Scientologist's Treatments Lure Firefighters

[kskiska]

For the past year, more than 140 New York City firefighters, some ailing from their work in the ruins of the World Trade Center, have walked into a seventh-floor medical clinic just two blocks from the former disaster site. Once inside, some have abandoned the medical care and emotional counseling provided to them by their own department's doctors, and all have taken up a treatment regimen devised by L. Ron Hubbard, the former science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology.

The firefighters take saunas, engage in physical workouts and swallow pills — all of which together constitute what for years has been known, amid considerable dispute, as Mr. Hubbard's detoxification program, one meant to wash the body of poisons or toxins. The firefighters are not charged for their trips to the clinic, called Downtown Medical.

Of the more than 140 firefighters who have undergone the program, some have told colleagues of its virtues. Others have said they were simply following the regimen in order to enjoy free saunas.

(snip)

But the existence of the clinic has upset city Fire Department officials, who, among other concerns, are alarmed that the medical treatment prescribed by its doctors is being discarded by some firefighters who enroll at Downtown Medical. They say the clinic's detoxification program requires firefighters to stop using inhalers meant to help with their breathing and any medications they may be taking, like antidepressants or blood pressure pills.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/nyregion/04DETO.html?hp

[thebigidea]

1. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Normally, I'd have a lengthy anti-Scientology diatribe. But this article... phew...

can I just scream, please?

[Sparky McGruff]

2. Ugh.

Scientologists are the only group with less shame than the Bush Administration.

"Always Attack. Never Defend." "Fair Game." RIght out of Rove's playbook.

[SlutBunwalla]

3. Niacin overdose, anyone?

That's what the Hubbard treatment is, and it can be lethal.

[lfairban]

4. At least they will be thetan free.

Read the story of Xemu. This is the inside story of Scientology that they only get to hear once they reach level OT III:

http://www.dulac.ca/cookdocs/13.html

[nofurylike]

5. i've been involved in a similar debate

about biopsychiatry.

(prefacing edit here: this is NOT a defense or support of scientology)

long story short:
generally speaking, we accept judeo-christian medical treatment all the time without analyzing its philosophical dangers. we don't go to allopaths fearing we will lose our willpower and join that cult.

one pertinent aspect of scientology - and i vehemently reject its ulterior philosophies - in regards health matters, is that it practices one of innumerable health systems that view health matters from outside the white male judeochristian profiteering paradigm.

the result is some excellent health information and alternative treatments.

the shame is that we would have to go such places to even hope to afford safer treatment than mainstream practitioners provide at exorbitant cost.

ideally, our payors - eg, insurance - would provide for alternatives like traditional indigene treatments. they don't. they won't even provide what mainstream doctors pedal for the pharmaceutical barons, much less buy us some lemonbalm tea to soothe our frayed nerves.....

just some thoughts.....

[Lexingtonian]

6. Hmmmm.

If you really knew anything more about Scientology, you would realize that is exactly a "white male judeochristian profiteering paradigm".

What Scientology is is this: it implicitly diagnoses every prospective member as have a treatable form of schizophrenia. Then it puts the member through a series of therapies that really only make intellectual sense if you understand schizophrenic symptoms, using treatment methods available in the 1940s and 1950s in what would then have been fairly imaginative ways.

For treating symptoms of depression/PTSD, Scientology is apparently fairly efficacious for reasons unrelated to its theories or particular practices. The incredible doses of calcium and magnesium and niacin and heavy sauna regimens can have real side effects, but in making people do new and on the whole fairly harmless stuff in aggregate (if they are reasonably healthy and skeptical) they're going basically the right stuff, and perhaps for cheaper than if they did things by sticking in their daily routines enhanced with antidepressants.

As for your pushing herb medicine, just remember that if it had really worked well enough we wouldn't have to bother with scientific medicine at all. We've had only 50 years of scientific research, starting with very little understanding at all, to find out much of anything. And that has been in sharp contrast with about 100 years of one poorly understood 'wonder drug' after the other coming down the pike. Cocaine, radium, aspirin, thalidomide, benzodiazipines, acetaminophens, amphetamines, interferons, antioxidants, steriods, haliperidol, clozapine, SSRIs. We have only begun to catch up with what any of them do. But the herb drug world is not all that different, with one fad herb after the other being peddled to people susceptible to the marketing- aloe, echinacea, and St. John's wort being a few recent ones.

[nofurylike]

7. i think we agree for the most part

as you wrote:
"For treating symptoms of depression/PTSD, Scientology is apparently fairly efficacious for reasons unrelated to its theories or particular practices. The incredible doses of calcium and magnesium and niacin and heavy sauna regimens can have real side effects, but in making people do new and on the whole fairly harmless stuff in aggregate (if they are reasonably healthy and skeptical) they're going basically the right stuff, and perhaps for cheaper than if they did things by sticking in their daily routines enhanced with antidepressants...."

similar to my:
"one pertinent aspect of scientology - and i vehemently reject its ulterior philosophies - in regards health matters, is that it practices one of innumerable health systems that view health matters from outside the white male judeochristian profiteering paradigm.

the result is some excellent health information and alternative treatments."

scientology is not judeochristian, by definition. but more to that point, its *health systems* are outside that paradigm - while unquestionably intended to lure us deeper into the philosophy and its ultimate profiteering.

i do know quite a bit about the philosophy.
but my concern is health care.

