Theraputic touch disproven by a 9 year old

Nine year, Emily Rosa (the youngest person to ever have their research published in JAMA) has shown that Therapeutic Touch (TT) is nothing more than chance.

TT for those who don't know is a type of alternate medicine whose practitioners claim can heal or improve medical problems by manual manipulation of a "human energy field" (HEF) perceptible above the patients skin.


Design:

Twenty-one practitioners with TT experience for from 1 to 27 years were tested under blinded conditions to determine whether they could correctly identify which of their hands was closest to the investigator's hand. Placement of the investigator's hand was determined by flipping a coin. Fourteen practitioners were tested 10 times each, and 7 practitioners were tested 20 times each.

Main outcome measure:

Practitioners of TT were asked to state whether the investigator's unseen hand hovered above their right hand or their left hand. To show the validity of TT theory, the practitioners should have been able to locate the investigator's hand 100% of the time. A score of 50% would be expected through chance alone.

Results:

Practitioners of TT identified the correct hand in only 123 (44%) of 280 trials, which is close to what would be expected for random chance. There was no significant correlation between the practitioner's score and length of experience (r=0.23). The statistical power of this experiment was sufficient to conclude that if TT practitioners could reliably detect a human energy field, the study would have demonstrated this.

Conclusions

Twenty-one experienced TT practitioners were unable to detect the investigator's "energy field." Their failure to substantiate TT's most fundamental claim is unrefuted evidence that the claims of TT are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified

A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch

I remember this article from another website..interesting subject. I have been certified in Reiki and have read the book on Therapeutic Touch amongst others on healing. I am a massage therapist so I thought it would be a nice adjunct to my practice.

In my own personal experience I have not felt anything more than heat coming out of my own hands. Many times people have asked me what I "feel". I have been doing it for about ten years and have visited different healing circles in that time. None I ever stayed with..I'm kind of a lone wolf. The last one I went to was well attended but I did notice that everyone kept talking about what they "felt" when working on people. I honestly have never felt much beyond heat...but again it came from me..not the person I was working on. And honestly, when these people were talking about how they could feel this aura popping out and that one...I felt that maybe they were not being completely truthful...virtually all of them could feel it and I couldn't? It reminded me of "The Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome.

I would never be able to participate in this study and accurately tell you how when someone was under my hands without touching them.

But...I will bet you that I could place my hands over the participant and they would be able to tell you that I was there. I would like to see this experiment conducted that way...who knows maybe I will conduct it myself and report back to ATS with my findings.

I never charge people for healing...massage yes,,, Reiki no. I will do Reiki for whoever asks me and have had some profound results...nothing crazy and miraculous...but just people getting better in a non dramatic way. I struggle with the notion of people paying money into expensive certifications and then charging others. Doesn't work for me...although I will always respect anothers wish to do so.

reply to post by Mandog

So Reiki is pretty much the same story as the TT discussed in the OP, right?

Effects of reiki in clinical practice: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials

Methods:  We searched the literature using 23 databases from their respective inceptions through to November 2007 (search again 23 January 2008) without language restrictions.

Conclusion:  In conclusion, the evidence is insufficient to suggest that reiki is an effective treatment for any condition. Therefore the value of reiki remains unproven.

It's a spiritual method, right?

So is prayer, and that didn't pan out either in a 2 million dollar Harvard affiliated study, in fact if anything, the patients being prayed for fared worse than patients who weren't being prayed for.

But hey, there's always the placebo effect, and it can be pretty powerful, and that IS validated by science.

reply to post by Griffo

I didn't know a 9 year old could get published in JAMA!

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I didn't know a 9 year old could get published in JAMA!

Neither did I; she must be insanely clever. I wonder what else she will have published in the near future?

reply to post by Griffo


she must be,
she's got you and quite a few suckered.

the AMA mafiosi are now hiding behind a 9 yr old girl in order to shield themselves from attack
since violence doesn't seem to be working for them much.

Forbidden Cures

There are a number of alternative healing therapies that work so well and cost so little (compared to conventional treatment), that Organized Medicine, the Food & Drug Administration, and their overlords in the Pharmaceutical Industry (The Big Three) would rather the public not know about them. The reason is obvious: Alternative, non-toxic therapies represent a potential loss of billions of dollars to allopathic (drug) medicine and drug companies.

The Big Three have collectively engaged in a medical conspiracy for the better part of 70 years to influence legislative bodies on both the state and federal level to create regulations that promote the use of drug medicine while simultaneously creating restrictive, controlling mechanisms (licencing, government approval, etc) designed to limit and stifle the availability of non-drug, alternative modalities. The conspiracy to limit and eliminate competition from non-drug therapies began with the Flexner Report of 1910.

