as “follow your heart,”to advice regarding emergency medical treatment.
Fisslinger’s claim that Lifestyle Prescriptions is not based on meta-medicine is easily debunked via the university’s website, which clearly states that students “will be accredited by the Intl. META-Medicine Association, which is the worldwide standards and certification organization for META-Health [ie. Lifestyle Prescriptions] Professionals and Trainers.”
The claim that traumatic experiences can negatively affect health isn’t controversial. However, Fisslinger’s foundation goes much further, asserting that specific emotionally traumatic experiences correspond with specific physical symptoms. For instance, Lifestyle Prescriptions practitioner Annie Gedye claims she treated a woman who developed swollen lymph nodes upon discovering her boyfriend had cheated on her. Gedye’s interpretation is that the woman had experienced psychological trauma and literally became unable to swallow the information.
As for Fisslinger’s claim that he has not been involved with IMMA “for several years,” not only does his foundation’s university website state a clear connection to IMMA, Fisslinger himself is listed as being IMMA’s designated Agent for Process on the organisation’s December 2016 Statement of Information declaration to the State of California.
Via Chivers’ article, Fisslinger says he will “personally distance” himself from “anyone claiming to heal any diseases, especially cancer,” and said “lifestyle medicine is helping people to be healthier”:
“We don’t make any of these claims,” he said. “These are statements from leading lifestyle medicines featured in the lifestyle medicine summit.
“We make it very clear to anyone using Lifestyle Prescriptions to follow the legal requirements for their profession, and especially always work with their local doctor and never tell or even suggest clients stop any form of treatment or making any claims to heal anything.”
He added: “It’s not about treating something, but rather prevention and healthy living.”
Chivers’ article also includes incisive comments from Matt Warman, MP for Boston and Skegness and a member of the House of Commons science and technology committee:
[Warman] told BuzzFeed News: “Universities, private or otherwise, should take care when promoting or lending their good name to events which promote scientifically unfounded claims, as the use of their premises can add legitimacy to such claims and may serve to mislead attendees or observers.
“There’s no excuse for blurring the boundaries between rigorously researched scientific work and pseudoscientific claims about unproven quack cures.”
On June 1, 2017, Lifestyle Prescriptions will host a week-long online “lifestyle medicine” summit. Speakers include: Sayer Ji, founder of the highly dubious natural medicine website GreenMedInfo; Christa Krahnert, a “natural Medicine Doctor specialized in cancer, micro-biome and enhancing the body’s natural self-healing mechanism”; and prominent EFT proponents Dawson Church and Karl Dawson, among others.
Headlining the summit is nutritionist/Forbes columnist Dr. David Katz, alongside his True Health Initiative colleague Dr. Rob Lawson – who also spoke at the Regent’s conference.
Dr. Katz insisted that outside of his 2013 talk, he “has no relationship with any of these people and have never endorsed any program or product of theirs.”
When I asked Dr. Katz if he profited from the sale of videos of his 2013 talk, which were being sold via the Lifestyle Prescriptions TV website at a price of ninety-seven dollars per year, he called me a “cartoon character” and accused me of harassing him.
Click here to read more about IMMA and Lifestyle Prescriptions.
Shooting the Messenger 