David Zimmerman'snewsletter on science, media,policy and health Vol. IV, No. 4 April l, 1995, New York, NY $5 Flexner Is Byp_assed: AltemativistsInvade U.S. Medicine '' Alternative medicine,'' which aims to fracture and then capture an amalgam of ancient Chinese and Indian methods, claims to America's highly successful scientifically-based medical practice direct ambient energy into patients' bodies and adjust their has not got its nose under the tent, as some scientists and energy balances (See story below). physicians fear. Rather, the whole camel already is inside - • In Boston, Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel snaffling the lunch. hospital have just completed a 3-day postgraduate course called The American Medical Association (AMA) and other pro­ Alternative Medicine: Implications for Clinlcal Practice . It fessional groups that historically have fought quacks are largely was directed by internist David M. Eisenberg, M.D., a student quiescent , even acquiescent. The way thus is open to the most of Eastern medicine, and was supported by the John E. Fetz.er profound directional change since Abraham Flexner, M.D., in Foundation of Kalamazoo, Mich., a $200 million organization. 1910, directed America's doctors away from faith-based em­ Fetzer wants to realign American medical practice away from piricism - and fraud. The Flexner Report directed medical its scientific base, toward a new spiritualism derived from education toward the scientifically-grounded clinical practice ancient oriental religions. The AMA is granting continuing that has made American doctors world leaders in health care. medical education credit to doctors who attended the $450-a ­ The current, carefully directed drive for alternativism, some­ head confere nce, Harvard says. times called complementary care, is undennining Flexnerian • In Bethesda, Md., the National Institutes of Health 's Of­ medicine. It does so in the name of mind/body medicine, fice of Alternative Medicine (OAM) has ju st issued an inch­ holistic medicine, and other vague , w1proven, and hence unsafe thick, 372-page federal report, Alternative Medicine/Expand­ folkloric practices. Quackery, in a word. ing Medical Horizons , that seeks active consideration or recon­ The rigor and rationality of science -based medicine already sideration of virtually every quack remedy and method that has have been seriously damaged. been used and discarded in the last 5,000 years. These include • At New York City's pre-eminent, high-tech heart trans­ shark carti lage, Hoxsey treatments, and herbs for cancer, rolfmg, plant center , at Columbia University, an "energy healer," using continuedon page 4 Heart Transplants Get 'Energy Healing'

The most cutting edge facility for cardiac transplant and artificial Cardiac Care. heart research in New York City is the department of Motz said in the interview that she ''keeps [her] hand on the cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, patient's head throughout most of the operation. This allows on Manhattan's Upper West Side. me to send energy into the patient. Among the many doctors, scientists, and bioengin eers who work in the transplant operating room is Julie A. Motz, M.F.A. Bridge Is Built (Master of Fine Arts). Motz perfonns "energy healing" and ' 'The touch creates a bridge that allows [the energy] to enter needle-less acupuncture on patients before, during , and after the body ." Also, she said, she uses a combination of Chinese operations to remove their diseased natural hearts and install acupuncture, with its 12 energychanels in the body, and Indian artificial ones, and follow-up surgery to replace the artificial Ayurvedic medicine, with its 7 chakras (energy centers), to organs with human cadaver organs. correct energy imbalances in the anesthetized heart bypass "I've done eight operations," Motz said last month by phone, patients. a few weeks after she presented her work at a New York Motz has a private practice in energy healing and acupunc­ Academy of Sciences symposium on Alternative Medicine in continuedon page 6

