No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  “So long as we propound the ‘One cause, one cure’ rhetoric of Innate, we should expect to be met with ridicule from the wider health science community,” he said.46 “Chiropractors can’t have it both ways. Our theories cannot be both dogmatically held vitalistic constructs and be scientific at the same time.”

  Even with modern revisions and fewer mystical practices, chiropractic medicine is no more effective than other manipulative therapies—such as physical therapy and massage—and it’s sometimes much less safe. Chiropractic can be a safe complementary technique when it is practiced carefully and in an extremely limited manner, but it becomes pseudoscience when its proponents claim that disorders of the neuromusculoskeletal system greatly affect general health.

  MISCELLANEOUS FAITH-HEALING PRACTICES

  While chiropractic and acupuncture receive a strangely high level of acceptance, even among mainstream medical practitioners, they aren’t the only faith-healing systems on which people rely. Some other practices with smaller followings, such as therapeutic touch (TT), enjoy a position that affords them even less public scrutiny. TT, also known as healing touch therapy, teaches that every person has an energy field and that its practitioners are able to heal because they are somehow able to be sensitive to it. It is yet another form of mysticism/placebo healing that has been debunked at almost every stage of scientific inquiry. One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that practitioners of therapeutic touch couldn’t detect the presence or absence of a hand (or its “energy field”) placed a few inches above theirs when their vision was obstructed.47 In interpreting those results, Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst concluded in their 2008 book Trick or Treatment that “the energy field was probably nothing more than a figment in the imaginations of the healers.” The American Cancer Society has also weighed in on TT, saying, “Available scientific evidence does not support any claims that therapeutic touch can cure cancer or other diseases.” This is simply another addition to the pantheon of modern woo beliefs that so many people subscribe to, often out of gullibility and/or wishful thinking.

  Certain faith-healing practices are stranger than others. Some people believe, for instance, that the key to good health lies in “quantum entanglement.” Perhaps taking advantage of the fact that quantum mechanics is often misrepresented and misunderstood, proponents of quantum entanglement healing say your quantum information energy (QI) gets intertwined with other QI and causes big problems that can be fixed for a fee.48 Still others believe a special type of “slapping” therapy can cure everything from diabetes to breast cancer. Hongchi Xiao, a self-proclaimed healer in China, charges $1,800 for a week-long alternative medicine workshop that includes slapping, fasting, and stretching. This system, which often leaves patients with several lasting bruises, reportedly led to the death of a seven-year-old diabetic boy from Australia in 2015.49

  Whether you’re researching traditional faith healing, chakra alignment, Reiki, or the restorative power of cupping, which utilizes suction cups on the skin,50 it’s important to know about alternative “cures” because unsubstantiated and false medicinal claims can be dangerous. Regardless of which faith-based practice a person chooses, if it hasn’t been proven to have healing properties, they run the risk of significant harm if not used in conjunction with established, demonstrably effective medical care. In the United States, this problem is compounded by the fact that nearly every state has a law that, to some extent, keeps parents from being held responsible for medically neglecting their children—as long as they have some religious or spiritual justification. This is supposed to promote religious freedom, but states like Idaho,51 Arkansas, and West Virginia have broad exemption laws that allow parents to effectively murder their children without legal consequences.52

  Some say more children die in Idaho due to faith-based religious neglect than in any other state.53 The Gem State drew national attention in 2016 when it was revealed that five children died unnecessarily due to religious-based medical neglect three years earlier. Since then, some legislators have tried to repeal the state’s deadly faith-healing statute, which allows parents to choose prayer over medical care without consequence, but they have so far been unsuccessful. Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, who is himself a Catholic, has announced his intentions to change the law. He formed an investigative unit at his sheriff’s department to probe the death of every child connected to the Followers of Christ, a small Christian sect that, much like Christian Scientists, champions faith-healing and opposes modern medicine. Some people who grew up in the church say it was “violently abusive both physically and mentally,” and others defend the group, but either way one thing is clear: if there is even a single preventable death as a result of this “religious freedom” statute, and there have been many, then the law should be changed. These are children who can’t protect themselves, or choose for themselves, and we are allowing them to die because their parents don’t believe in medicine. This is something that needs to change.

