Forbidden Science

[Starrman]

Where do you get your expertise? Are you a medical doctor? You might try checking out the following link: http://www.meridianinstitute.com/projects.htm#PSORIASIS

The Meridian Institute is run by a medical doctor named Eric Mein, who applies the principles set forth in the Cayce Readings. The above link cites a document titled "Psoriasis Case Reports", which states:

"The Edgar Cayce readings say that, although it appears to be a skin disease, most cases of psoriasis are caused by toxins from the digestive system. There is a thinning of the walls of the small intestine, and this thinning allows toxins to leak from the intestinal tract into the circulation. These eventually find their way to the superficial circulation, and trigger an immune response in the skin.

"In the past several years, medical research has provided some evidence supporting the Cayce perspective, but the only person to have systematically applied the Cayce recommendations for treatment is Dr. John Pagano, a New Jersey chiropractor who wrote the book Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative. Dr. Pagano has many well-documented cases of complete healing of severe psoriasis."

Great - I had a zit on my forehead last week. On Saturday I drank about 9 beers, and by Sunday - it was gone! BEER CURES ACNE!

So - just so my sarcasm isn't wasted, do you have any links to the studies that validated that the 'Natural Alternative' applied to the sufferer cured the psoriasis and the replications that verified it? This isn't just another anecdote, is it?

 

[Psiload]

This device is used to treat multiple sclerosis and epilepsy at the Meridian Institute:

A "Radial Appliance"...

that would be a fake battery sitting in a tub of ice. The "electrodes" are connected to wrist and/or ankle.

Here's the theory:

According to the (Cayce) readings, placing the appliance in a nonmetallic container full of ice water for about 20 minutes prior to attachment to the body chills the carbon steel core of the appliance. The steel core then becomes "electronized by ice or cold or water" (1800-4). Acting as a "radio magnet" (1800-28), the appliance can then affect the body's energy system when attached at definite anatomical centers on the surface of the body.

This would be hilarious if it weren't so flippin' sad.

 

[bruto]

ONe of the things I find hard to reconcile in the arguments of the alternative science guys is their consistent belief that there is some gigantic conspiracy among scientists and the medical profession to hide the truth, while it must be abundantly obvious to any rational person that if an idea actually has enough validity to be repeatable, testable, etc. the person, institution or corporation that comes up with it first will stand to gain enormously. Doctors don't hide their discoveries when they make a breakthrough. There are most likely medical researchers right now devoting their entire careers to finding the cause and cure for psoriasis. Do you really think that if thinning of the intestinal walls were actually, consistently present in psoriasis patients nobody but one New Jersey chiropracter would have figured that out? Drug companies look far and wide for ideas. They spend billions on research. Do you really think they would pass up opportunities to make, patent, and sell at their customary piratical prices, drugs that work better than anybody else's?

 

[Rodney]

This device is used to treat multiple sclerosis and epilepsy at the Meridian Institute:

A "Radial Appliance"...

that would be a fake battery sitting in a tub of ice. The "electrodes" are connected to wrist and/or ankle.

Here's the theory:



This would be hilarious if it weren't so flippin' sad.

Maybe, but I take it that you have no medical expertise either?

 

[Rodney]

ONe of the things I find hard to reconcile in the arguments of the alternative science guys is their consistent belief that there is some gigantic conspiracy among scientists and the medical profession to hide the truth, while it must be abundantly obvious to any rational person that if an idea actually has enough validity to be repeatable, testable, etc. the person, institution or corporation that comes up with it first will stand to gain enormously. Doctors don't hide their discoveries when they make a breakthrough. There are most likely medical researchers right now devoting their entire careers to finding the cause and cure for psoriasis. Do you really think that if thinning of the intestinal walls were actually, consistently present in psoriasis patients nobody but one New Jersey chiropracter would have figured that out? Drug companies look far and wide for ideas. They spend billions on research. Do you really think they would pass up opportunities to make, patent, and sell at their customary piratical prices, drugs that work better than anybody else's?

It's usually not just a question of taking a drug. One of the things that the Cayce medical readings stress is the patient doing a fair amount to help him/her self.

 

[Psiload]

ONe of the things I find hard to reconcile in the arguments of the alternative science guys is their consistent belief that there is some gigantic conspiracy among scientists and the medical profession to hide the truth, while it must be abundantly obvious to any rational person that if an idea actually has enough validity to be repeatable, testable, etc. the person, institution or corporation that comes up with it first will stand to gain enormously. Doctors don't hide their discoveries when they make a breakthrough. There are most likely medical researchers right now devoting their entire careers to finding the cause and cure for psoriasis. Do you really think that if thinning of the intestinal walls were actually, consistently present in psoriasis patients nobody but one New Jersey chiropracter would have figured that out? Drug companies look far and wide for ideas. They spend billions on research. Do you really think they would pass up opportunities to make, patent, and sell at their customary piratical prices, drugs that work better than anybody else's?

