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Wellington Laboratories Inc. Several of the bloggers on Science- Based Medicine have been ? The reason, of course, is quite obvious. Oprah is so famous that if you mention her first name nearly everyone will know exactly of whom you speak. For the last quarter century, her daytime TV talk show has been a ratings juggernaut, leading to the building of a media behemoth and making Oprah one of the richest and most famous women in the world. Unfortunately, part of Oprah’s equation for success has involved the promotion of quackery and New Age woo, so much so that last year I lamented about the Oprah- fication of medicine, which scored me a writing gig in the Toronto Star. Whether it be promoting bio- identical hormones, The Secret (complete with a testimonial from someone who used The Secret to persuade herself not to pursue conventional therapy for breast cancer), Suzanne Somers, the highly dubious medicine promoted by Dr. Christiane Northrup, or foisting reiki aficionado Dr. Mehmet Oz or anti- vaccine “mother warrior” Jenny Mc. Carthy onto a breathless public, arguably no one is a more powerful force for the promotion of pseudoscience in America, if not the world. Truly, the ending of Oprah’s TV show in the spring is a very good thing indeed for science and rationality. Or it would be, were it not for the fact that the reason Oprah is wrapping up her show after a quarter of a century is to start up her own cable channel, so that we can have Oprah- branded and - inspired programming 2. The mind boggles. Still, my dislike for how Oprah promotes New Age mysticism and pseudoscience on a distressingly regular basis aside, I actually did think there were limits to how low she would go. Presenta Plaque offers high quality wholesale plaques and plaque kits at the best prices available. Browse our wholesale plaque kit selection and order online. The Signs & Symptoms of Pancreatic Cancer. Featured, Mobile Slider Featured, Your Health. Diet & Nutrition Fitness Studies Recalls Outbreaks Your Health. Erin Andrews: How to Eat Healthy On the Road The FOX Sports broadcaster shares her secrets to staying fit while traveling. The Real Deal Behind Diet Pills. Making your own gummy vitamins is easy, frugal, and a great way to nourish your children when they're in need of specific vitamins and supplements. Arvine Pipe & Supply Co. I actually thought there were limits to how egregiously vile a quackery Oprah would endorse. The operative word, of course, is “did,” which now needs to be struck off after last Wednesday, which is when Oprah did an entire show entitled Do You Believe in Miracles? The sick, the lame, the . They endure long international flights and for some long bus trips to Abadi. They come to be cured by the miracle healer, Jo. In a meditation room a ceiling high stack of discarded crutches, wheelchairs and braces pays silent testimony to his success. He is acclaimed as the greatest healer of the past 2,0. He is classified as miraculous only because we in the western world are reluctant to accept that a spirit world exists and therefore that his work is the result of this natural law. Compare this hagiography to the introduction to Oprah’s segment on John of God (video here). In this segment, after being treated to an introduction that could have come from the article I just quoted and that exults about how “millions upon millions” of people have traveled to Brazil to visit him, we see John of God doing his thing while Oprah herself does a voiceover that describes John as “persecuted,” “misunderstood,” and “working tirelessly” to heal the sick. The images are even more disturbing. For one thing, John of God seems to have a proclivity for women’s breasts. In one scene, his is shown apparently making an incision on a woman’s breast, her nipple chastely blurred out, and squeezing something out of the breast, which the woman described as “something black coming out of my heart.” Disturbing video aside, this multimedia blitz is also accompanied by a long article published in O Magazine by editor- in- chief Susan Casey entitled Leap of Faith: Meet John of God. This article details the journey Casey undertook to meet John of God and be healed of her prolonged grief reaction to the death of her father. Conveniently enough, Casey was interviewed on this particular episode of Oprah’s show (video here). Here is a taste of Casey’s treatment of John of God: For John of God. That didn’t stop him from his mission. The question of how a malignant tumor disappears from someone’s body, how a blind person ends up seeing again, how the lame suddenly walk. Our rational minds search for analytical handholds, evidence. There is no evidence presented that might make a rational, science- minded person actually start to wonder whether John can actually do those things. Be that as it may, John of God is not your typical faith healer. He’s become very famous not just in Brazil but all over the world. Despite his apparently not asking for any money for himself, John of God has also made a lot of people a lot of money. For instance, traveling to the remote village where John lives has become a cottage industry in Brazil. Tour operators in particular benefit from all the penitents needing travel arrangements to visit him. As