Alternative medicine

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“Wherever I may aroma” (Aromatherapy)Q

oilAromatherapy refers to extracting essential oils from plants, flowers, and roots to try and heal someone. Since it is based on no known science or critical peer review, methods vary and the field has no licensure, certification, or required training. If you say you’re an aromatherapist, you are. It uses botanical terms and words like “healing” and “chemical properties” give it a façade of legitimacy.

Despite the prefix, only a small percentage of aromatherapy uses the whiffing of a substance as the cure. More often, the aromas are used to identify the oils and determine their potency. The resulting products are then applied to the skin or consumed.

The field is rife with anecdotal tales, which devotees swallow with as much gusto as they would a lemongrass healing gumbo. Post hoc reasoning and communal reinforcement also permeate the aromatherapy community.

Considerably harder to find are double-blind, peer-reviewed, reproducible studies on the topic. The Center for Spirituality and Healing offered a few reasons for the lack of such studies. On its website, it notes, “Oils will be different based on region and climate.” Perhaps, but that would be no reason they couldn’t be tested in a specific area.

The center concedes that standardization could be achieved, but skirts this with a nifty piece of ad hoc reasoning: “The problem with standardized essential oils is that they are no longer natural, genuine, and authentic.”

It further argues that, “Blind studies with aromatic substances are problematic because people associate smells with past experiences.” It is true that smell is the sense most associated with memory. But a person associating cinnamon with long-lost friend would not preclude testing its veracity as an anxiety buster.

The site goes on, proclaiming, “In essential oil therapy, the oils are sometimes applied with massage, which makes it difficult to tell whether the outcome was due to the essential oil alone, or the massage, or the combination.” Despite this admission, we next learn that using oils results in “positive effects for a variety of health concerns including infections, pain, anxiety, depression, tumors, premenstrual syndrome, nausea, and many others.”

Delving deeper into the site, we are told that “Essential oils have been used on humans for thousands of years.” Here we see a frequent alternative medicine ploy, the appeal antiquity. These appeals always seem to be based on ideas from the Dynastic Chinese, Native Americans, or Pharaohs. Just to mix it up, I’d love once to see a New Age proponent praise a South Sudanese rain dance or a Montenegrin talisman.

I conducted my own study. As I was both 100 percent of the researchers and subjects, it wasn’t of the double blind variety. But the Center for Spirituality and Healing says that’s not my fault. For the experiment, I slathered myself in Patchouli oil and, indeed, I experienced an immediate increase in skin slickness.

I didn’t get anything else out of it, but there were no shortage of ideas when I mentioned this to an online aromatherapy community. Here, testimonials are passed around excitedly without questioning or studies. No evidence is supplied or requested. There is seemingly no mental, physical, or spiritual benefit beyond aromatherapy’s scope. Juniper alone is said to cure skin conditions, influenza, varicose veins, and most, astoundingly, epilepsy and mental illness. It can be used as an antidepressant, an antibacterial agent, and plenty of “antis” in between.

One of the more common claims is that aromatherapy boosts the immune system. Yet, according to Dr. Mark Crislip of Science-Based Medicine, “The immune system, if you are otherwise healthy, cannot be boosted. A reasonable diet, exercise and sleep is all the boosting the immune system needs.”

In fact, the immune system will only fall apart under extreme conditions, such as starvation, chemotherapy, or becoming HIV positive. And I could find no studies that supported the use of jasmine or lavender to cure those conditions.

An aromatherapist will chalk up a success if rose petals are used and a sore throat goes away. But if it won’t work on a second person, the aromatherapist will note that different bodies have different needs, and they will suggest, and sale, another tonic. To be safe, some aromatherapists make non-testable claims, such as how certain oils will restore harmony to the energy flow.

Another tactic is claiming their products are part of a holistic approach to health. The other parts are regular checkups, healthy food, vigorous exercise, and adequate sleep, all of which will make you feel better without aromatherapy. As such, aromatherapy is not generally dangerous like faith healing or vaccine denial. It just won’t do any good, and the user ends up to attributing to aromatherapy whatever good happens when practicing it, or to what a healthy lifestyle is responsible for.