© 1995 The Probe Newsletter, Inc. follow-up them (an im~ibility), and tell their stories more sympatheti­ cally. Then she would reconsider the piece. TimesFinally Finds: We'll CallYou At Ms., our phone calls weren't returned; the editors were busy in meetings. The publisher of a small, progressive maga­ Pro-lifersGet AB's zine in the Midwest said our expose was gutter journalism of Almost a decade late, the New York Times, in its Sunday the worst sort. He suggestedwe be read out of the profession- Magazine(March 19),has confinned an important story of ours for reasons we still can't fathom. that it refusedto ~blish under our byline. The story, the delay, The TimesMagazine passed on the story, too. and the way in which the Times finally came 'round warrant Frustrated, we set to work to start PROBE to evade this comment. They throw light on the established press's self­ censorship. Meanwhile, a key abortion rights case,Webster v. censorshipof key, but distwbing, storiesthat if publishedmight RHS (ReproductiveHealth Service) blew up in St. Louis, and significantlyadvance America's stalled socialagenda. moved rapidly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Since some of our The story: key research had been conducted at RHS, we sent the manu­ Ten yearsago, we were tipped that Pro-life women often script to our favorite Times editor. He said: seek abortions, sometimes in the very clinics they have pick­ ''Dynamite story!', eted and hanmed. We conducted a wide investigationin the His bosses may have agreed. But they were not in the Midwest,centered in St Louis. We interviewedabortion pro­ market for explosive abortion stories. viders and patients, including some women who had switched, We publishedthe story ourselves, as our pilot issue, on June abruptly, from Pro-life to Pro-choice when they found them­ 15, 1989. selvespregnant- but wished they were not- and then sought Talking to journalistic colleagues through the years, we abortions. We documented the existence of this politically found many had heard the same stories we had about Pro-life explosivebehavior. We said it was hypocritical. women getting abortions. They said their editors told them not The delay: to pursue these leads. Medical WorldNews., a doctors' magazine,published a brief, The confinnation: sanitized account of oµr findings in 1987. But the women's Last month, on March 19, The Times Magazine published magazines and other consumer mags for which we regularly ''An Abortionist's Credo." Obstetrician-gynecologistEliza­ wrote refused it. We think they did not wish to stir up their Pro­ continuedon next page life readers' anger. We tried elsewhere: At the Village Voice,an editor said we Follo1v-Up. .. had failed to expre~ proper compassionfor women trapped by their circwnstances. She told us to go back and reinterview Scifrauder Is Coy: We have received a nice note from Sci.fraudbulletin board honcho Al Higgins, Ph.D., of the State University of New York at Albany. He thanks us for our Index Sent with Issue critique of his venture (PROBE, Feb.). Subscribers will receive the Index for PROBE's Volume III Higgins, a sociologist, writes, "I very much appreciate the with this issue. It includes information on how to order back coverage and enjoyed the [PROBE] drubbing by I. Bernard copies. Cohen and Franz Samelson'' for his misconduct charges on the Our excellent indexer - and colleague - Lynne Lamberg board about Newton and psychologist J~es B. Watson. has prepared a second index, of names, for Vol. m. We'll send What Higg~ appears not to have done is to post our critique you a copy if you will send a SASE, marlced "index,, to the of Scifraud's science bashing, and its proposals to ''burn'' bad post office box listed in the Masthead. science for other scifraudersto see. We wonder why. We're also sending subscribers here the program for the forthcomingNew York Academy of Sciencesconference ''The Flight from Science and Reason.'' It will be co-chaired by biologistPaul Gross, Ph.D., and mathematicianNonnan Levitt, PROBE Ph.D. Their brash counterattack on science bashers, Higher Editor and Publisher Superstition (Johns Hopkins), which we reviewed here last David R. Zimmerman Production Comptroller year, should be advanced by this conference. The dates are Angela M. Darling Veva H. Zimmerman May 31 - June 2. PROBE readers will enjoy it. Circulation: Tom Gilgut Also enclosed is a letter asking for your help in carrying PROBEis written and publishedindependently, on a monthly PROBE's pro-science, pro-reason - and, we fear, unpopular, schedule. Subscription: $60 per year. Editorial office: 139 anti-populist - message to young readers in high schools, West 13th St., New York City, NY 10011-7856.Phone: 212- colleges and universities. Institutional libraries are broke and 647-0200. For subscriptions, Box 1321, Cathedral Station, cutting back new acquisitions. They need patrons and friends New York,NY 10025. Contentsof this newslettermay not be reproducedwithout penrus.gon. ISSN 1062-4155 to put PROBE on their reading room