Abraham Flexner was engaged by John D. Rockefeller to run around the country and 'evaluate' the effectiveness of therapies taught in medical schools and other institutions of the healing arts. Rockefeller wanted to dominate control over petrolem, petrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals (which are derived from 'coal tars' or crude oil). He arranged for his company, Standard Oil of New Jersey to obtain a controlling interest in a huge German drug cartel called I. G. Farben. He pulled in his stronger competitors like Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan as partners, while making other, less powerful players, stockholders in Standard Oil. Those who would not come into the fold "were crushed" according to a Rockefeller biographer (W. Hoffman, David: Report on a Rockefeller [New York:Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1971]page 24.)

The report Flexner submitted to The Carnegie Foundation was titled "Medical Education in the United States and Canada". Page 22 of the report said: "the privileges of the medical school can no longer be open to casual strollers from the highway. It is necessary to install a doorkeeper who will, by critical scrutiny, ascertain the fitness of the applicant, a necessity suggested, in the first place, but consideration for the candidate, whose time and talents will serve him better in some other vocation, if he be unfit for this, and in the second, by consideration for a public entitled to protection from those whom the very boldness of modern medical strategy equips with instruments that, tremendously effective for good when rightly used, are all the more terrible for harm if ignorantly or incompetently employed".

All too often, politicians are prepared to enact laws that rob citizens of yet another constitutional freedom under the banner of "public protection". Needless to say, congress swallowed the recommendations of this report hook, line, and sinker. It was decided that the American Medical Association (AMA), would be the "doorkeeper". The AMA was now empowered to certify or de-certify any medical school in the country on the grounds of whether that school met the AMA's standards of "approved" medicine.

The AMA came into existence in 1847. It is a private organization of allopathic physicians which serves the interests of its members, especially when it comes to influencing favorable legislation. It functions in every sense of the word as a union, although its members wear white collars instead of blue. Giving the AMA the power over the certification of medical schools is the equivalent of giving the Teamsters Union the exclusive right to decide on the laws of interstate commerce and transportation. Is it any wonder that the total number of medical schools in the United States went from 160 in 1906 (before the Flexner Report) to 85 in 1920 and further down to 69 schools in 1944? A little like putting the fox in charge of the hen house, no?

Not surprisingly, Flexner 'found' that any discipline that didn't use drugs to help cure the patient was tantamount to quackery and charlatanism. Medical schools that offered courses in bioelectric Medicine, Homeopathy or Eastern Medicine, for example, were told to either drop these courses from their curriculum or lose their accreditation and underwriting support. A few schools resisted for a time, but eventually most schools cooperated (or were closed down). A similar scenario was played out in Canada. It was attempted in England against Homeopathy, but it failed due to the personal intervention of the Royal Family who had received much relief and healing at the hands of Homeopathic healers in the 19th century. By the way, the AMA was found guilty of conspiracy against chiropractors in 1987 by a federal judge and fined a couple of million dollars. Here in America, a relentless campaign of misinformation, fraud, deception, and suppression of alternative therapies and healers has been in place for the better part of this century in order to keep highly effective alternative therapies from reaching any significant plateau of public awareness. Control is exerted through "news items" and propaganda from pro-establishment organizations like The American Medical Association, The American Cancer Society, The Diabetes Foundation, etc.; local medical boards; and government agencies like the FDA, The National Institute of Health (NIH), and The National Cancer Institute (NCI), The National Academy of Science, etc. with the full cooperation of main-stream media of course .

Over the past decades, hundreds of caring, concerned, and conscientious alternative healers have been jailed and abused like common criminals for the "crime" of curing people of life-threatening diseases in an "unapproved" manner by heavy-handed government agents who swoop down on clinics with drawn guns, flax jackets, and Gestapo manners. All the while, these same agents and agencies posture themselves before TV cameras and the public under the ludicrous pretense of being servants of the people and protectors of the common good.

The medico-drug cartel was summed up by J.W Hodge, M.D., of Niagara Falls, N.Y., in these words: "The medical monopoly or medical trust, euphemistically called the American Medical Association, is not merely the meanest monopoly ever organized, but the most arrogant, dangerous and despotic organization which ever managed a free people in this or any other age. Any and all methods of healing the sick by means of safe, simple and natural remedies are sure to be assailed and denounced by the arrogant leaders of the AMA doctors' trust as fakes, frauds and humbugs Every practitioner of the healing art who does not ally himself with the medical trust is denounced as a 'dangerous quack' and impostor by the predatory trust doctors. Every sanitarian who attempts to restore the sick to a state of health by natural means without resort to the knife or poisonous drugs, disease imparting serums, deadly toxins or vaccines, is at once pounced upon by these medical tyrants and fanatics, bitterly denounced, vilified and persecuted to the fullest extent."

see The Drug Story for more revelations about the AMA, the House of Rockefeller and the pharmaceutical industry

using an innocent to poison the well of knowledge, wouldn't be the 1st time

and typical use of bait and switch pseudo-scientific experiment wonder how much actually came from the girl and how much "guidance" she received in designing it

Scientific publications are so arbitrary.

