Adverse Reactions

It's getting hot for Big Pharma

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:27:00 GMT

Ever since doctors became little more than salesmen for the pharmaceutical industry, medicine has ceased to be a science, only occasionally is an art, and is almost always a commercial enterprise.

Research into non-drug solutions was rarely undertaken, simply because there was nobody to fund it, and so the scope of medicine has continued to narrow.

Doctors are beginning to wake up to the straitjacket they find themselves in, and some of the more pioneering souls are becoming like their Victorian forebears in their thirst for knowledge and zeal for new ideas.

These thoughts are sparked by news this week that cancer specialists in Texas are trying out thermal therapy as a way of countering pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal forms of the disease.

Not that the idea is exactly new. The observation that a high fever can kill cancer cells was observed as long ago as 1866 in Germany, and the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov was also aware of it.

It was actively pursued in the 20th century by Dr William Coley, who devoted his life to researching the best herbs, and the correct quantities, for inducing a fever in cancer patients. Sadly, America’s drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, put a bar on the work, and conventional cancer therapy has been restricted to chemotherapy drugs and surgery.

As with heart disease, cancer is a disease that is far too much of a challenge to humankind to be left in the hands of commercial interests.

We hope the Texas oncologists receive all the funding and help they need, and without Big Pharma trying to sabotage their efforts.

ADHD overload

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:42:00 GMT

Nobody has anything nice to say about NICE - so, being a contrarian, I will! As you may know, NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) determines the drugs that should be made available on the National Health Service based upon their effectiveness and price.

Invariably it makes decisions that upset some groups, and is seen as a skinflint denying life-saving pharmaceuticals to people in desperate need. That's the rub, of course. People in desperate need a magic bullet, and are more than willing to swallow any drug company hype, whereas NICE has to take a more considered view.

The institute has hit the headlines again in the past week, this time urging doctors to reduce the prescriptions on drugs such as Ritalin for children with ADHD (attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder). It wants to see the numbers of prescriptions reduced to a third of their current levels, and reserved only for the most extreme cases.

There are a number of pressures going on here, and NICE is being the voice of reason. The first pressure is from the drug's manufacturer. Years ago, WDDTY got hold of a secret memo to the salesforce, stating that it was concerned that too few children in the UK were taking Ritalin. It was the start of a concerted drive, and, as usual, the doctors were willing accomplices.

The second pressure is from parents and doctors alike, who both see any form of errant behaviour as 'ADHD'. It's a catch-all umbrella term that captures any form of problematic behaviour that, once upon a time, was dismissed as 'boys being boys' and the like. Any excitability is exacerbated by diet, and often times the removal of sweets and processed foods from the diet will result in an almost immediate improvement to any bad behaviour.

Of course, this is not to diminish the problems of ADHD and the hell that parents of genuinely afflicted children go through. But NICE has it about right - the prescriptions need to be reduced to around a third of the level of where they are now.

It's time to stop seeing every childhood problem as ADHD in order to sell more drugs.

You are your world

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:00:00 GMT

One of the central messages of our site is that you have to take responsibility for your own health. There's no such thing as the free lunch when it comes to your health (and, if you happen to be a 'free lunch' believer, you probably also cling to the notion of the 'magic bullet' antidote, which keeps the drug company coffers full).

While taking responsibility includes all the usual suspects of diet, nutrition and general lifestyle, there's a real possibility that it has an even deeper significance.

A while back I had the very great fortune to meet Dr Bruce Lipton, who came to speak at one of our 'Living The Field' conferences. Bruce has been one of the earliest pioneers of a branch of biology known as epigenetics, which studies the impact of the enviornment on our genetic make-up.

Bruce lost a very lucrative position as professor at a prestigious American university for even suggesting that our DNA is not a set code, but instead can be influenced and changed by the environment. At the time the science of epigenetics was dismissed as a heresy, and those who pronounced it were banished from academia.

But, of late, the tide has been turning. Researchers who studied obese families found that parents and children weren't necessarily genetically predisposed to be obese but rather that their immediate environment played a more significant role. This is not so astonishing to those who haven't swallowed the DNA argument whole; if you're in a family that eats processed foods in front of the television and drives to the corner shop, then you're more likely to get fat yourself, irrespective of your gene pool.