shelves. MEMBER. NEWSLETTER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION a You can help. We hope you will! - D.R.Z. np Pagel Probe ers to write about and readers to understand human pain and Pro-lifers. . . need, wherever they occur, thus is fragmented. Each "multiculturalist" journalist (and reader) is trapped in his or continuedfrom preceding page her enclave; democracy is demeaned. beth Karlin, MD., director of the Women's Medical Center, in The Times' stance, and that of the rest of the establishment Madison,Wis., explained that women seek abortions because press, is dangerous from a public policy viewpoint. Abortion, "we don't [at the time] have the resources to be the mother we second only to race, is our most divisive, damaging issue. expect to be" -and thus, why she provides them. In her brief Other policy questions have been side-tracked for decades now essay, she precisely confirmed our earlier findings, including by the abortion impasse and the energy it consumes. the fact that many of her patients are Catholics, and more than 1 Breaking this impasse is, or should be, journalists' goal. in 20 come from actively Pro-life families, and previouslyhave Proving that those who protest loudest against legaliz.edabor­ said, "I would never have an abortion" (see box below). tion meanwhile avail themselves of it could be just the small, explosive bit of data needed to blow this blockade away. If Special Reasons Cited everyoneis doing it, how can we spend another moment argu­ We of course are delighted to have our findings confinned. ing about it - let's move on! But we are irritated, because it appears to us that the Times We think newspapers and TV stations in every community publishedKarlin 's pie~ because she is a woman, a doctor, and should research this story and report it. We are hopeful that an abortionist. And, because she is angry and frightened by the when Americans understand that "everyone's doin' it," the increasing anti-abortion violence that threatens her life, her abortion debate will fade away. patients,and her staff. For the Times,Karlin's special, personal Hypocrisy is said to be the only remaining civil sin. The credentials kosher the story. In publishing her opinions the press's job is to find and report it. paper of record doesn't have to take reportorial responsibility for her views or her facts, as it would if we or a staff writer were A Reader Reacts to have told the same story. A Times reader, Sara Watson, said it succinctly in a letter This cop-out is offensive and hannful to journalists and to commenting on Karlin's piece (April 9): readers. It bolsters the divisive and anti-professionalmyth that "I am immensely frustrated that it took this long for the news only participants,with special personal knowledge or qualifica­ media to reveal even offhandedly that many :anti-choice pro­ tions, canor should write about sensitive issues: testers picket clinics one day, have an abortion the next, and ''Only women understand enough about women to write immediately return to the front lines to prevent others from authoritatively about women's health." Or, "blacks about using this service. This practice has been common knowledge blacks." "Gays about gays." "Rape victims about .... ,, among ob-gyns for years. We need some enterprising investi­ The human connection that allows, or should allow, report- gative reporter to 'out' these hypocrites in a front-page expose." Abortion Story Is Confirmed The left column is from our investigationsof abortion in the mid-1980s,published in the pilot PROBE, in Jwie, 1989. The right column is from Elizabeth Karlin's Abortionist's Credo in the March 19, New York TimesMagazine. Many 'Pro-life' Women Get Abortions. Paradoxically, many of my patients come from among those who scream loudest about abortion.

One clinic patient [whom we interviewed in the recovery The counselor in our office often opens her interview by room], a parochialhigh school student, told her counselor asking, 'So, how long have you been pro-choice?' Laughter, before her abortion, 'I'm against abortion, I don't feel it's right. and the answer, 'About IOminutes,' is the healthiest response. But in my circumstances .... '

[A] scheduling administrator ... recalled one woman blurting 'I still don't believe in abortion,' some women say. out in the recovery room: 'It should be illegal!'

'I know it's wrong, but in my case [a patient will say],' and 'I am not like those bad women having abortions.' then will explain why her case is special or different from those of other women in the waiting room.

