Where I wish quacks would CEASE to fleece the parents of autistic kids

Someone on Twitter brought the CEASE “therapy” to my attention and suggested I read the book. That is not going to happen, unless he sends me a free copy, as I have this aversion to supporting quacks monetarily. So instead I went Googling and found the CEASE Therapy site.

Where to start on such a target-rich environment? The first statement on the site is absolute pure nonsense:

That is Dr. Smits’ conclusion after having seen over 300 cases of all levels of severity. In his experience autism is an accumulation of different causes and about 70% is due to vaccines, 25% to toxic medication and other toxic substances, 5% to some diseases. With isotherapy (see below), a form of homeopathy using the causative substances themselves in homeopathic preparation, the toxic imprints can be erased.

You have to be kidding me. Where is the control part of it? Which group of children who do not have autism did Dr Smits use in his observations and how large? This sounds like someone is trying to convince prospective customers that a set of anecdotes equals data. It just does not work that way.

Would someone also kindly enlighten me precisely how Dr Smits arrived at his results that “autism is… about 70% is due to vaccines”? What tests were performed to detect which substances and how were they determined to cause autism? What are these “toxic imprints” and how are they detected?

The next statement that caught my attention was:

CEASE therapists are trained during a 5 day course, given by certified CEASE therapy instructors, to guarantee the high quality of treatment and to ensure the correct application of this method.

A whole 5 day course? I bet that is some intensive, since real therapy courses can last up to 4 years full time.

Then they tell the prospective dupe errr… customer that their treatment uses something called “isotherapy.” This is described as “using the causative substances as a homeopathic remedy.”

This means that since Dr Smits believed – without any real evidence I could see – that vaccines are toxic, these preparations are vaccines diluted so many times that no original molecules can be left. They also add to this Classical homeopathy, which is meant to work on the similar principles, but it uses more substances than just vaccines, some of the more weird being the Berlin Wall, Vacuum and English Sunshine. The remedy in essence is just diluted water (or diluted water sprinkled on a sugar pill), and as such, completely inert. It will have no biological activity on the human body.

The next statement makes it clear we’re no longer even hypothetically dealing with medicine, but have entered the realms of magic:

Even illness, medication and vaccination in the energetic field of the father and mother before pregnancy can be transmitted to the child by energetic transfer.

What is the “energetic field”? What is “energetic transfer”? What is the energy involved in it? How is it detected and measured? How are vaccines and medicines transferred by it?

The people who run the website would not be able answer these questions, since what they are promoting is a faith-based belief.

In addition to homeopathy, comes orthomolecular “medicine”:

Along with the isopathic treatment we also add orthomolecular medicine to properly nourish the brain of these children and to restore proper bowel function.

Orthomolecular “medicine” is a form of quackery that prescribes megadoses of vitamins and nutrients, particularly of vitamin C, for various illnesses. It was popularised by Linus Pauling, who thus showed pretty conclusively that winning the Nobel Prize does not confer expertise in an area the Nobel winner has not thoroughly studied. Its basic concept is that if a little of something is good for you, then a massive overdose of that same something must be even better for you. What the proponents neglect to tell you that even vitamin C, though water-soluble, can with certain rare conditions be deadly as it can cause fatal nephrotoxicity. Other vitamins and minerals can have even more severe toxicity, and there have been cases where children have died from overdoses of vitamins D and E and from multivitamin formulas. Nowhere on the site did I see any warning about the dangers of such treament with vitamin overdoses.

What is also interesting is that homeopathy is the polar opposite of orthomolecular “medicine”. Homeopathy relies on diluting the substance into nonexistence and orthomolecular relies on massive overdoses. I’m not surprised that the proponents of this kind of irrational treatment are unable to see the basic discrepancy between the two modalities, and fail to understand even the admittedly irrational principles behind both.

And, of course, as with all the charlatans, the use of anecdotes abounds, since quacks without fail resort to anecdotes when they don’t have any science to back their claims. A brief perusal through the anecdotes reveals a few interesting things. First of all, Smits – or whoever wrote the anecdotes – appears to believe that autism is the complete cessation of development. This is not the case, as autism is simply developmental delay, not developmental stasis. The following case history shows clearly what is going on:

He has been vaccinated according to schedule from three months on. Apart from the DTPP/HIB and MMR he also received the Meningococ-C vaccination. I decide to detoxify both the MMR and the DTPP/HIB and to give three series of a month each of every shot. The MMR series lead to violent reactions and seemed to aggravate his autism, but after each DTPP/HIB series he clearly improves. Contact has increased, he looks you in the face, makes jokes and engages in question and answer games. Language comprehension improves and he displays a more extrovert attitude.