Oils can kill bacteria, but soap will do it better and it can be purchased without Tangerine Dream playing in the background. Despite all this, I am not completely immune to the aromatherapy’s charms. A long-discontinued incense, called Passion Flower, had an aroma so pleasant it immediately shifted me to a tranquil mood. Must have been my chakra balancing.

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“Q the nonsense” (Energy jewelry)

QRAY

The Q-Ray bracelet is the one way to spend money on jewelry without placating your wife. Unless she is seeking to balance her body’s positive and negative ions, and doesn’t mind a product that cannot be tested to do this or anything else.

An ion is an atom that has a positive or negative charge due to a change in its number of electrons. Piggybacking on this legitimate science, the Q-Ray manufacturer claims to sell an ionized product that will eliminate pain caused by an ionic imbalance.

The body cannot suffer an ionic imbalance, so this product works without even having to buy it. The product as claimed is impossible since solid objects cannot be ionized. The company may as well be selling blivets. The manufacturer notes that its product is worn by celebrities and athletes, simultaneously appealing to irrelevant authority and vanity.

When writing about alternative medicine products, this is where I would normally insert the line about it having no peer-reviewed, double blind, reproducible study. But in this case, there is one. The Mayo Clinic ran a test on 710 subjects over four weeks. Scientists studied the claim that the Q-Ray offered pain relief, using the bracelet and a placebo. All subjects were suffering musculoskeletal pain, and the Q-Ray bracelet showed no ability to alleviate it.

Because the company had made claims that were demonstrably false, a federal judge ordered it to pay $22.5 million to the fraud victims. He did not, however, enjoin the company from selling any more bracelets. They can just no longer attribute any ability to it. The manufacturer has been reduced to noting its deluxe silver coating and durability. The latter is an accurate description of a product still being sold after being proven a fraud and being the centerpiece of a 10-figure judgement.

Then we have the Q Link pendant. This is unrelated to the Q-Ray, except for linguistic and loony likenesses.

The Q Link manufacturer claims its product “neutralizes the effects of electromagnetic fields from computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.” It never explains what these effects are, why they should be avoided, and how the Q Link products manage this. It adds that the electromagnetic field is an invisible cause of stress and fatigue. Maybe the Q Link can help with my sinking feeling when I think about having to mow the lawn.

Dr. Ben Goldacre, an author and skeptic leader, pried open a Q Link pendant and examined its innards. He found a circuit board connected to nothing. That would be like a front door without a house. He also spied eight copper pads, also connected to nothing. Finally, he saw a zero-ohm resistor, again connected to nothing. It added up to little more than wire crammed into some diamond-shaped rubber.

The electronic components can be bought for a few cents, but the Q Link bracelet sells for $60. For this, consumers will receive a product that, according to the seller, offers “resonance with your biofield and harmonizing of your energy.” Left unclear are how the resonance occurs, what a bioifield is, what your energy is being harmonized with, and why all this adds up to a something beneficial.

The company’s website boasts of many happy customers who relate “a wide range of benefits that have enhanced their quality of life.” Could they be a little more vague?

According to the company, the central feature of the product is that it acts on an energy field “of such low intensity that we have no means of measuring it.” That makes their having accessed and manipulated the field all the more amazing.

They claim users have reported fewer headaches, more energy, increased mental clarity, a sharper focus, better sleep, and less anxiety. Such wide ranging claims are a pseudoscience red flag. Excedrin will make a claim to a specific, testable, ability: Curing headaches. Testimonials that are wildly varying and encompass all manner of mental and physical traits are indicative of people attributing to the Q Link pendant whatever good happens to them when wearing it.

If you want to reap real benefits from jewelry, buy your wife a necklace.

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“No shot” (Anti-vaccine movement)

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The “anti-” prefix has a negative connotation, so instead of anti-vaccination, perhaps we should call those in that camp pro-disease.

