Another break from Patrick Holford, to look some more at Life’s 4 Living (L4L). They are offering a “unique opportunity” for young people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to participate in a documentary on an ‘alternative’ MS treatment. Participants are asked to spend 3 months in China, for a documentary by Creation Film and TV (apparently they would like to broadcast this on Channel 4, although we hope that Channel 4 will be forewarned and will avoid this documentary). We’ll look over their PDF document on this ‘opportunity’, and find that L4L combine a highly stereotyped attitude to Chinese people with an unfounded denigration of evidence-based medicine, unjustified claims to cure MS, and demands for young people with MS and their families to commit a lot of time and money. However, we will also consider how – despite the serious problems with L4L’s treatment plans – they are still likely to be able to produce a TV documentary showing MS to be ‘cured’.
Firstly, it’s a fascinating coincidence that L4L chose to do a documentary on MS: a condition that can naturally go into remission. As the MS Society puts it,
period of stability between relapses when symptoms settle down or disappear is known as remission. Remissions can last any length of time, even years. No one knows exactly what makes MS go into remission.
We are surprised that L4L did not decide to prove the efficacy of their approach by focusing on a disability which does not go into remission: for example, causing amputated limbs to regrow would be much more compelling evidence for efficacy than MS symptoms going into remission. But, of course, L4L are quite entitled to focus on whichever condition they prefer.
Reading the L4L PDF, we were also interested to see (p. 8 ) that they are only seeking participants who have never had a serious operation and are not on any “intensive medical programme”. This will mean that – as well as taking patients with a condition that naturally goes into remission – L4L will only take those who are at the less ill end of the spectrum. Again, this would make ‘positive’ results from the treatment more likely: if you take less ill people with a condition which naturally goes into remission into a several month treatment programme, there’s a good chance that – just through blind luck – some will be relatively well at the end of the programme.
But, these quibbles aside, what do L4L say about the programme? Towards the start of their PDF (p. 3) L4L attempt to summarise ‘Chinese’ and ‘Western’ medicine:
The Chinese take a holistic approach to health. This means viewing the patient as a ‘whole person’ (their physical body and their emotional wellbeing) rather than isolating and treating individual symptoms, as we tend to do in the West. For example, if you go to a Western doctor with a headache, you will probably be prescribed some pain killers. If you go to a Chinese doctor, he will examine your whole body and talk to you about your emotional condition; then explain that your headache is there because one of the main organs in your body is not functioning properly. They will then proceed to treat that organ.
This statement is wrong, drawing on inaccurate stereotypes. Firstly, L4L assume that “The Chinese” all exclusively rely on ‘alternative’ medicine: this is false, and deeply insulting to all the Chinese people who use, practise and research evidence-based medicine. Likewise, of course, many Western doctors (and unqualified Western ‘alternative’ therapists who call themselves doctors) practise all kinds of stupid ‘alternative’ treatments: L4L’s own Barefoot Doctor would be a prime example here. See Carrette and King’s book for more detail in this area.
It is also worth noting that L4L have a rather old-fashioned idea of what constitutes evidence-based medicine. Most GPs should now be aware of the role of stress etc. in causing headaches, and if one consults a GP about a headache, one would generally expect questions about one’s emotional state. GPs are also generally reluctant to prescribe strong painkillers nowadays: it is unlikely that seeing a GP with a headache would lead to one being given prescription painkillers rather than advice to use OTC painkillers amongst other recommendations.
L4L then talk about what treatment they can offer for MS:
The holistic methods employed by Life’s 4 Living practitioners in China are entirely natural and are centred on a highly-evolved, tried-and-tested body of oriental knowledge, which encompasses the remarkable healing power of human energy (commonly known as ‘Qi’ throughout Asia and eastern practices), particularly when mobilised and directed by our expert practitioners.
I’m not sure why Traditional Chinese Medicine should be viewed as natural: for example, sticking a load of needles in people as part of an acupuncture treatment actually seems most unnatural. Energy healing, if it worked – and we’ll get to that later – would seem to be supernatural rather than natural. It’s interesting to know that these methods have been used for a long time – but I’d think that whether or not they work is rather more important.
