Sunday, November 30, 2008

What is the placebo effect?

The placebo effect is a phenomenon where a medicine (or any other treatment) seems to temporarily work because the patient thinks it will work and wants it to work.

Doctors sometimes prescribe placebos to fend off patients that demand treatments they don't need. Placebos are also used in double-blind clinical trials; one group is given a certain treatment and the other (the "control" group) is unknowingly prescribed a placebo such as a sugar pill, for comparison.

Placebos can only temporarily seem to cure and are of no help in severe illnesses. They have been shown to be effective, to a point, for relieving insomnia, anxiety, colds, headaches and minor pain.

However, the placebo effect often comes into play in false treatments. Patients feel better because of the psychosomatic effects and the power of suggestion. They report feeling better because they want to feel better, not because of any actual change. The pill or treatment does not benefit them in and of itself; it benefits them because of their own expectations and beliefs.

The placebo effect can be a useful tool in certain situations but it is of no use in the treatment of cancer, AIDS, paralysis or any other serious ailments. It eventually wears off and fools patients into believing that they are being cured when they are not. This leads to the delay of real treatment, the only cure that has been proven to work.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

An explanation of the "Eyeball Scraping" trick

Another one of John's tricks is to appear to run a knife over a patient's eye. How this is intended to cure one of AIDS, cancer, back pain, Parkinson's Disease or any other ailment is unclear but what's clear is that there is a perfectly possible way to accomplish this, besides having any psychic or mystical healing powers.

Magician and skeptical investigator James Randi had this to say about it:


"John of God will seat a subject for his "visible surgery" stunt and apparently scrape the eyeball of the patient with the edge of a knife. I believe that this is a variation of the usual trick — illustrated on page 177 of my book, "Flim-Flam!" — in which a knife-blade is inserted under the eyelid of a subject with little or no resulting discomfort. With the Brazilian faker, the "scraping" motion gives it a much more fearsome aspect, but for several good reasons I doubt that any contact takes place with the cornea.

The sclera — the white section of the eye — is relatively insensitive to touch. Try touching that area with a finger or any clean object, and you'll see this is true. The cornea, however, is very sensitive — among the most sensitive areas of the body. Incidentally, it's also the fastest-healing organ, which accords very well with Darwinian standards; being able to see is one of our very best sensory means of defense.

Most persons — and I'm one of them — have a difficult time watching the eye being touched. We tend to empathize with the situation, and I'm sure that some readers are at this moment involuntarily squinting in distaste as they read these words; we're that reactive to eyeball-touching. Few persons will resist looking away when John of God seems to scrape an eyeball, and I note that he's furtively watching the position of the camera as he performs this stunt, blocking the view with his body when a close-up is sought.

There's also the distinct possiblity here that John of God introduces a temporary local anaesthetic — benzocaine would work — onto the eye surface, which would allow contact with the cornea. We don't know, though we could have found out....

In any case, unless an anaesthetic has been introduced, it is impossible for this man to be touching the cornea of a human eye as he appears to do, without causing immediate involuntary flinching from the patient. The JREF will stake its million-dollar prize on that statement. "

An explanation of the "Human Blockhead" trick



The inside of your skull (courtesy of HowStuffWorks.com)




The inside of your skull with a nail in it

(courtesy of
HowStuffWorks.com)



One of the physical feats that John of God performs to impress his audience is placing forceps deep inside the nose of a patient without harming them. This may look astonishing to the average viewer and it may seem explainable only by magic but there exists a perfectly worldly explanation for how this feat can be quite easily accomplished.

Most people are under the impression that their nostrils extend upwards, straight up into a person's skull. This is not so. The nasal cavity actually extends straight back towards the throat. Inserting a nail into one's (or someone else's) nose and pulling it out is perfectly possible and involves little danger if done correctly after some practise. This is why the person's nostrils appear to be pushed back, like in a pig's snout (which they would not if the nail really were inserted into the skull).

Try this at home: take a soft piece of paper, roll it up and attempt to slowly insert it into your nostrils. It goes straight back, doesn't it? Does it hurt? It's uncomfortable at first, yes, but your biggest challenge is likely trying not to sneeze.

This trick is a staple of carnival acts throughout the world. Google "Human Blockhead" and you'll find dozens of photos of sideshow performers performing this very trick (some even with hammers and power drills!)

