Hocus pocus medicine or sound science? Scientologists push Ron Hubbard’s methods for treating oil spill victims in St Tammany Parish with the help of DA Walter Reed

Yes siree just when you thought things could not get whackier for this area, we have religion masquerading as medicine or is that medicine masquerading as religion as St Tammany Parish DA Walter Reed has teamed up with local notables to push a benefit dinner for the Gulf Coast Detoxification Project, a new nonprofit organization that uses medical methods espoused by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. The New York Press has the skinny on the detoxification efforts of the scientologists there after 9-11:

“I’m not here converting these men and women to Scientology. And I’ve got to tell you something—I’ve been a Scientologist 20 years. In Sacramento I, more than any other Scientologist, got new people into Scientology, me personally. I’m very good at converting people, if I want to.” Jim Woodworth is the director of the New York Rescue Workers’ Detoxification Project, and he is bristling at the suggestion that his program is an arm of the Church of Scientology. He insists that his group is totally secular, stating that a look at his tax returns and a discussion with any of the close to 800 men and women he has treated will bear that out. His mission at the program, also known as Downtown Medical, is to help sick rescue workers—not to make new Scientologists. “My purpose here is the purpose that I stated, to restore the quality of life to the rescue workers. It’s not a religious purpose.”

Those rescue workers I spoke with back up Woodworth’s statements. No patient who participated in the detoxification program offered by Downtown Medical said they were confronted with Scientology, or its beliefs, at any time. In 2003, Downtown Medical, a clinic promoting a program designed to remove impurities from the body through a regimen of sweat and vitamins, opened for business. The project, which focuses solely on those rescue workers who served at Ground Zero after 9/11, is based on the writings of Church of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and project leaders publicly acknowledge that Hubbard’s book, Clear Body, Clear Mind, acts as the de facto handbook for the program. Though many past supporters of the program such as the City of New York’s largest firefighters’ union, the Uniformed Firefighters Association, backed off once they learned of Downtown Medical’s ties to Scientology, others have been more than willing to openly show their support, starting with former Manhattan City Council Member Margarita Lopez.

The involvement of DA Reed in the effort is noteworthy as certain local politicians in New York were also on the inside of the rescue worker project as I continue:

>During her 2005 run for Manhattan borough president, it was revealed that Lopez helped steer $630,000 in city funding to Downtown Medical. Following that, she received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Scientology associates and the scorn of Mayor Bloomberg. The mayor openly chastised Lopez, who appears in a promotional video touting the program, for her connection to Downtown Medical. Since then, other elected officials have been happy to stand up for the benefits of the detoxification program, despite Bloomberg’s continued objections. Council Member Hiram Monserrate of Queens announced his support for the program in April, declaring that he had gone through the detox regimen himself. Monserrate even introduced a bill to declare April 19 “L. Ron Hubbard Day” in advance of a Manhattan fundraiser for the program hosted by Scientologist, actor and Downtown Medical co-founder Tom Cruise, which raised $1.3 million. Another Queens City Council Member, Joseph Addabbo, attended the fundraiser and said the critics of Downtown Medical were out of line. This program helps rescue workers, Addabbo said, and that should be the top priority.

At least one elected official had no idea he was considered a supporter of the program until he was contacted for this story. On the front page of Downtown Medical’s website appears a quote from Michael Balboni, a former Republican state senator from Long Island and current deputy secretary for Public Security to Governor Eliot Spitzer, which states that the results of the detoxification program are “the ultimate victory over the effects the terrorists hoped to achieve.” A Google search for the quote finds it only on Downtown Medical’s website and a search in the much more thorough Lexis-Nexis newspaper archive does not turn up the quote at all. Balboni does not know how it got there and does not even remember saying it, not just as an endorsement of Downtown Medical but in any context. “I have no idea where they got that quote from,” said Balboni when asked about it, noting that he met with a few supporters of the program a few years ago to discuss the potential opening of a similar clinic in his district. Balboni said that if participants in the program felt better upon its completion, then that was good for them. That said, he is not a supporter and will ask Downtown Medical to remove his remark from its website. “It’s certainly not an endorsement of the program.”

I imagine the scientific community would be more sold on the treatment regimens if instead of lining up political endorsements for it, the treatment plan were actually subjected to rigorous research but one should never discount the power of the placebo effect either as Dr. Michael Robichaux has been on the local press circuit pushing L Ron’s methods since early this year complete with patient testimonials and no rigorous scientific testing to back his claims.

Curious as to the take of the medical community on this subject I contacted my doc and asked him whether mixing vitamins with cooking oil, ingesting it and then running on a treadmill was really a sound medical treatment his reply to me was classic: “Hocus Pocus medicine”.  The reason for his response is found in that NY Press article I linked above:

Woodworth admits that he has no control study. He has a study prepared, written and ready to go but he does not have the funding required to move it forward. Root, on the other hand, says there is no need for such a study. He and his researchers know the purification rundown works, and therefore there is no need to force the placebo on anyone. Scientific methods need not be followed. “As regards controls, it is not possible to give one group a sugar pill and ask another group to exercise, sauna and take vitamins without making it obvious that the ‘control’ group is not receiving the same therapy. It has been most practical to use participants as their own control—i.e., to monitor their condition over a period of time prior to program start,” wrote Root.

But time is a major reason a control group would be needed to study the detoxification program’s effectiveness, since over time the body will naturally detoxify itself without the help of a vitamin cocktail and a sauna session. Human beings naturally release chemicals from their bodies all the time through an ancient process known as going to the toilet. If you took an antibiotic today, it would naturally work its way out of your body. That’s why drugs are usually prescribed for a number of days, in order to keep the levels of that drug high enough to be effective. The same would be true of radiation. If you are exposed to radiation today, the amount of radiation in your body 30 days from now would be lower.

That’s not the byproduct of the Hubbard method, that’s just the way things work. Proponents of the purification method argue that toxins can stay in the body forever unless you take your vitamin shake and sit in the heat, but such claims cannot be taken seriously without measuring the time such toxins take to leave the body unassisted. Just drinking a lot of water can clean out your system all by itself. It is also worth noting that different chemicals take different amounts of time to leave the body naturally, yet Downtown Medical’s research tends to treat toxins as an interchangeable soup. The study attached to the tax return does not even bother to mention before and after levels of toxins whatsoever.

Folks I don’t know how Walter Reed got hooked up with the Church of Scientology but it is clear St Tammany Parish needs an enema and as a bonus maybe Tom Cruise will show up as this area’s new lawn star de jour since Bull Durham has pulled out.

sop