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Insulin potentiation therapy (IPT) is an unproven alternative cancer treatment using insulin as an adjunct to low-dose chemotherapy. It was promoted by a paper in the controversial and non-peer reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses. It is not an evidence-based cancer treatment, and the costs of IPT are not covered by health insurance.
Magnetic therapy is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice involving the weak static magnetic field produced by a permanent magnet which is placed on the body. It is similar to the alternative medicine practice of electromagnetic therapy, which uses a magnetic field generated by an electrically powered device. Magnet therapy products may include wristbands, jewelry, blankets, and wraps that have magnets incorporated into them.
Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term quack is a clipped form of the archaic term quacksalver, derived from Dutch: kwakzalver a "hawker of salve" or rather somebody who boasted about their salves, more commonly known as ointments. In the Middle Ages the term quack meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares at markets by shouting to gain attention.
Stephen Joel Barrett is an American retired psychiatrist, author, co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch. He runs a number of websites dealing with quackery and health fraud. He focuses on consumer protection, medical ethics, and scientific skepticism.
Quackwatch is a United States–based website, self-described as a "network of people" founded by Stephen Barrett, which aims to "combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct" and to focus on "quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere". Since 1996 it has operated the alternative medicine watchdog website quackwatch.org, which advises the public on unproven or ineffective alternative medical remedies. The site contains articles and other information criticizing many forms of alternative medicine.
Max Gerson was a German-born American physician who developed the Gerson therapy, a dietary-based alternative cancer treatment that he claimed could cure cancer and most chronic, degenerative diseases. Gerson therapy involves a plant-based diet with coffee enemas, ozone enemas, dietary supplements and raw calf liver extract, the latter was discontinued in the 1980s after patients were hospitalized for bacterial infections.
Royal Raymond Rife was an American inventor and early exponent of high-magnification time-lapse cine-micrography.
Metabolic typing is a pseudoscience whose proponents believe that each person has a unique metabolism, and that the proportion of macromolecules which are optimal for one person may not be for a second, and could even be detrimental to them.
Gary Michael Null is an American talk radio host and author who advocates pseudoscientific alternative medicine and produces a line of questionable dietary supplements.
William Donald Kelley was an American orthodontist who developed "non-specific metabolic therapy," an alternative cancer treatment, now known to be ineffective, which he based on his personal belief that "wrong foods [cause] malignancy to grow, while proper foods [allow] natural body defenses to work."
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) is a claimed sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, to which adverse symptoms are attributed. EHS has no scientific basis and is not a recognized medical diagnosis, although it is generally accepted that the experience of EHS symptoms is of psychosomatic origin. Claims are characterized by a "variety of non-specific symptoms, which afflicted individuals attribute to exposure to electromagnetic fields". Attempts to justify the claim that EHS is caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields have amounted to pseudoscience.
Lorraine Jeanette Day was an American author, orthopedic trauma surgeon and Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital and promoter of alternative cancer treatments.
Alternative cancer treatment describes any cancer treatment or practice that is not part of the conventional standard of cancer care. These include special diets and exercises, chemicals, herbs, devices, and manual procedures. Most alternative cancer treatments do not have high-quality evidence supporting their use and many have been described as fundamentally pseudoscientific. Concerns have been raised about the safety of some purported treatments and some have been found unsafe in clinical trials. Despite this, many untested and disproven treatments are used around the world.
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into patients and effect positive results. The field is defined by shared beliefs and practices relating to mysticism and esotericism in the wider alternative medicine sphere rather than any sort of unified terminology, leading to terms such as energy healing, vibrational medicine, and similar terms being used synonymously. In most cases, no empirically measurable "energy" is involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy. Practitioners may classify their practice as hands-on, hands-off, or distant wherein the patient and healer are in different locations. Many approaches to energy healing exist: for example, “biofield energy healing”, “spiritual healing”, “contact healing”, “distant healing”, therapeutic touch, Reiki, and Qigong.
Live blood analysis (LBA), live cell analysis, Hemaview or nutritional blood analysis is the use of high-resolution dark field microscopy to observe live blood cells. Live blood analysis is promoted by some alternative medicine practitioners, who assert that it can diagnose a range of diseases. There is no scientific evidence that live blood analysis is reliable or effective, and it has been described as a fraudulent means of convincing people that they are ill and should purchase dietary supplements.
Myers' cocktail is an intravenous (IV) vitamin therapy. It lacks much scientific evidence to support its use as a medical treatment. The term, Myers' cocktail, is included in Quackwatch's index of questionable treatments.
Radionics—also called electromagnetic therapy (EMT) and the Abrams method—is a form of alternative medicine that claims that disease can be diagnosed and treated by applying electromagnetic radiation (EMR), such as radio waves, to the body from an electrically powered device. It is similar to magnet therapy, which also applies EMR to the body but uses a magnet that generates a static electromagnetic field.
Seasilver is the trademarked name of a commercial dietary supplement produced and sold by the companies Seasilver USA, Inc. and Americaloe, Inc.
The Oasis of Hope Hospital is a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico providing alternative cancer treatments to its customers. The clinic was founded by the physician Ernesto Contreras. After his death in 2003, the management of the hospital was taken over by his son, Francisco Contreras, and nephew, Daniel Kennedy.
References
- 1 2 Stephen Barrett, M.D. (27 July 2010). "Questionable Cancer Therapies". Quackwatch . Retrieved 1 September 2013.
- ↑ (subscription required)New, Kevin (21 February 2003). "Bogus electromagnetic device firm shut down following probe". Medical Device Daily. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016.
- 1 2 Stephen Barrett, M.D. (1 March 2004). "Zoetron Therapy (Cell Specific Cancer Therapy)". Quackwatch . Retrieved 1 September 2013.
- 1 2 "Zoetron Cell Specific Cancer Therapy". BBB Business Review. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
- ↑ "Questionable Cancer Practices In Mexico". American Cancer Society. 1 November 2008. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
