Jul 05 2011
Electrodermal Testing Part I: Fooling Patients with a Computerized Magic Eight Ball
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36 Responses to “Electrodermal Testing Part I: Fooling Patients with a Computerized Magic Eight Ball”
You broke the 8 ball web site.
There’s an entertaining, frightening and funny CBC investigation into a similar gadget here.
How many different remedies did that quack recommend? I lost track.
And who is going to be mixing and administering the IV fluids? That’s not exactly a DIY sort of thing.
‘Skeptical Doctor is Shocked by Electrodermal Testing!’
Hi hazza96, take this flashing replacement if you want to skip the payment to your local quack.
@hazza96, “You broke the 8 ball web site.”
Yes, that site now appears to be nonfunctional. But there are others. Here’s one:
http://8ball.tridelphia.net/
I just asked it if 1 plus 2 equals 4 and it answered “In my view, yes.”
MAGNETIC 8-BALL ATTRACTS CHARLETONS
The purveyors of ‘electrodermal testing’ and other sham ‘new-age’ electrodiagnostic machines bear ‘false witness’ – a term which here means broadcasting claims which are not proven to be true, and that if such claims are proven untrue they must be banned, lest such claims degrade ourselves and our neighbour’s reputation or dignity.
As we are fortunate to experience in many of these discussions, what we see to annihilate these false assumptions is all the quotable evidence we require, generously and freely provided by learned sources.
No more was this more evident than in the discussion on whether exposing a person to a magnetic field could reduce their risk of a heart attack by streamlining the flow of blood around their body; as claimed by physicist Rongjia Tao Ke Huang.
This is clearly fodder for the Penn and Teller ‘B’ show
Let the discourse develop.
Regards,
TILIS
These devices are useless for their intended purpose but are actually quite accurate for measuring boob size.
There should be a warning about repeated head-desk injury on this post, Dr. Hall.
When I was a child, my mother often took me to see a chiropractor who had such a magic 8 ball machine. I’m glad to see these quack devices thoroughly dissected. Looking forward to part 2.
@S.C. former shruggie
“There should be a warning about repeated head-desk injury on this post, Dr. Hall.”
You only had to read my description. I had to watch the entire training video twice. My head came through unscathed, but my blood pressure didn’t.
Harriet,
I hope that in Part II you will also mention which quacks particularly favor EAV (hint: chiropractors, naturopaths, and homeopaths seem to top the list).
A while back there was this woman claiming that she (or her child) was diagnosed with a chronic measles infection by a device of this sort, and further said that the device had been approved by the FDA. Someone else counter-claimed that it had only been approved as a galvanometer, and the FDA wasn’t vouching for it’s diagnostic capabilities. So, do these sorts of things need any FDA approval to be legally sold? Could someone get FDA approval for a galvanometer and then afterwards claim it was a diagnostic device?
@Khym Chanur,
“So, do these sorts of things need any FDA approval to be legally sold? Could someone get FDA approval for a galvanometer and then afterwards claim it was a diagnostic device?”
That will be covered in Part II next week. Stay tuned.
MAGNETIC 8-BALL ATTRACTS CHARLETONS (2)
As we look at our wonderful world of electrodiagnostic gizmos, I am reminded of the weird and wonderful ‘medicinal’ uses electricity was used for in Victorian Britain.
For the Victorians, electricity was the science of spectacle and wonder. When Luigi Galvani discovered ‘animal electricity’, it provided the Victorian’s with new ways of probing the nature of reality, for Galvani had opened up the possibilities of electricity curing sickness and to even raising the dead. As a result, electricity was perceived as a ‘vital force’ in curing disease and give unsurpassed health and medical advantage.
In Mary Shelley’s seminal work on the notion of transplant surgery ‘Frankenstein’, speaking through Dr Frankenstein (he who chooses “to cross the final frontier and boldly go where no man has been before”), Shelley applies electricity to ‘create the life spark’ that enlivens the ‘monster’, and in so doing, endorses its application as a ‘cure-all’.
Applications included devitalisation of tuberculosis, herpes, hepatitis, viruses, fungi, parasites, and even bacteria in blood.
There were even machines available, that included a ‘hangover’ setting, to give yourself a good jolt to wake you up first thing in the morning,. It must have been marvellous – a wonder to behold.
It seems we have have come full circle.
http://technopedia.info/tech/2010/03/03/9mm-solar-sensor-%E2%80%93-self-powered-computer.html
I had so much fun with my magic 8 ball and my toy doctor’s kit as a child, but I never thought of using them together. I could have had quite a practice!
Thanks for the in-depth coverage. The process–not your post–was a bit mind-numbing to read, but it demonstrates a very elaborate system of questioning, not unlike a field guide of sorts, where the answers basically depend on a coin toss, actually hundreds of coin tosses. And the way the promoters dance around all the reasons for interference, while still asserting that their system “works,” takes a far flight from logic or even basic commonsense.
It might surprise people to know that the “quacks” Dr. Atwood mentioned aren’t the only ones using these methods. They can be found in esteemed doctors’ offices. Some must know that this is BS, but not all do. Some are true believers. But don’t be surprised if there’s not a business manager at the very least who is attempting to “monetize the practice in a more profitable manner”. (The quote was actually from a marketing brochure for one of these devices.)
I am reminded of The Road to Wellville–it must be paved with ambivalent intentions.
Since the entire mess is so subjective and it appears that virtually anything goes when it comes to both diagnosis and remedy, I hope that occasionally — just now and then — the electrodermal device recommends backrubs, walks on the beach, and chocolate cake in order to bring things back “in balance.”
@Sastra,
The device can only recommend chocolate cake if the operator asks about chocolate cake. I’d love to get a chance to take control of the machine after the operator is finished and ask it one more question: something like “Have you just been scammed?”
Dr. Lilly von Marcab was doing some interesting research on the e-Meter and the FDA in 2008. Sadly she was silenced.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/13926/
But AnonSparrow aka Brian Mandigo is on the case and we are anticipating some good times ahead.
http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;dct=FR+PR+N+O+SR;rpp=10;po=0;D=FDA-2011-P-0151
Very good article!
Here are some more remarks. I think that Voll started in 1951 with his system; if you want I can try to look up where I The original system was used to diagnose and prescribe homeopathic medicines.
For this purpose a metal honeycomb structure was included in the circuit into which small vials with homeopathic preparations were placed. If the ‘readings’ normalized it meant that the right cure was among them. Then by a method of halving the correct cure was selected.
This same method of ‘narrowing down’ choices, but for much more than just vials in an aluminum honeycomb is seen in the story above.
One more aspect of Electroacupuncture according to Voll (EAV) is the concept of Zeigerabfall. Often the pointer on the device that indactes the strength of the current will fall back. This might be just the effect of decreased pressure by the operator, but the effect is also seen when electrodes are used that can maintain a constant pressure (by using a calibrated spring or so). In that case the explanation might be that skin conductance beneath a small electrode is a complex phenomenon. Cell walls of the upper part of the skin are extremely good isolators, but the pressure causes water to leave the cells and to flow into the interstitial spaces. This fluid does the conductance, so the harder you press the lower the resistance and the higher the current. But if the pressure is maintained, this interstitial fluid is squeezed away from the site, and this causes an increase in resistance, i.e. Zeigerabfall.
In another comment I described the results of an experiment on the diagnostic value of EAV for heart conditions. See:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/parasites/#comment-67768
I think that EAV and related techniques are plain outright evil. Patients are impressed by the use of such machines and can’t make the distinction between an ECG or a EEG and this nonsense.
Mostly patients are scared into believing that they have serious diseases. The reverse occurs too.
