# Healing modalities **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 28, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471 "2016-03-28T16:58:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KnowMyStuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a88e57/32.png) [@KnowMyStuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KnowMyStuff)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/1 "2016-03-28T16:58:34Z")
Saw some INCREDIBLY uneducated comments about Rife in answer to a recent question. Royal Raymond Rife was another genious in the style of Tesla and he came to the conclusion in the 1920’s that if everything is energy (and that’s perhaps the ONLY thing that ALL scientists agree on) then if you could find the life frequency of a pathogen - you should be able to blow it up by hitting it at the same frequency under power. But how to prove it? In 1929 he built the world’s first microscope powerful enough to see a living cell and sat there with cancerous tissue under the microscope and a frequency generator. He slowly wound the frequency generator up until one day the cells got incredibly agitated and literally - blew up. Go on line and you can still find front page news articles with the top medical professionals of the time LINING UP to get their photos taken with him, and giving him accolades for the number of people he was curing of cancer. Then he was shut down by the pharmaceutical companies, but his legacy (and learniing) lives on. Is it a cure all? I don’t believe ANYTHING is but… consider this - more than 80% of the TERMINAL cancer patients i have treated in the last 6 years (given from 1-6 months to live by the hospitals) have been cleared BY theose hospitals as no longer having cancer. And NO side effects. So for the Rife detractors - hey, help yourself to the horrific effects of chemotherapy (at a 2.1% five year survival rate) and good luck to you. Getting the RIGHT Rife machine is exceptinoally important (of course) because there are any number of them out there that don’t work but don’t put it down without knowing what the hell you are talking about. I DO after 8 years in the military in nuclear, bacteriological, chemical, and electronic warfare (electronics being my sepeciality). ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/2 "2016-03-28T17:04:22Z")
I can’t help but notice your qualifications don’t include oncologist. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/3 "2016-03-28T17:23:39Z")
Has there ever been a gamechanging technology that was successfully suppressed for almost 100 years? Not just “only used by the elites”, but actually suppressed and not used at all and not believed to exist by anyone who has knowledge on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/4 "2016-03-28T17:23:40Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t believe ANYTHING is but… consider this - more than 80% of the TERMINAL cancer patients i have treated in the last 6 years (given from 1-6 months to live by the hospitals) have been cleared BY theose hospitals as no longer having cancer. And NO side effects. No doubt you can cite some of the case studies of this. Welcome to the SDMB, for, I don’t know, a week, tops. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/5 "2016-03-28T18:00:18Z")
Before you move on to further rants about this very important topic, can you do me a favor and explain what the hell “modalities” means? I’ve never heard this term from anyone who wasn’t peddling snake oil. Still haven’t gotten a straight answer as to what it means. It seems like a handy way to say “I’m smarter than you, so stop asking inconvenient questions”. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/6 "2016-03-28T18:16:50Z")
> [@KnowMyStuff](#): > > Royal Raymond Rife was another genious in the style of Tesla Being crazy like Tesla does not necessarily make one a genius like Tesla. Indeed, whether Tesla was all that much a genius is still open to some debate (and I’m deeply Team Nicola). > [@](#): > > and he came to the conclusion in the 1920’s that if everything is energy (and that’s perhaps the ONLY thing that ALL scientists agree on) This is very nearly nonsense, but even if we accept it as given, it doesn’t make anything that follows correct. To wit: > [@](#): > > then if you could find the life frequency of a pathogen There is no such thing. It is made-up claptrap. > [@](#): > > - you should be able to blow it up by hitting it at the same frequency under power. Also nonsense, with entirely spurious definitions of “blow it up,” "hitting, " “frequency” and “power.” > [@](#): > > But how to prove it? > In 1929 he built the world’s first microscope powerful enough to see a living cell and sat there with cancerous tissue under the microscope and a frequency generator. He slowly wound the frequency generator up until one day the cells got incredibly agitated and literally - blew up. Go on line and you can still find front page news articles with the top medical professionals of the time LINING UP to get their photos taken with him, and giving him accolades for the number of people he was curing of cancer. Then he was shut down by the pharmaceutical companies, but his legacy (and learniing) lives on. All of this is evangelical woo, fabricated from a wisp of reality and a truckload of religious desperation. > [@](#): > > more than 80% of the TERMINAL cancer patients i have treated in the last 6 years (given from 1-6 months to live by the hospitals) have been cleared BY theose hospitals as no longer having cancer. And NO side effects. If this is true, and of course I have no reason at all to think it is not, it is among the most earth-shaking discoveries in the history of oncology. Where have your results been published? Where can I read your methodology? How did you conduct your sampling? Or…wait. You _did_ actually follow empirical, scientific processes, right? I mean, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t have, since performing your treatments in a scientifically rigorous fashion, and then publishing your results in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal would result in astounding fame and fortune for you–and more importantly would save millions of lives. So obviously you didn’t just make shit up. Kindly provide DOIs for your research. > [@](#): > > chemotherapy (at a 2.1% five year survival rate) Nonsense. > [@](#): > > Getting the RIGHT Rife machine is exceptinoally important (of course) because there are any number of them out there that don’t work Riiiiight. All the rest of the bullshit snake oil is just crap, but Professor Farnsworth’s Miracle Sauce[sup]TM[/sup] is the real deal! > [@](#): > > but don’t put it down without knowing what the hell you are talking about. I DO after 8 years in the military in nuclear, bacteriological, chemical, and electronic warfare (electronics being my sepeciality). So, as already mentioned, no experience in oncology. Or medicine. Or biology. Or physics. Or, indeed, science. I shouldn’t hold my breath for that published research, huh? ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/7 "2016-03-28T18:17:42Z")
> **[Rife Machine Operator Sued | Quackwatch](https://quackwatch.org/consumer-education/News/rife/)** > > The Attorneys General of Wisconsin and Minnesota have sued to stop an unlicensed woman, Shelvie Rettmann, of Prior Lake, Minnesota, from representing that s ... > [@](#): > > Radionics is a pseudoscience based on the notion that diseases can be diagnosed and treated by tuning in on radio-like frequencies allegedly emitted by disease-causing agents and diseased organs. The theory behind it originated with Albert Abrams, M.D. (1864-1924), who developed thirteen devices claimed to detect such frequencies and/or cure people by matching their frequencies. Abrams made millions leasing his devices and was considered by the American Medical Association to be the “dean of gadget quacks.” He claimed: > > All parts of the body emit electrical impulses with different frequencies that vary with health and disease. > Illnesses—as well as age, sex, religion, and location—could be diagnosed by “tuning in” on patient’s blood or handwriting samples with one of his devices. > Diseases could be treated by feeding proper vibrations into the body with another of his devices. > During the 1950s, an FDA investigation showed that some of Abrams’s devices produced magnetism from circuits like that of an electric doorbell, whereas others had short-wave circuits resembling those of a taxicab transmitter [4]. Similar devices have been produced by many others and are still marketed today. > > One of Abrams’s many imitators was Royal Raymond Rife (1888-1971), an American who claimed that cancer was caused by bacteria. During the 1920s, he claimed to have developed a powerful microscope that could detect living microbes by the color of auras emitted by their vibratory rates. His Rife Frequency Generator allegedly generates radio waves with precisely the same frequency, causing the offending bacteria to shatter in the same manner as a crystal glass breaks in response to the voice of an opera singer. The American Cancer Society has pointed out that although sound waves can produce vibrations that break glass, radio waves at the power level emitted a Rife generator do not have sufficient energy to destroy bacteria [5]. Not to mention that bacteria don’t cause cancer… ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/8 "2016-03-28T18:37:41Z")
> [@KnowMyStuff](#): > > Saw some INCREDIBLY uneducated comments about Rife in answer to a recent question. Royal Raymond Rife was another genious in the style of Tesla and he came to the conclusion in the 1920’s that if everything is energy (and that’s perhaps the ONLY thing that ALL scientists agree on) then if you could find the life frequency of a pathogen - you should be able to blow it up by hitting it at the same frequency under power. When I was a kid I had a comic book that explained how Superman got his superpowers, which even as a kid struck me as dodgy, but it was a hell of a lot better “science” than that. The factual point to note here is that there is a history of people abandoning cancer treatments because of “Rife devices” sold as cures for cancer, and these people have died, leading to charges of health fraud including felony health fraud against the promoters. Some of these charlatans were quite properly sentenced to prison terms, but in my opinion not nearly long enough. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/9 "2016-03-28T18:39:00Z")
> [@KnowMyStuff](#): > > Saw some INCREDIBLY uneducated comments about Rife in answer to a recent question. Royal Raymond Rife was another genious in the style of Tesla and he came to the conclusion in the 1920’s that if everything is energy (and that’s perhaps the ONLY thing that ALL scientists agree on) then if you could find the life frequency of a pathogen - you should be able to blow it up by hitting it at the same frequency under power. But how to prove it? > In 1929 he built the world’s first microscope powerful enough to see a living cell and sat there with cancerous tissue under the microscope and a frequency generator. He slowly wound the frequency generator up until one day the cells got incredibly agitated and literally - blew up. Go on line and you can still find front page news articles with the top medical professionals of the time LINING UP to get their photos taken with him, and giving him accolades for the number of people he was curing of cancer. Then he was shut down by the pharmaceutical companies, but his legacy (and learniing) lives on. > Is it a cure all? I don’t believe ANYTHING is but… consider this - more than 80% of the TERMINAL cancer patients i have treated in the last 6 years (given from 1-6 months to live by the hospitals) have been cleared BY theose hospitals as no longer having cancer. And NO side effects. So for the Rife detractors - hey, help yourself to the horrific effects of chemotherapy (at a 2.1% five year survival rate) and good luck to you. Getting the RIGHT Rife machine is exceptinoally important (of course) because there are any number of them out there that don’t work but don’t put it down without knowing what the hell you are talking about. I DO after 8 years in the military in nuclear, bacteriological, chemical, and electronic warfare (electronics being my sepeciality). Nice fairy tale. Got cites? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/10 "2016-03-28T18:42:42Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Before you move on to further rants about this very important topic, can you do me a favor and explain what the hell “modalities” means? I’ve never heard this term from anyone who wasn’t peddling snake oil. Still haven’t gotten a straight answer as to what it means. It seems like a handy way to say “I’m smarter than you, so stop asking inconvenient questions”. There is a risk that you may not get an answer, inasmuch as the OP may be like that plop of bird poop you sometimes get on your windshield – a mere passing contribution by the author, who flies on to other things, though mildly annoying to the recipient. If this turns out to be the case, I might be able to help about “modalities”, as I know a Nigerian prince with whom I am currently working on certain confidential business arrangements, and this prince uses that word quite a lot. I’ll ask him about it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/11 "2016-03-28T18:46:18Z")
> [@KnowMyStuff](#): > > Saw some INCREDIBLY uneducated comments about Rife in answer to a recent question. _What_ recent question? I can’t find any mention of the fraud on this board before your brought him up in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![JohnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/848f3c/32.png) [@JohnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnM)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/12 "2016-03-28T19:17:18Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Before you move on to further rants about this very important topic, can you do me a favor and explain what the hell “modalities” means? I’ve never heard this term from anyone who wasn’t peddling snake oil. Still haven’t gotten a straight answer as to what it means. It seems like a handy way to say “I’m smarter than you, so stop asking inconvenient questions”. DrCube, modalities is perfectly cromulent as applies to different forms of cancer treatment; e.g., from [Merck Manual Modalities of Cancer Therapy](http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/hematology-and-oncology/principles-of-cancer-therapy/modalities-of-cancer-therapy): > [@](#): > > Treatment of cancer can involve any of several modalities: > > Surgery > > Radiation therapy > > Chemotherapy > > Hormonal therapy > > Immunotherapy Having had 4 of these 5 basic modalities of treatment in the past year, I’m uncomfortably familiar with the term. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/13 "2016-03-28T20:04:06Z")
As I see it, any claim that conflates the physicists’ definition of energy with biological feelings of health and vigor immediately flunks the woo test. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/14 "2016-03-28T20:20:14Z")
I do like how he mentions that you have to get the right snake oil, because there are lots of people with the wrong snake oil, which won’t work. Thing is, if you know the other guy has the wrong snake oil, why is he able to keep selling his bad snake oil? How does the patient determine which snake oil salesman has the right stuff and which one has the wrong stuff? The method we use to try to differentiate between bad snake oil that doesn’t work and good snake oil that does work is called “science”. We give some people the snake oil, we give some people a placebo, and then see if the patients treated with the snake oil get better. And we don’t tell the patients which treatment they’re getting and we don’t tell the doctors evaluating them either, so they don’t , you know, cheat. If at the end of the treatment the snake oil doesn’t help any better than a placebo, we know that the snake oil is bad snake oil. If the treatment works better than the placebo then we know…it’s a promising treatment that needs more tests. Thing is, if you had a magic box that cured cancer, how would you know it works? “I had cancer. I took the snake oil. My cancer got better.” You know, that might be true. But it doesn’t demonstrate that the snake oil works, it just demonstrates that you took the snake oil. I have a rock in my pocket that repels tigers. I’ve had it for years, and I’ve never been attacked by a tiger once. How much would you pay for my rock? Some people with cancer get worse. Some get better. And that’s without any treatment. So how do you know that your particular treatment works? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/15 "2016-03-28T21:05:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Thing is, if you know the other guy has the wrong snake oil, why is he able to keep selling his bad snake oil? How does the patient determine which snake oil salesman has the right stuff and which one has the wrong stuff? I know one way you can tell. If the peddlers of said miracle cancer cure are in prison for felony health fraud and their patients are dead, as they are in the case of this particular miracle cancer cure, it’s probably a good idea to get your cancer cure somewhere else, like an actual doctor. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/16 "2016-03-28T21:12:34Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Has there ever been a gamechanging technology that was successfully suppressed for almost 100 years? Not just “only used by the elites”, but actually suppressed and not used at all and not believed to exist by anyone who has knowledge on the subject. How would we know? 😕:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/17 "2016-03-28T21:25:38Z")
> [@KnowMyStuff](#): > > I DO after 8 years in the military in nuclear, bacteriological, chemical, and electronic warfare (electronics being my sepeciality). Are you saying that you’re giving treatments to cancer patients using some sort of machine that causes tumors to literally blow up? And if I asked you why you’re qualified to blow up my tumors, you would tell me that you have eight years in the military with a background in nuclear, bacteriological, chemical, and electronic warfare? Are you a physician? Osteopath? Radiologist? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/18 "2016-03-28T22:46:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > _What_ recent question? I can’t find any mention of the fraud on this board before your brought him up in this thread. Probably picked up an energy burst from [this thread or post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18489157&highlight=rife+cancer#post18489157). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/19 "2016-03-28T22:52:38Z")
> [@KnowMyStuff](#): > > - more than 80% of the TERMINAL cancer patients i have treated in the last 6 years . . . YOU have treated? I would think that those people would be ecstatically singing your praises. All you need to do is get them to publish their before-and-after medical records, demonstrating that, (barring an _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_ issue, of course), they were sick and are now healthy. (Doctors and hospitals are bound by HIPAA rules, but patients are not, so there should not be any problem acquiring and publishing those records.) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471/20 "2016-03-29T00:54:33Z")
> [@JohnM](#): > > DrCube, modalities is perfectly cromulent as applies to different forms of cancer treatment… However, it’s also popular with the education crowd, so I can see how \*\*DrCube \*\*confuses it with snake oil. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healing-modalities/750471.md?page=2)