Wikipedia article on the trick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_blockhead

(WARNING, GRUESOME CONTENT)

Magician Criss Angel demonstrates psychic surgery





Some things to consider about psychic surgery:

If there could be a painless, non-invasive and very inexpensive cure for cancer that took only minutes to perform, why has there been so little notice of it in the world outside rural Phillipines and parts of South America? Why isn't it heralded as the discovery of the ages?

Why haven't the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the millions of people working towards a cure for cancer endorsed it?

Psychic surgery has existed for at least the past one hundred years and, most likely, much longer than that. With hundreds of practitioners in the world, why would anyone ever have died of cancer in the past a hundred years? Wouldn't a cure such as this have made the entire field of oncology obsolete?

Finally, what does it tell you if a stage magician admittedly performing a magic trick can replicate psychic surgery? Can you even tell the difference between the magician and the psychic surgeon?

What is psychic surgery?

"Psychic surgery" is a procedure in which the alleged healer appears to insert their hands into a patient's body (at which point blood appears to flow), removes tumors, flesh, kidney stones or objects such as glass and then cleans the patient's skin of blood. The patient's skin appears to have no wound and no scar although certain practitioners make actual incisions.

Psychic surgery has routinely been debunked as a "confidence game", meant to elicit money from the patient. It is simple sleight of hand and can be replicated by any stage magician.

Psychic surgery is widely practised in the Phillipines and is known to have been practised in Brazil since the early 20th century. It also exists in other parts of Asia, South America and was brought by immigrants to Canada and the United States.

Psychic surgery has also drawn many Western tourists to the Phillipines, most notably late comedian Andy Kaufman. Actress Shirley MacLaine and comedian and actor Peter Sellers once counted among psychic surgery's devotees.

Former magician and professional skeptic James Randi demonstrates how psychic surgery is performed in these videos:



Tuesday, November 25, 2008

João Teixeira de Faria, known as "John of God", is a dangerous fraud, a man who preys on the suffering and the needy in the most reprehensible way imaginable and exploits their illnesses for his own personal gain.

He draws the ill from all corners of the world through word of mouth and through his own self-aggrandizing, does nothing to help them (besides the effects of the placebo effect), wastes their time, money and resources and puts their health and life in even greater jeopardy.

While Brazil has many alleged faith healers and psychic surgeons, many of the ill who seek out his "help" are Western tourists drawn to him through word of mouth and his advertising of himself on the Internet. This blog is aimed at them, in the hopes of dissuading them from wasting precious time and money on a pilgrimage to Brazil.

My name is Agatha and I'm an American skeptic and researcher.

I am a research assistant on the website StopSylvia.com, devoted to examining the claims of psychic Sylvia Browne, and was inspired by those efforts to start my own skeptical blog.

I first heard of John of God about three years ago, when a family friend travelled to Brazil with her mother and a friend to be cured by him.

She had a condition that could have been easily corrected through surgery but instead chose to see "faith healers". Although she long claimed that John of God had healed her illness, it later proved to had actually rapidly spread due to her delay of proper treatment.

A few months after returning from Brazil and after seeing other faith healers and pursuing other methods of "alternative medicine", my family friend had to have surgery for her condition, which was successful.

Thankfully, she ended up only losing the cost of travelling to Brazil and is doing perfectly fine today. Others, I suspect, were not so lucky.

This incident, however, angered me very much and made me wish it was possible to warn people like my family friend, enspecially when I learned that yet another of my acquaintances had journeyed to see John of God with his wife.

I read as much as I could about John and found an alarming paucity of skeptical information about him, besides James Randi's thorough debunking of his methods. What few articles I found about John in the mainstream American, British and Australian press were mostly favorable- or at least failed to trully investigate his claims.

Months and years passed by and I was involved in several other long-term skeptical projects but never forgot what had happened and John always remained in the back of my mind. I flirted with the idea of starting a blog or a website several times but never went through with my plans. I failed to take initiative in any serious way, like many people with a desire to do something but no visible channel for their energy often do.

Finally, I decided I had to spread the word and inform the public about this charlatan the same way I and many others had helped debunk Sylvia Browne and the time for that was now.

My warmest thanks to my inspiration, the wonderful Mr. Robert Lancaster of StopSylvia.com.

Thank you for showing me the way.