All sorts of interesting news this week in the quackery business! There are some very good developments from both Australia and Washington! It looks like real progress for rationality and logic. We'll start with the health scams.

The Australian Daily Telegraph newspaper reports that a fake meningococcal "vaccine" has now been banned by the health authorities there. What makes this particularly interesting to us, is that the medicine being offered is labeled "homeopathic." Potential and actual consumers were offered the "vaccine" for as little as $7.70 (US$4.20) a course, and people may have relied on this product to protect them against the deadly virus, when it has no medicinal value at all.

The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration has banned this quackery, and the federal government has announced that it will provide the real meningococcal vaccine free to one-year-old children and 15- to 17-year-olds, the most vulnerable age groups. It appears that there is a worldwide shortage of the real vaccine, though the fake stuff is of course widely available to the unwary. There are only 100,000 doses of the real vaccine presently in Australia, so the scammers seized a wonderful opportunity, again, to victimize desperate people. And they've been defeated!

As prominent Aussie Skeptic Barry Williams points out, assorted "spokesfolk" for homeopaths are bleating, "WE don't claim it's a cure," and "It's a medicine, not a vaccine," the latter clearly a lie. Says Williams, "I have bottles [of the fake product] clearly labeled 'Vaccine.'" The photo by Australian Skeptic of the Year (1999) Cheryl Freeman of various bottles for "meningiococcal" [sic] hepatitis B, etc. — shown here — proves that point rather well. Williams also tells us that neither Cheryl nor the Australian Skeptics were mentioned or credited for their contribution in the news release. So what else is new....?

Speaking of what's new, feisty Bob Park of the American Physical Society writes, in his current web page "What's New?" at www.aps.org/WN/

HERBAL LOWS: $MULTIBILLION INDUSTRY THREATENED BY TESTING.

Sales of herbal medications have soared since passage of the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act, which allows natural supplements to be marketed without proof of safety, efficacy or purity. Mindful of the popularity of alternative health claims, Congress showers money on NIH's Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. But a remarkable thing has happened. NIH has begun testing many of the popular herbal medications. The most important discovery in the history of medicine was the randomized double-blind test. It allows us to find out what works and what doesn't. So far, herbals are in the "doesn't" category: St. John's Wort doesn't relieve depression, but it does interfere with some cancer drugs; echinacea doesn't ward off colds and flu; ephedra causes frequent injuries and even death; and this week we learn that ginkgo biloba doesn't enhance memory in people over 60. There's another one, but I can't remember it.

(Bob is just a bit over 60.) If you've not become a regular visitor to www.aps.org/WN/ you're missing out. Go there. And get on their mailing list!

Reader Larry Thornton, again, offers us his observations:

Here's something crazy: When there were those massive fires in the States, Art Bell and his gang (the fill-in jocks) were asking millions of listeners to THINK RAIN. They then claimed massive success when floods ensued, but in the WRONG AREAS — FAR from the fires. The jocks (most notably George Noory) continued to praise to the rafters the "power of the mind" to do miraculous things. He kept telling later guests about how wonderful the experiment was, even if it didn't accomplish its objective in the way they wanted it to. . . .

Reminds me of the old Hippy-Dippy Days of the late 1960's: While commune-dwelling malcontents tried to eschew mainstream society by living out in the woods au naturel, the moment any of them got seriously ill, it was BACK INTO TOWN to the local hospital! And THAT, I humbly submit, tells the tale.

In another field, that of flummery in the "free energy" and "perpetual motion" business, I'm happy to announce that Bob Park (remember him, a few paragraphs back?) has informed us that due to a legal action he brought against scam artist Dennis Lee — discussed previously a few times on this site — on September 21st in DC Mr. Lee will stand before the law and try to explain himself, as he's been called upon to do in eight other states. We'll be following that one for you.