That might seem a little harsh, but let’s check the results whenever preventable diseases aren’t vaccinated against. In Japan, the vaccination rate for Whooping Cough dropped 70 percent from 1974 to 1976, leading to a 30-fold increase in the disease. Whooping Cough killed no one in Japan in 1974, then 31 persons died from it two years later. After anti-vaccination movements gained steam, France experienced a measles outbreak of 15,000 cases in 2011, and the next year, the United States saw 50,000 cases of Whooping Cough.

At the other end of the spectrum, consider the results of a strong vaccination program. Smallpox killed an estimated 500 million people before being conquered. Until Jonas Salk, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans annually. Measles once killed 3,000 children per year in the United States.

Being a skeptic means more than taking potshots at Tarot cards and magic crystals. One must continually question and analyze everything, including sacred tenants of the skeptic movement. When assessing the above numbers, one must consider correlation/causation and post hoc reasoning. For instance, Dr. Robert Mendelssohn has noted that rates for some diseases dropped in United Kingdom without immunization.

However, we can know vaccinations work because of how the immune system operates. The system detects pathogens and differentiates them from the organism’s healthy tissue. Vaccines mimic diseases by posing as a pathogen, thus prepping the body’s immune system to attack if it detects the real thing.

No vaccination is without risk, but outbreaks of contagious diseases are a far worse danger. Also, consider the comparative risk factor. Serious complications from the measles vaccine are about one in a million, while a child with the disease has a one in 20 chance of developing a serious complication, according to the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University.

Much of the anti-vaccine movement is centered on thimerosal, a compound that contains mercury and is in many vaccines. It is most associated with the Mumps Measles and Rubella vaccine, and the claim it causes autism.

Dr. Boyd Haley said of thimerosal, “It’s too toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a Petri dish, the culture dies. It would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage.”

But pouring chemicals into a Petri dish is different from exposing it in vaccine form to a human because of the body’s defense mechanisms. Haley’s opening words are true, but as he never mentioned vaccines, patients, or dose levels, his conclusion is a non sequitur. In fact, many promising antibiotics and medicines fail because they work on cells but not on people. Furthermore, the toxicity of mercury compounds in fish oil pills exceeds that of thimerosal.

One key element of the anti-vaccination movement are anecdotal tales, many of them the result of post hoc reasoning. Some parents of children with autism believe there is a link between it and the MMR vaccine. This is because the vaccine is administered at the time autism signs are usually first noted, when a child is 12 to 15 months old.

The anti-vaccination movement owes its success to celebrity endorsers, the fear of harm to children, and a science most people can’t understand.

A pro-vaccination campaign exists to counter this. While pamphlets, public service announcements, and science are helpful, the best way to win converts is for them to become diseased. In August 2013, a member of the Eagle Mountain church in Newark, Texas, contracted measles in Indonesia, then spread it through the congregation. All 21 afflicted persons had refused vaccines. Following the outbreak, church members reconsidered their stance and were inoculated against other diseases. It may take the current rise in preventable diseases among the First World population to stem the anti-vaccination movement.

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“Warped speed” (Tachyons)

tachyon4

Tachyons are theoretical particles that move faster than warp speed, have negative mass, and travel backwards in time. They would be unknown outside the world of advanced theoretical physics were it not for being occasionally referenced on shows like Star Trek Voyager.

There is no evidence for tachyons, they have no known use even if they exist, and there is no method of capturing them even if they exist and have a use. Nevertheless, several websites purporting to harness tachyon power sell products such as beads, belts, blankets, lotions, oils, pillows, sweatbands, tablets, wafers, and wraps. Pretty much everything except the kitchen sink, although I suppose if you cleaned yours often enough with tachyon water, you’d have that, too.

The Carbondale Center for Macrobiotic Studies reports that, “The Tachyon Field supplies the energy needs of all living organisms until balance is achieved. Whenever depletion occurs, tachyons rush in until balance happens again.” And the company will sell you this product, which everyone has a naturally recurring, inexhaustible supply of.