Still on page 3, L4L dig themselves in deeper:
Qi is the essential energy that keeps human beings alive and enables us to move, breathe, talk and carry out all our daily functions and activities. If medicine today accepts that certain conditions can manifest real symptoms, yet are known as psychosomatic, then the converse must also be true. The same energy that causes adverse situations can be utilised to help the healing process.
As an argument in favour of energy healing, this is particularly stupid. The existence of psychosomatic conditions may show that complex mind-body interactions take place and can influence our health, but it does not show that Qi plays any role in this process or that such mind-body interactions can ‘cure’ conditions such as MS. Analogously, if I concentrate on what I’m doing in the gym this may let me squat 300lb without hurting myself; however, it clearly does not follow from this that I rely on qi when I exercise or that a similar focus would allow me to squat a 3,000lb.
Page 4 of the PDF states that MS is nasty (at last, something we can agree on!) and that lots of research is being done:
It is estimated that 2.5 million people suffer from MS worldwide. The disease is most prevalent amongst Caucasians of northern European origin. It is being widely researched in major medical institutions across America and Europe, with at least a dozen clinical trials testing potential therapies currently underway in USA. In western biomedicine there is currently no cure for MS, and research appears still to be a long way from finding a cure.
However, L4L conspicuously fail to mention any research showing that their approach to treatment is useful. In fact, no good quality research has even shown that qi exists, let alone that energy healing can be effective.
Despite this complete lack of good evidence, L4L go on to claim (p. 7) to cure MS:
The healing programme is intensive and can eliminate disease very quickly with the full cooperation of participants.
This combines both a completely unjustified and irresponsible promise to the young people that L4L are promoting this programme to – to eliminate a currently incurable condition – with a convenient get-out clause for L4L: if the programme fails to work, perhaps this will be because the patients have failed to cooperate fully?
Of course, this false hope does not come cheap: the PDF demands (p. 8 ) that participants either pay a proportion of expenses or do work for L4L in lieu of payment. More significantly, the programme demands a huge time commitment (p. 8 ): three months, pretty much full-time, and various other activities before and after this three month period. Someone in perfect health would struggle to achieve this; it will be a far more arduous commitment for someone with MS.
Some readers might ask, “Where’s the harm?” and we would ordinarily refer them to Skepdic and Skeptico for full answers to that. But, MS is a chronic condition for which there is, currently, no cure so it might seem is not as if there is not much of an alternative to eschew. So, is there any harm under those circumstances? There is no definitive answer. However, emergent research suggests that there may be times when hope may, perhaps, be harmful; the NYT offers a thoughtful account of a talk on the subject, Hope Can Be Worse than Hopelessness.
[A] team of researchers suggested that one obstacle to emotional recovery, oddly enough, is hope — the belief that your current hardship is temporary.
From the beginning, the investigators suspected that hope might sometimes be counterproductive: prisoners with life sentences but with the possibility of parole adapt less well to prison life, for example, than prisoners with life sentences without the possibility of parole. But the researchers sought another empirical test. Their choice: Colostomy patients…
The researchers looked at groups of patients with a permanent or temporary colostomy. They collected data on the patients’ life-satisfaction ratings.
[T]he permanent-colostomy patients ended up happier six months after the operation than the temporary group, whose members were still holding out hope. Patients with a temporary colostomy experienced a significant drop in life satisfaction versus patients in the permanent group.
The researchers speculate that concentrating on a condition in terms of something that is temporary and can be terminated can preclude the degree of acceptance that may be necessary to move on and to focus on the good things in life. With a condition like MS that can be relapsing and remitting, it is difficult to estimate the psychological and emotional impact of believing oneself to be cured during a (natural) remission, but then relapsing.