  Robert W. Tuttle, who serves as the David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and Religion at The George Washington University Law School, says most states “have much narrower exemptions for faith healing.”

  “These narrower laws provide an exemption only in cases in which the child is not seriously harmed,” Tuttle told Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.54 “Moreover, even when exemptions protect parents from criminal prosecution, they still allow courts to impose other penalties, such as ordering that the child receive medical care or removing the child from the parents’ custody.”

  CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST

  While many people believe in faith healing, one group has made a successful religion out of the idea. Members of the Church of Christ, Scientist, a sect of Christianity founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, claim that their religion’s practitioners can heal wounds in an instant with nothing more than the power of prayer. The church’s website includes healing accounts by people around the globe who say they’ve been cured of cancer, infertility, depression, drug addiction, and even unemployment. Many believers, misleadingly referred to as “Christian Scientists,” use their healing system as their first choice over legitimate medical treatments, including drugs and life-saving surgeries. They believe in following what they regard as the example of Jesus, bringing the real or ideal man more clearly into thought and consequently into human experience. Christian Scientists believe that Jesus was “the Wayshower,” in perfect resonance with the Christ Consciousness, a proof by example of the divine method of healing sin, sickness, and death. According to the Christian Science belief, there are no limits to the type of medical conditions that can be healed through prayer—and that includes healing of physical wounds and even resurrections.

  After researching this Christian denomination’s “spiritual healings,” I took a trip to the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist, in Los Angeles to see for myself. I sat down with a Christian Science Reading Room attendant, who chose to remain anonymous.5556

  McAfee: Do you think it’s possible that some of what you call “healing” is actually explained by your own mind, perhaps through simple distraction methods or the placebo effect? How do you know it’s different from a natural process?

  Attendant: We distinguish between the brain and God because of the clarity with which God communicates.

  McAfee: Have you ever seen any healings for yourself, first hand, of a physical ailment? For example, have you witnessed spontaneous limb regeneration of an amputee, or the resurrection of a corpse?

  Attendant: I do know—I didn’t actually see it as it happened, but my mother’s friend was a Christian Science practitioner and her sister passed away and was resurrected by the sister. I saw the sister afterward but I wasn’t there to see the actual situation.

  McAfee: And are there reports of similar resurrections that you hear from other believers?

  Attendant: Oh yeah.

  McAfee: My hesitation is t
he fact that, if there were resurrections happening, people might be more aware of it. It would be in the media; it would be recognized by scientists. I figure every doctor, if they know that they could resurrect somebody, they would do that and they would become Christian Science practitioners. They would no longer be medical professionals but church employees.

  Attendant: You would think so. Several things to that effect. One is, it’s not an everyday occurrence, so it’s not like it’s happening all the time. Two, we, Christian Scientists, tend to be very quiet and private about things and so, when you’re working through a physical problem, you tend not to make it terribly well known. We have 125 years of written healings written in books in the Reading Room, but we don’t tend to put them out there so people don’t pick up on them.

  McAfee: But isn’t that what the religion wants to do, is put itself out there to try to get people to see that they can do this? You don’t want to keep it all to yourselves, do you? If I were a Christian Science practitioner and I were capable of bringing people back to life, I would be at hospitals, resurrecting people right there. I wouldn’t be just charging when people call up, I would be doing it to help my fellow man. There’s never been a record of anything like that. It seems like that would be something that is really prevalent.

  Attendant: You’re right, and I don’t even really know why it’s not so prevalent. Although practitioners are going to hospitals. In fact, you’ve reminded me of when I was teaching in the mountains. One of our students, in the middle of the night, ran the car into a tree and wasn’t supposed to live—through the night even. And his parents were off in Europe, so they weren’t even around to help. He was in the hospital, and this was years and years ago so I don’t remember all the details, but he was in the hospital for easily a month or two and his parents came home fairly quickly and they were Christian Scientists and there was care going on all the time. They worked it all through. For one thing he lived through the night, then there was all this surgery, then he wasn’t supposed to walk, then he wasn’t supposed to do this, that, and the other thing. All of those were met, ultimately. That kind of thing actually does happen. Again, we don’t stand on the corner hollering and screaming about it. Practitioners are in the practice of Christian Science full time, so that is how they live. They deserve to be paid like doctors or anyone else.

  McAfee: If you personally lost a finger, your thumb fell off today, and you knew for a fact that there was a Christian Science practitioner one mile away that you could see and there was also an emergency room a mile away where they could reattach your thumb, which one would you go to?

  Attendant: That’s a very good question and I’m not quite sure. I would have to be in the situation to know for sure. My first thought would be my own prayer, dealing with it right away. Fear sometimes gets in the way of prayer and takes over your thinking, and so the fear would be what would lead me one way or the other, probably. Unless I was really feeling confident that, yes, this is a healing happening, and then I would probably call the practitioner first. And then see if I was feeling like this isn’t working and I needed something more immediate, then I’d potentially go to the emergency hospital.

  “The exposé of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers.”

  —Carl Sagan

  NOTES

  1. “Hinn’s Healings?…,” Let Us Reason Ministries, www.apologeticsindex.org/h04.html.

  2. Sarah Bailey, “Televangelist Benny Hinn Has Been Admitted to the Hospital for Heart Trouble,” Washington Post, March 25, 2015.

  3. Jennifer LeClaire, “Battling Throat Cancer, Rod Parsley Shares the Battle Against His Mind,” Charisma News, October 21, 2015, www.charismanews.com/us/52753-battling-throat-cancer-rod-parsley-shares-the-battle-against-his-mind.

  4. John Wimber and Kevin Springer, Power Healing (New York: Harper Collins, 1991).

  5. The phrase “alternative facts” would later be coined by President Trump’s representative Kellyanne Conway in her defense of a false statement made by the White House regarding inauguration attendance.

  6. There are many different forms of “prayer,” including some that resemble deep thought or even meditation. For the sake of this chapter, however, we will be discussing petitionary prayer through which the believer seeks real changes in the physical world via a request to a deity.

  7. T. J. Kaptchuk et al., “Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” PLoS One 5, no. 12(2010): e15591.

  8. Steve Stewart-Williams and John Podd, “The Placebo Effect: Dissolving the Expectancy versus Conditioning Debate,” Psychological Bulletin 130, no. 2 (March 2004): 324–340.

  9. Alberto Gallace and Charles Spence, “The Science of Interpersonal Touch: An Overview,” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 34, no. 2 (2010): 246–259.

  10. Usha Srivastava, Encyclopaedia of Indian Medicines (Pinnacle Technology, 2011), 5–6.

  11. Matthew 12:22–32, 3:20–30; Luke 11:14–23.

  12. Matthew 9:32–34.

  13. Matthew 9:27–31.

  14. Faith Karimi and Joe Sutton, “Police: Maryland Mom Kills 2 of Her Children during Attempted Exorcism,” CNN, January 19, 2014.

  15. “Exorcists to Ted Cruz: ‘Leave Your Power-Hungry Demonic Soul!’” AOL.com, February 9, 2016, www.aol.com/article/2016/02/09/exorcists-to-ted-cruz-leave-your-power-hungry-demonic-soul/21310147/.

  16. Guillaume Sébire, “In Search of Lost Time from ‘Demonic Possession’ to anti–N-methyl-D-aspartate Receptor Encephalitis,” Annals of Neurology 67, no. 1 (2010): 141–142.

  17. Josep Dalmau et al., “Clinical Experience and Laboratory Investigations in Patients with Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis,” Lancet Neurology 10, no. 1 (2011): 63–74.

  18. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1673.