It further states, “The nervous system and brain are a sophisticated antenna and receiver that absorb, process, and transform resources of the Tachyon Field.” These sophisticated antennas apparently work best in conjunction with the company’s $75 shoe inserts. Tachyon products are also sold for dogs and cats, with nary a canine or feline consumer complaint yet.

The Advanced Tachyon Technologies website suggests Nikola Tesla tapped into tachyon energy when he tried developing an alternative to AC generators. He didn’t finish, but, no worries, the work of a pioneering engineer genius will be completed by an untested theory using a tachyon doo-rag.

Yet another site claims to have developed a tachyonization process, although the inventor has yet to apply for a patent. He explains that unsavory lawyers would file baseless patent infringement suits, and the costs associated with defending himself would deprive consumers of $50-a-bottle consciousness-raising pills. It also sells Tachyonized Water, which some New Age gurus think has flowed from the Fountain of  Youth. If they’re reading this 200 years from now, they were right.

Going deeper into the site, we learn that “Most people exist in a fragmented, horizontal energy system. Becoming vertical in our energy flow is a way of accelerating our shift in consciousness.” When I want to leave my fragmented, horizontal state and access increased consciousness, I get out of bed. Another suggestion is, “To gain extra energy, regenerate connective tissue, and clear the mind, we recommend tapping the Subtle Organizing Energy Field, or SOEF.” Furniture to the rescue again, as when I want these benefits, I access the SOFA.

The company also makes clear that their internal products work from the inside out. That would seem obvious, but I guess in the time-traveling, negative-mass, beyond-light-speed world of tachyons, one should never assume anything.

Heralding another product, the site announces, “This is a catalyst or energy source for the evolution of self-organizing systems to greater and greater states of order. They protect from electromagnetic dangers by energizing subtle organizing energy fields. It has a variety of special applications and offers deep, lasting rejuvenation. It contains botanical component extracted from the aqueous solution of rare algae. It stimulates the metabolic actions of the body so that the body can fight illness and or disease.” This product cures every ailment except muddled writing.

At one point, the site stresses the importance of “interacting with the lepton family, beginning with a pion.” Now, a pion is not a lepton, but a meson. Maybe they just let their secret slip, and the key to harnessing tachyons is converting a pion into lepton form. If you don’t know how to do that, you can still be part of this. Because while these sites misuse medical, scientific, and mathematical vernacular, the one term they use correctly is multi-marketing.

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“Crystal myth” (Crystal healing)

crystal
The package on the healing crystal promised to protect the heart charka. So I put it on and, sure enough, my heart chakra escaped the day unscathed.

Crystal healing refers to trying to rid the body of a wide range of ailments by putting precious stones on various body parts. Sort of like ointment, only without the nasty aroma or effectiveness.

The claims associated with crystal healing usually focus on terms like aura and Third Eye. Or they laud their usefulness in facilitating spiritual wakefulness or in connecting to a higher realm of knowledge. As such, crystal healing is relatively innocuous among the pseudo-medicines. If using amethyst to battle Hodgkin’s, or citrine to improve eyesight, the failures would be obvious. Therefore, crystals aren’t used to treat real disease, and as such, aren’t harmful like faith healing or psychic surgery. Using crystals to energize the solar plexus or to create harmony is only detrimental to one’s financial health.

Different colors of crystals are usually said to be associated with a specific chakra. As the potency of rutilated quartz in channeling tranquility from the inner realm is untestable, the color coordination varies by practitioner. Any perceived benefit comes from the placebo effect, selective memory, subjective validation, and communal reinforcement.

The genesis of the belief in crystal healing may come from the discovery of the piezoelectric effect. This showed that, when compressed, crystals produce an electric charge. This has numerous applications, including the cigarette lighter and loudspeakers. But using crystals to reduce stress only works if done while tapping into the piezoelectric effect to light incense and send Zamfir through the loudspeakers.