All this would be a worry if L4L were an entirely unblemished organisation. However, as we have shown, L4L raise a number of concerns. I am not convinced that they are an appropriate organisation to be treating vulnerable young people, period; the thought of them running a three month residential programme fills me with horror. To make matters worse, the PDF states (p. 5) that “Life’s 4 Living Trust Ltd and Eden Phenomena Healthcare have organized the Health Rejuvenation Programme in cooperation with…partners” including a Health Food company and two organisations promoting non-evidence-based medicine. One must wonder what will take priority: the interests of the young people, or the interests of L4L, Creation Film and TV, and L4L’s partners?
In the PDF describing their MS programme, L4L demonstrate a stupid and stereotyped conception of Chinese people, medicine and science, and a completely inadequate understanding of evidence-based medicine. They also make unjustified claims for the efficacy of their MS treatment, which they completely fail to back up with any good-quality evidence. However, because of the way in which their programme is organised, we suspect that it will make a compelling documentary and provide L4L and their ‘partners’ with a number of positive anecdotes that they can use to sell their products.
I just hope that Channel 4 will see through this, and refuse to screen the documentary: this not an appropriate thing to do to vulnerable young people; as previously discussed on HolfordWatch, there are concerns that L4L are not self-evidently an appropriate organisation to be running such a programme; L4L hold unjustified and stereotypical beliefs about Chinese people and evidence-based medicine; and a documentary on this stupid treatment approach could easily give the misleading impression that it works by cherry-picking ‘good’ examples.
I also very much hope that the young people on this programme are not damaged by the process.
19 Comments
February 25, 2008 at 10:49 am
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HJ20Cb01.html
Not that you’d suspect it from the L4L pdf, but there is debate in China about TCM. Response from Chinese state authorities to such criticism to date has been hostile.
February 25, 2008 at 7:35 pm
L4L are also peddling a sterotype of Traditional Chinese Medicine being “holistic” – whatever that means.
Back in the days when I was an acupuncture student, some of my mates went over to China to view the real thing and they came back shocked by what they had actually seen.
February 25, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Bob, in what way ’shocked’? Conditions? The way TCM is practised? If you know, I’m a little curious about this.
February 29, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Yes, total cobblers about TCM and how everyone in China thinks it’s great. There are scads of Chinese scientists and medics coming to the US and Europe to do research, precisely because they acknowledge the effectiveness of the scientific method and evidence based medicine.
With respect to MS; you are right to point out why this illness is a magnet for cynical charlatans and hucksters: long-term progressive disease with relapsing-remitting course, and no effective treatment available. Of course sufferers are looking for solutions, and I fear are easy prey for people like L4L.
March 1, 2008 at 6:33 pm
This has been a vicious, sustained and unprovoked attack on this charity, Life’s 4 Living. Over the next days, Life’s 4 Living will refute each and every allegation contained in this spurious document. Please keep watching the Life’s 4 Living website ( http://www.lifes4living.org ) for developments. If anything needs further investigation it is the cowardly and anonymous author(s) of this wholly untrue piece of shoddy, so-called investigative journalism.
March 1, 2008 at 9:33 pm
L4L – Well it seems to me after looking at your site and specifically the document on your MS programme, that the above article is a fair but critical analysis of your own material. Your are in fact peddling patent falsehoods such as
“Qi is the essential energy that keeps human beings alive and enables us to move, breathe, talk and carry out all our daily functions and activities”
This is obviously untrue. It’s as if I were to say “Qi is the essential energy that keeps my computer running, enables it to communicate with the internet, and keeps bugs out of all the software”
No matter how convinced I may be of the power of Qi in running my computer, it is an absolute certainty that I will not be able to retrieve my data in the event of a hard-disk crash by trying to revive its Qi.
March 2, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Hmm, L4L, the first thing I see when I follow that link you have there to your website is a photto and endorsement from the Barefoot Doctor, who, if he was a real doctor, would have been struck off for sleeping with vulnerable patients/ex-patinets – which he has publically admitted.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.
March 2, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Excellent blog. Excellent criticisms with regard the denigration of evidence based medicine, and an insightful commentary on the methods of quacks and the lengths they go to in order to fool the unwary into believing their nonsense. L4L’s MS “cure” does seem to be a perfect example of what Feynman called Cargo Cult Science.