I prescribe three additional short series of the MMR as well as three of the DTPP/HIB. I don’t see him again until a year later. The series have had much effect. He talks a lot more and contact has greatly increased. Things no longer obsess him. He has found his place in the family. Serious behavioral disorders no longer exist. Before detoxification he would often spend hours in a corner of the room turning the wheel of a toy car. At times, he still flutters when very excited. His developmental retardation has not been fully restored, neither his motor skills or his cognitive abilities are up to par. His speech is somewhat staccato. Playing with other children than his sister still proves to be problematic at times. Now, after a meal he is satisfied, whereas before he continued eating.

The child is developing naturally, as can be expected, and the quack is taking credit for what his nostrums had nothing to do with at all. Moreover, as is clear from the case, the child is by no means “recovered” despite the claim of “a very effective way to treat autism with amazing results”.

This potentially dangerous nonsense does not come cheap either. Most of the registered CEASE practitioners were more than a little coy about their prices, but one posted them on her website. She cites £95 for the first appointment which lasts 1-2 hours and then £70 for follow-up appointments lasting up to one hour. Given that this protocol would demand multiple appointments before the parents finally give up on it when it does not work – unless the practitioner can convince them that natural changes were caused by their “treatments” – it is going to be a nice little earner.

It really makes me angry to see such worthless quackery promoted to vulnerable people. It’s giving people false hope while dipping deep into their pockets. Were I a parent with a child on the ASD spectrum, I’d never subject my child to such an unproven protocol.

Burning stupid quotes collection

All of these quotes come from just one person, who obviously buys into anything, no matter how flawed, as long as it is “alternative” – including mutually exclusive claims.

The quotes have not been edited in any way except to remove any references to other people than me and clean up some profanity.

“You get too caught up in the science steelclaws, needing to know why it works to verify that it does work. If something works, it works – no scientific explanation necessary. This is the way of the user, who tries things to see if they work, don’t need to know the scientific details. After all if it doesn’t work, no scientific evidence is any good, and if it does, no scientific evidence is necessary.”

“Well, try and follow my drift genius, if you take hormones to put the calcium back into the bones, then it stands to reason that if the body needs calcium it draws hormones from the bones.
Logical yes? (ie allopathic *** logic)”

“Now where did I read that hereditary health problems were 5% genetic and 95% diet?”

“Well guess what, I don’t care if I don’t get the details right.”

“But bacteria and germs are different, aren’t they? Polio, diptheria and measles are germs, not bacteria.”

“We don’t know much about gravity ***. For instance, if the earth is spinning you would think everybody and everything would fly off, but it doesn’t. This is just one of those anomalies that we take for granted.”

“OK, within the earth are huge pools of water that slowly fill up to a point then overflow. when they overflow they often come in contact with sulphurous compounds that when united with water, they become volatile, expand and look for a route of excape. When they escape they heat up surrounding rocks and the force blows molten rock and lava out of the crevice.”

“Make that base compounds of unknown type that react with water.”

“Apparently the water causes the chemicals to become volatile and expand, rushing through some cavernous cracks and moving rocks as it goes, causing friction and heat. Whatever.”

“I can imagine how there could be bumps and mountain building from an expanding earth. ie if an expansion caused a crack and magma was pushed up through it. You lot need to read more widely, not just your geology mags and what fits in with  preconceived theories either.”

“Physics is dumbed down because it suppresses all ideas of free energy and teaches the dumbed down version of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which says that energy can only come from fossil fuels.”

“There are certain concepts such as relativism and the 2nd law of thermodynamics which are wrong, deliberately falsified to keep people unaware of certain discoveries.”

“For one thing the laws of thermodynamics and electrodynamics are full of holes and need a complete overhaul, which is recognised by many advanced physicists.”

“That’s right, the law of physics has been “cooked”, like every facet of our society it is manipulated so the power elite can gain total control. Not only has free energy been suppressed since Tesla discovered it, but the laws of physics are false.”

“Lt Col Tom Bearden, physics trained person in the US Navy (probably retired) says that there is weather modification going on for years using scalar electronic devices invented by Tesla back 100 years ago. So whether weather modification is caused by HAARP or other means, such as chemtrails or scalar electronics, how they do it is secondary to the fact that its going on.”

“Since I don’t understand physics its a matter of finding somebody who supposedly does, and who’s opinions I can relate to in other ways.”

“So you admit you have a cat then and your cat drinks alcohol?”

“If something doesn’t make sense, its crap. If something is true the common people will recognise it.”

“Science should never put itself higher than commonsense.”

“I’ve heard about The Bay of Pigs fiasco, it was some sort of psyop the US was committing against Cuba – I forget the details.”

“Yes, the term “quack” was invented by AMA’s fishbein, way back in 1930 when he first came up with his strategy to eliminate the competition.”

“You wouldn’t be able to see everything that was in blood sts puzzle over everything in the blood. They can’t tell viruses, fungii and bacteria from each other in some instances, letalone little bits of stuff floating around. You wouldn’t know what happens inside a cell because they are too small and mysterious to study.”