for motivation, John of God’s supporters make much of his not requesting money for his services, but they conveniently forget that there are many other forms of motivation that are as powerful–or even more so–than money. There’s the feel of adulation of the crowd, for instance. There’s the sense of being important, of being so beloved of God that you can channel his power to heal. No one ever seems to consider these motivations when considering faith healers like John of God. Sure, there are faith healers like Peter Popoff who are complete and total frauds, but many (probably including John of God) believe. Oprah, John of God, and “balance”If there’s one thing we’ve complained about on this blog when it comes to how the media presents quackery, pseudoscience, the paranormal, or whatever form of non- science- based beliefs, it’s been the journalistic convention of “telling both sides” as though they had equal validity. Credulous journalists do this far more often than they should, but in this episode Oprah took the credulity and cranked it up to 1. In fact, the attempt at “balance” is risibly superficial and perfunctory, so much so that it strikes me as being there more for the story telling than for any actual attempt at critical thinking or true balance. This appears in two forms. First, we have the woman seeking healing for her psychic wounds (Susan Casey). In her interview with Oprah herself, Casey tells the story of how she decided to seek out John: While at the Casa, Susan was also searching for her own healing. After her father suddenly passed away two years ago, Susan experienced a “tsunami of grief” that she says she couldn’t escape from. She wondered if John of God could help heal her grief. When she first met with John of God, she says all he did was look her in the eyes. What he did do was look at a picture of Susan and her father. He then told Susan to sit in the “healing room,” a room in the Casa reserved for meditation and prayer, for three hours. Susan says she was surrounded by hundreds of people in the healing room, all of whom were praying and meditating with their eyes closed. They all say they aren’t “woo- woo” people, don’t they? In fact, if you hear someone on a show about a faith healer, the paranormal, or whatever form of quackery you can imagine say they’re a skeptic or “not a woo- woo person” you can be pretty sure that she either has just said or is about to say something that proves she is indeed a woo- woo person par excellence. In the video, Casey goes on and on about how after meeting John she felt as though a “cloud had lifted” and how she felt “lighter.” She describes sitting in the “healing room,” where she was floating and talking to her dead father. She then describes a scene in which she and other supplicants are sitting and praying, not allowed to cross their legs (which apparently for some reason would ruin he “energy” being channeled) and how she felt during that. Oprah looks at her editor and, in all seriousness, says, “You know this sounds very woo- woo to me.”Oh, Oprah, you skeptic you! More hilarious is the answer. Casey says that she can’t be woo- woo because she spends her time around people with surfers who surf 1. Uh, Casey, have you ever noticed that a lot of surfers are into a lot of woo? At the very least they’re at least as prone to woo as anyone else. This isn’t as though Casey was hanging out with Randi! In any case, it would be churlish indeed of me not to be happy that Casey seems to have found a way to overcome her grief at the loss of her father, but medicine and science this is not, and science- based medicine it is especially not. It is, contrary to Casey’s claim otherwise woo- woo, and Casey is anything but a skeptic. In fact, she appears to have been in such a state of mourning that she may have even been in a state of clinical depression at the time. Indeed, she describes having the feeling that she would “never feel joy again.” Clearly, she had such an emotional need for something to shake her out of that state that she latched onto John of God. Whatever happened, it’s quite obvious that Casey is was not neutral and, unlike a real skeptic, turned off her critical thinking faculties (if they were ever on in the first place) when she traveled to Brazil. The next obligatory part of any story about faith healing, quackery, pseudoscience, or the paranormal is what I like to call “Bring in the skeptic!” This part of the story usually takes one of two forms. Sometimes the skeptic is a real skeptic, but is not given anywhere near the amount of time to make his case that the supporters of quackery are. Guess which form our “skeptic” takes on Oprah? That’s right. Our “skeptic” isn’t very skeptical at all. Jeff Rediger, and he is presented thusly: Dr. Jeff Rediger is a psychiatrist who traveled to the Casa seven years ago as a skeptic. His goal was to collect lab reports, radiological exams and photos of people who reported that they were physically healed by John of God and to see if the healings could be documented. Like Susan, he witnessed several physical surgeries while he was there. She didn’t try to pull away from him. I heard some people use the term . Unfortunately, in the video I don’t see a whole lot of that coming from Dr.
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