Uitleg waarom Rife-machines en Clark's zapper niet werken

[Martijn]

Rife - a critique
by Joe Ham

The proponents of Rife claim that it kills bacteria with "electromagnetic frequencies" that resonate with at least 650 pathogens and kills them in a fashion similar to an opera singer shattering a crystal class. However, that analogy fails because it violates the laws of physics as will be shown.

Also, the claim that Rife can cure 650 diseases including cancer is so preposterous that any straight thinking person would and should laugh at that kind of propaganda. Unfortunately, "Lyme fog" can scramble one's critical faculties so badly that the preposterous becomes credible.

I had some experience with Lyme fog last year. It kept me seeing (and paying) a heart specialist long after the misdiagnosis should have been obvious. Fortunately I came out of the fog before I underwent a needless cath job.

The next duc that I saw was the only "LLMD" in the state, a self proclaimed LLMD and a Rife peddler. When I questioned that Rife could work against Lyme his argument was that one can't prove a negative. That is, since Rife has never been proven to not work, therefore it might work, therefore buy one, from him, at a "discount."

There are three technical reasons that prove why Rife can't work:

1) The RF (Radio Frequencies) that are used have resonate wavelengths measured in feet and yards. There is no way that frequencies that long can resonate with microscopic bacteria.

2) RF is a skin effect phenomenon. It penetrates even good conductors like copper only a few thousandths of an inch. That's not even deep enough to have any effect on infections of the skin or skin structures.

3) There is no RF emanated, or a vanishingly small amount measured in micro-watts. If there was any significant RF emitted the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) would shut them down for causing RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) and operating an unlicensed radio station.

Proof that there is no RF radiated can be made with a Field Strength meter. It is not an expensive instrument and most Ham Radio operators have one. But an easier proof can be made by noting that the RF is sent to a light bulb, coil, resistive pads or some other resistive load. These convert the RF to light and heat and are known in the RF industry as "dummy loads". The purpose and function of dummy loads is to prevent the radiation of stray signals that would arouse the ire of the FCC. It is used by radio stations, both commercial and amateur, to 'tune-up' the transmitter before going on-air.

Confirmation of all 3 points can be found by consulting any issue of the "Commercial Radio Operators Manual" or any issue of the "Radio Amateurs Handbook". These concepts are very basic and are covered in the first few chapters.

These books are rather technical in nature and some people without a technical bent may find them difficult reading. So an easier way get a handle on these principles of the physics of RF is to consult with a local Ham radio operator. You can probably find one by just looking around your neighborhood for a Ham Radio "antenna farm".

Stop in, introduce yourself and ask questions. Most Hams are very friendly and love to talk radio. He will be able to answer your questions in less technical terms. Be prepared to spend some time; we are known as Hams for good reason.

Why then do Lymies and victims of other chronic diseases spend good money on such an improbable remedy? Probably because of the lack of a technical background, combined with sheer Desperation, a dose of "Lyme fog" and some naive credulity.

Lyme is still considered an 'emerging' infectious disease, identified for barely 30 years, the causative agent, Borrelia Burgdorferi, for only 20 years. The medical establishment has not come to grips with it yet, offers no sure cure, and often outright denial. Under those circumstances any 'alternative' that offers validation and hope starts to look pretty good.

This "failure to diagnose" and "refusal to treat" opens the door very wide to any "alternative" that offers validation and hope. Validation is important because it resolves the mystery, confirms that the symptoms are not 'all in your head' and offers the prospect of treatment. Hope can be very important also because it gives the patients some reason to keep on fighting and that can help get them through the tough spots. Most doctors are very reluctant to deliver a fatal prognosis because that would take away hope. Sometimes hope may be all that the patient has.

Doctors know the therapeutic value of hope. Charlatans know the commercial value.