March 2, 2008 at 6:14 pm
There seems to be some connection between sexual transgressions and so-called self-help gurus. I am thinking in particular of M Scott Peck and Dr Phil. It kind of makes you wonder whether they are capable of forming adult relationships which in turn begs the question as to why they are dealing with vulnerable people ……..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article520838.ece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_McGraw
March 2, 2008 at 6:57 pm
We are not surprised when some people are attracted to the Police force or the military because of the “power”, to say nothing of the violence. Similarly we shouldn’t be surprised when some people are attracted to the wonderful world of quack medicine and magical therapies because of the opportunities it provides to meritlessly influence the lives of others.
CAM is by and large, in my opinion, an intellectual- and integrity-free zone. A license for ignorant or unscrupulous individuals to take advantage of and defraud whoever desperate or ill-informed that comes along.
March 3, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Holfordwatch: A Combination of the Sinister and the Secretive
A First Response
As someone who is independent of Life’s 4 Living Trust but has a working knowledge of its operations, I have been asked to reply to stories about the charity recently posted on the Holfordwatch web-site. This is my first response. Others will follow.
On February 21st, 22nd and 25th 2008, in three separate articles, Life’s 4 Living Trust came under a vicious, sustained and unprovoked attack from a source that can only be described as cowardly and unprofessional. But perhaps more important, every allegation made against the charity in these postings is demonstrably wrong.
The attack emanated from a site called Holfordwatch. This site is one of the strangest I have ever seen. It is dedicated to debunking the work of one particular individual, an alternative nutritionist called Patrick Holford. Now I know little of Mr. Holford’s endeavours but whatever his transgressions may have been, from my analysis it appears that they hardly merit the labours an attack-site such as this takes to set up and keep going. In fact the whole enterprise smacks of disproportionate prejudice on a monumental scale.
Before turning to the specifics of Holfordwatch’s articles on Life4Living Trust there is one other extremely weird aspect of the site’s activities worth inspecting: its carpet-bombing of those to whom it takes a dislike is carried out anonymously. Moreover, its justification for this stance is not only one that to my knowledge has never been put forward before (probably because no-one normally involved in the investigative reporting of others would be so cowardly) but is also mind-bogglingly smug and, in journalistic terms, unacceptably unprofessional.
It is therefore a good idea to take some time to examine the secrecy of Holfordwatch more closely. On the web-site, in the section entitled, ‘About Us’, it states: “We’re not oversharing on biographical details….because we find it distracts from a critique of the science and ideas.” This is bizarre. Exactly how putting a name to Holfordwatch’s malicious gossip would be distracting is not explained. Indeed, in over twenty years of being in journalism and around reporters I have never heard this argument made before. Following the logic of Holforwatch’s reasoning, academic journals would refuse to include the names of the authors of learned papers in case they ‘distracted’ from any ‘critique’ of the science. This is nonsense, designed, as far as I can see, to provide a flimsy cover for a lack of transparency.
It doesn’t end there. The site goes on to say: “It doesn’t matter whether we are the pride of our mothers and the despair of our schoolfriends.” This displays a juvenile approach which is breathtaking. Perhaps, ordinarily, this wouldn’t matter but these people are in the business of trying to destroy those with whom they disagree.
And there’s more. They say: “It’s the ideas, science and analysis which count”. Once again, the authors fail to tell us why these two propositions – putting a name to an article and ideas, science and analysis – are mutually exclusive.
Some of those who have responded to this self-serving rubbish have seen through Holfordwatch’s pathetic attempt to justify its secretive approach. Jim Manson, for instance, asks, “Who are you naughty boys and girls?” The site, in its answer to Manson, completely ignores his question, which prompted him to ask again….”Who is behind the site?” In the face of such persistence Holfordwatch was forced to provide some sort of answer. Having first reiterated the previous point that “our biographical and personal information has nothing to do with the criticisms we make….” (in which case why not include it?) they then ask of Manson, “Why are you concerned?”
This strange stance to legitimate questions is best summed up by the respondent ‘youtellmeyoursandilltellyoumine’, who asked, “Surely if your names are not a secret then why not state them unless, of course you have something to hide?”
