Quacks and SCAMS

Homeopathy originated with the work of German Samuel Hahneman at the end of the 18th century.

We know that for some diseases a small amount of the virus can help the body produce antibodies to protect against it. That is the bass for many vaccinations and is particularly associated with the Englishman Edward Jenner also at the end of the 18th Century, so there was some rationale for Hahneman’s thinking.

We also know that for some poisons, taking very small doses and gradually increasing over time can build some sort of immunity to it - but don’t try this at home!

Hahnemann believed that if a patient had an illness, it could be cured by giving a medicine which, if given to a healthy person, would produce similar symptoms of that same illness but to a slighter degree. Thus, if a patient was suffering from severe nausea, he was given a medicine which in a healthy person would provoke mild nausea. By a process he called ‘proving’, Hahnemann claimed to be able to compile a selection of appropriate remedies. This led to his famous aphorism, ‘like cures like’, which is often called the ‘principle of similars’; and he cited Jenner's use of cowpox vaccination to prevent smallpox as an example.
(From A Brief History of Homeopathy)

In 1997, Klaus Linde, from the Munich based Centre for Complimentary Medicine Research. trawled computer databases etc finding 186 published trials on homeopathy. His controversial meta-analysis, published in the Lancet in 1997, concluded, “The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo.”

Following criticism of his methods, he re-examined his findings and published a follow up paper in 1999 which concluded that “in the study set investigated, there was clear evidence that studies with better methodological quality tended to yield less positive results.” He was forced to change his mind on the viability of homeopathy.

In 2003, Dr Aijing Shang at Berne University in Switzerland, Undertook fresh analyses of published trials, concluding “On average, homeopathy was only marginally more effective than placebo.”

The Cochran Collaboration, the highly respected independent evaluator of medicines, concluded, “Sadly, research into homeopathy has failed to deliver any kind of positive conclusion.”

There are always those who want to believe in magic; there are some who believe the earth is flat despite the scientific evidence, but homeopathy has been exposed as just another way to part the gullible from their money.

Acknowledgement: I have relied heavily on the work of Professor Edzard Ernst, the world’s first Professor of Complementary and Alternative Medicines who has spent a lifetime studying them, and his book, “Trick or Treatment”.

The world's first professor of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Prof Edzard Ernst, has a lot to say about Chiropractors having spent many years investigating their claims. From his book, "trick or Treatment": "In short the scientific evidence suggests that it is only wort seeing a chiropractor if you have a back problem." (Page 168)

In his book, "Don't Believe What You Think", he says: "We ... assessed the content of the websites of 200 chiropractors. Our findings showed that 95% of these sites made unsubstantiated claims. We concluded that ‘the majority of chiropractors and their associations in the English-speaking world seem to make therapeutic claims that are not supported." (from his 2010 paper, "Chiropractic claims in the English-speaking world."

Also, from his "Chiropractic: a critical evaluation" (2008): "Chiropractic is rooted in mystical concepts. This led to an internal conflict within the chiropractic profession, which continues today. Currently, there are two types of chiropractors: those religiously adhering to the gospel of its founding fathers and those open to change. "

From this article from "Science Based Medicine" (17 June 2021) "Lest you be misled into thinking chiropractic scope of practice indicates actual competency in this expansive array of diagnostic methods and treatments, it does not. While the scope of this article does not permit a deep dive into the murky waters of chiropractic education and training, suffice it to say that the whole business is controlled by the chiropractors themselves and they alone decide what they are sufficiently educated and trained to do, something they are known to vastly overstate." 

Dr Jamie Kaufman is a Voice doctor. As such, I'm sure she is excellent at dealing with many issues to do with the voice. However, she is NOT a gastro-enterologist and should not be making pronouncements on that.

In one of her books, "The Chronic Cough Enigma" she states:

"Table 1: Most Common Medical Terms for Reflux .. Laryngopharyngeal reflux .. Extraesophageal reflux disease .. Barrett’s esophagus" !!! She thinks Barrett's is just a term for reflux. !!!

She is one of those doctors who has let some of her success go to her head and empowered her to make pronouncements beyond her expertise.

I would not claim to be in the same league as her but many ask me about Barrett's when I'm happy to impart what scant knowledge I have acquired over 20 years of studying this small specialism. However, when asked for advice regarding lyme disease (for example) as I was yesterday, I pass rather than attempting to discuss something that is way out of my league.

Some years ago, Jamie Kaufman noticed amongst her clients, many had pepsin in their saliva. Pepsin is only normally found in the stomach so if found elsewhere, it must have been transported there. Instead of then realising it was an indicator that gastro-oesophageal reflux (GER) had occurred, she went on to surmise that its presence there was the cause of extra-oesophageal reflux (where the refluxate has continued and breached the cricopharyngeus to aspirate into the respiratory system) and termed it LPR and "silent reflux" saying it was a different sort of reflux as it hadn't produced symptoms commonly associated with GER, like heartburn although we know 40% of acid refluxers don't actually experience those symptoms (probably due to protective effects of oestrogen) but can still develop Barrett's anyway.