The failure of mainstream medicine to come to grips with Lyme disease causes many victims of the disease to become desperate. Desperate people will do desperate things. I know of several otherwise intelligent people who have suspended reason in order to believe that an electronic gizmo will cure Lyme disease and 649 other diseases and maladies.
And that this miracle cure for all diseases has been suppressed for 60 years by some evil conspiracy.

But what about all those glowing 'testimonials'?
No doubt some of them were written by the enterprise that makes and sells them. That's just merchandising.

But most of them seem to be from genuine customers and users who truly believe the device works.

An analysis of why so many people believe that it works probably has some explanation in the placebo effect. That is, during the depths of a relapse when the patient is feeling the worst then any hope of relief, no matter how thin, becomes cause for belief. When a natural remission cycle follows Rife treatments, whether by days or weeks, the device gets the credit not the person's own immune system or the Relapsing/Remitting nature of Lyme disease. And the next relapse is attributed to a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, and is interpreted as further proof that the device works. All the while the spirochete just digs in deeper.

That first impression is powerful and can persist even when, objectively, subsequent treatments yield no improvement. I have heard Lymies say that they are sure that their relapses would have been much worse without Rife even though their relapses were getting more severe over time.

This self deception can start even earlier. I know of one Lymie who objects strenuously to any criticism of the effectiveness of Rife even though she has no experience with it because the newly purchased machine hasn't arrived yet!

And another who suggests that Rife might work on a principal different from resonance as the Rife promoters claim but he has no idea what that other principal might be.

Another part of the explanation leads to the soft science of psychology. I'm not comfortable with that psycho-babble so perhaps some illustration by way of examples will suffice.

A friend and fellow bird dog trainer recently brought over a Rife device and left it for me to "fix". He felt that it was broken because it seemed to no longer have any effect on his Lyme disease. I put it on the oscilloscope and found that it was generating the RF signal as noted in the manual and delivering it to the dummy load. In other words it was not broken. He was trying to salvage his ego by believing that it was no longer working.

The problem is how to handle the situation when he returns to pick it up.
If I tell him the truth it will probably damage the friendship. He truly believes that it is curative and would not take kindly to being shown that he had been deceived by hucksters. He has a large ego that would be bruised if I showed him how he had been duped and conned out of $2500.

Or I could tell a half-truth, hand it back to him saying: "It works now, as designed." That's not something that a true friend should do because then he would probably continue Rifeing and stop using the antibiotics that are proven to be effective for this disease.

Stopping abx while using Rife is actually recommended by Bryan Rosner ('theskyking' on Lymenet.org). He says outright that Rife works better without abx:

"Rife machines are not very effective while using antibiotics." Bryan 3 Jan 2005
"It is typical for antibiotics to greatly lessen rife effectiveness." Bryan 17 May 2005

However, it's obvious that he doesn't believe that because he posted to Lymenet.org recently begging for advice about which antibiotic should be used by a friend who had just been bitten by a tick. Help!

A third option would be another half-truth by suggesting that his bacteria is of a strain that is resistant to Rife. Not exactly a lie because all bacteria are "resistant" to Rife. I have until Sunday to decide which approach to take.

A fellow Lymie in the next town got hold of a Rife last January. She figured out that Rife wasn't doing any good in just three months. She says that she had help from her dog that also has Lyme. That is, because dogs seem to cycle relapsing diseases such as Lyme so much faster than humans do it was easier to see that Rife treatments on the dog were having no effect at all. Dogs do not appear to be susceptible to the self-deception of the placebo effect.

Then she looked critically at how it was working on her and it was obvious that it was not. The disease was moving to its own timetable whether Rife was used or not. It might also have helped that she had borrowed the Rife and so she didn't have any money or ego invested in it. She is doing well enough now on antibiotics to be back at work. Hopefully her detour into Rife wasn't long enough to cause her Lyme disease to progress to the chronic stage.