I'm always amazed by the sheer audacity of their claims:

http://www.meridianinstitute.com/article5.htm

Chiropractor John Pagano, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, claims nearly a 100 percent cure rate in treating psoriasis patients based on the Cayce readings.

This is from an article published in 1995. Ten years ago he developed a nearly 100% effective cure for psoriasis. A decade has passed and Dr. Pagano is now... a household name? A bazillionaire? winner of The Nobel Prize for medicine?

Author of a cheesy cookbook?

Bingo!

http://www.psoriasis-healing.com/cookbook.htm

 

[Chris Haynes]

It's usually not just a question of taking a drug. One of the things that the Cayce medical readings stress is the patient doing a fair amount to help him/her self.

Gee whiz.... so does my family doctor. Things like eating a balanced diet, not smoking, wearing a seat belt, exercising, keeping aware of stressful events (the form asked about big changes during the year), getting screened for various things and other things that happen during an annual exam.

 

[Psiload]

Maybe, but I take it that you have no medical expertise either?

I'm a clinical engineer. I design medical equipment.

http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/nhs-knowledge_base/data/4846.html

Real medical equipment... not the make-believe medical quacktronics silliness shown in that laughable picture.

***edited to add***

Seriously though... is "medical expertise" really needed?

A block of nothing with some wires sticking out of it sitting in a beer cooler bucket? The cure for MS? Seriously, dude... if you buy into that, I've got a peach of a bridge in the Brooklyn area you might want to make me an offer on.

 

[Ripley Twenty-Nine]

Maybe, but I take it that you have no medical expertise either?

I say that elephants can fly. I will not listen to your opinion on the matter unless you are a zoologist.

 

[Rodney]

I say that elephants can fly. I will not listen to your opinion on the matter unless you are a zoologist.

A rather weak strawman. Eric Mein is a medical doctor and he believes Cayce's psoriasis treatment is efficacious. Perhaps he's wrong, but his opinion counts for more than someone who has no medical training, but who makes sweeping pronouncements regarding how worthless Cayce's treatment is.

 

[Psiload]

***snip*** Eric Mein is a medical doctor ***snip***

So was Josef Mengele.

 

[Hellbound]

A rather weak strawman. Eric Mein is a medical doctor and he believes Cayce's psoriasis treatment is efficacious. Perhaps he's wrong, but his opinion counts for more than someone who has no medical training, but who makes sweeping pronouncements regarding how worthless Cayce's treatment is.

Argument from authority. He may believe this, but where's the evidence? Opinion is all well and good, but I'm not going to base my health on one opinion, especially if it seems, by all accounts, to contradict everything else I know.

Considering that the opinion of almost every other medical doctor on the planet contradicts his opinion, especially as to the causes and effective treatments for psoriasis, I think we can safely say that his opinion, as an M.D., is, in this particular case, wrong.

That's what you don't get. We aren't doubting him because we think he's wrong, we're doubting him because he contradicts a huge body of research and literature supported by the vast mjority of medical doctors, researchers, and professionals in practice today.

 

[PixyMisa]

Where do you get your expertise? Are you a medical doctor?

No.

I don't need to be.

All you need to tell the difference between frauds like Cayce and Mein and the real world is the ability to read and an insistence on evidence.

"The Edgar Cayce readings say that, although it appears to be a skin disease, most cases of psoriasis are caused by toxins from the digestive system. There is a thinning of the walls of the small intestine, and this thinning allows toxins to leak from the intestinal tract into the circulation. These eventually find their way to the superficial circulation, and trigger an immune response in the skin.

Cayce said nothing about an immune response.

"In the past several years, medical research has provided some evidence supporting the Cayce perspective, but the only person to have systematically applied the Cayce recommendations for treatment is Dr. John Pagano, a New Jersey chiropractor who wrote the book Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative. Dr. Pagano has many well-documented cases of complete healing of severe psoriasis."

If they had evidence, they would be publishing the evidence, not cookbooks.

 

[PixyMisa]

A rather weak strawman. Eric Mein is a medical doctor and he believes Cayce's psoriasis treatment is efficacious. Perhaps he's wrong, but his opinion counts for more than someone who has no medical training, but who makes sweeping pronouncements regarding how worthless Cayce's treatment is.

I don't make sweeping pronouncements on the worthlessness of Cayce's treatment.

Well, okay, I do, but based on evidence that other people have provided.

1. According to the medical literature, everything Cacye said about psoriasis is wrong. Not me, the medical literature.
2. By following what they actually know, doctors can successfully treat psoriasis, and can show that their treatments are effective.
3. Topical corticosteroids and immunosuppressants work.
4. Spinal manipulation doesn't.

Therefore, Cayce was full of rule 8.

