Polk Sheriff: Couple Practiced 'Quackery'

[vino]

WINTER HAVEN | A married couple were arrested Wednesday on charges of practicing what Sheriff Grady Judd called "quackery."


At a news conference outside the couple's business Wednesday, Judd said Enrique Vela, 68, and co-owner and wife Ute Marquez, 56, diagnosed two undercover detectives with various ailments, then provided natural remedies they claimed would cure them.

The two have owned the Alternative Therapy Center at 1502 Dundee Road for nine years. Neither is licensed to practice medicine. Their business license, permitting Vela to practice massage therapy, will expire at the end of August. Vela is a certified massage therapist, according to the Department of Health.

The couple are charged with unlicensed practice of a health care profession and unlicensed practice of medicine.

The Sheriff's Office began investigating the center after the health department received an anonymous complaint alleging Vela and Marquez were illegally diagnosing patients with cat parasites and arsenic poisoning.

According to the detectives' reports, Vela and Marquez used a machine called the Asyra System to identify toxins, parasites and viruses in the blood. The machine is not FDA-approved.

Vela referred to himself as a doctor of homeopathic medicine, and told one of the detectives he could cure early stages of cancer. He told another detective plagued with appendicitis that she had hookworm larvae, among other ailments, after using the machine, the reports said.

The Asyra is intended to measure galvanic skin response by reading the skin's resistance to electrical currents. It is frequently used to measure emotional responses, such as in lie detector tests. However, promotional brochures for the machine list various other uses, including identifying digestive maladies and sleep disturbances, and analyzing the presence of toxins, worms and bacteria in the body. ...

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090617/NEWS/906175067/1338/NEWS00?Title=Polk-Sheriff-Couple-Practiced-Quackery-

It seems the machine itself is not a problem, but it can only be used by a licensed doctor. After all, not just anyone can be allowed to identify toxins. :crazy:

[charlie]

1. Return of the E-meter

Is there anything it can't do?

[salvorhardin]

4. Look at the photo I posted

It does resemble a fancy e-meter.

[moggie]

2. Another report here

http://real-strange.blogspot.com/2009/06/couple-charged-in-strange-medical-case.html

Some experts refer to the use of the machine as medical quackery.

Gee, ya think?

"Understand... you hold the cylinder in one hand, they wet your hand and then they press a probe into this thumb and they can tell you have cat parasites. Well, meow you know? I mean, that's bizarre. That's absolutely bizarre," said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

The sherriff gets it.

Deputies say a female detective was asked to strip down to her underwear on two separate occasions.

It sounds like that examination was done by Enrique Vela. Creepy. Why did she need to strip, if the diagnosis was based on galvanic skin response?

[onager]

6. That female detective was a real pro.

She must have been just ACHING to break character and give Enrique Vela a swift kick in the nads. Or five.

Sheriff Grady Judd sure did get it.

I saw a similar Southern lawman on TV this week (on the Snapped series, a real fave). In this case, a District Attorney in Alabama.

He was prosecuting a case where a husband turned up dead and buried out in the woods. The wife and her boyfriend enlisted a female friend to help with the burial and clean-up, but this woman had a long history of mental problems. The D.A. knew this would come out at the trial, plus the danger of the woman falling to pieces during questioning by the defense attorneys.

Then, happily, the boyfriend (in jail) heard that the widow/girlfriend had already started dating while out on bail. He immediately cut a deal and turned state's evidence.

"And he didn't have any mental problems," the D.A. noted. "Other than being an idiot."

:rofl:

[salvorhardin]

3. Take a look at it

http://www.asyra.co.uk/Using-Asyra

[Orrex]

7. Is that Hulda Clark's Zap-O-Matic?

[woo me with science]

5. Hey, it makes me feel better.

Leave it alone.

[enki23]

8. well, they certainly are quacks, but whether they were acting illegally or not is a legit question

and no, galvanic skin response is not used by legitimate doctors to diagnose disease. the use of the machine to do what they were claiming (along with using it in fucking "polygraphs" while we're at it) is complete bullshit already. "identify toxins?" fucking please. if they *weren't* acting illegally, we need to change the laws to make it so in the future.

preachers, quacks, and gurus. there are no worse fucking frauds than those whose victims defend them.