Is Robert O. Becker well regarded in the medical and scientific community?

I am asking this as a layperson. I've searched the forums and googled but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I ask that any answers to the following questions be supported by links or recommended reading, with my thanks.

1) Is Dr. Becker "for real?" That is to say, is he a bonafide medical doctor and physiologist?

2) Is Becker well regarded by his peers in the medical and scientific community?

3) Was he really a two time Nobel Prize nominee, and if so, in what capacity?

4) Was the quote from his book (which I will post below this) taken out of context, or placed in proper context?

I can find numerous websites that quote the above claims or imply them, but I cannot seem to find an official website where his work can be reviewed, papers he has published (other than published books,) or any sort of official endorsement or confirmation of the claims made.

The reason I am asking is because a rather hard to swallow (but nonetheless interesting) website stated the following regarding medically facilitated mind control programs:

Source: Escape from MK-ULTRA

It is important to cut through hearsay, misrepresentation, hype, agendas, and embellishment when considering topics of such potential importance. This and other subjects are debated endlessly on ATS, but too often, sources are accepted at face value without asking a question as simple as "is this information regarded as reliable?"

If someone of Dr. Becker's implied standing truly stated the above, I'd like to know whether he is really the medical professional and scientist he is described as being, and if he is not, then I'd like to know that as well. Thanks to anyone who can help answer my questions!

[edit on 6/23/2007 by AceWombat04]

If you do a search in PubMed for Becker, RO, you come up with 89 records. He does seem to be a prolific researcher in established medical journals. I couldn't find him in any current physician directories, which might mean he is primarily a researcher these days and does not practice.

Yes and no. He's a retired, board certified orthopedic surgeon and apparently was a clinic director.


Niether respected nor disrespected as far as his early research goes. I compared the number of citations for him with the number of citations and references for some of his coauthors and found they have more material out and are cited more often.

I see him cited only twice on PubMed. (ooops. Toromos was right. he's in there 89 times.)


Anyone can be a nominee. I could nominate you, for example. The founder of the "Crips" street gang was (no fooling) nominated for a Nobel Prize.



It's probable.

Becker has his own pet theories about the body, and some of his later publications (available only through alternative medicine journals) seem fairly unsubstantiated. He had something on fibromyalgia and electric treatment that has not been taken up although he claims 100% cure rate.


I haven't time to check his papers (I will later this weekend) but from the bits I've looked into, I wouldn't class him with Pastuer, Curie, Salk, and wouldn't class him as someone I would seriously consider for the Nobel Prize in medicine.


[edit on 23-6-2007 by Byrd]

Since he was able to regrow frog limbs and since he is responsible for the use of electric current on bone fractures to heal...I think he is very much Noble Prize material.

I would not call his research and his conclusions, Pet Theories, thats just lame byrd and lacks class or professionalism let along any understanding of his work.

Nor does the amount of time he has been quoted as qualifying his work...mainstream is not interested in his work and the trouble he had to get funding was incredible.

His work is cutting edge and not even in the modern paridigm so why would they reference his work???


The Current Of Injury is very important and how many doctors understand that basic concept>?

How many could tell you why a salmander can regrow his arm but the frog cannot> How many doctors could tell you WHY you bone heals...and if it did not, why not.
Dr Becker could...he is one of those very few who actually asked why and found out. How many others have even considered his research that are a physician? Ask your family physican what would happen if your fracture did not knit...he would laugh at you, tell you your body does it all by itself.
OH REALLY?



www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 23-6-2007 by junglelord]

Bryd can you give me a reason why a liver can regenerate but a kidney cannot>?


While your head spins around on that one I will give you the answer...

I would bet 100 to 1 that a liver can regenerate because its current of injury is negitive, the same as the salamander....just like bone when it regenerates. Its a negitive current of injury.

Muscles like cardiac or skeletal muscle and other tissues like kidneys do not regenerate they heal with scar...because of the opposite current of injury. Its positive.