The issue of the placebo effect has been kicked around quite a bit on this board and in the medical literature. The general consensus is that the Relapsing/Remitting diseases such as Lyme are the more prone to the placebo effect for the obvious reason of coincidence. That's why the statistical analysis of trials is so important. Another confounding factor is that some antibiotics, particularly the b'statics, can take a while to kick-in. If another alternative therapy is started and improvement is noted then the last therapy added will get credit that it doesn't deserve. It pays to keep a long time frame in mind and keep a log.

However, sometimes the placebo issue can yield some tongue-in-cheek humor that is good for the soul. The most amusing article about it concluded that the placebos that were used were just too weak and that better results would have been found if they had used Double Strength Placebos. Sly grin.

So we should not be surprised that Rife users are now being offered add-on amplifiers to make their placebos a bit stronger. And recently a reduced strength placebo called the KMT 23.

The worst part about the Rife propaganda is that too many Lymies (afflicted by Lyme fog) will believe it and forego antibiotics while doing Rife. That just gives the spirochete time to burrow in deeper. The tragedy of this is especially profound in the case of early/acute Lyme which is fairly easily cured with adequate dose and duration of antibiotics but when left untreated then becomes disseminated or late/chronic Lyme and is much more difficult to treat. In some cases it seems that chronic really means chronic; treatable but not curable.

So if you are considering buying a Rife machine you might want to ask yourself:
Is there any objective evidence, any at all, that it works?

How desperate are you? Can you afford to delay effective treatment for your stage of Lyme disease?

How fragile is your ego? Will it allow you admit your mistake before it's too late?


Update: 5 July 2005
My friend picked up his Rife. I tried to weasel out of the dilemma by choosing option 3, and said that maybe his Lyme had developed a resistance to Rife. He said he suspected that and had already started on colloidal silver!

Aaagh! That caught me so flat-footed that I had no immediate response. I almost wished that I had encouraged his continued use of Rife: at least, unlike silver, it does no direct harm. Today I sent him this link to Tom Grier's research.
See also the reports of seizures caused by colloidal silver at Sloan-Kettering.
And the experience of Rosemary Jacobs.

While you are at Tom's page you might find it valuable to read some of the "testimonial" replies. Notice the lack of evidence and logic. They are allowing themselves to be seduced by their own rhetoric and wishful thinking. There are sure to be similar testimonial replies about Rife on this thread, also without scientific evidence or logic.

My friend may not 'get it' because he is not a very technical person. However, even though he has a "need to believe" he doesn't have a lot of money invested in three bottles of silver solution so he might be a bit more objective now that some seeds of doubt have been planted. Maybe this will be enough to temper his contempt for all allopathic medicine which is the source of his love affair with anything labeled 'alternative'.

Back on the topic of Rife: in order for it to work as claimed it must
Radiate some RF,
Penetrate the body,
Resonate with the bacteria.

It does none of those; never has, never will. At least not in this galaxy or until the laws of the physics of RF are changed.

So, if you are new to Lyme there are some hard ugly facts about it that you need to get firmly in your head.
Lyme disease is a neuroborreliosis , a cousin to Syphilis but much harder to eradicate, especially in late stage.

You have a narrow window of time in the acute stage to cure the disease. That window will close if you waste too much time messing around with alternative quackery. Find a legitimate LLMD and get on the antibiotics that are effective for your strain of Lyme disease.

Do it now before the bugs Burgdorferi eat your brain.

[rn.mast@zonnet.nl]

Veel van deze gedachten zijn ook reeds door mijn hoofd gegaan, ook met betrekking tot bepaling van effectiviteit van reeds door mij gebruikte medicijnen. Dat moet ook wel, want anders kun je de psychische factoren niet goed uitfilteren.

And another who suggests that Rife might work on a principal different from resonance as the Rife promoters claim but he has no idea what that other principal might be.