It all makes you wonder what exactly Holfordwatch is afraid of.
Given that the writer prefers to hide behind the parapet of secrecy, we can only speculate as to his or her identity. It is possible – but not certain – that Holfordwatch is in some way connected to Ben Goldacre, who writes the Bad Science column which appears in the British newspaper, The Guardian, once a week. Suffice it to say that no reputable newspaper would allow a column like Bad Science to be published without the author’s name on it, hence Ben Goldacre’s visibility when he writes for such an internationally renowned publication.
The reasons for this supposition are as follows. First, the nomenclature Bad Science is used in the site’s headlines. If Goldacre is not involved, then among Holfordwatch’s many sins, the stealing of his label shows an inclination for dissembling and a complete disregard for the usual conventions. Second, Ben Goldacre’s name is cited by a number of respondents to the site. These postings are neither confirmed nor denied by the author(s). Third, Mr. Goldacre recently contacted Life’s 4 Living Trust with some questions about Stephen Russell, aka The Barefoot Doctor. Perhaps the subsequent appearance of these articles is mere coincidence but I wouldn’t place a bet on it. But if it is anything to do with Goldacre, why would he abandon the high-profile method used in his Guardian stories? Perhaps the Guardian requires a higher standard of professional care than a web-site. Whatever the case, it is odd that a web-site and its blogs should wish to hide themselves so completely when they are in the business of producing hatchet-jobs on others. It is hardly reassuring to know that while they are happy to attempt to ruin the reputations of their targets, they themselves refuse to reveal who they are.
The first article was posted on February 21st under the title ‘Barefoot, Sex, Sleaze and Life’s 4 Living’. Its main thrust is twofold: that Stephen Russell plunders the spirituality of other cultures and sells it in a repackaged form to a western audience; that he has had sexual encounters with women who, at one time or another, were his patients; and that Life’s 4 Living Trust has allowed him access to vulnerable people.
No doubt the Barefoot Doctor can deal with these questions himself. However, to give the reader a flavour of Holfordwatch’s style, it is worth making the following point since it displays the techniques Holfordwatch uses again and again. In the attack of February 21st, the site refers to matters relating to Russell which “have yet to be adjudicated upon.” Yet despite this fact, Holfordwatch feels free to assert, without any supporting evidence, that Russell’s explanation for them is “less than exculpatory.”
Although the site quickly degenerates into a News of the World type of sexual innuendo, we’ll let that pass for the moment. It is not long before the document brings Life’s 4 Living Trust into the equation when it states that “Barefoot Russell is fronting for the Life’s 4 Living Trust.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Holfordwatch goes on to profess concern that a charity should be associated with someone of Russell’s disposition. This is nothing more than a pejorative and biased interpretation of the situation. Let’s state here the facts. The Barefoot Doctor is not and never has been in contact with any of those people whom Life’s 4 Living Trust helps in its charitable works, be they vulnerable or otherwise. He is a patron of the charity and has been instrumental in attending events and assisting with its fund-raising activities, for which the charity thanks him. He also allows his name and image to be used in publicity material. Is Holfordwatch saying that helping to raise funds for a good cause is wrong? It seems so. We may ask at this point whether the anonymous and secretive persons behind the site have ever done anything for charity themselves.
Holfordwatch then turns its guns on a director of the charity, Claire Sutton. The most it can say about her is that she expressed a desire to help sick children who might benefit from a fully-paid-for trip to China to see if they could experience any improvement in their conditions through undergoing traditional Chinese treatments. In the eyes of Holfordwatch, this is wrong because of the charity’s association with the Barefoot Doctor. But the author completely misunderstands the involvement of Stephen Russell, whose role is clearly restricted to accompanying (i.e. helping with) the making of a film of the trip. It was never envisaged that Russell would be directly involved with the patients. And the proof of this is that Russell never met any of the individuals concerned. Had Holfordwatch followed normal journalistic practice and asked the charity to explain its position, it would have been made aware of the true situation. Instead it failed to seek any answers and simply went ahead and assumed its own view. Or at least we think that’s what it did. In response to a question from the aforementioned Ben Goldacre on this very subject, the charity fully explained both this point and Stephen Russell’s general association with the charity. If Goldacre has nothing to do with Holfordwatch, then fair enough. If, however, he is connected to the site, it appears he has wilfully ignored the inconvenience this knowledge must have brought. We, nor anyone else, can say whether he has had any input into the article because of Holfordwatch’s propensity for secrecy. If he is not involved then surely he should take steps to distance himself from this appalling and inaccurate site.