Eight percent of women who had abortions disagree with the About six per cent of my [abortion] patients come from statement 'Any woman who wants an abortion should be able actively protesting anti-abortion families, and ninety per cent to obtain it legally,' [according to a Yankelovich pol~. [of them] have said, 'I would never have an abortion.' Q.E.D. April 1, 1995 Page3 Angry Alternativists Vive La Difference! Our fellow newsletterist, Jack Raso, editor of Nutrition Forum, has the fortitude required to examine each new (or Plan to Investigate old) alternative health care method as it emerges intoview. In his Jan./Feb. issue, Raso, a dietician (RD.), reviews a plethora of these methods and movements in a report and Discredit Foes headlined "Wholy, Holy, Holey." He comes up with this useful distinction: Alternative health leaders are building a coalition to defend "Alternative healthcare" is one of a "motley bunch" their interestsagainst quackbusters and the medical establishment of movements "whose central thesis seems to be: Faith, - which they say thwart their efforts. It is called COACH, for based on common sense, subjective experience, and/or rev­ Coalition for Options to Achieve Comprehensive Health. elation preempts rational understanding." Collectively, At a planning meeting, convened in January by the Ameri­ Rasosays, be callsthese healthcare movements alternativism can College of Advancement in Medicine (ACAM), a Califor­ - which we think is cogent coinage. nia professional group, a wide agenda was proposed. Accord­ Alternativisrs- to add just a twist - reject logic, reason, ing to a report by a participant in the meeting, held at a Dallas and scienceas guides to existence,being , and action. resort, one "top" COACH priority is "to identify our oppo­ PROBE readers who wish to learn more about nents as specifically as possible. It was decided that we must alternativi.sm should consult Nutrition Forum. Raso will utilize investigative reporters/attorneys in order to investigate send a sample copy if you mail him a 55-cent, 9 x 12 SASE the structure of our adversaries.'' at Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, N.Y. These include, the report said, the AMA, dieticians, the 14228. National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), American Council on Science and Health, and the National Organization of Medical Boards, which accredit medical specialists - but Invade... may debar quacks. continuedfrom page 1 reflexology, herbs, flowers, ad infinitum. Si.neemost of these Strategy Planned nostrums are not patentable, the report says, the federal govern­ One COACH goal, the report says, is to "p lan a strategy to ment should pay for the research to test their worth. discredit the individual quackbusters.'' • In Washington, meanwhile, psychiatrist James S. Gordon, The report was written by John Hammell, the political coor­ M.D., a member of OAM's board and a clinical professor at dinator of the Life Extension Foundation, of Hollywood, Fla. Georgetown University School of Medicine, is teaching medi­ PROBE obtained a copy of the report. Hammell confirmed that cal students to use alternative methods to handle the stresses in he wrote it in a recent telephone interview. their own lives. Leaming to take care of themselves, he said in The convening group, ACAM, of Laguna Hills, Cal., has a an interview, they can take better care of their patients. Acu­ mission statement, according to Gale's Encyclopedia of Asso­ puncture, self-hypnosis, meditation, osteopathy and homeopa­ ciations ('92) that identifies it as a physicians' organization thy are among the methods he introduces to these busy students "for the promotion of preventive medicine"; it conducts re­ in an effort to "develop a more humanistic approach to search programs on chelation therapy, nutritioual therapy and healthcare, and find out which of these alternative therapies other preventive modalities. work and which don't.'' • Across the U.S., about 27 of the 129 medical schools have Chelation Is Issue already introduced courses, like Gordon's, on alternative health. One of ACAM's immediate concerns, the report states, are A directory from the Rosenthal Center for Alternative Medi­ state medical boards' efforts, particularly in California, to drive cine, at Columbia Univer sity, lists course s taught by chelation doctors out of business. nonphysicians, as well as by physicians like Gordon. Quackbusters say that chelation is worthless and risky - a In Los Altos, Cal., oncologist Wallace Sampson, M.D., of fraud. Advocates say it purges poisons. Stanford University, is developing a parallel list of alternative "Quackbusters" named in the