Ik zocht nog een link tussen ionisering en de invloed van zuurgraad, waar je in andere verhalen over leest. De frequenties zijn in ieder geval niet degene die de Reiki-collega bedoelde, dus de psychische werking moet in ieder geval toch met name placebo-achtig zijn. (Dat ging namelijk om magneetvelden van 10-tallen Hz.)

get on the antibiotics that are effective for your strain of Lyme disease.

Daar ben ik het helemaal mee eens, en ik voeg de daad bij het woord. Omdat dat bewezen effectief is heeft dat meer zin dan onbewezen zaken gebruiken. De keuze van het middel hangt samen met de relatieve giftigheid voor de besmetting en de relatieve giftigheid voor de patiënt.

Overigens is Colloïdaal zilver ook beslist effectief, dus schiet de schrijver op dat punt een beetje door. Voor de oorlog werd dit effectief tegen sifilis ingezet, middels injecties. Men is bij colloïdaal zilver alleen bang voor permanente versmurfing. Op een gegeven moment ging men daarom over op arseen. Of de orale zilverdoseringen die in het alternatieve circuit worden gehanteerd ook effectief zijn tegen Lyme weet ik niet, ze beweren dat je er niet van verkleurt door de homogene partikelgrootte.

Maar dat colloïdaal zilver een onschadelijk natuurproduct is, wat je soms leest, is bullshit, want het wordt met een chemisch proces colloïdaal, en is net als andere metalen gewoon uitermate giftig voor een hoop organismen, alleen net wat minder voor de mens.

[rn.mast@zonnet.nl]

Hier nog een aardig stukje, van achter op het VU-magazine:

Column "Wetenschap deugt niet"

Het is om moedeloos van te worden. Een paar maanden geleden baarde onderzoeker John Ioannidis opzien met zijn bevinding dat van de belangrijkste medische artikelen er na een paar jaar nog maar weinig recht overeind staan (Journal of the American Medical Association, 13 juli 2005). Daarna ging hij nog verder: hij stelde op basis van een statistische analyse onomwonden dat "het kan worden bewezen dat de meeste onderzoeksresultaten onwaar zijn" (Plos Medicine, augustus 2005). De voorafkans dat een bevinding correct is, zegt hij, is zo klein dat zelfs een verdubbeling ervan in een gedegen onderzoek nog steeds een heel kleine kans blijft. Bovendien zijn de meeste onderzoeken niet gedegen. Ze zijn te klein van opzet, de significantie is to laag en de kans op systematische vertekening is te groot. Veel studies zijn slechts nauwkeurige metingen van de heersende opinie. Kunnen we er dan niet beter helemaal mee stoppen? Is dit geen koren op de molen van al die wijsneuzen die het wetenschappelijk bedrijf zo graag in een kwaad daglicht willen stellen en die elke bevinding onderuit proberen to halen? Daar hebben wij de statistiek van Ioannidis helemaal niet voor nodig. Enig historisch inzicht volstaat. De wetenschap van de achttiende eeuw deugde niet, van de negentiende eeuw staat er nog maar weinig overeind, en de wetenschap uit de twintigste eeuw kraakt ook in haar voegen. Zullen we dan de wetenschap van vandaag wel voor waar aannemen? Toch lijkt iedereen, en zeker Ioannidis, erg ondersteboven van de bevindingen van Ioannidis. Maar is het niet juist de bedoeling dat wetenschappelijke inzichten - anders dan bijvoorbeeld pauselijke - worden verworpen en vervangen door betere? Je hoeft geen aanhanger van Karl Popper to zijn om te menen dat wetenschap vooral het wieden van oude, onjuiste theorieen is. Bovendien zou de wetenschap waarschijnlijk piepend tot stilstand komen als de voorafkans flink omhoog moet voordat publicatie in een wetenschappelijk blad overwogen kan worden. Dan krijgen we artikelen die aantonen dat stenen inderdaad naar beneden vallen. Dat 17 wel degelijk een priemgetal is. Dat normafwijkend gedrag zowel door erfelijkheid als door omgeving wordt bepaald. Ware wetenschappelijke publicaties zijn nietszeggende wetenschappelijke publicaties.
Het is, met andere woorden, helemaal niet erg dat „de meeste gepubliceerde onderzoeksbevindingen onwaar zijn." Integendeel, hoe onwaarder hoe informatiever, zou Popper waarschijnlijk zeggen. En hij zou meteen vragen: als de meeste onderzoeksresultaten onwaar zijn, geldt dat dan tevens voor Ioannidis' onderzoeksresultaat?

