Can Big Pharma Cure Science Denial?

By Justin Rohrlich Something serendipitous happened to me this morning. After an appointment with my doctor, whose office is at New York Presbyterian Medical Center, I hailed a cab. The driver, a kindly woman who looked roughly 60-ish, asked if I was coming from the hospital. “Yes,” I answered. “Routine visit. Been having some trouble with my skin.” She locked eyes with mine in the rear-view mirror.

(To see George Magnus' thoughts on China's challenges for 2011, click here.)

“There's a reason you got in my cab,” she said. “I'll tell you how to fix your skin. I'm almost a million years old. My souls have had a lot of experience over the various lifetimes.” What made my ride serendipitous -- or, as the driver insisted, pre-destined -- was that I had planned on writing about this very subject today, after reading another chapter in Michael Specter's superb book “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Process, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives” while in the doctor's waiting room. I left a medical office and walked directly into a denialist's office, who could hardly wait to tell me how sick progress was making me. After telling me that the soul “lives within our chest and weighs 14 ounces,” the driver diagnosed the cause of my dry skin and began a course of treatment, all right there in the cab.

(To read Conor Sen's piece on disputes for 2011, click here.)

“According to Louise Hay -- who happens to be very famous, you can get her books at any Barnes & Noble (BKS) or on Amazon (AMZN) -- what's going on with your skin means you a) have a fear of being hurt, b) you're deadening your sense of self, and c) you are refusing to accept responsibility for your own actions,” she explained. “Once you get that sorted out, your skin will be fine.” “But what about the doctor, who said --“ “They don't know what they're talking about. They're doctors. Healing? That's what I do,” she replied while executing a difficult left turn onto a slippery, snow-covered Second Avenue. “Check out Mary Houston and Richard Hayes. Their practice is called Life Works Biological Alchemy and they're right here in the City. They cure Stage 4 cancer patients with raw foods. You may have trouble finding them because they keep a very low profile. They're not doctors, so, you know, they don't want to get in trouble.”

(To view Lloyd Khaner's piece on taxi drivers talking commodities, click here.)

Well, I did a bit of digging and came across the following on a message board at RawLife-Digest.com:

“Jo, Have you ever had any "Live Blood Cell Analysis" done? It's fascinating to actually see what is going on at the cellular level. There is a couple here in New York that have a practice that is really amazing. Their names are Richard Harvey and Mary Houston. From the "Live Blood" and the "Dry Blood" analysis they can tell what is going on in every organ in the body. AND... what WENT on in your body in the past. It's all stored in the blood. They have helped my [sic] with a lot of customizations of the raw food diet for my specific body. They are committed raw foodists and very knowledgeable. Maybe there is a person of their caliber around where you live. -- tom”

Dr. Steven Novella, MD is an academic clinical neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine and the Executive Editor of ScienceBasedMedicine.org. A piece on Novella's site by Portland, Oregon infectious disease specialist and Chief of Infectious Diseases for Legacy Health System Dr. Mark Crislip, offers a take on live blood analysis from an actual physician's point-of-view: “With live blood analysis, practitioners take the seed of truth that the evaluation of the blood constituents can give valuable information and grow a forest of fantasy and magic. It is something to behold.” He points to a “combination of artifacts being diagnosed as pathology combined with an imaginary pathophysiology that is completely divorced from reality” and describes live blood analysis as “more akin to high tech reading of tea leaves or the entrails of pigs to divine the future. It is the cargo cult of quackery, with the trappings of science but none of the substance.” In exploring the same denialist themes, Specter takes a look at the magical thinking of celebrity alternative medicine guru (and Harvard-trained M.D.) Dr. Andrew Weil. He writes:

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