Here's a very rewarding and yet puzzling bit of news. Our frequent correspondent Ian MacMillan of Devon, England, was as infuriated as we were with the "MEG" (Motionless Electromagnetic Generator) claim that the device "extracts energy from a permanent magnet," a matter discussed on this website. You may recall that the JREF made formal inquiries to the "scientist" J. L. Naudin at JNaudin509@aol.com long ago, asking simple yes-or-no questions. We never received a reply, not much of a surprise. And we've not been able to determine just what makes Naudin qualified to validate this device.

Well, Ian wrote the United States Patent and Trademark Office about their granting of patent #6,362,718, back in May and June. An excerpt from his comprehensive letter reads:

In granting US Patent 6,362,718, a United States federal agency is endorsing a claim of this kind being made. The four named inventors of the MEG may attempt to raise funds in the United States or other countries of the world, for the purposes of building new versions or production models of the device. In doing so, they may cite US Patent 6,362,718 as grounds that the MEG functions as stated.

It is a matter for serious concern that the work of a federal agency of the United States of America may be used in this manner. Although I am not a US citizen myself, issues relating to patent law, commerce and science can cross national boundaries readily. By setting a precedent with US Patent 6,362,718, the USPTO is likely to face numerous patent applications for similar devices in the future, with every possibility of their being granted full US Patent status. Members of the public, not just in the United States of America but in other countries as well, need to be informed that devices of this kind will almost certainly not function as stated, if they are to make accurate business decisions relating to devices of this kind. In my opinion, the granting of US Patent 6,362,718 is an unhelpful development in this area. . . .

I trust that you will do everything in your power to ensure that the USPTO responds fully and speedily to the inquiry submitted by the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Ian was not expecting that he'd hear back from the USPTO; he knew that we at the JREF had received no response to our inquiries. But Lo! On August 22nd he received an answer from no less than Nicolas P. Godici, U.S. Commissioner for Patents! To get to the point directly, the following rewarding sentence appeared in the response from Commissioner Godici:

After a careful review of the [MEG] patent, we are planning to issue a Director Ordered Reexamination.

Hallelujah! Ian MacMillan, from the UK, was able to stir the sleeping giant in Washington, when we — U.S. citizens all — were unable to do so! Why? We're considering the possibility of moving the JREF to Devon, England, in order to have more effective correspondence with the U.S. Federal Government....

Ah, but there's much more! When I communicated these glad tidings to Bob Park, he countered with a bombshell of his own: there will not only be a re-examination of the patent examiners, themselves, but the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office will now test and certify patent examiners on a regular basis and will change the way it recruits examiners! This was largely brought about by Park himself, though we at JREF like to feel that perhaps we had some effect somewhere along the road to this goal....

So there's some hope, after all.....!

Let's look at the science of physics according to a guy who a few years ago wanted to be president of the USA. He was asked, "Why is the sky blue?" Here's his lesson in optics:

I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing off this earth, uh, the darker it gets . . . I think if you look at the color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors.

On my scale of marking papers, that's not even a "D." It's somewhere around a "W." And who gave us these wise words? None other than Pat Robertson, of The 700 Club. Now, as to that burning question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it all depends on the size of the angels and the pin, you see, and what "dancing" really is. No, not lap dancing, nor any of that other nasty body-contact stuff like the waltz, of course.....

Our thanks to James McGaha for bringing this to our attention.

The Psi Tech note we made here has attracted a lot of attention. Reader Philip Jones writes:

I used to be in military intelligence, and it occurred to me that, while the departments that I worked for were spending billions of dollars to fund foreign operatives and send up satellites for intelligence collection purposes, none of them seemed to take advantage of TRV [technical remote viewing]. Not once did I ever see any HUMINT [human intelligence], SIGINT [signal intelligence], or other "INT" debriefings from TRV specialists.

Now, according to that guy on the program Sightings (shown in Psitech's video), the TRV intelligence collection effort was between 85% and 95% accurate. Holy mackerel, I thought, there is no satellite or conventional human resource that could ever match that level of effectiveness. I immediately wondered why, if TRV was so effective, would the U.S. military spend billions for intelligence collection methodologies that were far inferior, especially compared to the minuscule $800,000 budget that provides astoundingly more accurate intelligence.