The rest of Holfordwatch’s February 21st document can be categorised as a trailer for the attacks of February 22nd and February 25th. It refers to some so-called “seamier antecedents” of Life’s 4 Living Trust. All of these allegations will be refuted in the responses to the subsequent two articles, which will be posted within the next few days. Having said that, it seems a good idea to nail a couple of the final allegations, which are made but not fully explained in the document of February 21st.
One such allegation is that “people” went to a training school and “died of cancer”. Perhaps Holfordwatch would be better employed investigating the huge numbers of “people” who have died of cancer at the hands of conventional medicine but this, of course, would not fit in with the author’s prejudices. This matter will be fully examined in subsequent postings.
In a similar vein, Holfordwatch berates Life’s 4 Living Trust for seeking sponsorship from corporations. Tell us, Holfordwatch, whether it is nobler to encourage corporate entities not involved in health-care to become interested in the plight of sick people or if it is ok for the conventional health industry to be in bed with multi-national drug companies and huge health insurers, who already have massive vested interests in the field.
To sum up, let’s state some simple facts, a procedure that appears quite alien to those at Holfordwatch. Life’s 4 Living Trust exists to raise money and pay for treatment for those unfortunate enough to be suffering from some of the worst diseases in the modern world. Often these conditions are incurable by conventional western medicine. Is that so bad that anonymous and secretive organisations like Holfordwatch can denigrate this work simply because it doesn’t fit in with their narrow-minded world-view? It appears so from this shoddy and malevolent piece of work.
Lynton Guest AKC: March 2008
March 3, 2008 at 3:58 pm
every allegation made against the charity in these postings is demonstrably wrong.
We’ll look forward to a refutation of these points in your future posts, but you certainly haven’t demonstrated this here. If you feel that everything we’re saying it wrong – it isn’t – then it’s a shame you concentrated on boring ad hominem arguments instead of more substantive points.
This site is one of the strangest I have ever seen.
You haven’t seen much of the Internet, then, I’m guessing.
It is therefore a good idea to take some time to examine the secrecy of Holfordwatch more closely. On the web-site, in the section entitled, ‘About Us’, it states: “We’re not oversharing on biographical details….because we find it distracts from a critique of the science and ideas.” This is bizarre. Exactly how putting a name to Holfordwatch’s malicious gossip would be distracting is not explained. Indeed, in over twenty years of being in journalism and around reporters I have never heard this argument made before. Following the logic of Holforwatch’s reasoning, academic journals would refuse to include the names of the authors of learned papers in case they ‘distracted’ from any ‘critique’ of the science. This is nonsense, designed, as far as I can see, to provide a flimsy cover for a lack of transparency.
We’re neither professionals nor journalists – we don’t get paid for doing this, and would rather avoid tedious ad hominem arguments about our personalities. Anonymous blogging isn’t exactly anything new, and readers are free to either engage with our ideas, or not. By the way, it’s still common practice for journals to anonymise papers prior to peer review.
It all makes you wonder what exactly Holfordwatch is afraid of.
Well, it goes with the territory, but we do get the occasional outbreak of cyberstalking and threat of violence and/or death. Nothing we take that seriously – but we don’t think our identities are particularly relevent, and this is another disincentive to giving them out.
the whole enterprise smacks of disproportionate prejudice on a monumental scale.
For example? – where do we say something that’s inaccurate. I find this especially daft coming from a supporter of a charity which claims that all Chinese people – the whole billion of them? – back traditional chinese medicine?