“Its common knowledge that cancer spreads when they cut people open.”

“I couldn’t give a flying f*ck about scientific evidence. I can’t even read the f*cking crap on pubmed. its not for the everyday person.”

“Where do I find these studies …pubmed? Sorry I don’t know how to use it …either how to put in the search terms or read the results.”

“True, if you can’t explain your points in basic english they’re probably lies.”

“There’s nothing unscientific about cellsalts, they’ve been a regular part of naturapathy and alternative medicine for 150 years.”

“Pure speculation is my evidence.”

“There is no evidence that there is no evidence.”

“Over my head *** — I haven’t done chemistry. How I usually proceed is to try a product and see if it works. I just assume that a manufacturer wants repeat sales and understands the chemistry behind their product. Its all done for me ***, by the manufacturer.”

“I have read most of the links I gave, and while I don’t understand the science behind them, am assured that other more scientific types have thought of all the objections.”

“I don’t think the experts DO understand the nature of gravity, OR anything much else concerning the makeup of the earth / planets or how they’re made or rules that govern anything more than measurement and weight.”

“Let’s just say that while I don’t know much, the “experts” and the “reliable sources” don’t know much either.”

“***, they’re are people who are expert in reading historical documents, they’re called archaelogists.”

“Were there past ice ages? They say things but they mightn’t be true and further, there is a hell of a lot of things about the history of planet earth which are kept from people, like previous civilisations which were at least as advanced as ours. Maybe they did something to set off ice ages by violating some laws.”

“My world is where I think for myself and only accept that which I understand and which I can see a cause and effect relationship.”

“Placebo is a word only used by allopathic medicine to explain any phenomena that defies their science.”

“I saw a documentary of Carl Sagan and he said that there was a high mathematical probability of life existing on other planets other than earth. There are other parts of the universe that are billions of years older than earth and there is no reason to believe they wouldn’t have some form of life on them. Also it is logical to presume that there are more highly advanced beings in the universe than earthlings. Therefore, it naturally follows that iridology is reasonable diagnostic tool.”

“The body doesn’t use enzymes to alkalise your food – it uses alkalising minerals.”

“But surely the pancreas doesn’t manufacture bicarbonate out of thin air. It would need to be supplied in the diet in the first place.”

“If the earth isn’t hollow ***, where did the aztecs take all the gold when they disappeared into the mountain and were never seen again?”

“It seems that outbreaks of disease occur when there isn’t proper sanitation and proper standards of hygiene.”

“Vaccination has caused many epidemics.”

“I heard that Margaret Thatcher had something to do with fluoridation of Ireland’s water supply.”

“But on the other hand, sodium fluoride did originate as a mind control drug used in nazi germany to keep inmates docile and easy to control. And there are no actual studies that show its beneficial effect on tooth decay.”

“You don’t believe that the pharmaceutical business with disease is an offshoot of nazi germany’s IG Farben? “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” I can show you all the information in the world, but you will continue to deny, deny, deny.”

“I’ve heard that TB is associated with calcium deficiency. Malaria is associated with sodium sulphate deficiency.”

“I’m quite confident I could get rid of malaria with cellsalts – well not eliminate once and for all, but eliminate the symptoms on an ongoing basis. The treatment would need to be kept up continually..”

“I have also heard that some plugs in the arteries are caused by lack of vitamin C, ie a type of scurvy.”

“Also for stinky urine. When you go through the city sometimes when you walk down an alley you can smell stinky urine – this is potassium deficiency.”

“I have an idea that many of them are joined together by some tunnels that travel at very fast speeds.”

“Even during plages and outbreak of disease homeopathic practitioners have had more success than allopaths.”

“And there is an interesting story on how homeopathy used to be the standard until rockefeller made his moves, and that is what has given modern medicine its respectability.”

“Well I don’t know about the actual figures, but some sources say they are pretty awful. also some of the treatments are more deadly than the actual cancer, so if the person doesn’t die from cancer they die from the chemo.”

“We know the traditional japanese don’t get cancer – I don’t know about other countries.”

“Everybody knows that no plane hit the pentagon and the supposed muslim highjackers all had their identities stolen and were alive and living in other countries at the time.”

“Autism is an auto-immune disease. There is no autism in the amish population or the home schooled that aren’t vaccinated.”

“Yes, bacteria are both the cause and the result of toxins.”

“Both – firstly, everybody has germs, bacteria, microbes in their bodies which then mutate when the conditions are right. Remember that germs are nature’s undertakers and return what is dead or dying back to the soil. But also they excrete toxins, so it is a cycle.”

“Antibiotics get rid of the bacteria? I think that the bacteria are only there in the first place because the person has putrefying matter in their bloodstream.”

“In reality, the soil theory is the only game in town. The germ theory is the downhill slide to chronic ill-health.”

