Scots doctors caught up in miracle cancer cure claims | Herald Scotland

This story originally appeared here: Scots doctors caught up in miracle cancer cure claims | Herald Scotland, where you can still read it and, theoretically at least, comment on it. I have emphasised some passages in the text, as it seems to suggest Young isn't the only one likely to face disciplinary action.

Robert Young is also known as Robert O. Young and frequently uses the title "Doctor". He has a previous conviction for practising medicine without a licence.

The story is also discussed here, with some of the commenters being medical specialists in the appropriate field (unlike the Campbell-Danesh couple)

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Scots doctors caught up in miracle cancer cure claims

An American facing criminal charges after falsely claiming to cure cancer has been given glowing internet testimonials by the Glasgow doctor parents of singer Darius Campbell-Danesh.

STAR LINK: Darius Campbell-Danesh with his parents.

Robert Young will appear in a California court today on 18 charges of theft and "treating the sick without a certificate" at his alternative retreat near San Diego.

Among other offences, the 63-year-old, who believes in the "pH Miracle" of avocado juice, is accused of taking more than $50,000 from a man dying of cancer, treating him without a licence and then asking staff at his centre not to tell the patient his disease had spread. The man subsequently died.

Mr Young, who made his name with best-selling books advocating a "pH diet", denies all the charges and insists he is the victim of persecution for his non-traditional beliefs. He has published a series of video testimonials from contented patients, including Mr Campbell-Danesh's parents, GP Avril Campbell and retired gastroenterologist Booth Danesh.

The accused, who refers to himself as Dr Young, citing a PhD from an alternative medicine college, tried to use the two ­Scottish doctors' credentials to support his treatments.

In his blog, he described Dr Campbell as a "world renowned specialist oncologist and research scientist". Dr Campbell herself, in her video testimonial, said she was an oncologist at Glasgow's Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre. She does work at the ­Beatson, as a speciality doctor, but is not officially registered with the General Medical Council as anything other than a GP.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde yesterday distanced itself from the endorsement of Mr Young's brand, pH Miracle Living, with sources stressing that she was speaking in a purely personal capacity. A spokeswoman said: "The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre has not heard of this product and in no way would endorse or support it."

Dr Campbell declined to comment when approached by The Herald. However, she sets out her support for Mr Young in three videos. She described how she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent "gruelling" chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She says she felt much better at Mr Young's centre on his trademark regimen of green foods, including avocado juice.

Watch the videos below

"I have no more pains," she said after 14 days on the treatment. She also said she now believed that she had a cancer in her thyroid, adding that a cyst discovered had seen a "measurable" reduction during her treatment. She added that she was going back to Scotland "to share my knowledge with colleagues and patients".







Dr Danesh featured in four videos, including one in which he is interviewed by an associate of Mr Young who describes him as "one of the most accomplished physicians and lecturers in Europe with a prominent role serving the Queen and Kingdom".









Dr Danesh, who has also survived cancer, retired from Stobhill Hospital a decade ago and is no longer licensed to practise medicine, according to his General Medical Council records. He said: "I wish Dr Young good luck". Both Dr Campbell and Dr Danesh filmed their videos about Mr Young and his methods in 2013, before the California practitioner was indicted early this year. Mr Young has a 1996 conviction for attempting to practise medicine without a licence.

Dr Campbell and Dr Danesh, who owns a firm offering medical services at his Bearsden address, are understood to have spent some weeks at Mr Young's retreat.

Mr Young has published a photograph on his blog of all three raising glasses of green liquid. The caption reads: "Dr Avril and Dr Booth have stated that Dr Young's research is revolutionary and should be taught to every medical doctor and integrated into every research, clinic and hospital around the world."

The American's books, including The pH Miracle and Reverse Cancer Now, have been widely condemned as pseudoscience.

Mr Young faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted. His indictment names six terminally ill patients who have all died. He charged one of them more than $120,000, according to detailed court papers.

His lawyer Paul Pfingst has previously said all the patients were aware that Mr Young was not a registered medical doctor. "People with a terminal illness can select how they want to be treated for the end of their days," the attorney said.

A Scottish cancer specialist contacted by The Herald said: "There is no way the Beatson will want to be associated with something like this."

Why homeopathy doesn’t work!…… Samuel Hahnemann gives the answer…(finally)

Many posts on this blog have highlighted the fact that homeopathic remedies, when tested in rigorous RCTs, are demonstrably nothing more than pure placebos. Homeopaths, of course, negate this fact but here is a surprising bit of new evidence that further confirms it – and it comes from the highest authority in homeopathy: from Samuel Hahnemann himself!