report include Viktor (sic) medicine courses. "I can count only four thus far that present Herbert, M.D., Stephen Barrett, M.D., and William Jarvis, anything like a balanced presentation," he said by phone last Ph.D., all of whom are NCAHF leaders. "The meeting be­ month. "I've not been surprised," that they are not balanced, gan," the report says, "with ACAM president-elect Dr. Terry he added: T11esecourses are for the most part pro -alternative Chappell playing a tape of [these] quackbusters ... denouncing treatment. alternative medicine as the ultimate fraud, in order to get us Sampson, who describes himself as an "o ld-fashioned fired up." quackbuster," is chairman ofone of the very few organizations (Herbert's surname, Victor, is twice spelled incorrectly with that is fighting the alternativists' tidal wave, the National Coun­ a k instead of a c, in the report. This substitution, as in cil AgainstHealth Fraud (POB #1276, Loma Linda, Cal. 92354). Amerika, is commonly found in neo-nazi and other fur-right He said: ''This is one of the most dangerous comers ever turned publications.) (See follow-up report, p. 6.) continuedon next page

Page4 Probe IAitemativism:It's Time to Get ToughI No graduateprogram in astrophysics that an entirely different, anti-scientific amal­ stalking horses. No more continuing we know of offers astrology instruction. gam of unproven practices, many of medical education credits for this type of Neither do we know of any graduate whose advocates have been accused, and program, either. biology program that allows electives in some of whom have been convicted, of Second,the AMA is flabby and fright­ creationism. medical fraud. ened (having lost a costly lawsuit when By hosting comparable irrationalist What the altemativists aim to do, sim­ they tried to debar the chiropractors some courses-and postgraduatemedical edu­ ply, is to take over America's health care. years ago), and needs encouragement - cation, as How else to interpret this item in Action and help. Opinion Harvard has Plan 4, of the new Coalition for Options The best minds in medicine now are just done - to Achieve ComprehensiveHealth, as re­ represented through specialty societies American ported on P. 6: like the American College of Physicians. medicine betrays the scientific founda­ '' A large marketing plan cooperative Ergo, what is needed is a coalition - a tion that has made it great. It does so at will be fonned . . . . Marketing will political and educational coalition - to extraordinaryperil to itself, its patients, include selling the product of the 'New alert the profession,governing bodies, and and everyone's hope for continuing Doctor,' which will be a paradigm shift law-makers of the legitimate claims of progressagainst illness. redefininghealth care'' [emphasis added]. scientific medicine, and the dubious The issue is not, as some have sug­ How should American medicine claims - and power grab - of the gested,whether this or that '' altemative'' respond? altemati vists. procedure will be admitted, provision­ First, the medical schools should toss For American doctors, anything less ally, to the corpus of care while its advo­ out the alternative medicine courses and than all-out commitment to these goals is cates scientificallydemonstrate its worth. departments, unless it can be clearly dem­ self betrayal. The issue, rather, is the establishment of onstrated that they are not altemativist -D.R.Z. Invade... and efficacy. Without that, he said, "none of it will be ac­ continuedfrom preceding page cepted by mainline medicine and mainline science. - more dangerous than anything that has to do with a national ''In the mind of the scientific community that brought you health plan. The quacks are gaining in stature and legitimacy.'' the wonders of modem medicine, it will remain unproven.'' Sampson said organiz.edmedicine is not fighting back. The But not unused. AMA still is frightened because it lost a suit to the chiropractors Given his view that most alternative methods remain un­ a number of years ago, he said. But the suit involved restraint proven, Schwarz wasasked, why AMA would grant continuing of trade not public education-which AMA is free to do. medical education credits for the Harvard course? He referred the question to another AMA official, Charles Macenski, who ConcernsRaised said the AMA had not known about the conference, and didn't Sampson said he raised his concerns with the American endorse it. Associationof Medical Colleges (AAMC), the medical schools' "Our name certainly shouldn't be used in that promotion. national group, in Washington, D.C. He said he was told that We're not part of that,,, he said, after