“The only reason the germ theory gained prominence was due to backing of industry barons way back in the 1800s. They saw a way to make money from it but not from the soil theory where a pure bloodstream kept a person healthy. Can’t sell that to anybody so they went with the germ theory and all their poisons to oppose symptoms. ie antibiotics to kill bacteria, fungicides to kill fungus, pesticides to kill parasites etc.”

“I don’t know what you think is so bloody marvellous about discovering it was a bacteria that caused stomach ulcers, when the cure is merely to correct the diet regardless of the cause.”

“Perhaps estrogen is a pharmaceutical invention designed to sell more drugs.”

“Why do you think old people end up with osteoporosis? Its because their body has to borrow from the bones to detoxify and de-acidify when the diet is faulty.”

“Maybe if medical science knew a bit more about nutrition, people wouldn’t get diabetes in the first place.”

“I know nothing about diabetes so I can’t comment.”

“Not that I know what all these diseases are and whether they are acquired, transmitted or hereditary – but for whatever is left over I’d say they were related to deficiency symptoms. So you just put your foot in it there … “

“If I swallow a cupful of sand, does that treat my silica deficiencies? I tried taking sand once, but it didn’t alleviate any silica deficiencies. I only took a little bit to see if it did anything, but it didn’t.”

“People are underweight due to not enough minerals, they cannot digest their food properly without adequate minerals.”

“People who contract lice are calcium deficient for starters, and then they have lots of acid in their bodies which is sodium (bicarb) and potassium (cream of tartar) mainly to treat (taken orally to neutralise acid in the body).”

“Did you know that fruit and vegetables aren’t very good for people? This is because shortly after eating them, they are expelled out the other end, which proves that the body can’t make use of them.”

“Silica and silicon seem to be the same mineral from what I can tell – sometimes it is called one and sometimes another. I can’t tell the difference.”

“Plate Tectonics is easily falsified. It fails in its essential logic …in its doublethink …and in the consensus that drives it”

“Tesla was responsible for many great discoveries, including radio, television, fluorescent and neon lighting, helicopters, lasers, particle beams and alternating current.”

“Remedies that can’t be patented make no money for drug companies.”

“Communism was invented by the illuminati to cause “order out of chaos”.”

“You have heard haven’t you that AIDS is a secret eugenics weapon manufactured in the US? No? Boyd Graves found the flowchart that shows how it was derived from sheep visna virus in a laboratory in the US. There is a cure too, but they’re keeping it under wraps.”

“When there is so much speculation about alien or extraterrestrial life, why the heck would you make up a page of pure nonsense about catching and cooking them? You have cast yourself as a flippant, light weight researcher on a topic that a lot of people take quite seriously, and not without reason.”

“Well no I don’t need to provide evidence to support a claim that cellsalts work. You need to provide evidence that your science hasn’t been manipulated.”

“It takes me a long time to figure out what I know …many years in some cases.”

“My sources are always valid. What is more valid than the word and experience of the people?”

“Anecdotal evidence can be more reliable than scientific studies.”

“Don’t knock astrology. If its done competently it can be very revealing.”

“I don’t need to know the breakdown chains to know when I am calcium deficient idiot.”

“If the earth is hollow the inside space just gets bigger. Think about it.”

“There are many astrological and meteorological scientists around the world who say there is not one shred of scientific evidence to support global warming.”

“If you watch the spook shows, you will see that manipulating perceptions is a fine art.”

“No ***, there is often counter-evidence so your “evidence” becomes non sequitur, once again only stopping when you reach the conclusion that suits your establishment pawn mindset.”

“However, science has come a long way since then, and the Russian theory of abiotic oil is backed up with lots of scientific literature, it is no longer a theory but established fact.”

“IOW he just goes along with things and doesn’t realise his option to be part of the evolving process of evolution to redefine life, right?”

“Sorry steelclaws, it has already been established that autism is due to environmental factors, not genetics.”

“I’m not going to concede that the effect of homeopathy is imaginery. What I will concede is that science has been manipulated to rule out the aether theory, and this is one thing we don’t know much about. It is one theory that homeopathy works by the spirit of the substance rather than the material, meaning that every living or even animate objects have spirit behind it. The effects that homeopathy produces then act on the spirit at a deep level rather than the physical body and can bring about changes in the psyche as well as the spirit. The rules of how the aether works haven’t been worked out and there maybe certain things which preclude it from working such as influence of skeptics or other.”

“Sorry, you’ve lost me. What is iron lung for?”

“No, I can’t exactly explain what toxemia is – partly I am joining the dots between things I know and things I don’t.”

“That was just an example of how two things can be mutually exclusive yet not.”

“But you don’t need proof that underground lakes exist. Why wouldn’t they? I read about it in a book on the hollow earth theory.”

“After all if this technology was widely known it would ruin the megalithic power mongers who run the planet.”