Holfordwatch is in some way connected to Ben Goldacre
We like Ben’s work, if that’s what you mean. He doesn’t write, edit, run or own this blog. As for using the term ‘bad science’ – it’s not exactly patented (or original to Ben) and I’m sure Ben would not object to its use. By the way, is ‘Life’s 4 Living’ an original name?
Holfordwatch feels free to assert, without any supporting evidence, that Russell’s explanation for them is “less than exculpatory.”…Is Holfordwatch saying that helping to raise funds for a good cause is wrong?
Russell himself admits having sex with former patients. This is certainly a ‘less than exculpatory’ response to the allegations that were made – frankly, I think we were rather polite here.
The Barefoot Doctor is not and never has been in contact with any of those people whom Life’s 4 Living Trust helps in its charitable works, be they vulnerable or otherwise…the author completely misunderstands the involvement of Stephen Russell, whose role is clearly restricted to accompanying (i.e. helping with) the making of a film of the trip. It was never envisaged that Russell would be directly involved with the patients. And the proof of this is that Russell never met any of the individuals concerned. Had Holfordwatch followed normal journalistic practice and asked the charity to explain its position, it would have been made aware of the true situation. Instead it failed to seek any answers and simply went ahead and assumed its own view. Or at least we think that’s what it did.
We trusted one of Life’s 4 Living’s own PDF on this. Russell is quoted as saying that “for the best part of a year now I’ve been working with Life’s 4 Living. We are doing some fantastic work with children suffering from life limiting or life threatening conditions, many of whom have little or no medication available to treat them”. The same document states that “Accompanied by the Barefoot Doctor (AKA Stephen Russell), the film follows a group of ten children and young adults, aged between 5-21 years old, who suffer from severe illness or disability that is beyond current medical assistance, on a journey of healing and discovery. This journey will take them all the way to China”.
If Life’s 4 Living does not want journalists and/or bloggers to presume that the discussion of their activities on their own website is accurate, perhaps they should add a disclaimer to this effect? If Life’s 4 Living did not mean to say that Barefoot Doctor was working with their clients, they should look to revise this document.
One such allegation is that “people” went to a training school and “died of cancer”. Perhaps Holfordwatch would be better employed investigating the huge numbers of “people” who have died of cancer at the hands of conventional medicine but this, of course, would not fit in with the author’s prejudices. This matter will be fully examined in subsequent postings.
We do do things other than this blog – and have analysed other issues elsewhere. However, the important question – completely dodged by Lynton here – is whether or not people died of cancer at the training school we referred to. Even if ‘conventional’ medicine were evil, this does not excuse nasty things done in the name of ‘alternative’ medicine.
To be honest – Lynton – I’m annoyed. I’ve waded through a near-enough 2000 word rant from you, and found remarkably few substantive issues to engage with. We do make a number of significant criticisms of Life’s 4 Living – perhaps, in your next response, you might like to address some of them, instead of obsessing about who we are or are not?
March 3, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I think that more was said about the Suttons, if I have read the footnotes correctly. I for one was intrigued to read about the transmission of healing energy down phone lines.
And what an amazing investigation that was.
March 3, 2008 at 5:39 pm
[...] delighted to see Life’s 4 Living posting a response (written by Lynton Guest, AKC) to our serious concerns about their practises. However, we were disappointed to see that they resorted to (long, boring) ad hominem attacks on us [...]
March 3, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I work with children with severe disabilities, and I think that a charity which provided appropriate *complementary* therapies would be a good thing.
However, that’s not what you are doing.
Reading the blogs linked to from your main page suggests that you aren’t sticking to things to ‘improve the quality of life’.
This was written by the mother of a child on one of your blogs:
That is appalling, and if it happened in the UK I would expect any organisation working with vulnerable children to immediately stop working with the people concerned, and to look at disciplinary procedures or striking off the practitioner involved. I’d like to know what you have done about this person to prevent a repeat of such an appalling statement, please? The reference is there on your own website, here: http://lifes4living.org/blog/?cat=4 (bottom of page).
