Power Lines and Cancer, Distant Healing and Health Care: Magnetism Misrepresented...

[Islander]

Power Lines and Cancer, Distant Healing and Health Care: Magnetism Misrepresented and Misunderstood

Eugenie V. Mielczarek and Derek C. Araujo1
Volume 35.3, May/June 2011

The 1990s fear that background magnetic fields—hundreds of times weaker than Earth’s magnetic field—could cause cancer has been replaced. Twenty years later, advertisements by licensed hospitals claim that humans can be trained to emit and manipulate these same energies to initiate healing.

In the early 1990s, the New Yorker magazine published three articles by Paul Brodeur describing claims that background radiation from nearby power lines caused an outbreak of leukemia in children living in Denver, Colorado (Brodeur 1990a, 1990b, 1992).

In 2008, the Journal of Orthopaedic Research published a claim that therapeutic touch2 (TT) practitioners at the University of Connecticut Health Center were able to diminish the growth of human osteosarcoma (cancer) cells by using their hands to manipulate energy fields surrounding the cells (Jhaveri et al. 2008). The cell cultures over which the practitioners’ hands were placed were located in L-shaped rooms, implying that some undefined radiation pattern would not turn corners. That paper’s corresponding author is Gloria Gronowicz, professor of surgery at the University of Connecticut Health Care Center.

Ironically, the reasoning behind both of these claims was based on the presence of a magnetic field of about two milligauss.

Read more: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/power_...sm_misreprese/

[Reesacat]

I do find magnets helpful in managing chronic pain.

[mellowsong]

Magnet therapy is something I've been wanting to try and eventually will. I find all these "energy" healing things absolutely fascinating. I do believe there is substance to them!

[Aaltrude]

I don't have any issues with chronic pain but on the rare occasion I have used magnets, I have found them to be effective.

[Islander]

It sounds from these posts that not everyone has read the article in its entirety. The authors argue against the value of magnets, the dangers of EMF and the effectiveness of distance healing (e.g. Reike).

[Reesacat]

I should have been more clear — I was disagreeing with the authors as I have found magnets helpful.

[Islander]

Thanks, I wasn't thinking through! I've had the opposite experience, but I'm well known as having nothing work for me!

[Aaltrude]

I should have been more clear — I was disagreeing with the authors as I have found magnets helpful.

Ditto

[Aaltrude]

I've had the opposite experience, but I'm well known as having nothing work for me!

Maybe your expectations could have an influence there Islander.
We once applied some magnets to the painful knee of my elderly stepfather, at the time a cancer patient, who knew nothing about magnets. Twenty minutes later when we took them off and he walked around, he commented that his knee felt a lot better.

[mellowsong]

@Islander, I was more responding to Reesacat's experience than to the article itself...I should have used quotes. As to the article itself... I just didn't know what to say about the way CAM was blasted and was hoping someone else would first!

[Katee]

"The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry"? Doesn't the name itself say their bias up front?

No different from the fraudulent "Quackwatch" bashing alternative med wherever they can, regardless of truth.

Besides, frankly, most drugs are little better or not as good as placebos. Don't see that magnets could be even as harmful as all those drugs.

[Islander]

I honestly don't understand how the word "skeptics" became identified with quackwatch. I've been a subscriber to Skeptical Inquirer for more years than I can remember. Their mission is to promote reason and science, and to expose psychics, spiritualists, numerology, astrology, frauds, the paranormal/supernatural, and urban legends like the Chupacabra. So no, I don't see that they have a "bias up front."

I thought the discussion of the magnetic field of two milligauss put to rest the entire argument of harm from electric power lines. You can't have it both ways. Either 2 milligauss is harmful, or it's healing. I can't argue with anyone who has found magnets to be helpful, but I fail to see the logic in it. When I was given magnets as aids for carpal tunnel syndrome the logic was explained to me but it seemed weak and insubstantial. So did the explanations for magnets in my shoes. I have never seen studies that offer evidence of the healing power of magnets, and I recall reading somewhere that an Australian company peddling magnetic bracelets was forced to close on claims of fraud. I have to say the same for Reike. I've never found supporting evidence, and the whole waving of hands looks like witchcraft or shamanism to me.

That said, I think the authors' use of one failed example to demonize the entire body of CAM to be misdirected. We here all know of CAM therapies that are proven effective and are even well accepted by the medical community at large. The fact that the NIH has a CAM branch is encouraging, and CAM is supported in the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare").

[mellowsong]

I could be wrong here but what I'm seeing is simple magnets being equated with an electromagnetic field. They are different. Frequency, not just strength makes a difference. A few things I found checking some of this out: A gauss meter, to be accurate needs to be weighted for frequency...most aren't, especially those used by engineers, linemen etc. The ones used for biological measurements are. A frequency weighted meter reads higher than a non-weighted one. So, the 2 milligauss were not necessarily equivalent!

[Aaltrude]

I worked with a member of a local sceptic society. He was very pro conventional medicine and extremely anti alternative medicine.

As far as the paranormal/supernatural etc goes, although a lot of it does seem far fetched to me, I do believe in keeping an open mind. For instance dowsing probably fall into this broad area yet I have had a lot of success using it to determine foods and supplements I can tolerate. The results I have been getting have proved to be accurate.
I have never understood magnets to be a "cure" but rather used as a means of pain relief. The underlying cause of the pain still needs to be addressed.

[Reesacat]

@Islander -- is this the same group that "proved" homeopathy can't work?