Human nature is not.

Undoubtedly she is the daughter of someone they want to please.

Contact is key to happiness and connectedness.

A 9 year old has not lived long enough to understand the emotions connected throughout life.

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger


There is a reason that they're called 'alternative medicine' instead of 'medicine', it's because they have either been scientifically tested and proven not to work, or they have not been scientifically tested (doesn't take a genius to figure out why that would be)

Once an alternative medicine technique has been proven to work, it becomes medicine. Until then it is just pseudo scientific nonsense.

Come back when you have some real, scientific proof that TT is real

reply to post by Griffo


excuse me!

the title of this thread is

"Theraputic touch disproven by a 9 year old"

the burden of proof lies on you as the OP

how can the effectiveness of a therapeutic method, in this case, Therapeutic TOUCH be tested with out any contact? that's like testing the therapeutic value of neurosurgery by having a quadruple amputee perform the operation by holding the instruments firmly within his butt-cheeks, or testing for telepathy by asking the subject what people are thinking on planet Mongo.

this thread should be moved to medical conspiracies
because this was NOT a scientific experiment, just more of the usual 3 card monte.

I always wondered, the 'alternative' in alternative medicine... what is it the alternative to, exactly?

Ya ok !

Tell that to John Chang

reply to post by samsamm9

I love that clip, and he may have a gift of some sort, but that does nothing to validate the validity of TT as discussed in the OP.

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger

the burden of proof lies on you as the OP

I provided the proof to discount TT as nothing more than chance, if you'd taken the time to read it all you would see.

how can the effectiveness of a therapeutic method, in this case, Therapeutic TOUCH be tested with out any contact?

Second paragraph

TT for those who don't know is a type of alternate medicine whose practitioners claim can heal or improve medical problems by manual manipulation of a "human energy field" (HEF) perceptible above the patients skin.

reply to post by saiconoclast

I always wondered, the 'alternative' in alternative medicine... what is it the alternative to, exactly?

Medicine that has been scientifically proven to work

A great bit of research -- what nobody caught on to is that this was published in 1998 (the sidebar reference reads: JAMA. 1998;279(13):1005-1010. doi: 10.1001/jama.279.13.100)

This was initially a science fair project with a more limited scope. She's in Wikipedia, so you can read the whole thing there: en.wikipedia.org...

The interesting thing is that nobody followed up on it. The protocol was sound, and I think the whole thing is replicable. The videos of "power touch" and so forth are always done with the person (victim) being a member of the group that practices this and with them aware of when the "touch" is going to happen.

If you do it on a non-believer and with someone not aware of a cue when the "power" is being thrown, you get zero results. This is in contrast to (say) treating a petri dish of bacteria with penicillin, which die even if you and the bacteria don't believe in penicillin (for non-resistant strains, of course.)

This is actually the most silly premise for testing energy healing I've seen. There are many differing skills and abilities. Walking blind and locating objects isn't common for humans. Normally those working with energy have their eyes open and can see where they're placing their hands. They don't assume they have spider senses, just because of old martial arts movies.

The whole premise is linking some remote spacing skill with energy manipulation. And I'm not saying it works but this sounds like Big Pharma and they didn't even test results.

Originally posted by Unity_99
This is actually the most silly premise for testing energy healing I've seen. There are many differing skills and abilities. Walking blind and locating objects isn't common for humans. Normally those working with energy have their eyes open and can see where they're placing their hands. They don't assume they have spider senses, just because of old martial arts movies.

The whole premise is linking some remote spacing skill with energy manipulation. And I'm not saying it works but this sounds like Big Pharma and they didn't even test results.

I would say a blind trial is the perfect premise for such an experiment. Having their eyes open and seeing where the experimenter is placing their hands would defeat the point of the experiment entirely. Experimental control attempts to weed out bias, experimental error and deception. That is why no paranormal abilities have ever been validated with proper scientific method.

This test would of been better conducted on patients with known issues, and the TT wasn't informed about them.
It is really hard to quantify the power of touch or mind.
Depression can have debilitating physical effects on a person, yet a good therapist doesnt' have to touch them in order to help the depression.

When there were orphanages, infants who were not touched by people died. Babies need physical contact to survive as much as food and water.

We decide if we like or dislike someone, merely from a handshake. People give off energy. We read it. We instantly like or dislike someone from a handshake or the thousands of little cues they give off.

The energy you give off as a person either attracts people to you or not. How does emotion radiate? And can what effect does that have on another person?