Note: the host of the Channel 13 TV program in the video http://www.psitech.net/media.htm that Psi Tech features on its page, says that "The military spent twenty million to develop this mind-boggling technique." I find it mind-boggling that she didn't mention that they found zilch, nada, rien, nichts, and nothing, and after a mere ten years of frittering away our money, retired from the RV business with nothing to show for it. The same host said she was "pretty impressed" with the demo — which, as usual, was highly edited. One can see, in that video, the mass of words written down by the "sensitive," material that was not brought in, and conveniently ignored. Said a co-host of the demo, "That was amazing!" Sure. Jones continues:

Then logic set in to overcome the negativity: undoubtedly, if the military was using its best and brightest to run the TRV program, then the rest of the military must have been run by the remaining dufusses and yokels. They probably couldn't tie their shoes, much less understand the difference between a billion dollars and a few hundred thousand.

With the last uncertainty quelled, the final evidence that was presented in the video solidified my belief in the reality of TRV: the news report from channel 13. I was convinced (much more so than the wholly-accepting reporter) after seeing the impossible accuracy of the TRV specialist. Even noting that the tape was edited down to a few sound bites, and that the lady providing TRV services for the news reporter seemed to use more generalities than John Edward on a bad hair day, I couldn't help but be convinced by the "oblong" reference (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll have to see the shocking video). It corresponded eerily with the rotor blades that were "away" from the wrecked helicopter. Uncanny. I get goose bumps thinking about it. Now, I sometimes wonder if that lady is watching me take a bath....

Folks, see the video. It speaks for itself.

This un-credited piece from a UK newspaper arrived. It deals with football news....

HERE is some bad news for Lee Sharpe, who has just signed [as manager] for Exeter: his new chairman is an oddball. Uri Geller, who made himself famous by ruining cutlery, is part of a three-man consortium who bought control of the Third Division Devon club this summer. It is not clear whether he will be giving them anything as vulgar as cash, because, as he explains on his website, he believes money is an illusion "based on the silly worth we have always placed on precious metals and banknotes."

But he has taken along his "positive aura," which is nice, and he has installed his son, Daniel [22], as joint vice-chairman. Uri is convinced that Daniel lived in Exeter in a previous life because, on their first visit to the city, Daniel seemed to already know his way around and then became an avid fan of the football club. Well, that's certainly convinced me. That's all the proof I need to believe in reincarnation.

After all, Uri has been reincarnated as an Exeter fan. Before that he and his positive aura purported to support Reading. He made a very public show of supporting them at Wembley in 1995 at a play-off final, but his aura must have had an off day because, after being 2-0 up, Reading lost to Bolton and missed out on a place in the Premiership. Neither his aura nor his team really recovered from the disappointment. Reading slipped into Division Two three years later, but he still professed to be a fan. It was only last season that he started to transfer his aura to Exeter, which is strange, because, without him, Reading were promoted back to the First Division. Still, I'm sure Exeter fans are delighted with all the publicity Uri is generating.

Publicity is what Uri does best, and it's much more useful than silly things like precious metals and banknotes.

It's always heart-warming to me to know how spiritual and non-material Geller is. Since he decries the vulgar illusion that we pedestrian folk think of as cash, I'm sure he's not taking any money from the club to work with them. I just can't wait to see what happens to Exeter. If I were betting on UK football, I'd find out who was playing Exeter, and bet on that team. I heard from a lot of Reading fans who still haven't forgotten their embarrassment — and bad fortune — that followed their hiring of Geller....

Those Penta Water folks are apparently doing very well selling their quackery, and their CEO, William D. Holloway, continues to ignore the JREF offer to test his claims for the million-dollar prize, though he agreed to the arrangements and terms back in July of 2001. I refer you to the August 24th archive of this site, for details.

