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: Continue reading “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”