Dr. Becker applied microcurrents to a femur bone that would not heal and it knitted after sevens years non union. It was directly because of his work that current is used to heal bone that will not union. Its all about the current of injury. The patients bone was not supply the correct current of injury. How many people even think in those terms>?

He is a genius.
He has regrown limbs on frogs.


[edit on 23-6-2007 by junglelord]

He did his work just south of my location and was pivitol in preventing a high voltage line going through NY state.

His book The Body Electric is a incredible read and educational on many levels, from the difficulty in obtaining funding for such research that was considered "Frankenstein" in nature and not well liked and presented huge hurdles in itself. Then there was the lack of scientific papers here but he did find good research in Russia that sent him on the right track. To his ability to regrow limbs on frogs to the discovery of a NY state trapper with a broken femur for seven years that he healed with his research and microcurrents and a silver foil on the fracture.


www.amazon.com...

[edit on 23-6-2007 by junglelord]

Another fast response here as I hop in and out...

I did look at the current bioelectric journals in publication and he hasn't had articles in the journal Bioelectromagnetics, and I don't think his recent work has been cited in any of the articles on wound healing. Most of the references I see to him (on quick scan in journal databases) tend to end in the 1990's. A recent article (this month) in Bioelectromagnetics indicates that some people (small percentage) do experience suome effects (vertigo was the one they talked about) in high magnetic fields (MRI machine is the specific instance)... but I haven't read that article yet. I will later.

There's been a lot of development in the field since he wrote his early books, and it's fairly safe to say that research has gone far beyond that early work.

I'm pretty sure MKULTRA has been proven a hoax (but I'm not completely sure)... I'll look up current research to see if it supports that concept. I don't think it does, but I will go look (much later. I'm at a conference right now.)


[edit on 23-6-2007 by Byrd]

So if I understand correctly, the consensus is essentially that he was a bonafide doctor of medicine and has published peer reviewed work, but that his work may be viewed by contemporary researchers as dubious or controversial at best. (Note: for those who support his research, I am not saying this to imply that his work is necessarily flawed or dubious, but merely to point out that it seems to be viewed as such, or perhaps merely as being outdated now, by many newer contemporary researchers, judging by their lack of reference to his work.)

All I can seem to ascertain about MKULTRA (though I am always 100% prepared to be wrong, as I know my knowledge is limited) is that it, BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, etc. were real attempts at developing offensive means of behavior modification and interrogation techniques (as should be expected for the period, I would imagine,) but that it has never been proved or broadly supported that they or other programs sought or achieved genuine "mind control," or that they were deployed against normal citizens. I believe the congressional hearings I read some time ago indicated that at least a few people were unwittingly dosed with hallucinogens and the like, but that nothing further than that has ever been substantiated. Is that a fair assessment?

Thanks to everyone who has posted thus far. I deeply appreciate your insights.

That's correct. There was a lot of excitement about his work with fractures in the early 1980's... it was well known at the Texas Tech Medical School (where I was getting a degree).

However, by the time he started warning about electrical fields and cell phones, his reputation for having unsubstantiated ideas was notable. I think it's perhaps because of his extreme viewpoints -- while everyone certainly could agree that there might be harm, not everyone was prepared to buy into the "yes it harms everyone and you get cancer and leukemia and so forth!" model.

Data on clusters of medical problems simply didn't bear out his observations.



After doing a little reading, yes, I think that's a fair assessment. They ddidn't achieve any real form of "mind control" (because if they had, we wouldn't be so diverse.)

I don't know if they used Becker or not (BTW, he did not recommend magnetic pulse devices for fibromyalgia -- as I found out on a second reading of that one page. But he's cited as though it was the subject of one of his papers.) He did coauthor a paper saying that there were high rates of suicide in areas where high-voltage trasmission lines. A number of followup studies contradicted his findings.

Thank-you to everyone who posted. I apprecoate your insights and the time it took to post them. It's good to know what's what.