My local health food store, Whole Foods Market of Fort Lauderdale, even published their own paean to Penta. One side of their flyer repeats much of the folklore and strictly "urban legend" notions about water — regular water — as consumed by humans, and the other side repeats the usual Penta crap, including these howlers: "When you drink Penta, you're drinking the essence of water," "Only Penta can also serve as a powerful antioxidant as recommended by doctors to help combat the adverse effects of stress," and "Penta will enhance your performance in sports, work and life." You have to hand it to Holloway for unbridled imagination; none of these claims is true, but they sound good.

(A current "summer special" on Penta water brings it to you at a price that would make a can of regular soda cost $1.18 — regular price about 33 cents! So Penta costs you more than three and a half times as much as a soft drink, even at bargain discounts!)

We publish here an exchange between reader David Salehinia, founder and director of InterTrade Systems Corporation, and David T. Cheatham, Chief Operations Officer for Penta. Cheatham's only qualification for judging the efficacy of Penta water rests somewhere in his BA in Business Administration and his MBA in Management. David begins:

Mr. Cheatham: Thank you for your reply, the attached documents, and Mr. Holloway's contact information. I will cc him on this email, however, based on your response I don't see a reason to take up his valuable time at this point.

I feel compelled to respond to your email. I have read the St. Thomas study you have kindly sent. There are two areas I would like to note: one, this study was paid for by your organization, and I found it to be more of a "marketing document" than an unbiased research document. Secondly, I find the statistical differences in favor of Penta to be insignificant. I look forward to seeing a "significant amount of physical property analyses which show a radical difference between Penta water and normal water," as well as the "stop flow" study.

Regarding your reasoning for rejection of Mr. Randi's challenge, the logic has some fundamental discrepancies which include:

1. Given Penta's confidence in their product and its nearly miraculous effects — " Rest assured, we will be back to collect the$1,000,000" — then why not bring the needed resources to take on this challenge and pocket the majority of this money after insignificant expenses to prove the claims you are already making based on existing studies? The level of needed resources must be extremely low, since you claim to have done all these studies.

2. This challenge is not asking you to prove anything new. It is rather asking you to prove the claims you are already making. Such claims are and have been responsible for the "tremendous growth" you have referred to. Therefore, I don't see any distraction on your part especially since the method of proof, as I have read it in the exchanged email between Mr. Randi and Mr. Holloway, has given full control of the testing methodology to Penta. You claim that Penta continuously conduct these types of test. What is the problem then?

3. What better opportunity for a small, confident company to gain national/international recognition about its products and integrity, without a multi-million dollar advertising budget, than to win such a challenge — and pocket one million dollars? This can catapult Penta's growth into orbit. This can, more than sufficiently, take care of the big marketing budget you don't have. "We don't have a big marketing budget to convince people to try our product." Again, I fail to see the logic behind your organization's action in this case.

I completely agree with you how word of mouth has the potential to help a company grow. The opposite is also true.

Unfortunately I am even more disappointed than before about Penta's claim of honesty and integrity and its unwillingness to step up to the plate — for good reason.

We are increasingly witnessing the public backlash against dishonest claims made by big and small businesses alike. This backlash gains greater intensity when it impacts people's health and well being. Most people consider themselves intelligent and don't care to be insulted, especially when some of the people and public figures they look up to, such as the ones in the Penta Family, make claims which cannot be sufficiently supported. We all have witnessed the very rapid demise of other such organizations. Fortunately, we live in a society where information dissemination through various channels, ranging from news programs such as 60 Minutes and Date Line, and printed media as well as the Net, has the power to rapidly create powerfully positive or negative word-of- mouth.

As you can see, I am disappointed in myself for believing the claims I heard, and for spending money on such a product with the intention of more positively impacting my health. Integrity is a concept and word we start with, but the true measure is when we are called to the test.

Stay tuned for developments. Until then, I suggest that you don't invest in Penta....!