Elsewhere on Youtube, and on the blogs linked to from your site, it is quite clear that parents & children are being taken off their medication, including asthma prevention (potentially fatal) and pain relief: ‘My mum was getting painful attacks in her legs for a few nights now I wake up and hear her moaning and groaning with pain. But she didn’t take her medication.’
People are being led to believe that: ‘Energy can cure any diseases.’
This is a far cry from using complementary therapies simply to improve quality of life, as most of your website would suggest. Indeed, in the cases on your blog I would go so far as to suggest that some of the things people were told have reduced their quality of life.
The idea behind your charity seems to be a good one, but the application of it horribly misguided.
March 3, 2008 at 9:02 pm
http://holfordwatch.info/2008/02/25/lifes-4-living-bizarre-energy-medicine-cure-for-ms/#comment-8583
If Life’s 4 Living wish to know whether I am involved Holfordwatch then they need only ask. I am not.
For the record, I also have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the activities of Life’s 4 Living.
I contacted them in passing, simply because I am writing about the regulation of alternative therapies, which will doubtless be a big story this year. The Barefoot Doctor, Stephen Russell, has acknowledged having sex with former patients. This is the kind of activity which regulators are involved in offering guidance on, and I simply asked what steps L4L took to review the issue when they began to work with him, in the absence of a formal framework regulating his profession.
So far the only response from Life’s 4 Living has been, confusingly, to deny that it is even an issue, and to state twice that Russell has no patient contact through their organisation.
This is despite announcing that they are making a film in which they will be sending a group of 10 children 5 – 21 years old to China for 3 months accompanied by Stephen Russell.
http://www.lifes4living.org/documents/The-Lifes-4-Living-Film.pdf
I should be clear that I have absolutely no view on whether this is problematic. I was simply asking what mechanisms they had in place, what discussions took place before making the decision, and so on.
I can only say I’m very surprised to see how this has progressed.
B
http://www.lifes4living.org/documents/The-Lifes-4-Living-Film.pdf
Life’s 4 Living – The Film
Creation Film & TV create a powerful documentary called Life’s 4 Living.
Accompanied by the Barefoot Doctor (AKA Stephen Russell), the film
follows a group of ten children and young adults, aged between 5-21
years old, who suffer from severe illness or disability that is beyond
current medical assistance, on a journey of healing and discovery.
This journey will take them all the way to China where they will spend
up to 3 months experiencing the ancient healing arts of World-Leading
Masters.
March 5, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Its sad to see how Holford Watch is following same modern journalism (or blogging) path with publishing stories without making proper investigation and asking right question and right people.
Making judgment just by reading the L4L website and not trying to see whether there is some truth in the whole thing is truly irresponsible.
I wonder do they know how much damage they made to this highly successful healing method which produced many fantastic health results. Not just with MS people but with many other incurable health disorders.
Just by having freedom of speech and modern communication methods does not mean that you can attack everything around you without taking any moral consequences.
I suggest that people from Holford Watch give a call to L4L and ask phone numbers of 5-10 people who can directly give testimonials about their results. They will be very glad to do that because they are very clear how they get their results.
This is real. Everything else is just philosophy.
And if you still care to be a voice of the truth you would publish these testimonials on your websites.
But Im afraid that HW does not care about truth.
Being negative attracts more readers. Who want to read positive news?!
Sad but true.
But luckily organizations like L4L will continue to bring light on this planet.
And it will get stronger.
March 5, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I just came across this ridiculous debate from looking at the L4L website.
There are few people in this world who dedicate their lives to helping others, and to see them being slandered in this way is absolutely unforgivable.
It is pretty clear to me that for every 1 person who feels the CAM / energy healing approach is rubbish, there must be at least 100 people who feel it has bought about great improvements in their lives, otherwise there would never be such a fuss.
My message to those 1 in-a 100 people is this – please go and get a life and stop trying to ruin the lives of others who are trying their best to make a difference in the world
May 15, 2008 at 6:40 pm
[...] the Energy Clinic has been linked to Life’s 4 Living: a controversial charity which has made claims to cure MS through an unproven and implausible ‘treatment’ and – in an especially declasse move – apparently facilitated an autistic child being told that [...]