“As I said, all science begins with hypotheses. To disallow any hypotheses is anti-democratic.”

“Evolve means to break down, to degenerate …only a moron would think it meant anything else.”

“If there was a cheap solution for cancer that couldn’t be patented, they would go out of business.”

“Personally, I think that there should be more commonsense and less statistical analysis.”

“Inside the atoms are prions which are little electrical charges things that bounce around, really forms of energy of some sort.”

“Since I don’t understand chemistry your response is meaningless.”

“Hey mate. If I recommend a textbook on a topic, does that mean I understand everything in it? What is this, the inquisition or something?”

“I don’t know much about the mechanism of cancer, just what I read in altie websites, that they become aerobic ie the cells begin to live without oxygen.”

“I would go so far as to say that most blokes are only capable of groupthink. From my experience working with blokes I would say they are poor simple bastards, who are incapable of thinking for themselves and just go along with the system, and are incapable of thinking about women any other way except as sex objects.”

“The white people are the only ones with enough brains to understand that the world is way past being overpopulated.”

“No, I listen to no-one unless it fits in with what I know.”

“I read stuff from any source and will get quotes from anywhere. The exception is skeptics and anti-alternative health sources.”

“That’s true, I generally don’t read anything that disagrees with my views.”

“You both take pharmaceutical drugs, so your opinions don’t count.”

“I am the person who invented logic and reasoning.”

And since I don’t believe in the pharmaceutical take on things, my information is superior in many ways to these “experts”.

“I do know better than the doctors on some things.”

“You may be an INTJ but I bet you weren’t born on the “Day of the Problem Solver” which is my birthday. So you see it is in my psychological profile. Also it says that people born on this day are experts in matters of health – so that is in my profile as well.”

“I have lost interest in communicating my hard fought theories to other lesser beings.”

“Yes, I mightn’t have scientific qualifications but already, without having any, I have figured out so many cures for diseases that are supposedly incurable.”

“I make more sense than anybody in this goddam group.”

“And I’m only a logic thinking person, but mind you I have been on cellsalts for many years which may have helped to detoxify my brain to an extent.”

“Please read the evidence I give and do not question the evidence.”

“I will decide for myself what is approved and what isn’t.”

“That’s not true. I have re-discovered the pure blood vs toxemia theory.”

“We all know that the illuminati / new world order wants to dumb down the  population and thus make them easier to feed nonsense without it being detected. Any treatment / protocol that causes loss of cognitive abilities the illuminati are the first suspects, whether it be vaccines that cause autism or fluoride that causes docility.”

“Dumbed-down more refers to people who get an education without realising the information has been doctored to exclude certain ideas the illuminati want to keep to themselves.”

“Conventional medicine has it all wrong, which is a plan by the evil controllers to rort, pollute, desecrate and destroy anything they can get their hands on. Pasteur was one of their men and has mislead medicine for the last 150 years.”

“Is global warming really happening? This is what I am saying, that it really isn’t happening but is being used as a mantra for public consumption to explain away weather abnormalities which are really CLANDESTINE WEATHER MODIFICATION. They can cause drought, ruin crops, cold snaps to destroy stone fruit crops, hurricanes to destroy banana plantations etc.”

“So-called incurable disease as asthma I have the cure, but I will not give it away to my enemies. I have worked so hard to find these cures and I wouldn’t want to cure anybody who I deem to be my enemy.”

“The only evidence that would make me think the earth WASN’T hollow, would be if all the coverups and suppression of inventions stopped — but that’s not likely to happen in a hurry.”

“There would obviously have to be a conspiracy about geology because there’s one for everything else.”

“The people with a vested interest in maintaining the molten iron core of the earth, are the ones who control the teaching of science.”

“The US government isn’t what you think it is. Back in 1871 there was a legal manouvre whereby a corporation called “THE UNITED STATES” was formed in Columbia. Somehow this corporation took over the US and the original US and works to further its own interests rather than those of the people.”

“Free energy is a suppressed technology. There are patents for free energy devices that don’t rely on fossil fuels, wind power or solar power. Now, if these free energy devices are suppressed so effectively, what makes you think that conventional medicine is right?”

“The reason some alternative remedies are dropped isn’t because they don’t work, but rather they don’t fit the mindset of the ruling elite. Anything that challenges their supremacy is a threat and put down. Why would you assume that because therapies are dropped because they don’t work?”

“The reason no evidence that homeopathy works has never been produced is probably because the technology is classified for reasons of national security.”

“That’s not right. Marxism is communism and Islam is a religion. What is really going on is that the illuminati want to start WWIII, a course which was worked out in the 1800s. There was to be three world wars, the object of which was to make people so sick of war they would submit to one world rulership (under the UN).”

“Yes, all research all rigged. Researchers are only ALLOWED to research along certain lines, and no cure will be permitted if it doesn’t help pharmaceutical profits.”

