Red Flags Popping

I’ve been remiss in checking in on Retraction Watch, but was pointed that way by Paul Fidalgo’s blog this afternoon. This is from the abstract of a paper that has gained an Expression of Concern, which Retraction Watch covers here:

Current practices in allopathic medicine measure different types of energy in the human body by using quantum field dynamics involved in nuclear medicine, radiology, and imaging diagnostics.

Red flag #1: Someone mentioning “allopathic medicine,” which means evidence-based or science-based medicine, immediately gets my attention, because it can be considered a denigrative term in some contexts. If evidence must be denigrated, it’s a big signal that someone’s terrified of actually having their work examined.

Once diagnosed, current treatments revert to biochemistry instead of using biophysics therapies to treat the disturbances in subtle energies detected and used for diagnostics. Quantum physics teaches us there is no difference between energy and matter.

Red flag #2: No, quantum physics does not. You bang your nose into matter, and while you may burn your nose on energy, given enough power, you don’t bang it. E=mc² doesn’t make the two equivalent, it merely shows that the two are mutually convertible, with enough struggle. That’s why there’s a c² term.

All systems in the human being, from the atomic to the molecular level, are constantly in motion-creating resonance. This resonance is important to understanding how subtle energy directs and maintains health and wellness in the human being. Energy medicine (EM), whether human touch or device-based, is the use of known subtle energy fields to therapeutically assess and treat energetic imbalances, bringing the body’s systems back to homeostasis (balance).

Red flag #3: Energy Medicine is not something I’ve heard of, and that’s a red flag all on its own. No, it’s not radiology, which may sound like it. If you feel like you’re moderately well-read in the medical field and you run across a broad term like this that you don’t recognize, go look it up and expect it’ll be bullshit. If context suggests it’s a narrow term then it’s far more likely that I’m ignorant of it, but when it’s broad based, ignorance is a less likely hypothesis.

“Christina Ross, PhD, is a Board Certified Polarity Practitioner (BCPP), Registered Polarity Educator (RPE), and Certified Energy Medicine Practitioner (CEMP), who has earned bachelor’s degrees in both psychology and physics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She earned her PhD in Energy Medicine from Akamai University, with a research appointment to the Wake Forest School of Medicine’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), through the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine (WFCIM).” [E-Wellness Solutions]

Red flags #4-7 come popping right up. I’ve never heard of any of these specialties, and Akamai University, which has no accreditation to speak of, handing out Ph.D.s is about as valuable as a five year old holding forth on -ahem- quantum physics.

Ya gotta wonder about the journal that published it, Global Advances in Health and Medicine. Or maybe just disregard it completely.

There, a healthy laugh at some horseshit masquerading as science.