Qigong

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

Hi Ruth,

"Weiner, Ruth" wrote:

Oh I just hate to sound like an awful skeptic, but I really do wonder about
experiments done at something called the Columbus Polarity Therapy Institute
(see the URL Jim posted), and I really do wonder just how "objective" not to
speak of careful, those measurements were.  I know from personal experience
how easy it is to see the results you want to see on a meter.  I am not at
all surprised that Doug Boccuzzi's request to use a pocket dosimeter was
rejected, and that, frankly, is a tipoff.  Sorry, Doug.  Qigong sounds
completely phony to me, and  I do dismiss it out-of-hand.

Part of my hard core skepticism comes from my daughter's experience as the
intake nurse at a university student health center.  She has described to me
the many students who came to the health center after trying one or another
alternative medical treatment and getting nothing but pain, infection, and
lack of effective treatment for whatever was wrong.  Particularly sad were
the acupuncture victims who came in with bad infections and in some cases
phlebitis, and the people with untreated malignant tumors.

Sure these things are "popular."  Who wouldn't prefer to believe in magic,
something inexplicable, etc.  And Jim, the very reason we are (or at least I
am) so skeptical about the LNT theory is that there is no human health
evidence for it and plenty for a threshold of one sort or another.  The
evidence against the LNT, and even the evidence for radiation hormesis (of
which I was very skeptical) comes from many independent sources and
observations, and is apparently repeatable.  I'll believe this qigong stuff
when (a) a number of true double-blind experiments have been documented and
(that's "and," not "or")(b) when the qigong practitioners let Doug use his
pocket dosimeter.

Clearly only my own opinion.

Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
Sandia National Laboratories
MS 0718, POB 5800
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
505-844-4791; fax 505-844-0244
rfweine@sandia.gov

=============================

Bit of a Catch 22 :-)  You say you're not surprised measurements were not allowed. I also would not give the qigong report any credence on the basis of no measurements. I was noting that in different conditions, in work that is not directly related to qigong, the work by Sue Benford, Joe Talnagi, and the OSU show a dramatic change in counts (which seem to be far greater than provided for by Fritz' hypothesis that this could be related to the known decay rate change experience :-) .

The point is that in the Benford et al work and paper I referenced, contrary to the premise that "they won't allow the result to be measured," the healing practitioners associated the Polarity Therapy Institute volunteered to have measurements taken! Now what? :-)

Also, as I reported about this experience, Joe Talnagi at the OSU Nuclear Reactor did the measurements. He was also highly skeptical, but unlike others who refused to even consider the original data indicating an effect even though they couldn't explain it, but would not be "associated with even doing such an investigation (my definition of anti-science :-), he had the courage to do his own measurements to his own standards, with later better instrumentation and protocols.

Various people, including myself and some other "nukes" who saw early data, asked questions about how the measurements were done, and recommended approaches for future measurements.  Now what?  :-)

Note the "100% response" of cases where the practitioner vs. sham had a positive effect (vs. no-effect or negative-effect), though the magnitude of the effect varied. The statistics were also done independently by the Epidemiology and Biometrics people in the School of Public Health at OSU!?  (This is not research done "by" the Polarity Therapy Institute, more "on" the Institute :-)   Now what?  :-)

At the same time, this is a peer-reviewed paper in a journal indexed in medline. Note that these results reflect the response to the demand for more established scientific procedures to be applied to the Alternative Medicine arena, including the Alt Med program in NIH.

I'm sure Sue Benford or Joe Talnagi would provide you a reprint if you wanted to review/comment to assess the data. (I think they may also have some later results that are not yet published.)

I think it is accepted that this is "preliminary" data, and that there can and should be such measurements done elsewhere, and that even more rigorous data should be developed. But the data otherwise does seem indicative of some effect. Sue leans toward an explanation that the reduced measurement of radiation energy from internal radioactivity (esp. K-40?) is being utilized by the effect of this "healing energy" than in the normal radiogenic metabolism affecting cellular function.

Sue Benford responded (which would not have come thru radsafe since she's not a subscriber):
===========

Dear Jim,

    Thanks for forwarding the email from Mr. Boccuzzi re: count rate
fluctuations noted during Qigong experiments.  As you know, in coordination
with Joe Talnagi at OSU's Nuclear Reactor Lab, our team has been conducting
experiments to determine whether or not "healing energy" can effect
statistically significant changes in gamma radiation count rates.  We have
conducted over a dozen experiments using a variety of protocols, and
controls, that have produced some very interesting, and significant, results
(abstracts and some full papers are available on our website at:
http://www.homestead.com/newvistas/index.html).