A well known psychic has been in contact with the great doctor who consequently has dictated a letter to her. Here it is (it came in German, but I took the liberty of translating it into English):

TO ALL HOMEOPATHS OF THE WORLD

I have been watching what you have been doing with my noble healing art for some time now, and I cannot hold back any longer. Enough is enough. You are all fools, bloody fools!

Sceptics and scientists and anyone else who can read the research that has been done with those ‘randomised trials’ that the allopaths are currently so fond of should know that homeopathic medicines, as you monumental idiots employ them, are ineffective. The results of these studies are perfectly true. Instead of asking yourself what you are doing wrong and how you are disobeying my most explicit orders, you insist on doubting that these modern methods generate the truth. How incredibly stupid you are!

Read the rest and other gems here: Why homeopathy doesn’t work!…… Samuel Hahnemann gives the answer…(finally)

Contains genuine statements by Hahnemann, in context.

National Secular Society - Yes, “faith schools” really are the problem

Politicians are in denial over the problems caused by "faith schools" and religious influence in education, argues Terry Sanderson.

The National Secular Society has been saying it for years – "faith schools" are a bad idea. And despite the events of the past few months in Birmingham, the simple message still hasn't got through to the politicians who are responsible for the education system: religious schools are the problem, not the answer. The Church of England is about to launch another great tranche of schools that they'll run but the taxpayer will pay for.

Under the Gove regime, with its promotion of academies and free schools, which give religious proselytisers virtual carte blanche to promote all kinds of questionable religious ideologies, the situation has worsened.

With a host of religious proselytisers out there desperate to get access to those pesky children who obdurately will not attend their churches and mosques, the free schools and academies are – in their terms – a God-send.

Read more here: National Secular Society - Yes, “faith schools” really are the problem

After being taken to task on Twitter for expressing the view that faith schools were (a) State-subsidised brainwashing and (b) psychologically damaging for those forced to attend them because the State cannot, or will not, provide children with places in secular schools, I reckon this article needs a wider audience

Why so many chiropractors advise against immunisation | Edzard Ernst

My 2008 evaluation of chiropractic concluded that the concepts of chiropractic are not based on solid science and its therapeutic value has not been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. It also pointed out that the advice of chiropractors often is dangerous and not in the best interest of the patient: many chiropractors have a very disturbed attitude towards immunisation: anti-vaccination attitudes still abound within the chiropractic profession. Despite a growing body of evidence about the safety and efficacy of vaccination, many chiropractors do not believe in vaccination, will not recommend it to their patients, and place emphasis on risk rather than benefit.

In case you wonder where this odd behaviour comes from, you best look into the history of chiropractic. D. D. Palmer, the magnetic healer who ‘invented’ chiropractic about 120 years ago, left no doubt about his profound disgust for immunisation: “It is the very height of absurdity to strive to ‘protect’ any person from smallpox and other malady by inoculating them with a filthy animal poison… No one will ever pollute the blood of any member of my family unless he cares to walk over my dead body… ” (D. D. Palmer, 1910)

D. D. Palmer’s son, B. J. Palmer (after literally walking [actually it was driving] over his father’s body) provided a much more detailed explanation for chiropractors’ rejection of immunisation: “Chiropractors have found in every disease that is supposed to be contagious, a cause in the spine. In the spinal column we will find a subluxation that corresponds to every type of disease… If we had one hundred cases of small-pox, I can prove to you, in one, you will find a subluxation and you will find the same condition in the other ninety-nine. I adjust one and return his function to normal… There is no contagious disease… There is no infection…The idea of poisoning healthy people with vaccine virus… is irrational. People make a great ado if exposed to a contagious disease, but they submit to being inoculated with rotten pus, which if it takes, is warranted to give them a disease” (B. J. Palmer, 1909)

Read more here: Why so many chiropractors advise against immunisation

Answers in Genesis on Biblical climate change

In a despairing attempt to cleanse my mind of the insanity propounded as fact by homeopaths, I have gratefully seized upon a link tweeted by @PHSJonas containing, er, a prime example of the insanity on climate change, aka global warming, propounded as fact by creationist Christians.

This particular sample of Stupid dates from 2010 and was detected on the outrageously moronic Answers in Genesis webshite. AiG is run by a smug, simpering bampot called Ken Ham, who self-identifies as a “global warming skeptic”. He and his cronies promote young-earth creationism, because the Bible. The Bible is, they say, solid scientific fact – despite all the very solid evidence to the contrary (see some of Dragonblaze’s posts for examples). All AiG’s arguments stem from that untenable premise. There’s even a hilariously fuckwitted rant by Ham in sour grapes mode over Bill Nye – US TV’s “Science Guy”, who comprehensively wiped the … Continue reading →

The post Answers in Genesis on Biblical climate change by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .

Who is to blame for all the measles? | The Poxes Blog

There’s a massive outbreak of measles underway in China. It’s big, really big:

“In the first five months of 2014, China has reported nearly 36,000 cases of measles, well over the 27,646 cases reported for all of 2013 and almost six times the number reported in 2012.”

In a country with that many people (over 1.3 billion at last count), 36 thousand cases may not seem like a lot. It’s 0.003%, but remember that we don’t do math that way in epidemiology. We divide 36,000 by the number at risk, and the number at risk is indicated by the number who are not vaccinated or have lost their immunity due to disease (e.g. cancer) or treatment for a disease (e.g. cancer, again). That number, the number at risk, is pretty much uncertain because the public health infrastructure in China is, well, lacking.

But this post is not about China. It’s about the good ol’ US of A. We have a somewhat robust public health system that, in my humble opinion and when it comes to immunization, is probably up there with the best in the world. There is no child in this country that does not have access to immunizations. If you have a child in the most remote corners of this country, you can get them vaccinated at little to no cost, especially against the killers like whooping cough and measles. So why do we have measles making a comeback here in the US? Is it just the anti-vaccine crew that have done this to us? (Don’t be fooled, it is us, you and me, that will be affected if vaccine-preventable diseases make a comeback.)...

Read the full story by Reuben on Who is to blame for all the measles? | The Poxes Blog

What really annoys scientists about the state of the climate change debate?

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” so the saying goes.

But what if that message warns we might want to rethink that whole fossil fuel burning thing pretty quick because it could seriously alter civilization and the natural world for centuries to come, and not in a good way?

Time to get the bullets out and start firing, obviously.

Climate scientists have been trying to dodge, catch or deflect those bullets for decades.

They are now all too used to being shot at, kicked and maligned as their findings are misunderstood, misrepresented, trivialised or booted around like footballs between politicians and other warring ideological factions and self-interested industry groups.

But if they had to pick one thing, what is it that really gets them annoyed?

When the public tries to understand the implications of their scientific findings – or just understand the findings themselves – what’s the most common mistake they see?

When the media gets hold of their findings, what makes climate scientists chuck a shoe, ice core or physics textbook at the screen in frustration?

 I decided to ask a few leading climate scientists from around the globe to articulate that one thing that leaves them totally tacked off.

Some struggled to pick only a single bugbear (one even called to apologise for taking too long, so spoilt for choice were they), others took the chance to uncompromisingly unload their frustrations.

Here’s what they had to say...

Read the rest on Skeptical Science: What really annoys scientists about the state of the climate change debate?

Water memory tests all wet: A reassessment of the Benveniste experiments by a D.V.M. | Association for Science and Reason

An issue of Ontario Skeptic contained a letter from Paul Greenwood, (“Science is open to radical, new ideas”) reporting on the “water memory” experiments of Dr. J. Benveniste, and offering the publication of these experiments as evidence of the willingness of the scientific community to examine new and unconventional ideas.


As most skeptics will realize, the claim that solutions can retain their effect when diluted many times, and indeed that the effect increases with dilution, is one of the fundamental tenets of the fringe medicine of homeopathy, but runs contrary to current knowledge in chemistry and biology. The results of this experiment, if validated, would therefore have lent credence to the claims of homeopaths.

However, additional information has come to light which forces us to reassess this research and its publication.
The initial report appeared in the June 30, 1988 issue of the British journal Nature, Vol. 333. Its results were sufficiently unusual that the editor of Nature began that issue with an editorial titled, “When to believe the unbelievable”. It is worth quoting extensively from that editorial...

Water memory tests all wet: A reassessment of the Benveniste experiments by a D.V.M. | Association for Science and Reason

Laurie J Willberg exposes the skeptic agenda

It’s looking remarkably like the brains – if you’ll excuse the expression – behind the Extraordinary Medicine webshite is none other than Laurie J Willberg. She certainly writes a helluva lot for it: long rambling posts that any other blogger would split up into several separate ones. An extreme example of this is the would-be satirical exposé entitled Media Skeptics : A Popcorn Gallery, which would provide enough material for 3 or 4 normal posts, even for Orac. It’s got her name on the byline in the middle of it, so I assume the whole purulent screed is hers.

Now, remember: Ms Willberg claims to be a journalist. Therefore, the quality of her research and writing are both very much under scrutiny. Feel free to snigger in the comments, as there’s so much literary incompetence there’s no way I can encompass it all. To compound this, the meta info on the site boasts the keywords “literature, author, writing, entertainment, book, stories, narration, novel”. No, seriously. Go see for yourselves. Meanwhile, I’m … Continue reading →

The post Laurie J Willberg exposes the skeptic agenda by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .

Laurie J Willberg on the rebound effect

Homeopaths are great ones for a complete lack of self-awareness. Recently, a couple of notorious yapping dogs on Twitter gave us their considered legal opinions on this post about Ellen Kramer and her College for Practical Homeopathy: @BrownBagPantry @anarchic_teapot @JeromeJB It's the vile and libellous rant on his blog that's even more outrageous and slimy. — Laurie J. Willberg (@LaurieJWillberg) June 18, 2014 Hermann-Courtney, you’ll recall, is the unpleasant bit of work who tweets that homeopathy can cure rabies and cancer, and then complains bitterly about nasty bullying sceptics asking for evidence. Laurie J Willberg crawled out of the woodwork a few months ago. As I recall, her first tweet to me was an insult. Not complaining, you understand; I don’t give a used anal condom over the opinion of the likes of them. Just setting the scene. That’s Laurie J Willberg there, from her Homeopathy World Community profile (HWC … Continue reading →

The post Laurie J Willberg on the rebound effect by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .

Meet the people who would dictate your health care - WWDDTYDTY

It’s time for the double-barrelled WDDTY-McTaggart spam shoot again. Seriously, what idiot imagined that sending subscribers to one list exactly the same emails from a second list they never signed up for was a smart marketing move? Oh, right, McTaggart. Who else?

McTaggart’s clearly getting jittery, and it’s everybody’s fault but hers that her precious monthly bundle of lies is under  attack. This is just in:

Meet the people who would dictate your health care

Dictate health care? Isn’t that a bit over the top? I haven’t seen anybody in Parliament sponsoring a Bill to prevent people refusing treatment, even for serious conditions, and opting for dumbfuckery.

Meet the people who would dictate your health care � WWDDTYDTY

Nancy Malik isn't even trying to feign good faith - Plague of Mice

While the Blessed McTaggart shrieks “VICTIMISATION” and publishes the names and addresses of random people, because Tesco have reportedly stopped stocking her monthly ill-spelt and worse-written compendium of criminal Stupid – not so much because of skeptic complaints, but because it wasn’t selling – other quacks are also quietly telling large porkies. Take that old favourite Nancy Malik, for example. She’s in fine form right now.

To recap: Nancy Malik claims to be a medical professional and proudly displays her qualifications here. Unfortunately, all her qualifications are in witch-doctoring, aka homeopathy, and therefore not only is she not a medical professional, her diplomas aren’t worth a monkey’s. Her blog is entitled Science-based Homeopathy, a clear attempt to ape the far more prestigious and reputable Science-based Medicine. The latter is a group blog, with a number of contributors who are internationally respected for being bloody good at what they do in …Continue reading→

The post Nancy Malik isn’t even trying to feign good faith by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice.

WDDTY goes “the full Errol” @ Guy Chapman's Blahg

They do say that one should always walk a mile in the other man’s shoes, but this is best not done when the other man is Error “Errol” Denton. WDDTY have, however, chosen to follow the convicted cancer quack down the road of declaring that any scrutiny of thier bogus claims is a personal vendetta, and to retaliate in kind. They don’t seem terribly happy that their rather obvious straw man was summarily demolished yesterday, and their response has been spectacularly vitriolic, not to say batshit insane.

MEET THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD DICTATE YOUR HEALTH CARE

Bzzzzt! Wrong. Our agenda is simple and straightforward...

Read the rest here: WDDTY goes “the full Errol” @ Guy Chapman's Blahg

It's official: WDDTY have lost - WWDDTYDTY

We have arrived at a turning point. Tesco have dropped WDDTY, and the editors know that this is the beginning of the end of their attempt to appear to be a legitimate magazine.he Facebook post captured at right, from WDDTY’s wall, where all dissenting views are ruthlessly excised because free speech. Notice two things:...

Read the full post here: It's official: WDDTY have lost - WWDDTYDTY

Lynne McTaggart and the botched smear campaign

It’s no secret that those who turn a dishonest buck by peddling fuckwittery to the bewildered masses are not above the ad hominem attack, sometimes coming close to outright libel. However, it takes a special kind of Stupid to smear people using doctored copies of images that are not in the public domain. WDDTY, get your arses up here to the front of the class. Do you deny that you recently produced this little gem of puerile whingeing?
Here is the only health information you’d be able to get if Simon Singh & co. http://t.co/7g0nEImESi #supportus pic.twitter.com/kYQcAiOsbc — Lynne McTaggart (@LynneMcTaggart) June 25, 2014
Which is a clumsy ‘shop of the photo here. You will notice that the photographer has reserved full copyright and has not activated licensing. Did you even try to contact him before using his work in a manner I suspect he would not have approved? I … Continue reading →

The post Lynne McTaggart and the botched smear campaign by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .