The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Christopher Hitchens, Cancer Quackery, and James Van Praagh

The Good: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

I was very, very, saddened when I learned that Christopher Hitchens had left us after only 62 years of a brilliant, dedicated life.

Before I type one more word, I’ll point out that those angry, frustrated, hateful, frightened, detractors were simply wrong when they smugly predicted that Hitchens would turn to some deity or other before he died; that would not have been the Christopher that I knew, the brave warrior who wielded his pen as a sword and thereby cut such a shining path before him. I’m certain that as he closed his eyes he was aware that he’d done an excellent job, he’d said his piece, he’d reached so many people around the world who needed to know that they were not under the command of any jealous, vengeful, insecure, capricious, cruel god who created them and then played with them like helpless toys to satisfy divine whims. Christopher was one of my giants … 

I’ll miss him, but I’ll try to carry his message to others who’ve not yet heard it, though my words will not read as well, nor will my phrasing of them approach Christopher’s standards. 

Christopher was one of my giants …

Yes, it could be said that Hitchens was unwise about his heavy smoking and drinking, which likely brought about his too-early demise, but he was a fully mature adult who made those decisions for himself. In the past I have inveighed against those unwise practices because they have cost me other good friends and family, and I myself am certainly not free enough of “sin” to cast any stone in his direction. 

When I wrote this on the late evening when the story broke I am told that The New York Timesstopped the presses to include Christopher’s obituary on their front page, and I swear that I could hear him guffawing at that. We so much enjoyed his wit and wise words at the The Amaz!ng Meetings he graced with his presence, and we will feel this loss every time we stand before a TAM audience. 

Goodbye, Christopher. These tears in my eyes are of pure joy at having known you. 

The Bad: Popular Health Magazine Touts Cancer Quackery 

Being curious about most literature dealing with cancer, I picked up a copy of a 36-page Guide to Chemotherapy at my oncologist’s office, since “chemo” is a process through which I passed recently, with such great success. It is published by the Health Monitor Network, whose lawyers are careful to state that the publication “is not intended to provide advice on personal medical matters, or to substitute for consultation with a physician.” 

I’ve been concerned with the fact that most literature I’ve picked up dealing with chemotherapy side-effects manages to drop in polite references to acupuncture, suggesting that patients ask their doctors whether this centuries-old nonsense might help them. This is obviously in “PC” deference to those who might also want to embrace other useless woo-woo treatments. But though the first 27 pages of the Guide were free of woo-woo, pages 28 to 32 were “20 tips for thriving during treatment,” and suggestion #15 was “Try something new,” and related that the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care in New York City encourages their patients to “try activities such as crocheting, scrapbooking, tai chi, Reiki, and even a drum circle.” 

Crocheting and scrapbook work fails to captivate me, tai chi can be interesting and probably therapeutic, and I’ll pass up the drum circle, being bereft of any sense of rhythm, but I recognize another form of nonsense when I see it. “Reiki” is a relatively new form of quackery, only having been dreamed up in 1922. It claims to use something called “palm healing,” and practitioners apparently believe that they’re “transferring universal energy” (reiki) in the form of “ki” through the process of waving their hands and thereby bringing about “self-healing and a state of equilibrium.” It’s a sort of dance with hand motions. The Westernized version uses systematized gestures, while the original, even nuttier form, “relies on an intuitive sense for proper hand patterns.” Sure. 

A 2008 systematic scientific review of randomized clinical trials of reiki concluded: 

… the evidence is insufficient to suggest that reiki is an effective treatment for any condition. The concept of ki underlying Reiki is speculative and there is no scientific evidence that it exists. 

Both the American Cancer Society [ACS] and the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine [NCCAM] have also investigated this notion, and found that there exists no clinical or scientific evidence supporting claims that reiki is effective in the treatment of any illness, or that it has any benefits beyond possible placebo effects. Though proper placebo trials of reiki are complicated by design difficulties due to “blinding” requirements, trials conducted with adequate placebo or sham controls have shown no difference between the procedure-treated and the control groups. Even a 2009 review in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that “the serious methodological and reporting limitations of limited existing Reiki studies preclude a definitive conclusion on its effectiveness.” The ACS notes that the research surrounding Reiki has been poorly conducted, and states: 

Available scientific evidence at this time does not support claims that Reiki can help treat cancer or any other illness. More study may help determine to what extent, if at all, it can improve a patient’s sense of well-being. 

In other words, reiki does not work. It’s a sham, a silly song-and-dance routine that medical doctors like Mehmet Oz—he of The Doctor Oz Show, a TV program given to him by Oprah Winfrey—readily accepts. However, Dr. Oz may be swayed by the fact that his wife is a “reiki master,” and he regularly offers his viewers a variety of woo-woo ideas in spite of the hard fact that he’s a highly-ranked cardiac surgeon and very respected in that line of work. 

Cancer can be beaten, but quackery only creates false security and an useless expensive “alternative” to reality. 

I found my way through the six months of infusions of my chemo session by relating to other patients who were going through the same duress and talking them through difficult times and situations, a procedure that I think helped me as much as it did them. I submitted to systematic poisoning to a point just short of checking out, but had the great satisfaction of knowing that the cancer cells “went” while I didn’t, which is the desired result. Reiki, acupuncture, and other forms of quackery were not involved, and to suggest that they could be effective in the treatment of cancer is, in my view, irresponsible on the part of these publications. Cancer can be beaten, but quackery only creates false security and an useless expensive “alternative” to reality. 

And the Ugly 

James Van Praagh has chosen—wisely—to avoid the direct JREF challenge with which we confronted him recently (see my column in the last issue of Skeptic). He knows full well that he cannot pass any properly designed and controlled observation of his fumbling “cold reading” attempts, and he hopes we’ll go away. Well, we won’t. 

He apparently depends solely on two characteristics in his audiences: he looks for naïveté and he uses the tired old fast-guessing ploy to get lucky, when he can. In a video we posted on Randi.org, Van Praagh is faced with a group of rather more perceptive folks who won’t allow themselves to be bullied into nodding assent to every inane and obvious gimmick he offers them. Miss after miss leaves Van Praagh nonplussed, even when he tells a woman that her father doesn’t walk as well after his hip replacements and she sets him straight that, in fact, he’s walking better then ever! He misses on a back problem, then leg problems. He insists that this woman, or someone in her family plays the piano. Nope. Then, look at the 1:20 mark to see the most common trick used by Van Praagh—getting a response to a direct question he’s asked, then feeding it back to the victim as if Van Praagh himself had originated it: 

Was your mother buried? Yes. Mmhmm, because she’s talking about being buried, and a—about a wake, or a funeral, rather, and, umm, she knows about it, she was very surprised by it all. And who’s Cathy, or Cathy, or Catherine, or Cathy, Cathy, Catherine, or Cathy? 

Then, read the perceptive comments that readers posted in response to this obvious failure, and note that these folks, too, are fast becoming aware of his methods. This is one of the ugliest cold readings I have ever seen. Van Praagh then informs another woman that there’s something about a car with her father who passed. Wrong. He asks a couple of women about someone coming through named Teresa or Terry. Nada. Something about a divorce? No. Marriage? No. Never been married? Bingo! Another car reference was met with a blank stare. 

I’ll add here that I believe the JREF—through our president D. J. Grothe and our staff and active band of volunteers—can take much of the credit for this powerful new attitude of the public in regard to the blatant attacks on reason offered by these “readers” who go after vulnerable, naive victims and take their money. This 5 minute and 18 second example of his performance surely proves the case against him.