Correspondent Tom Bryant, reading the open challenge we made last week to Psi Tech, informed us of recent developments. The Ed Dames he refers to is the official TRV clown who rants on a radio show that I won't test him. If he'd fill out the form and sit still long enough, I'd love to. But he trained with Sylvia Browne, don'tcha know! Tom writes:

Psi Tech was originally the brainchild of Ed Dames! Dane Spotts joined as a business partner, and about two years ago, Dames left the company he started, amid financial problems and legal actions. I will give credit to Dane Spotts; he knows how to market a product, whether it's good or not.

Tom shared with us a few exchanges that had been circulated about the matter. One Lavi Chagyah, who delights in quoting Scripture to prove anything, wrote:

I do not speak for Psitech or for anyone affiliated with them. But anyone who feels "Randi is fair & objective" would need clinical assistance! Behold The Randi Psychic Challenge:

James Randi, a.k.a. The Amazing Randi, magician and author of numerous works skeptical of paranormal, supernatural and occult claims, has had for many years a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who can prove he or she has psychic powers. Recently, he solicited pledges and the prize is now $1,000,000 offered through the James Randi Educational Foundation. The only caveat is that the psychic must agree to be tested according to Randi's guidelines.

My comment: This person is somewhat behind on the subject. The million, as everyone else knows, is in an investment account; it's not just pledges. But the rest sounds reasonable, don't you think? When Mr. Chagyah offers his million dollars, I would expect that he might want to state some guidelines....? To continue:

His rules are little more than what any reasonable scientist would require. If you are a mental spoon bender, you can't use your own spoons. If you are going to see auras, you will have to do so under controlled conditions. If you are going to do some remote viewing, you will not be given credit for coming close in some vague way. If you are going to demonstrate your dowsing powers, be prepared to be tested under controlled conditions. If you are going to do psychic surgery, expect to have cameras watching your every move.

Well, except for the spoon provision — which is an invention of this writer — that, too, all sounds quite proper and reasonable to me. Is there something deceptive or unfair about "controlled conditions"?

Someone named William Colston wrote to this discussion:

Go make Randi put up or shut up. I already have all the money I need.

Lucky William! But we've heard that lame "out" before. Hey, we put up, but Colston won't shut up!

This next message is an outright lie. Someone named Alan Franz babbles:

Sadly James Randi has backed out of the offer. It seems he was dismayed by the prospect of losing a million dollars. Perhaps he knew how good TRV [technical remote viewing] really is? lol. He chickened out and it's a shame. Of course he had some excuse that he probably claimed was legitimate. Ed Dames was on Art Bell when he said that Randi declined. They had a pretty big laugh about it.

Oh, I see. If it was on the Art Bell show, it was true, huh? Get real! The only thing that Bell gets right is the station ID — and he doesn't even do that task!

I don't know but randi [sic] is a big cynic and skeptic. He is always debunking one thing or another. He has doubt about this or that. Why doesn't he do something productive, instead of backlashing [sic] or trying to shed doubt on so-called pseudoscientific topics. If Randi declined then that must be proof that TRV is valid and real. Of course I already knew that and TRV people [?], but to have someone who thinks he is so smart, and also an authority on hocus pocus, challenge TRV and then stop his million dollar contest, that is hard evidence that this is real. What better way to know it then [sic] from an outsider on the opposite side trying to disclaim TRV? Who had the last laugh lol...

Reader Eric Wheeler rushed into the fray to defend me....

What offer are you talking about? Randi was only recently made aware that Psi-Tech even EXISTS, by an E-mail that I sent him asking if he knew anything about Psi-Tech. He then took it upon himself to get the basic idea of what Psi-Tech is about, and subsequently sent them a letter inviting them to take the challenge.

No, he doesn't know how good any form of RV is because he has not seen any evidence. He did not "chicken out" — in fact, he's testing Wayne Carr's team right now, and so far Carr's performing at chance level. Even Carr admits this, and blames it on the "Skeptic Effect" or the "Randi Effect" — that when a skeptic is near, effects seem to disappear. Of course, Randi himself isn't the moderator of the tests, so this is impossible.

