The faith healers who claim they can cure cancer
A group of faith healers who claim they have miracle cures for cancer and HIV have been condemned as "irresponsible, even criminal" by a professor of complementary medicine, following a BBC Newsnight investigation.
The group of healers, collectively known as ThetaHealing, claim that their technique - which focuses on thought and prayer - can teach people to use their natural intuition and "brain wave cycle" to "create instantaneous physical and emotional healing."
ThetaHealing have about 600 practitioners in the UK who charge up to £100 per session.
But the healers' claims have been called "criminal" and "not supported by any kind of evidence" by Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, whose unit not only carry out their own studies but also assess those done by other researchers.
Newsnight recorded Warrington-based ThetaHealing practitioner Jenny Johnstone - who charges £30 for a telephone call or £400 for a course - making a number of claims about the technique, including:
"There was a baby I worked on over the telephone and from one day to the next the cancer in his stomach had just disappeared."
Professor Ernst says such claims are "irresponsible, even criminal".
He believes that the ThetaHealing group try to distinguish themselves from the other 20,000 faith healers in the UK by applying a "veneer of science", but says "it's still nonsense".
'Instant healing'
Repeated clinical trials appear to show that although such faith healing might make people feel better, it does not cure disease. Professor Ernst conducted one such trial which pitched faith healers against actors pretending to be faith healers and found the actors performed better than the healers.
"There was never any suggestion I should go back to my doctor, which is what I needed to do," he told us.
One former client of ThetaHealing - who did not wish to be identified - told the BBC that he was "angry and embarrassed" that he had wasted £1,200 on their healing and missed two years of proper medical treatment.
On ThetaHealing's website it says that Vianna Stibal, the American founder of the group, "facilitated her own instant healing from cancer in 1995".
It also says that Ms Stibal conducts seminars around the world to teach people about ThetaHealing, and that she has trained teachers and practitioners who are now working in 14 countries.
Earlier this month, Ms Stibal visited the UK to address a meeting at the London School of Economics (LSE).
At the meeting Ms Stibal responded to a question from an audience member who asked if it was possible for ThetaHealing to make an amputated leg grow back:
"I believe it's possible to grow it back… a lady grew back her ovary... you can grow back a leg. I've seen people grow back," she told attendees.
Some of the 100 people who attended the event told a BBC researcher that they were reassured about the legitimacy of the group by the fact that the meeting was being held at the LSE.
The LSE told Newsnight that ThetaHealing's meeting was a "normal commercial booking".
Further remarks made by Vianna Stibal at the London meeting, whereby she claimed that ThetaHealing could effectively reduce HIV to undetectable levels, have also alarmed Aids charity the Terrence Higgins Trust.
"The fact is we've seen charlatans of this kind all the way through the HIV epidemic," Lisa Power of the Trust told Newsnight. "Those charlatans are more dangerous than ever now that we have effective treatment."
Ms Power worries that some patients could put their lives at risk by delaying taking effective anti-retroviral drugs in favour of pursuing faith healing.
Both Vianna Stibal and Jenny Johnstone refused to answer questions from Newsnight. Ms Johnstone still insists she has healed a baby's stomach cancer, but said there was no point in her trying to prove it because the BBC would not believe her anyway.
Please excuse me while I swear a bit.
I fucking hate 'faith healers' and 'alternative therapists' and 'psychics'. All with an equal burning passion, likened to the power of a thousand burning suns. I hate them. I fucking hate them.
These people are nothing but predatory assholes. Some may be deluded into thinking they really are imbued with fantastical powers, but most are simply assholes out to make a quick buck.
They don't have the science to back them. They don't even have the slightest shred of evidence to back them. Yet they are given a veneer of respectability and con people at every turn. Assholes.
These people prey on the weak, the desperate, the gullible, the people who have no more hope and the people who are themselves deluded. It sickens me, it really does.
I swear, we need to have a law in place, especially for those making medical claims. Prove it. Prove that you can do what you claim, by going through strict scientific testing - like every drug and treatment offered by real medical staff - and then you can peddle it.
But of course, none of them will be willing to do that, because none of them will pass the tests. None of them will get so far as a minute into the testing before being shown to be assholes peddling bullshit.
There's a quote from Tim Minchin that covers this nicely:
'Do you know what we call alternative medicine that works? Medicine!'
Because if this stuff was proven effective, rather than less than placebo, it would have long been integrated into real medical practice.
But no. the people who peddle this shit won't accept that, either. They'll come up with all sorts of asinine conspiracy theories instead.
- 'If they accepted this into real medicine, it would take all the money away from Big Pharma.'
- 'If they accepted it as real medicine, it would put Doctors out of their jobs.'
- 'The Government wants people to be sick.'
- 'The Government causes half the problems we clear up, so they don't want us to be accepted.'
As you can tell from this little rant, I'm not only an atheist, but also a strident skeptic. If you can't prove the veracity of your claims? I won't accept them and will call you on your bullshit. That simple.