examining the program. he was the first person to complain, and was told AAMC Macenski promised to check further. A week later he phoned doesn't approve or disapprove of member schools' curricula. back to say: "Our people think it's okay." Meanwhile, Sampson said, as in all schools many students Referring to the NIH's Alternative Medicine monograph come to resent their mentors. New MD's are expressingthis by (above), Macenski now suggests that the Harvard program embracingnaturopathy and other anti-scientificquack practices. appeared to be quite appropriate. Commenting on the doctors' growing alienation from sci­ "It's probably quite valuable!,, he said. ence, Sampson said, only half in jest: ''Flexner! Who's he?'' The AMA's position on altemati ves is that "we can't dis­ miss them out of hand, and say they have absolutely no merit,'' Plea is Copped said the group's senior vice president for medical education and After months of stoutly asserting his innocence, animal science, Roy M. Schwarz, M.D., in a phone interview last rights terrorist Rodney A. Coronado has now pleaded month. Some methods that once were considered alternative guilty to two felony charges, one of them for his role later were proven to be true, he explained. in torching a mink research facility at Michigan State ''On the other hand,'' Schwarz said, we know that the great, University (PROBE, Dec. '94). great, great majority have never been proven, and have been In exchange for the plea, which has yet to be accepted by a labeled 'fraud' by people outside the profession.'' judge, U.S. Attorneys in six states have agreed not to prosecute The only criteria, Schwarzadded, is scientific proof of safety Coronado for his role in other terrorist acts in their jurisdictions. April 1, 1995 Page5 topic is the introductionof alternative health care to a main­ Heart... stream academicmedical center, using Colwnbia as a model. continuedfrom page 1 She said that she does not scrub for the operations. But she works close to the surgical field. ture in Putnam county, north of New Yorlc City; she makes house calls in Manbatum.·But, she said, her work at Colwnbia's EffortsDescribed transplantprogram is voluntary and unpaid. After anesthesia has been induced, but before the patient is She said she bas the pennission and encouragementof the prepped, Motz explained, she stands at the foot of the operating cardiothoracic surgery department and the patients whom she table to ''pull the energy field down,because under anesthesia treats. Motz explained that she is working on her M.P.H. the field tends to go to the top of the body. . . . I send energy to (Masterof Public Health) degree at Colwnbia, where her thesis the kidney meridian and the liver meridian in the foot,'' she continued, because "you want them to make urine and you want the blood to clot.'' Alternativists Motz then moves to the head of the table. ''I instruct the patient under anesthesia to relax, and allow the surgeon to enter the body.'' She said she tells patients that Set an Agenda "the surgeon is entering [the chest] with loving intent" Al­ While the AMA waits for alternative providers to prove their though these patients are unconscious, Motz said, ''I believe'' methods scientifically, the altemativists aren't waiting at all to they hear what she says. mainstreamtheir opposing health care agenda. She said she explains to them that they will be given an anti­ After the January swnmit meeting convened by the Ameri­ clotting drug before their circulation is switched to the heart­ can College of Advancement in Medicine (ACAM), its presi­ lwig machine, and said that she sometimes sings to the patients dent-elect, L. Terry Chappell, M.D., ofBluffion, Ohio, distrib­ oncethey are on the bYl)a$machine. Onepurpose of this commu­ uted a set of "action plans" for a coalition called COACH - nication,she said,is to preventpost-operative depre&mon. for Coalition for Options to Achieve ComprehensiveHealth. These are some of the planned actions, according to Heart Heaven Seen Chappell's late March mailing: Motz said she tells patients to bring their consciousnessto • Change state laws to protect alternative medicine. their blood, and tell their blood to let go of the old hearts, and • Get health insurance to pay for it. that if there is a heaven for hearts, their natural hearts certainly • Defend "environmental medicine" and chelationtherapy will go there. She said that she sometimes communicates before state medical boards. directly with the patient's blood. • Expand links to medical schools for teaching. '' Alterna­ "I discovered that it was actually the blood that missed the tives in Medicine" (his preferred title for these practices).