Cancer is bad. Being diagnosed with cancer is a frightening
experience. That, of course, makes cancer patients a very attractive target for
people peddling quackery and woo packed in false hope – you don’t even need to
promise anything: Given what’s at stake,
the faintest hope that a proposed treatment
may,
conceivably, work is often enough (
inconceivably
often works, too). There is, in other words, plenty of opportunities for places
like the
Hippocrates Health Institute (HHI) in Florida and its director, Brian Clement. And the HHI offers
virtually every kind of quackery there is,
from the unproven to the disproven to the incoherent and therefore not testable. As an example, the HHI
“Life Transformation Program”
offers, in addition to exercise and massage, “
superior nutrition through a diet of organically-grown, enzyme-rich, raw,
life-giving foods; detoxification;
w
heatgrass therapies, green
juice, juice fasting;
colonics,
enemas, implants; fa
r
infrared saunas, steam room;
ozone pools,
including: dead sea salt, swimming, jacuzzi and cold plunge; and bio-energy treatments." Oh, yes – it’s trendy, glitzy, and none of it has even remotely any health
benefits, in particular not for cancer.
By the way, you may wonder what “implants” are. Well,
wheatgrass “implants” are, in reality, wheatgrass juice enemas: “
When used as a rectal implant, reverses damage from inside the lower
bowel. An implant is a small amount of juice held in the lower bowel for about
20 minutes. In the case of illness, wheatgrass implants stimulate a rapid
cleansing of the lower bowel and draw out accumulations of debris.” No. Sorry. If you believe that
this works you are an absolute freaking
moron. Take a step back, and get some perspective on what the f*** you are
doing. And yes, it is allowed to laugh at people who fall for this (though we will see below that Brian Clement is not the funny kind of clown). According
to the HHI, however, wheatgrass can increase red blood cell count, decrease
blood pressure, cleanse the blood,
organs and GI tract of “debris,” stimulate the thyroid gland, “restore
alkalinity” to the blood, fight tumors and neutralize toxins,
and many other things. None of the claims are even backed up by anything
resembling evidence – or any remotely plausible mechanism. But of course,
that’s not how criteria roll at Brian Clement’s HHI. By the way, if you’re not
into wheatgrass, the HHI offers the wheatgrass enemas also “in
‘Original’ and ‘Coffee’ varieties."
If that’s
not for you either, the HH1 can also offer you intravenous vitamin therapy, cranial electrotherapy stimulation,
combinations of infrared waves plus oxygen, acupuncture, colon hydrotherapy and lymphatic drainage. Or what about colorpuncture?
And there is quantum woo, inspired by The Secret, and which has to do with how negative energy is producing illness in an incoherent vitalistic mess of a metaphysics.
Clement is doing “quantum biology”, which concerns how vitamins, protein,
water, minerals, essential fatty acids, and oxygen, and “electromagnetic
frequencies” with “their varied frequencies are attracted to the magnetic
energy of the cell.” According to Clement:
“There is a continual and perfect
communication from cell to cell and from gathering of cells […] to gathering of
cells. This communication also reaches beyond your body to all other life
outside. This rhythmic and energetic process is strong, yet fragile. It can be
thrown off by a weakening of the anatomical integrity of the cells or their
central electrical frequencies. This weakening can occur via poor nutrition,
dehydration and/or polluted hydration, lack of oxygen, intake of heavy metals
or chemicals or renegade electromagnetic fields such as cell phones, Wi-Fi,
etc. All abnormalities [note!] that
have been labeled as diseases stem from the negative energies that are endured
from the poor lifestyle choices and unsustainable environment that we have
created on planet earth today. Our core vulnerability stems from the reduction
of bio-frequency that occurs in the cell, which heightens its fragility to make
it ineffective in communication and contribution. When these disturbances are
critical, they can even cause a cell to mutate. When you ingest ionized, rich,
raw plant-based foods, it provides foundational energy. You then have to
consider avoiding negative energy fields or at least protecting yourself from
them with electromagnetic field interrupting devices or tools. What is more
difficult to avoid and personally restrain from is the negative energy that we
absorb or spew from discontented emotional states. Most of you have seen this
and experienced it. Certain people, places or environments can make you feel
uncomfortable, on edge and literally drained.”
“The Aqua Chi is a revolutionary hydro-therapy
detoxification treatment that combines the life-giving properties of water with
a high-frequency, bio-electric charge. This process enhances and amplifies the
body’s own ability to heal itself. Your meridians are permeated and re-aligned
back to their original strength and placement. This occurs through the
electrical fields emanating from the Aqua Chi’s negative ion generator. Since
our bodies are 90% water, the Aqua Chi drains polluting toxins and chemicals
through the natural channels of the feet into the water. In combination with
oxygen, you will maximize the riddance of the many destructive poisons
contracted through improper diet, environmental pollution, and stress.”
In fact, Clement
is sufficiently detached from all reality that he has been embraced by none
other than Joe Mercola,
and has told Mercola things like:
“Photons
come down in the secondary stage, they hit the earth. They transmute into
different frequencies. Those frequencies are what create the physical body or
the energetic body we really are. When you and I are talking and thinking and
people are listening, that’s the energetic body. The physical body that you’re
sitting watching us here now, that’s created by the microbial effect in the
soil, which are still the protons but recycled or re-cached protons. It’s great
stuff.”
Not one of those claims even rise to the level of meaning anything, but apparently his
target audience are those who are unable to distinguish babble from profundity.
The sad thing is that Clement uses this kind of nonsense to lure money from
people in desperate situations. And despite how it looks it really isn’t funny.
Recently,
Clement made the news again after an Ontario court ruled that a first-nation couple could not be forced to give conventional treatments to
their daughter, who has leukemia. Apparently, they would be allowed to act in
accordance with the values of their culture and use Clement’s therapies
instead, which reflect first nation culture as much as beach volleyball. Apparently,
Clement would be using “cold laser therapy, Vitamin C injections, and a strict raw food diet.” It
belongs to the story that another first-nation girl he’d been treating for
leukemia relapsed (of course) and died,
and that prior to the whole debacle and its tragedies Clement had been giving
lectures in and around both girls’ communities, emphasizing how his institute teaches people to “heal themselves” from cancer by eating raw,
organic vegetables and having a positive attitude. “We’ve had more people
reverse cancer than any institute in the history of health care,” says Clement.
Of course, the “world’s foremost health institute that specializes in healing
people with cancer” is licensed as a “massage establishment” since none of
these people at HHI are legally licensed to treat cancer. Clement is not a
physician. He can, however, legitimately adorn his CV with the line “has been the direct cause of the deaths of children.”
Not very many people can.
Diagnosis:
An absolutely abominable character. He might mean well, but so did the
organizers of the children’s crusade. Good intentions are simply not enough.
