Tuesday, January 29, 2013

#398: Vivian Vetrano


Vivian Virginia Vetrano is allegedly a chiropractor with special skills and knowledge in holistic medicine and alternative medical treatment. For many years, she operated – together with her son-in-law and daughter Gregory and Tosca Haag – the Rest of Your Life (ROYL) Retreat in La Vernia, Texas, where they offered fasting and other “natural hygiene” approaches. Natural hygiene is an offshoot of naturopathy (described and assessed in detail here) based on fallacious appeals to nature, and which is in direct opposition to most medical treatments, advocating instead (a) eating a “raw food” diet of vegetables, fruits, and nuts, (b) periodic fasting, and (c) “food combining”, i.e. avoiding food combinations Vetrano et al. considers detrimental. That, of course, is a bad idea, and Vetrano has predictably enough been involved in lawsuits following the deaths of patients with curable conditions, such as this one. She is still a hero of the raw food movement, it seems.

Natural hygiene, founded by Herbert Shelton in the early twentieth century, seems to be a major force of evil in today’s society. It was developed in detail and brought up to date (i.e. incorporating the usual fads) in the 1980s by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond and their enormously popular books Fit for Life and Living Health (Harvey has a “Ph.D. in nutritional science” from the unaccredited American College of Health Science), as well as through The Beverly Hills Medical Diet by the recent Judy Mazel, and Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins.

Diagnosis: Influential crackpot who is still in the business of unsupported claims that are evidently not to the benefit of health and well-being. A good argument in favor of more substantial anti-quack laws.

6 comments:

  1. So Vivian Vetrano has a death on her hands.? We shouldn't mention then that Vioxx (approved by the FDA) caused over 56,000 deaths, and that the annual death-rate caused by the medical system runs into over 783,000 deaths.

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  2. Gregory & Tosca Haag along with Vetrano hold themselves out as Doctors. They are con artists praying on desperate people.
    They are responsible for the death of a 55 year old man who trusted them. Animals like this should be in prison not just in debt.

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    1. And the official institution is not preying on desperate people?

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  3. This Website is obviously supported by people based toward Allopathic medicine.

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    1. This website is biased toward medicine that works and has been shown to work, which - by definition - would be science-based medicine. That is correct, and you are really pointing out the obvious. The website is biased *against* "medicine" that doesn't work, such as the idiotic bullshit promoted by Vivian Vetrano.

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  4. If I had listened to medical doctors, I wouldn't have a thyroid today and might have some serious permanent health issues. Thank goodness I kept my own counsel and as a result, I not only have my thyroid but both breasts.

    I had hyperthyroidism -- Graves Disease -- for a dozen years. Radioactive iodine was recommended, a treatment where you swallow a cup of radioactive liquid and your thyroid gradually disintegrates, forcing you to take artificial hormone replacement for the rest of your life. I argued with about six endocrinologists in Houston, one of the great medical centers in the U.S., saying that I wanted to try a raw food diet. All of them insisted it would not work. But I did it anyway and ate raw food for a year -- and most importantly, I stopped drinking coffee for good -- and my condition reversed itself.

    The same year, another doctor wanted to biopsy my breast because a mammogram had showed a lesion on it. The way the doctor looked at me, and talked, you'd think I was one step from the grave. I refused his advice and the biopsy and continued my raw-food diet. All this was 20 years ago and I'm still here and healthy. I won't say it wasn't scary but I had faith my body would take care of the problem. The human body knows how to heal itself; you just have to stop giving it the wrong foods and conditions (for instance, too much stress, not drinking enough water) and then start doing what really works. That is, a natural foods diet and other things (sunshine, fresh air, water, exercise, enough sleep, trust in God). Give it a couple of months and if it can be healed at all -- if the disease is not too far advanced -- there's a chance it will heal.

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