It goes deeper. What makes up your environment? It's not just your lifestyle choices, it's your thoughts and beliefs, and your perceptions of the world beyond your body. This complex mix all adds to the rich subtleties of your immediate environment.

And, if your environment can change your coding, where does 'you' end and the 'world' begin?

Epigenetics is an exciting new branch of science that suggests a feed-back loop system where we are constantly influenced by that which we influence.

So, now, who needs pills?

This pill makes you rich

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:20:00 GMT

Let's get down to the real nitty-gritty of what medicine is all about - money. As stock watchers amongst you may know, Big Pharma is being marked down by City (and Wall Street) slickers, who are putting up 'Sell' notes wherever they are seeing a pharmaceutical company.

Why? Haven't drug companies found a cure for cancer yet? Or perhaps they're not getting the rapid recovery rate for their patients?

Not a bit of it. Had that been the criteria for drug companies' share price, they would have been in the bargain basement long since. No, the reason for the panic sell is simply that many drugs are now passing out of the protection of patent, and so can be copied - with very minor modifications - by all and sundry.

In the past few days, both AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been downgraded because several of their key profit-making drugs are soon to pass out of patent. GSK, in particular, faces a turbulent 2009 as some of its hot-shot drugs suddenly face stiff competition from the 'me-too' boys who will be swamping the market with very similar concoctions.

It's sad that medicine is so judged. As I've often observed, what purports to be a benefactor of mankind is, in fact, purely an instrument of gain for shareholders.

And the sooner everyone wakes up to that reality, the sooner we may finally see a medical model that first serves mankind and its suffering.

Extra, extra! Get your free vitamin D!

Annemarie Colbin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:32:00 GMT

Vitamin D, essential for human health, is more a hormone than a vitamin, and you can indeed get it for free – as it is secreted by the body under the influence of sunlight. This activity involves the skin, the liver, and the kidneys, and about 36 hours after the sun exposure the synthesized vitamin D (known as cholecalciferol, or vitamin D3)is available in the bloodstream. It has multiple effects, one of major ones being that of helping the absorption of calcium from the intestines. The body can store this “vitamin” for several months, so that we can survive the winter with little or no sunshine. Latitude has a lot to do with the availability of sunlight – people below the 40th parallel get better exposure.

Surprising amounts of research are now showing that a deficiency of that vitamin is associated with a large number of disease states, including osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, and many different kinds of cancers including those of the breast, colon, ovary and kidney. Studies have also found that lack of vitamin D is implicated in the tendency of older people to fall. While most people believe that the sun causes cancer, a number of studies have found that there is an inverse relationship between the incidence of cancer and the exposure to sunlight – that is, the more cancer, the less sunlight, and viceversa. Hospital patients who are put in sunny rooms recuperate a lot faster than those in rooms with little daylight.. Sunlight is a nutrient much like food, and the lack of it can give us many problems, both physical (as we just saw) and psychological – lack of sunlight is associated with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and possibly depression.

Many health professionals are seeing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, even in sunny climates like Hawaii, Florida, and other places where the weather is often bright. What is going on here? Three things: 1) both adults and children stay indoors a great deal of the time, with work, homework, computers, and TV; 2) when outside, people don’t necessarily walk to where they’re going, but take the car, bus, train, or other covered conveyance, the glass windows of which do not admit the UV rays needed for Vitamin D production; and 3) if they do go out, they cover themselves and their children in abundant sunblock creams. Considering that a sunblock of SPF 8 prevents the body from getting as much as 85% of the normal vitamin D, anything higher means you get NONE.

Any vitamin D in foods? Indeed there is some, mostly in eggs and fish. Fish livers are particularly rich; the classic Northern European source is cod liver oil. Try a couple of teaspoons per day in some juice during the winter months. A little caviar on toast would help, as a tablespoon can give you close to 10% of your requirements. Pricey, though. There are vitamin D precursors in vegetables, notably in parsley and shiitake mushrooms. So make yourself a nice 2-egg omelet (organic eggs, please) with 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and ¼ cup of fresh sautéed shiitake, and you may get yourself some 115 IU of vitamin D, or close to 30% of your daily requirement. If you’re rich, add a tablespoon of black caviar, and you’re up to 40%. And it tastes nice too!

Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D.

ANNEMARIE COLBIN, Ph.D., CHES, is an award-winning leader in the field of natural health She founded Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts (TM) in New York City in 1977, and is adjunct professor of nutrition at the city’s Empire State College. She is the author of four books, including The Book of Whole Meals (Autumn Press, 1979; Ballantine Books, 1983), The Natural Gourmet (Ballantine Books, 1989, 1991), and Food and Healing (Ballantine Books, 1986, 1996). Her website is: www.foodandhealing.com

Your right - even when you're wrong

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:48:00 GMT

The struggle between the Sons of the Enlightenment and medical quackery - as they view any therapy that doesn't involve powerful pharmaceuticals - is getting more bitter by the day.

In the past week, the University of Central Lancashire has closed its BSc course in homeopathy following what the lecturers describe as a relentless campaign by David Colquhoun, one of the Sons of the Enlightenment. But another SoE has been at the receiving end; Simon Singh, co-author of the recent book Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine On Trial, is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association over claims he makes about the therapy in the book.

The SoEs seem to be forgetting something pretty important in their relentless campaign: an individual's right to choose. They may claim that homeopathy doesn't work and so shouldn't be offered, but surely that is for the patient to decide. By all means, give him or her all the 'facts' - and, by this, it should be even-handed - but then leave well alone.

Put another way, the SoEs are effectively saying that they are protecting people against their own stupidity, and this is where the weakness of their position is exposed. Who are they to determine what I, or you, should be free to try? It's dangerous ground, and could be applied to many walks of life and provides unrasonable power to self-appointed experts who, in the name of the public good, decide what we can say or do.

Ultimately, it's the difference between having either a belief in the State - which becomes the ultimate authority on everything we are allowed to have and experience in life - or the common-sense of the individual. A quick scan over the history of the 20th century tells me which approach I would prefer, even if it means that, on occasions, I am wrong in my judgement and choice.

Aspirin alerts

Bryan Hubbard — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:00:00 GMT

Aspirin seems to have reclaimed the mantle of 'wonder drug' over the last couple of days with new research that recommends all healthy men and women who are 50 years and older should take one a day to prevent heart attack and stroke.

It's not the first time that aspirin has been promoted as the ultimate prophylactic that needs to be part of everyone's daily health regime. The abilities of the painkiller to ward off heart attack and stroke were first noted in 1953, and its standing as the greatest of all drugs reached its zenith in 2005 when a major study confirmed its effectiveness.

Indeed, we all view it as our health-giving friend that we don't even bother mentioning it as one of the drugs we take. Researchers found this out when they interviewed patients being treated in hospital for gastro-intestinal problems. One in five was taking the drug, but hadn't told medical staff. This also suggests that the true extent of adverse reactions to the drug, and especially stomach bleeding and other gastic problems, is far higher than official figures tell us.

But there's something else to consider, especially if you're 75 years or older. It appears that, far from protecting the elderly against stroke, aspirin is one of the major cause of cerebral haemorrhage, or stroke. Researchers from Oxford University made the discovery when they compared numbers of stroke victims between 1981 and 1985 and again between 2002 and 2006. While the overall rate of stroke had dropped, the rate among the elderly remained the same. The research team discovered that the elderly had listened to the one-a-day advice, and consumption of aspirin in this group had increased dramatically.

In the the first group, just 4 per cent were taking aspirin as a just-in-case; by 2002, this rate had increased to 40 per cent.

For them, concluded the researchers, aspirin risk far outweighed any benefits.

* To read about the real risks of aspirin, read our Special Report - Death By Aspirin - which is available for immediate download by clicking here.

Pills and privilege

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:28:00 GMT

Drug companies enjoy a very privileged position among the industrial sectors. They are granted extraordinarily high levels of privacy and protection, non-drug competitors are not allowed to bring alternatives to market, especially in the area of cancer care, their relationship with doctors is protected by the Advertising Standards Authority and by the media, and their executives sit on many boards that control editorial output. If this were not enough, the pharmaceuticals also sponsor the largest network of lobby groups in the world that influence the thinking of governments everywhere.