[JM-See the paper, without tables/figures, but describing the measurement procedures at: http://www.alternative-therapies.com/select/9907benford.html ]

    In addition, we have attempted to replicate the Chinese experiments using
Cs-137 with several energy healers plus untrained controls.  The OSU
Biometrics Lab in the College of Medicine is now analyzing that data to
determine if any significant effects were produced during any of the trials.
We attempted to control for all extraneous variables to eliminate as many
confounding variables as possible.  Once the data in analyzed, we plan to
publish it in a peer-reviewed journal.
    I certainly agree with Mr. Boccuzzi's concerns that many of the healing
energy experiments in the past have been conducted under less than stringent
"gold standard" scientific conditions.  Our goal is to introduce these
conditions into measurements of the perceived healing energies as well as
their claimed physiologic effects.  I would hope that once this is
accomplished, if significant effects are observed, they will be given due
attention by the scientific community.

Best regards,

M. Sue Benford, R.N., M.A.
===================

-----Original Message-----
From: Muckerheide [mailto:muckerheide@mediaone.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 6:51 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Qigong

Douglas Boccuzzi wrote:
>
>      Perhaps this subject isn't quite medical physics material, but it
does
>      relate to "medical science", and Chris Alston posted a message about
>      the upcoming "gathering" which my fair city will be hosting.
>
>      The practice of qigong is alarmingly popular, and there are quite a
>      few pseudo-scientific claims being made by its followers.  One of
>      these amazing feats, which Chris mentioned, is the ability to alter
>      nuclear decay rates of certain isotopes.  I for one hope this is not
>      true, since I'm sure to fail my board exams if the qigong masters are
>      correct.
>
>      I've read a few of the "papers" discussing this experiment (available
>      from a number of qigong-related web sites), whereby a qigong master
>      "directs" his qi at distances up to thousands of km (from US to
China,
>      in one case) to either increase or decrease the decay rate (observed
>      counts) of Am-241, usually by an amount on the order of 1%.
>      Apparently qi (vaguely defined as some sort of life force or energy)
>      can either travel along the curved surface of the earth, or directly
>      through it.  Independent reproduction of such studies are difficult,
>      since qigong masters are usually reluctant to perform these tricks
>      repeatedly under controlled conditions, since exerting qi seems to
>      drain them of their life force (is anyone surprised by this?).
>
>      I've had several friends who have practiced a particular form of
>      qigong, where the master claimed other talents, such as being able to
>      emit from his body radiation flux great enough to overload the
>      measuring instruments during an experiment (I wonder if the
>      practitioners exceed the MPD from this exposure).  When I offered a
>      pocket dosimeter for the purpose of grossly detecting this radiation,
>      I was (oddly enough) refused the opportunity.
>
>      No one would be more excited and interested than I if the qigong
>      claims were true, and I think these effects should be examined
>      scientifically and not dismissed out-of-hand.  However, extraordinary
>      claims require extraordinary proof, and until someone demonstrates
>      some peer-reviewed evidence that such things occur as advertised, I
>      will continue to regard this as fringe, potentially dangerous
>      anti-science.
>
>      Douglas Boccuzzi
>      St. Luke's-Roosevelt and Beth Israel Medical Center
>      New York

Interesting. Effects on count rate are not limited to Qi-gong. See
for example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=10394674&form=6&db=m
&Dopt=b

Joe Talnagi, who conducted the radiation measurements, is at the
Ohio State Nuclear Reactor. As a pretty strong skeptic, Joe had to
be convinced to continue conducting the measurements, with
increasing control and counting sensitivity, after the initial
"unexplainable" suppression of the count rate during the application
of "healing energy". Unlike many, he went ahead and collaborated on
the paper - many who find "politically incorrect results don't. Now
that the real "anti-science."  :-)

Don't worry about your board exams, you'd probably be ok if you said
the LNT were true; and certainly be wrong if you said that "healers"
affect the count rate.  Academic health physics radiation effects
exams don't test what's "true", only what's "politically acceptable"
and accurately reflects the "training." No original thought allowed  :-)

Don't know why reporting on valid objective observations should be
considered "pseudo-science" or "anti-science", and consider the LNT
to be "science".  Sounds too much like "1984" to me  :-)  [15 years
AGO!?  and it came true? :-) ]

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================
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