A Dutch popular tv-actress and comedian named Sylvia Millecam felt a smal lump in her breast in 1999. The family doctor referrred her to a surgeon for further examination. She didn’t go to the appointment. She distrusted ‘regular’ physicians because of a misdiagnosis of her father. Instead she went to a trustred doctor friend of the family with an alternative practice. He used alectroacupuncture to examine her and told her what she apparently was so eager to hear: nothing to worry about.
One year later the lump had grown considerably, and she went ot two different hospitals for checking. But history repeated. After an initial consult (and confirmation of the biopsy-diagnosis cancer) she did not appear at further appoinments. She took the advice of a well known medium ‘Jomanda’ who brought to various alternative doctors, who used paranormal and electroacupuncture means for the diagnosis ‘just a bacterial infection.
Jomanda kept saying that the root cause of the complaint were the breast implants. This information was derived from Authorities in the Beyond, but when people criticized Jomanda, she said that she merely repeated what real doctors (with electroacupuncture) had said. In later stages the electroacupuncture was dispensed with and a biotensor was used. This is basically a one hand dowsing stick. It is unbelievable that educated people fall for this, but if one is desperate and a real doctor used this method then doubts will evaprate. Millecam died horribly in 2001, about two years after she went to see an electroacupuncturist. The cancer had filled her whole right thorax and on the outside the mass reached to her shoulder. She was unable to stand, or lie down. Two days before she died she was taken into a hospital; at that time she was saying that she sufferd from something that was a fusion bewteen a bacterium and a fungus, and expected to be healed by a PAP-IMI apparatus in the practice of the original doctor that had diagnosed her with electroacupuncture. In the hospital the diagnosis cancer came as a big surprise to her.
The Millecam story is somewhat exceptional, because she was so famous that many people were eager to say to her what she wanted to hear; when people said thing to here that she didn’t want to hear (e.g. physicians, but also colleagues) she simply broke off relations. One of the doctors defended himself by saying that it was quite evident that the patient had cancer, and that what he did was aimed at eventually getting her to submit to regular treatment. But after he had suggested she go to a hospital for another biopsy, just to be sure, she didn’t come back to him anymore and with the help of Jomanda she went to the next quack. All the same this doctor was struck off (he had been doing wrong things before).
The case got a lot of attention, two doctors involved were permanently stricken, and Jomanda and two physicians were also (after a lot of legal wrangling) prosecuted for intentional abuse. Jomanda was acquitted (not intentional, the judge said) but this is now moveing to the Dutch Supreme Court.
All this would have been avoided if the use or possession of electroacupuncture diagnostic devices had been outlawed with the same severity as heroin. At best these machines are con apparatuses that are used to scare patients into unnecessary medical consumption.
You can see many more of these apparatusses (including links to websites offering them) on
http://skepp.be/rare_apparaten
A last point: the idea that homeopathic remedies somehow interact with the electromagnetic field of these apparatusses has yielded a complete family of other nonsense machines: the remedy makers. They ‘copy’ the ‘frequencies’ of ‘real homeopathic medicines’ onto inert substances. The actual remedies don’t have to be there, because many of these machines are delivered with 50,000 or so preprogrammed frequencies, some of them can make a remedy out of some hair or nail clippings of the patients, or radiate the healing frequencies directly to the patient on another continent. One version hsi a microphone. You just speak the name of the homeopathic medicine into the microphone and you remedy will be prepared.
It is disconcerting that so many people in our society believe in this kind of primitive magic, but it is even worse that many of these machines are used by physicians.
Oops! I meant to say: if you want I can try to look up where I found that information.
And, of course, if it says “no” you can always keep asking “are you sure” or variants of the same question until it does say “yes.”
I actually experienced a session with one of these years ago. My ex regularly saw a chiropractor who used what he called a “Vega Machine.” Each time, she came back with $200+ of supplements and remedies. I finally caved and went with her for my own appointment. It was the most ridiculous “medical” experience I have ever had. I declined the supplements which the lights and whistles suggested for me, and never saw the chiropractor again.