· old heart!" she said. • Develop a marketing plan, based on one used by chiro­ If there is time, she added, she goes to the ice chest, where practors. ''Marketing will include selling the product of the the cadaveric heart is kept in readiness, and perfonns ''energy 'New Doctor,' which will be a paradigm shift redefininghealth work'' on it. She said she does not touch the organ, but can feel care.'' energy moving toward it through her hands. • Educate patients on how to challenge insurance compa­ These treatment ideas, which have been around for 3',000 nies that refuse to pay for alternative care. years, all can be explained by the laws of physics, Motz as­ • Legislation to curb FDA powers. serted. She said some of the new hearts are extremely happy. • Prepare and circulate ''white paper to expose the Some are worried. "It varies," she said. Once implanted, she quackbusters.'' added, if the new heart does not start beating right away, she • Serve as ''preceptors'' for medical students. sends energy to it. • Provide "expertise" to medical schools, while attempt­ In Motz' view, consciousness and personality are not lo­ ing to "avoid polariz.ationwithin the field." cated in the brain. They inhere in every cell in the body. Asked to comment on the COACH agenda, quackbuster continuedon next page Victor Herbert, M.D., of Mt. Sinai Medical Center, in New own: As described by quackbusters Stephen Barrett, M.D., by that the York city, said phone, "products" COACH is and Victor Herbert, M.D., in their new book The Vitamin promoting are ''productsof scam artists, fiaudulently repre­ Pushers (Amherst,N.Y.: Prometheus),FDA officials and U.S. sented as the 'New Doctor."' The proposed laws, he said are to marshals raided its Hollywood, Fla, premises in 1987. They protect "ftaudulent alternative medicine, as distinguishedfrom seized wiapproved drugs, including BHf, DMSO, Coenzyme responsiblealternative medicine.'' QI 0, and Cognitex- claimed to enhance mental function. The COACH initiative in medical schools, Herbert added, is Later, a 28-count indictment was filed in the U.S. Southern an attempt ''to teach health ftaud as ifit is health science.'' District Court of Florida, in West Palm Beach, charging com­ pany officers with importing and selling unapproved new drugs Life Extension Officials Indicted and misbrandedprescription drugs. The case is due to come to The Life Extension Foundation, whose political coordinator trial next January, according to a spokesman for the U.S. reported on the ACAM meeting, has a few problems of its Attorney's office in Miami. Page6 Probe fertiliz.ation(IVF) procedures. This usually yields several or more fertilized embry~s, oonceived in a petri dish, from his Bad HD Genes spenn and her ova. Then, in a carefully timed maneuver, when the embryos are at the 4- to 8- cell stage of development, one cell is removed Are Purged from each embryo. The DNA is extracted, and the HD or other gene that is at issue is extracted ftom the genomic gimish. It then is rapidly amplified in quantity by the technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Using this DNA, the HD FromFamilies defect and others can be identified, if present. Embryos that carry a defective gene are discarded. One or Boston, more embryos that carry the normal gene are implanted into the Severalmost-valued babies will be born in the next few months. mother's uterus by standard IVF methods, and the pregnancy If all goes well they will bring dramatic, new, high-tech relief to proceeds - nonnally - to tenn. parents who have faced an anguishing dilemma: If more HD-free embryos are obtained than the mother and One partner in each couple is a member of a family that has her doctors wish to implant, some can be frozen for later use in been riven by Huntington's disease (HD). Each oouple wants casethe first pregnancy fails, or to produce a second HD-free their own baby: his spenn, her owm. But they don't want a infant. child who must live in fear of suffering HD, or p~ing it on yet again to another generation. ResearchSites Undisclosed The experimental method to prevent these tragedies - by 'flus clinical experiment is being coordinated by reproduc­ providing an HD-fteebaby- is called preimplantationgenetic tive geneticist Mark R. Hughes, M.D., of the National Center diagnosis (PGDJ and embryo for Human Genome Research, in Bethesda, Md. In a brief selection. The method is revo- interview, Hughes declined to identify the research sites where Cutting edge lutionary because it will penna- the HD experiments are unfolding. However, only six centers nently remove the deleterious in the U.S., including Baylor University, in