  19. Katie Jagel, “ Poll Results: Exorcism,” YouGov, September 17, 2013.

  20. I have since been diagnosed with cervicocranial syndrome and I’m undergoing regular treatment.

  21. Bartosz Chmielnicki, “Acupuncture—Definition,” Evidence Based Acupuncture, www.evidencebasedacupuncture.org/acupuncture/acupuncture-definition/.

  22. Brian Palmer, “If Your Veterinarian Offers Acupuncture, Find a Different Vet,” Slate, May 5, 2014, www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/05/alternative_medicine_for_pets_veterinarians_should_not_perform_acupuncture.html.

  23. David Colquhoun and Steven P. Novella, “Acupuncture Is Theatrical Placebo,” Anesthesia & Analgesia 116, no. 6 (2013): 1360–1363.

  24. Steven Novella, “An Industry of Worthless Acupuncture Studies,” Science-Based Medicine, August 26, 2015, www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/an-industry-of-worthless-acupuncture-studies/.

  25. Jun J. Mao et al. “Electroacupuncture versus Gabapentin for Hot Flashes among Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial,” Journal of Clinical Oncology (2015): JCO-2015.

  26. Eleanor Webber, “Acupuncture and HIV: The ‘New’ Weapon in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS,” Acufinder Magazine, Summer 2007.

  27. Ting Bao et al., “Patient-Reported Outcomes in Women with Breast Cancer Enrolled in a Dual-Center, Double-Blind, Randomized Controlled Trial Assessing the Effect of Acupuncture in Reducing Aromatase Inhibitor-Induced Musculoskeletal Symptoms,” Cancer 120, no. 3 (2014): 381–389.

  28. R. Barker Bausell, Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  29. Ben Goldacre, “Trial sans Error: How Pharma-Funded Research Cherry-Picks Positive Results [Excerpt],” Scientific American 13 (2013).

  30. M. Baum and E. Ernst, “Should We Maintain an Open Mind about Homeopathy?” American Journal of Medicine 122, no. 11 (November 2009): 973–974.

  31. “ ‘Overdose’ Protest against Homeopathy,” BBC News. January 30, 2010.

  32. “More Details Arise on Parents Charged with
Homicide in Child’s Death,” Rocket-Courier, June 11, 2015, www.rocket-courier.com/node/141065#.VX111HD3aK0.

  33. James Gallagher, “Homeopathy ‘Could Be Blacklisted,’” BBC News, November 13, 2015, www.bbc.com/news/health-34744858.

  34. “Position Statement: Homeopathy,” Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, May 2015. www.racgp.org.au/download/Documents/Policies/Health%20systems/PPI-PositionStatement-Homeopathy-v1.pdf.

  35. One case is Kim Allen et al. v. Hyland’s Inc. et al., case number 2:12-cv-01150, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

  36. Chris Baggoley, Review of the Australian Government Rebate on Natural Therapies for Private Health Insurance (Canberra: Australian Government Department of Health, 2015), www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/phi-natural-therapies

  37. Edzard Ernst, “A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews of Homeopathy,” British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 54, no. 6 (2002): 577– 582.

  38. Klaus Linde et al., “Impact of Study Quality on Outcome in Placebo-Controlled Trials of Homeopathy,” Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 52, no. 7 (1999): 631–636.

  39. Daniel Redwood and Carl S. Cleveland III, Fundamentals of Chiropractic (St. Louis, MO: Mosby, 2003).

  40. “Historic Release of Data Gives Consumers Unprecedented Transparency on the Medical Services Physicians Provide and How Much They Are Paid,” press release, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Baltimore, MD), April 9, 2014.

  41. Clay Jones, “Chiropractic Vs. Conventional: Dueling Perspectives on Infant Colic,” Science-Based Medicine, September 13, 2013, www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/chiropractic-vs-conventional-dueling-perspectives-on-infant-colic/.

  42. S. Vohra et al., “Adverse Events Associated with Pediatric Spinal Manipulation: A Systematic Review,” Pediatrics 119, no. 1 (2007): e275–e283.