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Archive #3
6/97 - 7/97


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Fen-Phen Dangers

Researchers at Mayo Clinic have discovered evidence that Fen-Phen, a powerful diet drug taken by 18 million Americans each year, can cause heart disease in otherwise healthy patients. The study , to be published in the August 28 edition of New England Journal of Medicine, documents the cases of 24 women who experienced a deterioration in the valves of their hearts after taking fen-phen for 6 to 18 months. Previously, primary pulmonary hypertension, a serious lung disease, was the only known serious side effect of Fen-Phen.

Fen-Phen is a combination of two drugs --fenfluramine, an appetite suppressant, and phentermine, a mild stimulant. Although the FDA has approved each of these drugs, their combined use was not FDA-approved. The FDA has requested that doctors check their patients who use fen-phen for possible heart valve damange.

First U.S. Gerson Clinic Opens

The Gerson Institute has opened its first U.S. alternative cancer treatment center, in Sedona Arizona. It is licensed by the Arizona Department of Health. Gerson therapy "utilizes diet, detoxification and therapeutic supplementation to reactivate and strengthen the immune system and restore the body's essential defenses." A press release announcing the center's opening quotes an endorsement by Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, M.D. [Gerson PR Newswire, 7/97]

EM Fields Get Clean Bill of Health

"This morning's paper reports that a $4.5 million dollar study has demonstrated no link between power line electromagnetic fields and children's leukemia. While that's nice to know, it was $4.5 million that could have been better spent on more likely health hazards. Sometimes you can simply believe basic science. There was never any credible way that these low frequency fields could cause biological damage. It was like spending $4.5 million to see if the gravitational field fluctuations caused by earthquakes in China result in excess birth defects in New York City."[Hawaii Rational Enquirer 7/3/97]

James Randi Prize Available to Therapeutic Touch Therapists

Magician James Randi has challenged "touch therapists" to prove they can detect the human energy field. He has offered to pay anyone who does $1.1 million. Some 30,000 touch therapists practice in the US, many in leading hospitals. Actually, they do not touch their patients but redistribute their "qi" by moving their hands near the patient's body. [Hawaii Rational Enquirer 7/3/97]

New "Healthcare Reality Check" Web Page

Due to the generosity of Cyberwarped, the recently founded Georgia Council Against Health Fraud, Inc., launched their website on June 22, 1997. The new site is called "Healthcare Reality Check" and will eventually contain an extensive encyclopedia of science-based answers to frequently asked questions on alternative and complementary medicine. Please pardon our construction for the next few weeks!

The webmaster for the GCAHF page and the President of the new organization is , who previously served as webmaster for the National Council Against Health Fraud web page from its inception. Ms. Long is also the list-owner of the "Healthfraud" and "Alert" mailing lists. She was President of the Georgia Skeptics and editor of the newsletter for a number of years.

Formally effective 6/21/97, Mark Collins of Webcrown replaced Ms. Long as webmaster for the NCAHF and Dr. John Renner assumed responsibility for the content of the NCAHF web page.

Plantain Supplements May Contain Digitalis

The Food and Drug Administration has warned cosumers that certain supplements containing "plantain" may contain Digitalis, a plant that contains powerful heart stimulants that can cause life-threatening heart reactions including cardiac arrest. Less serious effects of digitalis may include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, confusion, hypotension (low blood pressure), and vision disturbances. The FDA detected Digitalis in samples of raw material, so products of a number of manufacturers may be contaminated. The findings derived from the investigation of the "Chomper" products that was reported in May 1997. Additional information may be found on the FDA Website.

Parents Sentenced When Two Children Die

Two individuals were sentenced to serve two and a half years in prison after their daughter was the second of their 10 children to die from the lack of sound medical care. The child had treable diabetes, but died of complications after unsuccessful attempts to cure her with prayer and annointing. In 1991, another child of these individuals died from an ear infection. [New York Times, 6/11/97]

Hospital Following Nontraditional Path: California Pacific Medical Center installs labyrinth to assist in healing process

As part of its "healing mission", California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco has installed a 36-foot-wide labyrinth modeled after one installed two years ago at France's Grace Cathedral. According to the designer, a labyrinth is a positive``natural healing generator'' , unlike a maze, which has numerous false turns and dead ends.