Compounding her mistake, she looked for ways of removing pepsin from the throat and hit upon the idea that alkaline water would neutralise it (whereas, of course, any water would simply wash it away).

She went on to write a paper to show the positive effects of using alkaline water to remove pepsin and stop LPR. Using her MD status, she somehow managed to get that paper printed in a scientific journal without peer review. Around that time she became a director of a firm that made water ionisers (so called alkaline water) and benefited financially from her bad research paper.

She went on to produce books which sold well, including "Dropping Acid" and "Reflux diet and cure", titles which will immediately appeal to anyone who thinks they will be the cure to their acid reflux. BUT she had discounted acid reflux!

Diet doesn't change the acidity of the stomach (See the Down With Acid chapter on "How the Stomach makes Acid") and the acid is not the cause of the reflux.

Gaining some disciples, she set up the Voice Institute of New York. One of her protégés, her son in law Dr Jonathan Aviv, continued propagating Kaufman's ideas to benefit financially, and he had Kaufman to peer review his academic papers.

The voice institute of New York sponsored further work producing a paper a couple of years ago that found a Mediteranean diet was no less effective than PPIs at reducing LPR, whose press release made it to many media outlets falsely stating 'Mediterranean Diet is better than popular antacid medicne'. Of course the diet was no worse than PPIs at preventing LPR. PPIs do not stop LPR, nor any reflux: they stop acid. At the time, Kaufman had just published a book on Mediterranean diet. !!!

Visit any of Kaufman's websites and the most obvious thing you can see on any of them are the advertisements for her books. When a doctor cares more about making money than the health of her patients, and uses badly produced "research" as evidence to promote them, I feel justified in "calling her out" (I believe is the US phrase).

To my mind, Jamie Kaufman shoots herself in the foot with this diatribe: LPR aka Respiratory Reflux: Why Doesn’t My Gastroenterologist Know About This?

 (LPR is a term she introduced to describe Extra-Oesophageal Reflux to suggest it was something other than "just" reflux. She has also coined the terms "Silent Reflux", "Aspirated Reflux", "Respiratory Reflux" to mean the same thing.)

From JK:

"The GI model of acid reflux disease is wrong. First, most reflux is not about heartburn; second, sticking scopes down people (endoscopy) is NOT how reflux is diagnosed; and third, reflux is about pepsin. That’s why purple pills like Nexium and Prilosec prescribed by GIs have never cured a single case of reflux."

Fact checking some of her claims:

Claim 1: 80% of refluxers don’t have heartburn or esophageal disease; they have respiratory reflux (LPR);

1.That figure is not exactly accurate. The sample size in JK's study was only 58 people. From surveys of 200 refluxers who had developed Barrett's Oesophagus, in June 2024 48% of women refluxers and 22% of men don’t experience heartburn. But JK’s patients will usually only have throat problems rather than GI problems.

Claim 2: Sticking scopes down people (endoscopy) does not diagnose reflux.

2. Scopes aren’t just about diagnosing reflux – though, of course, it is possible to see the evidence for it.

Claim 3: reflux is about pepsin ― that’s why purple pills like Nexium and Prilosec prescribed by GIs never cure reflux.

3. The only place pepsin occurs in the body is the stomach. If it is found in the throat, it proves Gastro-oEsophageal Reflux has occurred. PPIs are not meant to cure reflux, they’re meant to permit oesophagitis to heal. Surveys of 200 refluxers in 2014 and 2017 showed PPIs are ineffective for LPR.

Gastroenterologists do not make massive amounts of money from endoscopy procedures and they don’t have websites selling their own books. Scoping has developed considerably since the 1980’s, with less invasive techniques now being used more often, most commonly done to identify those with Barrett’s and check the cells aren’t mutating.

Jamie Koufman's daughter, Samara Koufman Aviv, produced a Mediterranean cookbook which Jamie Kaufman's Voice Institute of New York promoted by publishing a paper to show it was no less effective at reducing LPR than PPIs and her  son-in-law, Jonathan Aviv, sells the "Acid Watcher Diet" book.her name for reflux according to her book, “The Chronic Cough Enigma”!)

JK made a name for herself calling “extra-oesophageal reflux” by a new name “LPR” and has since attempted to re-energise that by inventing new terms for it: “silent reflux”, “aspirated reflux” and now “RR” whilst gastroenterologists are happy to say the reflux has aspirated.

Other nuggets from this work:

24hr pH manometry has been in use by gastroenterologists for a long time.

Gastroenterologists may use Trans Nasal Endoscopes as well but they’re not so well equipped for taking biopsies. Done by a good endoscopist, Esophago-Gastro-Duodenoscopiess can be done without sedation. I have had numerous scopes and never have sedation so I can walk out the door immediately after completion of the procedure but many prefer sedation – as they do with TNE, as well.

This has been given a separate entry as it's so misleading that it's probably criminal.

It is a pyramid selling campaign to sell salt water that has no health benefit but makes out that it does.

The best way to look at the debunking of this product is to watch this video https://youtu.be/y4fhHX6j1Ew

To save time, ASEA contains 2 ingredients: water and sodium chloride. In case you're unsure, sodium chloride is just the chemical name for ordinary table salt.