Thursday, January 31, 2019

Forever Healthy Or Not So Much

I was watching a livestream of my friend Jeff Holiday and a fellow Canadian in the chat had mentioned to him about Forever Healthy.   I seem to remember this name but had to look it up to see why.

Forever Healthy is some sort of allergy clinic...the questionable sort.  They seem to believe that "Just about any health condition could be merely a symptom of underlying allergies."


In one of the testimonials, it is even mentioned about a fertility protocol!

They promote quackery like acupuncture claiming that it "improve your Immune System, help with anxiety, sleeplessness and fatigue. Benefits have also been received for headaches/migraines, pain anywhere in the body, nasal congestion, acne, dermatitis, asthma, IBS and many more symptoms that you may be experiencing."   I've discussed before how nonsensical acupuncture is. You can check out Science-Based Medicine for more info:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/acupuncture/

The thing that caught my eye the most was the term "Bioenergtic Testing."   What exactly is this?  Well their website doesn't explain it too much but a CBC article does.  There it says "The patient holds a vial containing the substance in one hand, while holding the other arm at a 90 degree angle and having the practitioner push against it. Friar explains that a weakness in the arm indicates an allergy or intolerance."

What?????

If that seems odd and you are wondering how not even seeing if there is a reaction to the substance on or in the body, you are not alone.   It doesn't make sense.  Their method is not even plausible.  I of course am familiar with this technique.  I helped expose a chiropractor using the same method to scam investors on Dragon's Den (Canada's version of the Shark Tank).   You can see the video from CBC Marketplace where I was featured (I'm the magician) here:  https://youtu.be/P-Kl0XkZuCw

The simple method of deceit is that a slight change of angle along with a placebo/nocebo effect will give results that the "practitioner" wants.  There are many different versions of the test.  Here is a pic with me showing another method (balance strength) used by scammers.  The same principles apply in all the methods.


The founder of Forever Healthy is a former nurse who turned her back on science-based medicine and became an acupuncturist and a "doctor of natural medicine".  She cites Dr. Hamer as inspiration saying "That each cancer is controlled from a very specific area of the brain. At the same time each cancer is linked to a specific type of conflict shock (or bad news) that correlates biologically to this area in the brain that controls the cancer."   Yep, she seems to be saying that cancer is caused by bad news and is basically an allergic reaction.

This type of thinking is very dangerous.  If one was to influence someone with severe allergies (especially those who can have a deadly reaction) to seek unverified treatments, it could lead them to think they are cured and, let's say, a person with peanut allergy can, after only a session or two, consume peanuts!   Just as disturbing is that someone could forgo medical treatment for a treatable disease (like cancer) and could become terminal.

I would steer clear of places like this.  As suggested by immunologist Dr. Rex in regards to this treatment, this is as effective as a Magic 8 Ball.


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Additional info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neU32Pr8SCM  (the founder of Forever Healthy's teacher. Many of the practitioners at FH have sought out the same teacher)
https://www.facebook.com/DebbieCarrollSatoriMoments/   (the founder's facebook page which shows loads of quackery nonsense links and such)


Monday, January 14, 2019

EMP pads/PEMF Snake-Oil?

The worst thing about these quack devices is that they can delay people in seeking evidence-based cancer treatments.

"The EMP pad, in my opinion, is a typical quack device – it is sold with wishy-washy structure-function claims and vague claims of dramatic health benefits. It uses sciencey jargon about resonance and magnetic fields, the appeal to nature fallacy, and irrelevant references to scientific studies that don’t even come close to establishing their claims."

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pulsed-electromagnetic-field-snake-oil/

Saturday, January 12, 2019

MLMs and Essential Oils

Essential Oil proponents often spout miraculous claims about using these products.  Many are just anecdotes and have little to no actual evidence basis.   Check out these three videos from Genetically Modified Skeptic about this very thing

This is Why MLMs Get Called Cults  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeDHHt26ibQ

Young Living Essentials is an Obvious Scam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CYDon4jhic

The Cult I Almost Joined https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsDrIAsVgTQ