Electromagnetic Medicine

[Guest guest]

Good info here from the Mercola site. The Bob Becker book is excellent also.

 

Ken

 

Electromagnetic Devices Offer Alternative Treatments for Life-Threatening

Illnesses

 

 

E-mail to a friend

 

By Paul J. Rosch, M.D., F.A.C.P.

President, The American Institute of Stress

Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, New York Medical College

 

 

 

Obtaining FDA Approval for Innovative Therapies

 

Medical device manufacturers have long complained about the difficulty in

obtaining FDA approval for their products because of very delayed or no response

to inquiries.

 

 

This is a particular problem for cancer patients who must travel abroad to

receive therapies that are not available here in the United States. In response

to mounting criticisms, the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 was passed to address

these and other concerns. It mandated that correspondence would be answered in

timely fashion as well as other revisions to ensure the timely availability of

safe and effective new products.

 

 

One of these was a " globalization and harmonization " provision stipulating that

devices approved by regulatory agencies abroad requiring strict proof of safety

and efficacy should be made available here, provided that post marketing

surveillance was instituted to guarantee safety.

 

 

The FDA was also directed to establish policies for the " compassionate use " of

these and other investigational approaches through a licensed physician while

they underwent regulatory view. Although these provisions went into effect in

2002, they have not been implemented.

 

 

I am one of five individuals selected to testify before a Congressional

Oversight Committee investigating this and have five or ten minutes to explain

my qualifications and provide examples of devices and approaches proven

worthwhile elsewhere in the world that should be approved here in the United

States.

 

 

By coincidence, I have just finished editing a 52-chapter book,

" Bioelectromagnetic Medicine, " to be published later this year by Marcel Dekker.

Although it includes several devices that should be mentioned, I intend to focus

on two cancer therapies I am personally familiar with for the following reasons.

 

 

The FDA's responsibility is to protect the public by monitoring such things as

the safety of foods and pharmaceuticals as well as medical devices. However, it

must establish priorities because of limited resources, especially with respect

to personnel with expertise in the evaluation of electromagnetic field

therapies. There are some that are authentic and have been thoroughly

investigated by reputable researchers.

 

 

Unfortunately, these are drowned out by others being promoted by well-meaning

but misguided zealots as well as entrepreneurs and charlatans who make

extravagant and unsupported claims for their worthless wares. Alleged remarkable

results are usually based on lavish testimonials, occasionally by paid

celebrities, and it is likely that any legitimate benefits are placebo effects.

 

 

This is especially true because double blind studies designed to exclude this

for drugs may be impossible to perform with some devices. As a result, it can be

difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

 

In addition, there is a growing wariness of the possible harmful effects of

electromagnetic fields emanating from high power lines and cell phones. The FDA

should not be criticized for exercising extreme caution in approving devices

whose adverse effects decades later are unknown. I have tried to address this in

" Bioelectromagnetic Medicine " by limiting contributions to those that are

evidence-based and supported by citations in peer-reviewed publications.

 

 

While there is no guarantee that this resolves the long-term safety issue, this

is of much less concern to cancer patients in contrast to children or

adolescents.

 

 

Electromagnetic Devices for Treating Cancer

 

 

Björn Nordenström, M.D., Ph.D. has impeccable credentials. He was formerly

chairman of the Department of Radiology at Karolinska Hospital and chairman of

the selection committee that picks the Nobel Laureate for Physiology of

Medicine. He is famous for having developed the " skinny needle " technique for

biopsies used by most surgeons and interventional radiologists around the world.

 

 

About four decades ago, he became intrigued by the observation that he could

occasionally see what appeared to be a halo around malignancies on routine chest

X-rays that was not present with benign tumors. He collected a series of these

and showed them to colleagues who had also noted this but assumed they were

artifacts.

 

 

His subsequent detailed animal experiments revealed that the reason was

malignant tumors had different electrical characteristics from surrounding

normal tissue. He found that correcting this by inserting his skinny needles

into these two areas and using them as electrodes to supply weak DC current

caused these malignancies to disappear.

 

 

The procedure is painless and takes only a few hours. At our 1998 Congress, he

showed two patients with inoperable pulmonary metastases from cancer of the

ovary and breast that were well with no evidence of tumor 10 and 12 years later.

As noted in " Bioelectromagnetic Medicine, " one is now in her 90s and in good

health more than 20 years after one treatment.

 

 

Others have now replicated these results and a chapter from Chinese Physicians

reports on satisfactory results in over 9,000 patients with these and other

malignancies. Another chapter deals with Nordenström's description of an

" electrical circulatory system " and its relationship to ancient Oriental

concepts of Qi, yin and yang.

 

 

In award-winning writer Gary Taubes' Discover magazine cover story, he noted

that some authorities compared this as being as important as William Harvey's

explanation of how blood circulates in the body and described it as " the most

profound biomedical discovery of the century. "

 

 

Demetrio Sodi Pallares is a respected Mexican cardiologist and the author of 20

texts including a dozen on the electrocardiogram. He became internationally

famous decades ago for his glucose-insulin-potassium " polarizing solution " that

dramatically improved survival following a heart attack.

 

 

It was based on his observation that this increased the production of ATP, the

source of energy for all cellular functions. He subsequently found that the

application of a pulsed magnetic field enhanced this effect in injured cells and

that combining these treatments provided amazing benefits in other disorders. He

has shown at our Congresses how he has been able to actually reverse advanced

metastatic disease and terminal cardiomyopathy.

 

 

Patients whose life expectancy was a few weeks or months were leading normal

lives with no evidence of their disease two or three years later. In

" Bioelectromagnetic Medicine " he included patients with pancreatic cancer, which

is almost always fatal within a year of detection, who are well three years

later and the reasons why his treatment works are explained.

 

 

Why should cancer patients have to travel abroad for these proven life saving

therapies?

 

 

Electromagnetic Medicine and Osteoarthritis

 

 

Many suspect that powerful pharmaceutical interests have been able to exert

their influence over the FDA and other regulatory agencies to prevent anything

that threatens their huge profits. Another chapter in " Bioelectromagnetic

Medicine " describes an electromagnetic device for the treatment of

osteoarthritis currently administered in 18 countries at over 500 sites

including University affiliated clinics and The American Hospital in Paris.

 

 

This non-invasive and painless therapy, consisting of treatment for one hour

daily over 10 days is reimbursed by fiscal intermediaries and often governmental

agencies that are the equivalent of Medicare because of its proven long-term

cost effectiveness and superior safety record compared to drugs.

 

 

This is important since the latest statistics indicate that osteoarthritis now

affects one in three U.S. adults (70 million), up 63 percent from the 1997

estimate of one in five. Current medications are not always effective and can be

dangerous.

 

 

In 1993, of 140,000 hospital admissions for osteoarthritis, 25,000 deaths were

directly attributed to high dosage or prolonged use of NSAIDs.

 

 

While Cox-2 inhibitors were touted to be safer, this has now been questioned and

one has been linked to a higher incidence of coronary events and they are no

more effective than drugs a fraction of their cost. Since their introduction in

1999, combined sales of Vioxx and Celebrex have exceeded $6 billion annually due

to aggressive advertising, which also drives up their price.

 

 

In 2000, Merck spent $161 million on advertising for Vioxx, more than Pepsico

spent on Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch spent on Budweiser. And if you don't think

that advertising and samples bring in big bucks, consider this. One study found

that in treating patients with hypertension, over 90 percent of physicians

actually dispensed a sample that differed from their preferred drug choice! It's

not likely that these drug giants and others will tolerate anything that

threatens their huge profits.

 

 

Dr. Paul J. Rosch is the president of the American Institute of Stress and

clinical professor of medicine at New York Medical College and has written

extensively about relationships between stress and cancer over the past 25

years. He is also a member of the contributing editors board at Mercola.com. In

addition to the research noted above, additional chapters in " Bioelectromagnetic

Medicine " are devoted to cancer as well as depression, anxiety, insomnia,

tinnitus, migraine, multiple sclerosis, obesity, epilepsy, herniated disc,

Parkinson's disease, urinary incontinence, macular degeneration, cardiac and

brain lesions. These cutting edge " energy medicine " approaches are much safer

than drugs and surgical procedures, considerably less costly and, in many

instances, more effective. " Bioelectromagnetic Medicine " will be published by

Marcel Dekker, Inc. later this year.