Drug companies are not subject to the usual market forces, and can pretty much charge what they like for their drugs, especially if the drugs are new and still in patent. As the pay of their senior executives is shaped by the share price, and as the share price is, in part, determined by the profit line, it's not in anybody's interests to put a 'fair' price on a new drug.

As a result, cash-strapped health authorities such as the UK's National Health Service simply cannot afford the latest, innovative drugs. An organisation called NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) has to make the tough decisions about what drugs to allow on the NHS, and what it has to leave off. It's a difficult place to be because it will inevitably make decisions that upset some group of patients, who may see some wonderful new compound as their only hope against an inexorable disease.

NICE's head, Sir Michael Rawlins, has been defending his position this week after calls that his organisation was barbaric for refusing a new kidney cancer drug onto the NHS list. He points out that the drugs could be sold for a tenth of their current price, and still leave a decent profit for the manufacturer.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Sir Michael was told by the interviewer that the drug industry is there to make a profit. This is, of course, its primary motive, as it is for any industrial combine, and its chief objective is to produce a good return for the shareholder.

Again, nothing unusual there.

That being the case, could someone explain why a for-profit group - that puts shareholders and profits before the well-being of the sick - is granted so many privileges and protections?

Now it's clear what the primary motivation is, it's time these safeguards were removed, and that the pharmaceutical industry were treated like any other.

Cigarettes and mobile phones

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:51:00 GMT

Those of you old enough to witness the descent of the cigarette, from essential accessory for the sophisticate to Evil Incarnate, within two generations may be getting a sense of deja vu right now.

This time round it's the turn of the mobile, or cell, phone, which, over the past 15 years, has become the essential accessory for everyone who needs to tell everyone else everything you are doing at every moment.

Research has been quietly telling us that long-term mobile phone use can result in brain tumours, but these studies have usually been dismissed as the ravings of mavericks and madmen.

Despite this, UK government health officials have been warning us that children in particular may be especially vulnerable to radiation from the phones. Last week, Canada's health guardians voiced similar concerns, and this week the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has warned faculty and staff to cut down on cell phone usage.

Others, including those in the pay of the mobile phone industry, continue to ridicule these concerns, but the doom-sayers are making a reasonable point. They are effectively saying: we don't yet know the long-term effects of persistent mobile phone usage, so it's better to be safe than sorry.

Cut to 40 years ago, and you can see a similar pattern over cigarette smoking. The manufacturers were even claiming that cigarettes were healthy, something that the mobile phone operators aren't saying, at least. The tobacco industry produced their own studies to 'prove' cigarettes weren't a health concern, something the mobile phone industry has also done.

It'll be interesting to see, if in 40 years' time, mobile phones are also banned from every public place, and each phone comes with a health warning.

A reign of error

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:59:00 GMT

The UK government has come up with a novel way to improve efficiencies within the National Health Service. It's planning to pay a bonus to surgeons whose patients survive and recover.

The annoucement comes as a surprise to those of us who had naively assumed that that is what they're paid to do anyway, and it's just one of a raft of measures that incentivises hospitals to reduce rates of infections, readmissions and post-operative mobility.

This suggests that the UK taxpayer is currently paying for a sub-standard service, and this is exactly what he is getting. The USA health system, which is funded by health insurers, is going through a similar exercise. From next October, insurers are refusing to pay out on eight hospital errors that they consider are avoidable. These errors are costing insurance firms around $40 bn a year and, as a spokesperson for the industry pointed out, they are rewarding inefficiencies.

The UK government is taking a different line. Instead of penalising hospitals for their errors and poor work, it is instead paying out even more to those that provide a reasonable service.

This is yet another ineffective response from a Gordon Brown administration that is looking ever more indecisive and out-of-touch by the day.

It's administering a healthcare system that is failing badly. In the UK alone, 40,000 Britons die every year in hospital from avoidable errors, and this is based on a very conservative 2.2 times error rate for all admissions. A separate study put the rate at more like 4.75 per cent, which, if true, suggests a figure closer to 90,000 deaths a year.