[...] Looking at the different ways this biomeridian treatments are described, they appear to be creating a hodgepodge of various alternative medicines. Harriet Hall mentions this plethora of names and theories in her article on Science Based Medicine: “The testing procedure was originally known as electroacupuncture according to Voll (EAV), but is now called by many other names including electrodermal screening (EDS), electrodermal testing (EDT), bioelectric functions diagnosis (BFD), bio resonance therapy (BRT), bio-energy regulatory technique (BER), biocybernetic medicine (BM), computerized electrodermal screening (CEDS), computerized electrodermal stress analysis (CEDSA), limbic stress analysis (LSA), meridian energy analysis (MEA), point testing, and many more.” – source [...]
[...] week I described electrodermal testing. I’m sure many readers thought, “There oughta be a law against that.” Well, there are laws. [...]
This was very popular in Germany. I attended a seminar where the Omega device was demonstrated in a similar manner. The device was used to determine which homeopathic remedies were necessary, and then these remedies were made into a small bottle of alcohol placed on top. I asked how this could be possible and how it is known to be correct, and they said that this machine is the only way to determine that the remedy was correct.
Wow. It’s like a seance,only the subject is alive.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater here. Yes the device detailed above is clearly nuts. But that doesn’t mean that you can generalize to say that all of the above mentioned devices are bad. I was diagnosed with EBV with a Biomeridian device. My physician ran a medical lab for years. He knows how to discern real empirical evidence from wishful thinking. He uses perfectly conventional tests where applicable. This is just one diagnostic tool.
Do this topic justice by testing a Biomeridian device yourself in a controlled experiment. I have no financial affiliation with this company. I am just someone who benefited greatly from their device.
@shawn, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater here”
First you’ll have to convince me there is a baby.
Let’s particularly note that there are REAL tests for EBV (antibodies), so any diagnosis with such a device must be viewed with extraordinary suspicion.
I posted a note on the second part of the article, but it looks like the topic comments have started to go off mark.
One of the “doctors” at this place claims to have diagnosed and treated over 20,000 patients using this “technology”. If this is true, then I’m sure a lot of people would want their money back.
It’s been mentioned that there has been no real organized effort to stop this kind of non-medical, not-legal practice – how would an effort start? On the alternative medicine side, there have been very successful efforts to discredit vaccines and medicines that are clinically proven over many years; if the science based medical community (and FDA device regulators) were to organize an effort to disable this kind of quackery, what would it look like and how can I contribute?
What is detailed in the article could better be described as a variation upon pendulum dowsing. It’s an interesting topic in it’s own right, but it’s not electroacupuncture. The Biomeridian devices do not have anyone asking yes / no questions.
A HISTORY OF MERIDIAN STRESS ASSESSMENT, http://www.biomeridian.com/meridian-stress-assessment.htm.
“Many double-blind studies have been done using this technology. In fact, most of those practitioners who use them have set up a blinded test situation of one kind or another before they really believe that these instruments actually work. “
In the United States it is required strict testing for medical software, with years of clinical trials and disclosure.
On the same biomeridian site is to show Biomeridian is approved as galvanic skin response biofeedback device.
(www.biomeridian.com/fda-510k.htm)
@shawn,
The “history” you provided did not convince me that there’s a baby in the bathwater. It references unreliable sources and cites small preliminary studies that have not been replicated and whose methodology is flawed in various ways. You can find studies that seem to support all kinds of questionable ideas. When a phenomenon is real, there is a gradually accumulating body of knowledge where studies build on each other and cohere, showing progress as time passes. There is nothing like that in the energy medicine field. It took Helicobacter pylori only a few years to progress from hypothesis to standard treatment for ulcers. Energy medicine has been around much longer than that with no progress.
So, I took a couple minutes to call the state composite medical board to file a complaint against a clinic using this device.
What is a next step?
[...] Source: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/13926/ [...]