“But Winston Churchill was an illuminati pawn who encouraged the bombing of London and escalation of WWII.”

“Other lies are that there is no such thing as free energy, and another lie is that nuclear reactors produce waste that doesn’t break down for thousands of years. The technology has proceeded to where any waste is broken down in a very short time, maybe weeks but of course this is kept from the public.”

“I’m also thinking of doctors who are derided and harrassed for not following the company line and using alterntive remedies. Such people as Hulda Clarke, Royal Rife and Reich for starters, but there are plenty of others.”

“I only know what I read from other websites about vaccinations. And you lot only know what you’ve been told by “reliable sources”.”

“oh and anybody who doesn’t believe in homeopathy is mentally defective / biased / a product of preconceived ideas.”

“Well yes, I have my theories and I do look for evidence to fit in with them, and I find it.”

“I realised it was actually much easier to think in conspiracy terms than continually try to rationalise why nothing ever added up and to go along with all the crap the public are fed, by “experts” and “reliable sources”.”

“If I have to read things like the organon I can, but why bother when there are so many books and articles available from people who have been there, done that?”

“If the orthopaths believe it, it is good enough for me.”

“It seems the little prick has no idea of proper decorrum.”

“Homeopathy is what is known as a vibrational remedy. When the solution is shaken it separates the spirit from the substance and it is the spirit that becomes the active ingredient.”

“The rules of how the aether works haven’t been worked out and there maybe certain things which preclude it from working such as influence of skeptics or other.”

“Maybe James Randi knows about the electromagnetic ability (No.1 above) to neutralise homeopathy, and passed some sort of magnet over the samples in the homeopathy experiment.”

“I think it is obvious that either a) James Randi’s negative attitude changed the results, or b) he did something to interfere with the outcome as James Randi is a magician who would be aware of any tricks of the trade to neutralise a positive result.”

“Note in the following all the homeopathic studies work EXCEPT where james randi is present.”

“You make your own reality. What you concentrate on you bring into being.”

“Here is an interesting link I’ve found about how mining and taking of petroleum products and so forth from the earth is responsible for much earth upheavals and so forth, and is against the lawful treatment of a planet.. It derived from communications a chap called Billy Meier had with extraterrestrials.”

“And you ***, spend so much time following the Little Pebble case and why for Pete’s sake. So he conned a few people, so what? People get conned every day over different things. And the parents of the girls should have figured it out to some extent, why aren’t you down on them? Even the girls themselves between them perhaps could have figured it out. And what real harm was done, so Little Pebble seduced a girl or two. I can’t understand your obsession with the case.”

“If a person is prepared to pay such high prices they deserve to be ripped off.”

“Nobody listens to me, nobody gives me the benefit of the doubt – all allopaths trained in pharmaceutical medicine.”

“You debunk a lot, but don’t say what you believe in. Its ok to knock stuff but you’ve also got to have some ideals or beliefs of some sort.”

“Science doesn’t have a problem but scientism does ie consensus science which is a type of clayton’s science, the science you’re having when you’re not having real science.”

“They recruit likely students out of university and do mind control on them somehow, some sort of suggestions and objectives they are to follow. Don’t ever remember that happening? No, they would probably have removed the event/s from your memory.”

Why Francine Scrayen never had a chance of curing Penelope Dingle

Francine Scrayen bills herself as Classical Homeopath. Classical homeopathy is defined as “a form of homeopathy in which the remedy consists of highly diluted animal, drug, plant, or mineral substance that most closely matches the essence of the malady and the totality of symptoms.” The only homeopathic remedy that is mentioned in the coroner’s report is Plumbum, or Lead. Scrayen does not mention which dilution she used, but she does say that “…there is no physical of it there any more,” which would be any dilution beyond 12C, as per Avogadro’s Limit. A little more of what this means later.

Let’s take a little closer look at this “remedy”. The one she most likely used would be Plumbum met. This preparation is recommended for a multitude of conditions, the critical ones here would be constipation and abdominal pain. I could find no recommendation of it for colorectal cancer – for a good reason, most homeopaths do not want to expose themselves to criminal charges.

Scrayen claimed during the inquest that she did not know Penelope had cancer, but this claim is anything but believable. She admitted that she had received Penelope’s MRI report and read it, though claiming that she had not discussed medical terminology “…because I do not know anything about it”. Now I’m not a MD, let alone a radiologist, and I would need to see Penelope’s MRI report to know what exactly it said, but if the words ‘metastatic’ or ‘tumour’ appeared in the report, even a layman can understand those, or look them up in a medical dictionary. So what is Scrayen? Is she completely clueless and read the MRI report only for show or did she understand what it meant and went on to treat Penelope’s cancer with homeopathy anyway? Neither option leaves her looking competent or trustworthy.