Overall, 850,000 errors occur in UK hospitals every year, and it's a problem that is not going to go away by paying bonuses and incentives to hospitals that care to better that.

* Medical Mistakes: Who's Paying? is the special report in August's 'What Doctors Don't Tell You'. It will be with subscribers on Saturday, July 26. If you would like to subscribe, please click here.

Finally, it's self-evident

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:57:00 GMT

One of my favourite philosophers used to be that arch pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer. Put it down to a troubled adolescence. Although he said many significant things, everyone today seems to quote this one saying of his: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

I was reminded of it when I was researching the work of the pioneering dentist Weston A. Price (1870-1948) for the latest special report for ‘What Doctors Don't Tell You’. He certainly withstood a great deal of ridicule in his lifetime even though he held the prestigious position of research director of the American Dental Association.

After studying the diet and health of various indigenous peoples, he argued that our diet directly affects the health of our teeth and gums (periodontal health). Worse, he even mooted that the health of our teeth and gums could also cause chronic disease in our body.

For many years, his own organisation, along with other dentist groups around the world, violently opposed his theories.

Then, only as recently as 2005, researchers from the University of Minnesota discovered a direct link between the bacteria associated with periodontal disease and atherosclerosis, or narrowing of the arteries (Circulation, 2005; 111: 576-82).

Opponents have argued that gum health is merely symptomatic of overall health, and is not a cause. But this isn’t so. A meta-analysis by Harvard researchers found that an association (between periodontal disease and chronic, systemic conditions) persists after all lifestyle and other factors are eliminated (Cancer Causes Control, 2008; e-pub May 14, 2008 ahead of print).

As Dr Robert Genco, professor of oral biology at the State University of New York in Buffalo, has said: “Patients think of gum disease in terms of their health, but they don’t think about the fact that gum disease is a serious infection that can release bacteria into the bloodstream. The end results could mean additional health risks for patients whose health is already affected by other diseases, or lead to serious complications such as heart disease.”

See, it’s self-evident really.

(If you’d like to read the full report as a subscriber to ‘What Doctors Don't Tell You’, please click here.)

Lorenzo's legacy

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:38:00 GMT

Lorenzo died a month ago, just one day after his 30^th birthday. Doctors had told his parents he would die at the age of 8 from a rare disease called ALD (adrenoleukodystrophy). It was their refusal to accept this prognosis that led them on a ceaseless quest for a cure, which was championed in the award-winning movie Lorenzo’s Oil.

Throughout, they were discouraged by doctors and scientists, who told them their quest was pointless because no cure would ever be found.

In fact, Lorenzo’s parents – Augusto and Michaela – did find part of the solution, and one that will help other children afflicted by one of the several conditions that attack the myelin sheath that protects the nerves responsible for transmitting messages from the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

Their achievement was remarkable, all the more so because neither were scientists or had any medical training. They just had the inexhaustible energy to do something for their son.

Sadly, there are many people like Lorenzo who are afflicted by a rare condition. ALD, for example, affects just one in 42,000 boys.

Augusto and Michaela demonstrated that a cure is not impossible; it is just that it’s not in the interests of the pharmaceutical industry to spend years researching a disease that affects so few. There really isn’t a sufficient profit in it for them.

Parents of these children don’t need convincing of where the true heart of the pharmaceutical industry lies.

A nice little Ernst-er

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:08:00 GMT

You are Edzard Ernst, esteemed professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, and I claim my £10,000. Please wire my payment to: Bryan Hubbard@Dunworkin.

As you may have heard, Edzard has done a Randi, and has announced a £10,000 prize to anyone who can produce evidence that homeopathy works.

Magician James Randi is another gallant quack-buster, who has offered a $1 million for proof that the paranormal exists. Randi has never coughed up, of course, and he never will, despite the many cases he has seen that should see him parted from his loot.

I fear the same with Edzard. For him, it’s a publicity stunt to stimulate the flagging sales of his latest book, which is a full frontal assault on alternative medicine, which seems strange from Britain’s only professor of, er, alternative medicine.

But let’s give the man the benefit of the doubt, and take him at his word. So, Edzard, here’s a study that has been double-blinded and placebo controlled, and that demonstrates homeopathy is just as good as, if not better than, drugs for the treatment of eczema. The study’s reference is: Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2008; 16: 15-21.