Houston, and HD gene from the baby's lineage. The technique was described Faulkner hospital, here, are cUJTentlyfunded by the National last month at a oonference at the Harvard-affiliated Faulkner continuedon next page (Hospital)Institute for Reproductive Medicine here, one of the first U.S. facilities to offer POD. Method Described Anguish,Hopes Told In the procedure, a couple at high risk of conceiving a baby Boston, that carries the bad gene for HD, or for some other severe, "My primary goal is to have children who do not have single-geneinherited illness, is put through the standard in vitro Huntington's Disease (HD)." Tearfully, Keith Kidd explained to researchers and clini­ cians why he is oontemplating the procedure unveiled at a Heart ... meeting here. Kidd, who is a former official of the Huntington's continuedfrom preceding page Disease Society of America, said his father and other family members had suffered at length, and died from the devastating She said she thinks her work has helped the patients, but neurologic illness. acknowledges hers is not a fonnal experiment. None of her Current family members' lives have been strongly shaped by patients has died, she noted. None has had post-operative fear. One sister, Kidd said, decided to have her children at a depression. Rejection of the grafted organs has been low. very young age - so she could be sure to be with them as they Motz, who has an Ivy League education, has a brother who grow up, before HD dementia may overtake her. (HD symp­ is an internist at Colwnbia She allowed that: toms usually first appear between ages 40 and 50.) "What I am doing is exotic to most people who have a Kidd said his seoond reason for weighing, with his wife, the medical background." But she said, "therapeutic touch - a use of the experimental new procedure was to relieve the form of energy healing - is now widely used in hospitals "incredible stress" the anticipation of illness placed on his throughoutthe U.S.'' immediate family. He said he did not know if, in fact, he Her next goal: To find ways to potentiate the drugs that carries the deleterious fonn of the gene: He has no symptoms at transplant patients are given. present, and has declined to be tested. Besides the personal Asked how she could be sure the energy that she concen­ anguish that the knowledge could bril)g, he said that if he were trates into the patient is helpful, not hannful, Motz explained: found to carry the HD mutation he might no longer be able to "The beliefof people is that the kind of energy you 're using buy insurance for himself and his family. is very natural and helpful to the body. It's a kind of energy that The new method, he said, between painful pauses, could people are taking into their bodies all the time. give him and his wife the "ability to have children who do not "You're just focusing it where it's needed!" have HD, without finding out what my own status is.''

April 1, 1995 Page 7 test, perhaps because he (or she) does not want to know ifhe is carrying the bad gene. The new method, as described by Preimplant... geneticist Hughes, spares the individual this dire knowledge, continuedfrom precedingpage since the parents are not told if examination of the embryos' Institutes of Health (NIH) for these clinical studies. DNA has identified one, or more, that carry the gene. This Faulkner has had inquiries, but has not yet attempted the information is withheld. procedure, its reproductive institute director, Machelle Seibel, The couple, rather, only is told that HD-free embryos have M.D., said. Two kinds of families may benefit from the proce­ been identified, and implanted in the mother. If three, four, or dure, he added: more embryos have been obtained, the odds are that at least one • Families in 'YfilCh HD has occurred, and in which the will be HD free, and so can be used in this way. husband or the wife has taken the genetic test for HD, and so If it works, the method thus will provide an HD-free infant knows that he or she in fact carries the deleterious gene. The in the present generation. It also will purge the mutant HD new method obviates the need for later fetal diagnosis, by gene from that offspring's lineage, thereby achieving the goal amniocentesis, and the abortion of fetuses found to carry it - of germ cell, or genomic,therapy. the usual outcome. A major purpose of the Faulkner conference was to explore • Families in which HD is present in one or the other the ethical dimensions of PGD - a subject that we covered partner's lineage, but that partner has not taken the HD genetic extensively last year (PROBE, June '94).

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