Let’s talk a little about homeopathy and its efficacy (ok, I know most of you will know all this already, but some might not). Homeopathic remedies are commonly sold in dilutions from 3C to 200C.  This means a drop of the mother tincture is diluted by 99 drops of water, succussed (banged) on a hard but elastic surface (homeopaths claim succussion will ‘activate’ or ‘potentize’ the substance). The end result would be 1C dilution. Then a drop of this dilution is taken, again diluted with 99 drops of water and succussed again. This process is repeated until the desired dilution is achieved.

When the dilution reaches its 12th stage, Avogadro’s Limit kicks in. At this point there is likely not a single molecule of the original substance left. 12C is not, however, the most used dilution. The inventor of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, formulated the so-called Law of Infinitesimals and believed that the more diluted the preparation was, the more effect it had. He therefore recommended 30C as the most useful remedy in most cases. At 30C the original substance has been diluted by a factor of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, and there are no longer any molecules of the original substance left. It is just water at that stage.

Modern homeopaths try to explain this little problem away by “memory of water” or quantum mechanics – the last of which they clearly do not understand in the slightest. No scientific evidence exists for the memory of water claim, since double-blinded experiments failed to reproduce Benveniste’s original claimed results. Moreover, liquid water does not maintain ordered networks of molecules for longer times than a small fraction of a nanosecond. Talk about bad Use Before dates!

The next question is, naturally, how do homeopaths know which preparation to select for which symptom? Classical homeopathy diagnoses by symptoms alone, as Hahnemann recommended (See Hahnemann’s Organon, § 1-6). Hahnemann formulated what he called The Law of Similars, after a dose of Peruvian bark, a source of quinine, which was used in treating malaria gave him malaria-like symptoms (it is known that an allergy to quinine will produce the results Hahnemann experienced and a non-allergic person will not get the same reaction). Hahnemann went on experimenting with various substances to see what kind of symptoms they would produce in a healthy individual and to assign the remedy for a condition that most closely resembled the symptoms.

Homeopaths still use this kind of testing, called “proving” and it does not resemble a clinical trial at all. The new substance to be tested is sent to a manufacturer of homeopathic preparations where it is duly diluted and succussed. The batch is sent back to the master provers with a single vial of pure water (ok, all of them are pure water, I know) as the control. This is inadequate as the placebo arm, to say the least. The next stage is to distribute the vials of the preparation to the provers, who then for several days or weeks keep a diary of any symptoms and dreams they may experience. Yes, I said dreams. Dreams are apparently major evidence for what the homeopathic remedies can do. Once the proving period is ended, the master provers collect the diaries and prepare a list of symptoms the provers have recorded. The preparation is then judged to be good for those symptoms. The New York School of homeopathy recently proved Musca domestica, the house fly. The proving summary is quite eye-opening, a less scientific and convincing testing is very difficult to imagine.

When all of the above is taken into consideration, it becomes clear why Francine Scrayen had no chance of ever curing Penelope Dingle of her cancer. She was using  a preparation which had no original substance left, and it was one which even the homeopaths did not recommend for what Scrayen, judging from the available evidence, knew was cancer. Moreover, the remedy was based on unsubstantiated speculation and assigned to a condition by pure guesswork and imagination. Penelope Dingle was doomed the moment she decided to trust something as useless as homeopathy.

Who was Penelope Dingle and why what happened to her matters

Penelope Dingle was an Australian woman. She was 45 years old when she died of colorectal cancer on 25th August 2005. Without wishing to sound callous, people do die of cancer. What makes her case remarkable is that she was not given any chance to survive.

At the time of her death, Penelope Dingle was being treated by homeopath Francine Scrayen. Scrayen forbade Penelope to take even painkillers for her extremely painful condition and was treating her with homeopathy alone. You can read Penelope’s own words for what she went through. Penelope at last, after all that intense suffering sought medical help, but by then it was far too late. The coroner’s report makes this clear:

Professor Platell described the pain associated with such an obstruction as extremely severe and arising from a combination of pain from the tumour causing blockage of the bowel, but also the tumour invading adjacent organs. He stated that the tumour was invading the cervix, the uterus, the left ovary and retroperitinal structures causing severe pain and in addition there was an “incredibly distended large bowel, almost to the point of splitting” which would cause even more severe pain.

Professor Platell explained that during the following procedure it was necessary for him to remove the cervix and uterus as well as the ovaries and the bowel from the pelvis as well as the fallopian tubes. The large intestine above the blockage was completely full with between 1½ and 2 kgs of faeces which had to be washed out prior to rejoining the large intestine.

Professor Platell was extremely disappointed as after the initial investigations and assessments it seemed that the deceased had a potentially curable rectal cancer which had been contained within the rectum and was then not invading adjacent structures. He believed that if the deceased had followed the initial treatment course she would have had a good chance of curing her disease.