 

[Rodney]

I'm always amazed by the sheer audacity of their claims:

http://www.meridianinstitute.com/article5.htm



This is from an article published in 1995. Ten years ago he developed a nearly 100% effective cure for psoriasis. A decade has passed and Dr. Pagano is now... a household name? A bazillionaire? winner of The Nobel Prize for medicine?

Author of a cheesy cookbook?

Bingo!

http://www.psoriasis-healing.com/cookbook.htm

While confirmation of the efficacy of the Cayce/Pagano psoriasis regime is necessarily a difficult undertaking, one might think if Dr. Pagano is a fraud, the Psoriasis Foundation would say so, or at a minimum not mention him at all, on its website -- http://www.psoriasis.org/treatment/psoriasis/diet/references.php

Instead, the website states: "For further information, the following publications offer additional nutritional theories, or are references used to prepare this section. The Psoriasis Foundation does not recommend or endorse any diet for psoriasis at this time. Most of the books should be available in your local library, or try an online bookseller for harder-to-find volumes.

An Edgar Cayce Health Anthology, Selections from The A.R.E. Journal, A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, Va. . . .

Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative, Dr. John O.A. Pagano, The Pagano Organization, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J."

 

[Rodney]

No.

I don't need to be.

All you need to tell the difference between frauds like Cayce and Mein and the real world is the ability to read and an insistence on evidence.


Cayce said nothing about an immune response.


If they had evidence, they would be publishing the evidence, not cookbooks.

Maybe you should read this link and see if you can repudiate the claims:

http://www.meridianinstitute.com/psorias5.html

 

[Rodney]

I don't make sweeping pronouncements on the worthlessness of Cayce's treatment.

Well, okay, I do, but based on evidence that other people have provided.

1. According to the medical literature, everything Cacye said about psoriasis is wrong. Not me, the medical literature.
2. By following what they actually know, doctors can successfully treat psoriasis, and can show that their treatments are effective.
3. Topical corticosteroids and immunosuppressants work.
4. Spinal manipulation doesn't.

Therefore, Cayce was full of rule 8.

Please document your assertions. For example, what is your source for the assertion that "everything Cayce said about psoriasis is wrong."

 

[Psiload]

While confirmation of the efficacy of the Cayce/Pagano psoriasis regime is necessarily a difficult undertaking, one might think if Dr. Pagano is a fraud, the Psoriasis Foundation would say so, or at a minimum not mention him at all, on its website -- http://www.psoriasis.org/treatment/psoriasis/diet/references.php

Instead, the website states: "For further information, the following publications offer additional nutritional theories, or are references used to prepare this section. The Psoriasis Foundation does not recommend or endorse any diet for psoriasis at this time. Most of the books should be available in your local library, or try an online bookseller for harder-to-find volumes.

An Edgar Cayce Health Anthology, Selections from The A.R.E. Journal, A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, Va. . . .

Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative, Dr. John O.A. Pagano, The Pagano Organization, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J."

The Psoriasis Foundation's official stance on "psoriasis cure diets":

The Psoriasis Foundation does not recommend or endorse any diet for psoriasis at this time.

I wonder why that is? I mean, a nearly 100% effective cure for psoriasis was developed over ten years ago, right? You'd think The Psoriasis Foundation would be all over that like stink on a monkey.

Let's see what The Psoriasis Foundation has to say about Dr. Pagano, shall we?

The Psoriasis Foundation is not aware of any clinical studies on the usefulness of chiropractic in treating psoriasis. However, John O.A. Pagano, D.C., a New Jersey chiropractor, has published a regimen for treating psoriasis that includes spinal manipulations. For more information about the Pagano regimen, please see diet.

and:

The regimen is spelled out in his book, Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative. It includes a special diet, spinal adjustments and internal cleansing (enemas).

The Pagano diet is specifically aimed at psoriasis and has been tried by many people over the years. Some have reported great success, while others say it has not worked. In some cases, psoriasis improves initially, but the results cannot be maintained.

Dr. Pagano also has a mention in the Jan/Feb 2005 edition of Advance Psoriasis, the magazine of the The Psoriasis Foundation... actually, it's not so much a mention as a 3 inch square paid advertisement for Dr. Pagano's cookbook.

Baffling... the guy came up with a nearly 100% effective cure for psoriasis, and this is all the love he gets from The Psoriasis Foundation? A skeptical blurb, one free plug for his cookbook, and one they make him pay for?

It just doesn't seem fair. You'd think they'd slap a medal on his chest and put his grinning face on the cover of every edition of Advance Psoriasis.

The Psoriasis Foundation also offers this sage advice:

Evaluating a diet claim for psoriasis
Remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Hmmmmm... let's apply this sound advice to the following claim:

Chiropractor John Pagano, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, claims nearly a 100 percent cure rate in treating psoriasis patients based on the Cayce readings.

'nuff said.