Well, that's not quite correct. We only did a few tentative short runs with Carr — all completely out of our control — and they got just chance results. Each time he failed, Carr asked to change the parameters, and since it's the applicant who must state what can be done and under what circumstances, we agreed — every time. But those tests stopped long ago, when Carr suddenly went underground and his website vanished. Eric continued....

Your comment about Dames is laughable, because it's known that Dames completely lied about trying to take the challenge. Whether Randi is a cynic, I don't know. If anyone's a cynic, it's Ed Dames. A skeptic? Of course he's a skeptic. Yes, he is always debunking one thing or another, because there is so much crap out there that deserves debunking. He's doing all of us a favor.

Also, your logic that "if Randi declined then TRV must be real" is laughably bad. If Randi actually does decline something, that's just "shame on Randi," not proof that the thing he declined to test is real. An "authority on hocus-pocus"? Really, I couldn't describe a professional magician better, myself.

Tom Bryant concluded with:

That's what is going on at Psi Tech. I hope you hear from them soon, but it seems that these types are always conspicuous by their silence.

Tom, we'll never hear from Psi Tech. They and Ed Dames — and Holloway — will try to outperform Sylvia Browne, who's now just four days from breaking the record: one full year! Let's hear it for Sylvia!

Here's something to make your day, as they say.... I asked Sang-Moon Nam, producer of the TV show in Korea dealing with Uri Geller (see October 22, 2000, archive of this site) whether he'd been sued by Geller following the broadcast of that most revealing videotape he produced — with our assistance. It appears that the Koreans have little patience with people like Geller who run frantically to their lawyers as soon as something displeases them. Replied the producer:

He didn't take any action except some bad words. At first, he sent me mail as if he would sue me, but he didn't actually do it after my reply "I don't care!"

How do you say, "Way to go!" in Korean.....?

Now, the favorable reaction in Korea to that show was so great that Seoul Broadcasting System is now planning with JREF a whole series of investigations of Korean "psychics" who are infesting the scenery in that country. We'll be meeting next week on the matter.....

Magician David Copperfield has gained a distinction by appearing on a set of Granada postage stamps, shown here. This is a clever bit of artwork, combining a levitation effect and the sawing-in-two illusions. As many will know, small countries obtain a huge proportion of their income by selling this sort of stamp, since the sale is almost 100% profit; no service has to be performed for the use of the stamps; they get pasted into albums, and that's it. It's a credit to David's international fame and popularity that he was afforded this honor.

One thing to bear in mind: I sincerely hope that his appearance on a U.S. stamp is very far in the future, though I'm sure it will happen some day. We wouldn't want to rush that process. You see, to appear on U.S. postage as an identified individual, you have to be dead.....!

Grumble department: The excellent September 2nd issue of US News & World Report (still on the stands) as mentioned here last week, dealt with the subject of hoaxes. There was a profile of me there which led to some misunderstanding. It referred to ". . . a million-dollar challenge — to be paid from foundation reserves . . ." This is incorrect, and could be damaging to the integrity of this Foundation. The impression is given that we have a million that we can use. We do not have such a "reserve," and that million dollars is not accessible to us except in the event that we have to pay out the prize to a winner of the JREF challenge. We cannot reach into it for operating money or for any costs or expenses, and it must be — and is — always maintained at one million.

Also, that million dollars is invested in bonds, not in stocks, so the "Enron-related decline" which was cited in USN&WR, did not and could not affect it. And our "endowment" has not "fallen" in any respect, as author Kim Clark stated. In common with many 501(c)3 charities, we have noted a decline in donations following the 9/11 disaster.

I've spoken with Ms. Clark, and I'm confident that the magazine will correct this misunderstanding.

It's been a good week!

Yep, I missed the menthol/methanol error last week....