[San Francisco Chronicle 6/6/97]

Hyperventilation Quack Loses Libel Suit

Dr. Peter Nixon has lost the libel case he filed against London's Channel 4 and the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell over a 1994 TV program which claimed Dr. Nixon had rigged tests, misdiagnosed a terminally ill Aids patient, rigged tests, and published research riddled with errors. A registered and orthodox doctor, Dr Nixon has gained a high profile for his theory that a list of diseases including Aids, Gulf War Syndrome, and premenstrual tension are attributable to hyperventilation.

The trial showed that Dr. Nixon systematically used a valid instrument - a capnograph, which monitors expired CO2 levels - as a means of convincing patients that his diagnoses were valid. He simply rigged the results by giving directions which he had learned by experimentation would produce the apparently valid instrumental indications which he desired.

Dr. Norton admitted that the errors in the scientific papers he co-authored were more than an honest slip of the pen. He also admitted to performing exercise tests and other diagnostic tests, which could in some circumstances be fatal, without explaining the risks and obtaining informed consent. He is expected to quit practising medicine within a few weeks.

The existence of a "hyperventilation syndrome" in which hyperventilation is causative rather than an effect of other conditions or states is now no longer tenable. A double-blinded placebo-controlled study in the Lancet last year showed that HV was never the cause of other conditions, but its effect.

FDA Cracks Down on Ephedrine-Laced Supplements

After at least 17 deaths and 800 illnesses linked to ephedrine-laced dietary supplements, the FDA has announced plans to dramatically limit the use of this substance.

Ephedrine is an amphetamine-like stimulant that can cause heart attack, stroke, seizure, or death in persons with heart disease, high blood pressure or neurologic disorders. It has also caused health problems in previously healthy individuals. Among the deaths from ephedrine are:

  • A 20-year-old college student who died after using such a product in 1996,
  • A previously healthy 23-year-old Boston college student who dropped dead after using an ephedrine-containing "protein drink" for body-building for two years because the drink killed portions of his heart,
  • A 35-year-old woman who had a heart attack after using ephedrine-containing pills for about 11 days,
  • A 35-year-old man took who just five capsules before a workout and had a heart attack.

Some popular products containing ephedrine include "Herbal Ecstacy", "Ultimate Xphoria" and Nutri/System's "Herbal Phen-Fen." It also marketed as ma huang, Chinese ephedra and epitonin.

The FDA has announced plants to limit the amount of ephedrine that can be contained in any dietary supplement, ban the marketing of ephedrine-containing products as weight-loss or bodybuilding agents, ban the use of caffeine or other stimulants in combination with ephedrine, and require warning labels that too much of the product can kill.

Live Fish Cure

According to witnesses, more than 300,000 people suffering from respiratory ailments converged on a small house in southern India Sunday to consume a miracle cure of herbs and water stuffed inside a mouth of a live fish. The fish is swallowed live, and believers claim it helps clear the patient's food pipe where it supposedly survives for about 15 minutes and flaps about. The cure has been distributed during the auspicious Mrigasira solar phase for 152 years. Complete treatment requires an annual dosage for three years. [Reuters 6/97]

$1,100,000 Prize if You Have "The Touch"

Major hospitals throughout the US offer a procedure variously known as "biofield therapeutics" or "touch therapy." The James Randi Educational Foundation announced this week that its $1.1M prize would be awarded to the first "touch therapist" who can demonstrate under simple test conditions the ability to detect a human energy field. According to touch therapists, the energy field or "qi" sticks out some 20 cm and can be tactilely sensed -- at least by trained professionals, of which there are some 30,000 in the US alone. It might more properly be termed "no-touch therapy," since practitioners do not actually touch the patient; they use their hands to "balance" the patient's qi. Although it may not be dangerous to have your qi manipulated, it is of scientific interest to ask if a palpable biofield actually exists. In the six years since its creation, the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine has never thought to ask that question. [APS "Whats New" 6/97]

Wisconsin Quackery Bill

A bill has been introduced in Wisconsin that would seriously complicate (or make it down-right impossible) for the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board to discipline licensees who practice quackery. The bill was introduced on 5/22/97 and was forwarded to committee.

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