[Martijn]

Hier nog een aardig stukje, van achter op het VU-magazine:

Column "Wetenschap deugt niet"

Wat wil je hiermee zeggen?

[rn.mast@zonnet.nl]

Er zit enige relativiteit in datgene wat een individu of groepering op een bepaald moment voor "waar" houdt.

[Martijn]

Er zit enige relativiteit in datgene wat een individu of groepering op een bepaald moment voor "waar" houdt.

Dat geldt voor sommige zaken (zoals zappers), maar er is ook genoeg wat wel absoluut waar is, of absoluut onwaar. Antibiotica kunnen absoluut bacteriën in het lichaam doden, dat zal niet over 50 jaar achterhaald zijn.

[Niek]

Er zit enige relativiteit in datgene wat een individu of groepering op een bepaald moment voor "waar" houdt.

Dat geldt voor sommige zaken (zoals zappers), maar er is ook genoeg wat wel absoluut waar is, of absoluut onwaar. Antibiotica kunnen absoluut bacteriën in het lichaam doden, dat zal niet over 50 jaar achterhaald zijn.

Die laatste zin is m.i. NIET absoluut waar, hooguit als je zegt ' bepaalde bacteriën' of 'bacteriën in een bepaald stadium'. Het is op basis van wetenschappelijke kennis evident dat je bepaalde bacterie vormen (zoals CWD's) met de huidige antibiotica niet of nauwelijks kunt doden. Het blijft mij anderzijds ook steeds opnieuw verbazen dat artsen (soms met goed resultaat blijkbaar) antibiotica voorschrijven tegen bijvoorbeeld virus infecties, terwijl dat theoretisch helemaal niet kan helpen. Placebo effect?

(sorry voor oude koeien uit de sloot halen maar ik kwam het na de verwijzing van Martijn over Rife tegen en wilde toch even reageren).

[Martijn]

Dat geldt voor sommige zaken (zoals zappers), maar er is ook genoeg wat wel absoluut waar is, of absoluut onwaar. Antibiotica kunnen absoluut bacteriën in het lichaam doden, dat zal niet over 50 jaar achterhaald zijn.

Die laatste zin is m.i. NIET absoluut waar, hooguit als je zegt ' bepaalde bacteriën' of 'bacteriën in een bepaald stadium'.

Ik bedoelde niet dat antibiotica zonder meer alle soorten bacteriën, altijd en overal, in elk stadium, in elke vorm, ongeacht resistentie, in het lichaam kunnen doden.

[Niek]

Ik bedoelde niet dat antibiotica zonder meer alle soorten bacteriën, altijd en overal, in elk stadium, in elke vorm, ongeacht resistentie, in het lichaam kunnen doden.

inderdaad, maar dat is dus het lastige met veel natuurwetenschappelijke uitspraken. Ze zijn alleen absoluut waar als je de uitspraak heel algemeen houdt, en daardoor de praktische relevantie flink inperkt.

[doc]

Al die wetenschap, en ioannidis zijn punt, prima allemaal!! Maar er is nooit onderzoek gedaan naar de waarde van zappers en andere bioresonantie apparaten bij Lyme. Sterker nog, bioresonantie werkt niet biu allergie, dat is in 2 dubbel blinde studies duidelijk aangetoond. Men verdient over de ruggen van patienten op basis van hun angst en onzekerheid. Blijf weg van zappers, en van Hulda Clarks, die veel claimen en niets bewijzen!!!