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“Chi-Reiki-practors” (Chiropractic and Reiki)

BACK
Most patients seek out chiropractors because their back hurts. There is some evidence that chiropractics can be effective in the short-term relief of lower back pain, although Advil and a massage may work just as well.

Beyond this limited and narrow focus, chiropractics has never been proven effective in treating or preventing any disease or symptom. Despite this, some chiropractors claim to be able to cure or mitigate a wide range of maladies that have nothing to do with the back. The theory is that since the spine is the center of the body’s nervous system, twisting and turning the back in different ways and places will be beneficial to overall health.

Like many pseudosciences, chiropractics uses medical-sounding terminology to impress and confuse the uninitiated. The most common phrase associated with the practice is “vertebral subluxation.” Subluxation is a real medical condition and refers to a partial dislocation of a joint. But Vertebral Subluxation Theory holds that misaligned vertebrae are the cause of disease. There exists no medical evidence to support this position. Furthermore, it leaves the patient vulnerable to repeated visits for “subluxation correction” as a preventive measure, although what it is meant to prevent is unclear.

Whereas chiropractors will forcefully push, pull, and turn a person in all directions, Reiki practitioners won’t touch the patient at all. Hands are just moved around the body in various patterns and speeds. Reiki asserts that all hands have natural healing energies, but that some persons’ hands have more healing power than others. The percentage of those with the extra power squares precisely with those who have paid $350 for Reiki training.

The original Reiki man was Mikao Usui. He ascended to a Japanese mountaintop, fasted, flipped through some sacred texts, and came tumbling down with healing energy powers. Usui was kind enough to pass his powers onto others for a price. Those who received this healing ability could then do the same for others. This energy has to passed on linearly, so don’t try to bypass the process by going up on the mountain yourself.

A person who went through the process of having the magic energy transferred described it thusly: “The instructor grasped my palms with hers, and lifted my arms above my head and we went in a circle. Then she patted my crown three times, whistled a strange tune, and touched my back.” I have also undergone this experience, although I called it Ring Around the Rosie and Duck Duck Goose.

Reiki teaches that the energy possesses an advanced form of intelligence, and can serve as cosmic doctor and surgeon. It is thus able to diagnose and heal the patient. This is handy for the 100 percent of Reiki practitioners who have no medical training.

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“Dilution delusion” (Homeopathy)

HOMEO

We have a word for alternative medicine that is proven to work: Medicine. Once it has shown to be effective in double blind studies and passes critical peer review, the qualifier can be dropped.

One of the longest, most bizarre histories in alternative medicine lore belongs to homeopathy. It originated in the mind of 18th Century physician Samuel Hahnemann, who had pure motives. Leeches were among the medicines of his day and he worked without benefit of Germ Theory. Hence, he deserves credit for trying to come up with something better and can’t be faulted for failing to recognize its impracticability.

He deduced if large doses of something cause a symptom, than a lower concentration would remove that symptom. He also held that the more diluted a substance was, the better it would be at removing the symptoms it would otherwise cause.

Even if Hahnemann had been correct, homeopathic remedies are so diluted they have no active ingredients. Calling it medicine would be like calling 400 blank pages a novel.

The original is diluted to one part in 100, agitated vigorously, then repeated ad infinitum. Even if there were reason to believe in the basic ideas of homeopathy, its method takes it beyond any possible value. A solute cannot be infinitely diluted since its molecules cannot be divided. Once the solute is down to its last molecule, each succeeding dilution makes is less likely that even that final molecule will remain.

James Randi, the man most responsible for my immersion in the skeptic movement, gobbles a bottle of 32 homeopathic sleeping pills in seminars without impact. He can do this safely because the original substance has been diluted to one part in a nonillion, a number so astronomical I don’t think I’ve used it before.

Since that number is beyond most people’s ability to comprehend, let’s look at it from another perspective. If Randi’s pills had been in liquid form, he would have had to drink 16 public swimming pools of it to ingest one molecule of the original substance. Homeopathic medicines are nothing more than well shaken water and alcohol. Drinking vodka would be as effective, and more pleasureful.