Take a look, and pass the money along soonest. No disrespect, but I’d prefer notes (£20s and £50s are fine) to a cheque.

This bird flu has flown

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:04:00 GMT

One of the first rules of political power is to create a bogey-man (BM). As we all fear the BM, we're relieved when our political leaders are prepared to stand up to said BM, even if it means removing our civil liberties. After all, it's for our own good.

Drug companies do something similar, although they call this object of fear the bogey-man disease (BMD). Fortunately, the drug companies are on hand to protect us against BMDs, even though it means removing our common-sense or critical thinking. After all, it's for the drug comapnies' good.

There have been plenty of BMDs through the years. In 2003 we had SARs, a most fearful virus that was going to decimate the world's population. Only it didn't. This may have been because something bigger and more evil came along - avian flu.

Surely you remember avian flu, or bird flu, or influenza A, or H5N1, if you want to get technical. The World Health Organization confidently assured us that 7.4 million people around the world would die from it, and that truth-sayer President Bush assured the American populace that the virus would wipe out 2 million of them. Even our own chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson got in on the act. He told the credulous British people that at least 750,000 Britons would die from it. Very soon.

Thank goodness, then, that the drug industry had an answer to this BMD. They had Tamiflu, and governments around the world joined an ordely queue to buy, buy, buy while stocks lasted. The US bought $2bn of the drug, and the UK government wasn't far behind. Even the usually sensible Canadians joined the panic rush, ignoring the advice of their medical officer, who pointed out that Tamiflu wouldn't work against avian flu. The Centers for Disease Control in the US told President Bush something similar, but BM and BMDs are his stock in trade, so he was never going to listen.

So, just to recap: billions of dollars of a drug were sold, although it was ineffective against a disease that didn't exist. This wasn't even brilliant; we are in the presence of genius.

Trouble is, the drugs industry needs another BMD, and quickly, too. Anybody out there who spots the next major health scare, please let me know.

Trouble and Rife

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:54:00 GMT

Instead of the usual rant, this week I want to make an appeal. It’s an appeal for reason, for true science without commercial restraints, and for funding to carry out a simple, and inexpensive, experiment that may have enormous positive implications for all of us.

This line of thinking has been inspired by two pieces of paper that have landed on my desk this week. The first is from the Society of Occupational Medicine, which has just completed some expensive research that reached the astonishing conclusion that people who go to work are less depressed than people who are unemployed. The second is a letter from a gentleman who has seemingly successfully treated his prostate cancer by using a machine that was developed in the 1920s and 30s by an American called Royal Raymond Rife.

Rife, who died in 1970, has marginalised opinion between those who are convinced he was a genius who had discovered a cure for cancer and a range of other systemic conditions, and those who believe he was one of the biggest frauds of the last century.

For his part, Rife claimed to have discovered how to destroy cancer cells by ‘tuning’ into their frequency, just as an opera singer can shatter a glass. In 1934, he demonstrated his frequency machine on 16 terminal cancer patients chosen by the University of Southern California; within three months, they had all been cured, or so his advocates say.

On the eve of a press conference to announce the study’s impressive results, Dr Milbank Johnson, former president of the Southern California AMA, was fatally poisoned and all his papers were destroyed. Within five years, Rife had been vilified, his machines were destroyed, his research papers were burned, and doctors who continued to use the machines were struck off by the American Medical Association.

Critics argue that his theories are based on nothing more than pseudo-science, that people have died because they have preferred the Rife machine over conventional treatment, and they point out that Rife ‘practitioners’ are being rightfully jailed for giving false hope to terminally-ill patients.

But on what do they base their opinions? When I did a trawl through Pub-Med, the depository of every medical study carried out over the past 70 years or so, I couldn’t find one single study into the Rife technology. This seems astonishing for a therapy that offered so much early promise.

So – this is my appeal. Is there a way for us to conduct the very first medical study into the Rife technology? If money can be found for studies that tell us that unemployed people get depressed, surely we can find out a way to finally prove – or disprove – the Rife technology.

Why, when cancer has become the greatest epidemic of our times, should this be so hard for us to do?