as i wrote, there are far better alternative healing systems, but those are even less available to all but the affluent, who are, in fact, using them. homeopathy, for instance.

but about herbs - rather, botanical pharmacology - please consider that what male medicine is doing is merely isolating what they perceive as active ingredients of often ancient remedies, and reducing them to chemical components. this accomplishes resource control. by government and the insurance industry handing a monopoly to chemical conglomerates, the massive majority of people can only receive those old remedies in reduced - denatured - form.

while the affluent are being healed and their lives prolonged by the actual, active, natural forms.

there is no question that lemonbalm tea works as well as, and more safely than, man-made seditives.

but more, the kinds of traditional healing i refer to are, for instance, traditional Hawai'ian la'au lapa'au, which can cure cancers, among so much else. or Nigerian traditional, which always had a cure for sickle cell anemia. the Japanese and soy for menses balances....

that list goes on and on, and the pharmaceutical companies are determined to control those means, as all possible.

they cannot profit from what we can grow in our own gardens, or window boxes - or cooperatively share. nor will allopaths maintain this hold on us if we learn of our relationship with Nature who provided us cures for all that could afflict us - evidenced by our lasting aeons - before man-made, or mutant afflictions of today.

it is fascinating! and would appear magic to many, of course. and, likewise, easily discredited.

now, i would like there to be sources other than scientology, but they are who are out there offering, affordably - if not cost-free, as i have seen in some places.

the lesson, it seems to me, is to avoid any special/self-interest parties cornering our health needs.

thank you for discussing this, Lexingtonian. i guess i have exceeded the scope of this particular thread.

i look forward to discussing this more on another thread some time.

by the way, if you grow your own aloe, then remove the gel yourself, it is an amazing multipupose medicine. look more into it. of course, in the hands of the chemical empire - including the cosmetics one - it is just as useless-to-dangerous as any other commercial product.

try a cup of the fresh gel in a fruit smoothy now and then.

be well

peace

[Fish Eye]

8. Another type of "Cult" medical pratice.

"as i wrote, there are far better alternative healing systems, but those are even less available to all but the affluent, who are, in fact, using them. homeopathy, for instance."

Homeopathy=SCAM

all you need to do is look at who has promoted and endorsed homeopathy not to mention the baseless nature of potentiation

can we go on to discuss the nazi/racists connections with homeopathy?????????

[nofurylike]

10. it is arguable

which has inherited more from nazi-ism, homeopathy or allopathy. both have, and both have been racist.

[Lexingtonian]

9. Ok.

scientology is not judeochristian, by definition.

Well, maybe not, but it doesn't seem to have anywhere near the same kind of success in non-j/c environments as it does in j/c ones.

as i wrote, there are far better alternative healing systems, but those are even less available to all but the affluent, who are, in fact, using them. homeopathy, for instance.

It may be a different standard of care, but the objective benefits of homeopathy are relatively small. The subjective benefits are great, that I won't dispute. And sometimes a homeopath can get a diagnosis right that a sloppy osteopathic doctor didn't. But all that really says is that the additional careful attention is the real basis of improvement.

merely isolating what they perceive as active ingredients of often ancient remedies, and reducing them to chemical components.

That's not how it is. Everything gets tested to find where all of the biological activities go; every bit of organic matter has extraneous chemical parts and those get separated away until no more can be removed. Then you're generally left with a single chemical compound. Penicillin, for example- you certainly don't want to eat all that fungus with its real toxins to get the dose of penicillin you need, would you? Or insulin- it's in part obtained from pig or cattle urine! Or taxaminofen- you'd have to eat yew tree bark (and about 90% of yew trees in the Northwest got killed by de-barking in 1993-1995 to obtain the drug before a chemical lab managed to synthesize it).

but more, the kinds of traditional healing i refer to are, for instance, traditional Hawai'ian la'au lapa'au, which can cure cancers, among so much else. or Nigerian traditional, which always had a cure for sickle cell anemia. the Japanese and soy for menses balances....

It would be nice if that were true for most people who treated themselves with those materials, because there are certainly desperate people out there willing to drop a million or two to be healed of those diseases no matter who approves or doesn't approve. And if there were a real pattern of success, surely we'd hear about it. People can't hide such things for long.

[nofurylike]

11. i am puzzled.

the economics of this are pretty clear. more the question: whose vested interest does suppression of these healing systems serve?

you write:
"It would be nice if that were true for most people who treated themselves with those materials, because there are certainly desperate people out there willing to drop a million or two to be healed of those diseases no matter who approves or doesn't approve. And if there were a real pattern of success, surely we'd hear about it. People can't hide such things for long."

the most successful Kanaka Maoli (Hawai'ian) Kahuna La'au Lapa'au - healers - heal for free. their cancer cures are very well documented. La'au Lapa'au can knit a broken bone in a fraction of the time allopathy can.

not my business if you don't, but if healing is a major concern for you, please do thoroughly investigate traditionals before making further assumptions.

on that note, i am off to a week of work, so won't be able to check back for replies. i don't like doing that, sorry. but i thank you for discussing this!

i feel that any such thoughtful attention to issues of healing is crucially important!

keep on!

[newyawker99]

12. Hi nofurylike!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[nofurylike]

13. thank you, newyawker99!!

for your inspirational welcome!!

:toast:

almost didn't check back, now so glad i did!

be well!

peace

[Swede]

14. This looks like a job for Operation Clambake