It was not possible to remove all the cancer during the surgery and so the procedure was essentially a palliative operation, in that there was still residual tumour left in the pelvis.

So it is clear that Penelope’s reliance on homeopathy is directly responsible for her cancer to have gone from potentially curable to no longer easily treatable. What was Francine Scrayen’s part in this? This is what the coroner’s report has to say about her conduct:

Although Mrs Scrayen stated that she had completed a first aid course with St John Ambulance Service, she stated that it was a “very basic” course and that her understanding of medical issues was relatively poor.

Mrs Scrayen’s records reveal very regular contact with the deceased over 2001 and 2002 and then in 2003 extremely regular contacts. During 2003, for example, Mrs Scrayen’s notes, which the evidence indicated were not entirely comprehensive, reveal a total of 109 different days on which she had contact with the deceased up until mid October. In the months of July, August, September and October she had contact with the deceased almost every day.

In my view the number and extent of these contacts was grossly excessive for any legitimate professional interaction and provided evidence of an increasing unhealthy dependence of the deceased on Mrs Scrayen and her homeopathic remedies and treatments.

In evidence Mrs Scrayen stated that she was not purporting to treat the cancer to the exclusion of medical treatment and that there was no reason why medical treatment and homeopathic treatment could not be administered at the same time, except where the medical treatment might cause the homeopathic picture to become “blurred or antidoted”. This claim was entirely inconsistent with the account of the deceased as recorded extensively in her diaries and contained in her unsent letter [the one linked to above] addressed to Mrs Scrayen dated 29 November 2004.

Mrs Scrayen claimed that she did not purport to treat the deceased’s cancer and said that she had no knowledge that the deceased had a belief that she was advising that homeopathy could provide a cure for cancer.
I do not accept this claim by Mrs Scrayen, whom I did not generally regard to be a witness of truth.

It is clear from the evidence of many witnesses at the inquest some of which is detailed in these reasons that the deceased did believe that she was being treated by homeopathy for her cancer and repeatedly said so. In my view Mrs Scrayen could not have been in any doubt as to that issue, particularly in the context of their multiple interactions in relation to her treatment. In addition the fact that the deceased was telling people at the time that she was relying on homeopathy to cure her was recorded in notes written at the time such as the Silver Chain Nurse entries referred to earlier.

So there you have it. Scrayen was doing her level best to deny that she had been treating Penelope’s cancer, but her denial is not believable.

And what was the verdict?

Apart from receiving limited and inadequate pain relief the deceased did not receive any medical treatment from a mainstream medical practitioner over the latter part of this period and relied on the treatments provided by Mrs Scrayen. Mrs Scrayen’s influence on the deceased played a major part in her decision making which contributed to the loss. Dr Dingle, her partner, insofar as he supported and assisted with Mrs Scrayen’s treatments and kept the deceased away from outside influences, contributed to that loss of a chance of survival. Ultimately, however, the decisions were those of the deceased, sadly those decisions were to a large extent based on misinformation.

During the period in 2003 while the deceased was relying on the treatment provided by Mrs Scrayen, not only did she lose whatever chances of life she had, she suffered extreme and unnecessary pain. Evidence at the inquest was to the effect that had surgery been performed earlier much of that gross pain would have been avoided.

This situation was made even worse by the fact that Mrs Scrayen’s advice to the deceased was that she should avoid or take a minimum of pain reducing medications. The deceased accepted this advice and only reluctantly used minimal analgesia.

I find that the death arose by way of natural causes but in the circumstances described above.

This is why what happened to Penelope Dingle matters: she relied on people who had either no or very limited medical training, no diagnostic ability or training and an unfounded belief in the treatments they used on her. As the coroner said, she was misinformed by the very people she trusted and on whose advice she relied on.

There are lots of people like these around: they write books, they have slick websites where they sell their treatments, they appear on podcasts and DVDs or YouTube clips. Don’t rely on their advice alone, ever. If someone claims they can cure cancer, AIDS or any other life-threatening condition with a secret or “alternative” treatment, don’t believe their claims. Always ask for a qualified medical opinion. There is no conspiracy out there to suppress cancer cures, that is just marketing hype by the snake oil salesmen. And every life lost to their worthless treatments is a life too many.

Aftermath

Penelope’s sister is now suing Francine Scrayen.

Scrayen, on her part, is also involved with law, though in her case she’s using lawyers to silence a blogger. The sheer gall of that woman is unbelievable! Her part in the death of Penelope Dingle is undeniable – though she certainly tries to deny it – and now she’s concerned about her reputation. What reputation can she have left after the coroner’s report is beyond me.

Here’s my personal challenge to you, Ms Scrayen. Please show where anything I’ve written in my blogpost about the case of Penelope Dingle is in any way incorrect and does not reflect the real events. Please have your lawyer to check it over to see if you have a case.