Gray is apparently not going to contest the allegations due to the cost and the fact, as he told the Los Angeles Times, “Frankly, I think we’d lose anyway.”
The question is whether Gray could continue to sell the products. He claims that sound waves can carry “the energetic signal in homeopathic remedies” to treat patients. The eRemedies were sold for $5 and each recording is 13 seconds long and consists of what Gray described as “a hissing sound.” Gray claims that 36 out of 37 people were “cured of their malaria symptoms within three to four hours with just a few doses.”
This article discusses his claims: Arstechica.
Beth Mole, the author of the Arstechnica article, calls homeopathy “illogical bunkum”.
That’s a polite way of putting it,
and 100% accurate.
Dr Gray’s assertions are not the definition of homeopathy, nor does it follow scientific principle.
There is indeed a grain of truth in sound healing therapy. A cat’s purring occurs at frequencies that not only soothe, but promote healing. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-cats-purr/ This is why cats purr when a loved one is sick or upset. It’s like offering a bowl of chicken soup to someone ill.
“Cats purr during both inhalation and exhalation with a consistent pattern and frequency between 25 and 150 Hertz. Various investigators have shown that sound frequencies in this range can improve bone density and promote healing.”
It is interesting to explore the medical use of sound. After all, we already use ultrasound in medical technology and sonar in navigation. Sound is just a wave, and energy waves can do amazing things.
What Dr Gray offers is a corruption of valid sound wave research. This is a shame because it can cast a cloud on valid research.
Bennett Cerf, the founder of Random House who’d acquired considerable recognition among the broad public for his weekly appearances on the original version of What’s My Line (the most elegant game show evah).was a wealthy man who commanded considerable public esteem in the suites and on the street. For some bizarre (mercenary?) reason he found a scam called the ‘Famous Writers School’ in 1962. It was a set of correspondence courses which ran on bait and switch advertising. It was exposed and shut down just before Cerf died in 1971. He was never truly disgraced by the episode. In our own time, I suspect the consequences for Cerf and others involved would have been far more severe. No clue why an elderly man who didn’t need the money and had everything to lose would engage in such an escapade.
Did the patients get cured? If so, why not investigate it further? If not, he should get busted for making false claims.
Many large hospitals have complementary medicine depts. where homeopathy is practiced. The theory behind homeopathy does not make sense to me but studies have been done and it can work. The danger posed by using homeopathy is if one has a condition which is serious and fails to pursue effective treatment. If the homeopathic remedy is effective, then I would like to see allopaths use it.
Jill – we know that placebos work, why not this? If you think it will work (positive thinking) it just might work.
Paul,
I think the placebo effect should be studied so it is understood and can be replicated. (I don’t think that positive thinking is the answer because positive thinking does not empirically make a disease go away.)
I’m all for complete pragmatice empiricism and I feel that should apply to allopathic remedies as well as alternative medicine.
Jill – the placebo effect has been studied several times.
That’s true Paul. I haven’t seen any that show how to replicate it. If you know of any will you please link one or two here? Thanks!
Jill – I am not sure what you mean ‘replicate’?
@Paul C Schulte May 29, 2018 at 11:40 AM
“Jill – we know that placebos work, why not this? If you think it will work (positive thinking) it just might work.”
“The placebo effect baffles patients, confounds clinicians and frustrates drug developers. Until now, relatively little empirical evidence existed for the biological mechanisms that underlie the effect. But recently, researchers have begun approaching the challenge with methodological rigor. This new area of investigation, straddling basic and clinical realms, has evolved largely because of the novel, detailed window of observation offered by modern imaging technologies. ‘What we’re getting,’ says Harvard Medical School’s Ted Kaptchuk, ‘is good preliminary evidence that describes the hardwiring of the placebo effect–that is, the impact of symbolic treatment, and how it’s mediated through the neurobiology of the brain to produce physical effects in illnesses.’
“Understanding the biological basis of the placebo effect has potentially wide-ranging implications. Knowing the power of placebo may help scientists and philosophers to better characterize an age-old question. ‘We had this Cartesian split of mind and body. It’s taken us a long time to get back to having … due respect for mind-body effects,’ says Linda Engel, acting director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s division of extramural research and training. Engel co-organized a workshop on the placebo that NCCAM held in November 2000. Based in part on conclusions from this workshop, the National Institutes of Health plans several new, soon-to-be-announced grants for the coming fiscal year.
“Philosophical implications aside, understanding the biology of placebo could also help improve healthcare and help the struggling pharmaceutical industry to develop better, more effective medications. ‘[The placebo effect] is crushing whole areas of drug development,’ says Kaptchuk, an assistant professor. While clinicians like him [sic] work to maximize people’s self-healing capacity, the drug industry attempts to minimize the placebo effect to demonstrate the usefulness of medications.” 🙂 [Emphasis added]
https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/14402/title/The-Biological-Basis-of-the-Placebo-Effect/
The reason why alternative therapies do not go through FDA trials is because they cannot afford the millions it costs, ten years long process, and then many cannot be patented. For example, we know that vitamin C is healthy. However, cranberry juice will never go through a clinical FDA trial for any health benefits, because cranberry juice cannot be patented. And if it cannot be patented, the researchers would never recover the astronomical cost and time spent in the FDA.
The FDA avenue is only open to traditional drugs and medical devices. And without the FDA, you cannot make medical claims.
I would like to see some sort of program to verify natural remedies and vitamins. There are private studies that a manufacturer can sponsor, of course, but without the approval of the FDA, you cannot make a claim. Many medicines got their start in nature, such as quinine. However, it is now synthesized as a drug, that was patented at one time and went through clinical trials – Qualaquin. The closest option we have to natural medicine is if someone discovered a naturally occurring compound in some rare Amazon plant, isolated it in a lab, synthesized it, and then went through the FDA trial process resulting in a patent.
The NIH has already spent one billion dollars investigating alternative medicines using clinical trials. Conclusion – it’s all total nonsense with the exception of a mild beneficial effect of chiropractic for lower back pain. Homeopathy, reiki, acupuncture – no better than placebo.We certainly do not need to waste any more tax dollars on such nonsense.
And for those of you who think there is a therapeutic effect to a placebo – you do not understand what the placebo “effect” is. The placebo “effect” is the “effect is has to confound (mess up, basically) a clinical study. There is NO sustained beneficial medical effect from a placebo, because it has no active ingredients. And that is why it is unethical form a physician to prescribe a placebo.
You might as well argue that voodoo “works for some people”, because it does exactly as well as water. Which is what a placebo is – water.
Jill, do you really think that his claims are believable?
The most amazing part of this is that there actually were people who bought this “cure”.
For $5 it might be worth a shot.
Yes, he takes it in from fools like you.
David Benson owes me two citations, one from the OED. Any time I buy anything, I am taking a risk. For $5 my risk is lower than $30k for a new car.
Then don’t buy a car. Walk, being more healthful.
David Benson still owes me two citations, one from the OED. You cannot even walk up the hill to the library, you are one to talk.
No, these days I walk up Missouri Flat Creek to observe nature. 2+ miles, sometimes followed by a walk downtown and then home, about another 2 miles, oh lazy one.
David Benson still owes me two citations, one from the OED. Then you have no excuse not going to the library unless they have banned you from campus.