Denialism

Gary Null can kiss mein tuchas

—

by

MarkH
in

But apparently he’d rather have me fill it with coffee. Really…I mean it. I love coffee, but c’mon now! I can’t stand that this idiot is given time on public television during pledge drives to peddle his woo…

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchI stumbled across a website that goes on and on about the supposed vast conspiracy of the medical community to…well, I’m not sure. Anyway, given that you have to buy Gary Null’s quack tomes to get his advice, it’s hard to know exactly what he is selling. The conspiracy theorist from the above-linked site was kind enough to share some of Null’s secrets (at least they are cited that way:
Cervical Dysplasia, Fibroids, and Reproductive System Cancers. Excerpt from The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Natural Healing by Dr. Gary Null.Seven Stories Press, 1997), so that we all may benefit. Here is an excerpt on cancer treatment, and I warn you, poo-woo abounds:

Coffee enemas. “These enemas have been used by thousands of cancer patients, outside the realm of traditional medical care, because they work.

Ok, where is the proof of that? Here is the proof that they don’t work:

  1. Ernst, E. M.D., Ph.d., F.R.C.P. (Edin). Colonic Irrigation and the Theory of Autointoxication: A Triumph of Ignorance over Science. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology. 24(4):196-198, June 1997. (Make sure to follow the references to the primary sources).
  2. Green, S. A critique of the rationale for cancer treatment with coffee enemas and diet. JAMA. 1992,Dec 9; 269(13),1635-6.
  3. Alison Reed, Nicholas James and Karol Sikora.Mexico: Juices, coffee enemas, and cancer. The Lancet. Volume 336, Issue 8716, 15 September 1990, Pages 677-678.

Boiled coffee in retention enemas stimulates the liver’s enzyme system, which in turn causes great relief from pain in cancer patients.

There are no studies to support this statement.

The liver has more than a thousand documented medical functions. When we help it to work better and faster, the cancer patient’s overall physiological condition changes, sometimes within hours, and certainly within the first several weeks of treatment. You have a whole different person. People come off gurneys and out of beds, excruciating chronic pain is eased, and addiction to morphine is broken.

Typical woo. Miracles from simple substances. The entire auto-intoxication idea is false (see first article above), as is the idea of the liver needing some sort of help.

Every three minutes, all the blood in our bodies goes through our liver. Our livers and small intestine walls have an enzyme system with a fancy name that we will call GST for short.

Why abbreviate? Does he think you are stupid or is he trying to hide something?

This enzyme system naturally responds to cancer in the body by going up, and the coffee enema has been shown in laboratory experiments with rats, and in later experiments with humans, to produce increased liver bile flow, and to stimulate the GST enzyme system. In fact, it’s raised to 700 percent of normal levels of activity. When the GST system is running that fast, it can effectively remove tumor toxins from the bloodstream. And it doesn’t take very long. The effects of these coffee enemas will last for sometimes four, six, or eight hours before a feeling of discomfort and pain around the tumor returns. They’re that effective.

Actually, the few human articles on cancer and GST showed that it may contribute to cancer’s resistance to chemotherapy. (Theo P.J. Mulder, Johannes J. Manni, Hennie M.J. Roelofs, Wilbert H.M. Petersand Anne Wiersm. Carcinogenesis. Volume 16, No. 3, 1995.) Or, perhaps one form of it helps prevent cell damage in Parkinson’s disease. Or maybe it can be used as a tumor marker. Either way, GST has never been tested as a therapy for anything in humans. (Yes, I actually took the time to do a MedLine search on this.)

Additionally, putting coffee up your ass is not proven to stimulate GST or anything else in the liver…what else might me stimulating about it? Hmm…

You have to know how much coffee to use: a quart of water with three tablespoons of coffee boiled in it. That’s cooled and strained, not filtered, because a filter would remove some of the molecules that stimulate the GST enzyme system. The coffee is safely taken into the colon, while the person is lying on his or her right side, retained for 10 to 15 minutes, and then released. Patients doing this without the supervision of a physician should know that anything cooler than 100 degrees is going to cause cramping in the intestines.

So, basically, if you are watching your local PBS pledge drive, and the charismatic Null recommends his books to you, remember how much good advice they contain. If you have ovarian cancer and pour coffee up your tushie, some guy thinks it will help you. Or at least, it will help him— to buy a boat.

Comments

  1. Bob O’H

    Does coffee make you callipygous as well?

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    “People come off gurneys and out of beds….”
    I’d get out of bed, too, if someone put coffee up my butt.

    Reply
  3. Michael Paul Goldenberg

    Robin Quivers, Howard Stern’s sidekick, is a big believer in and partaker of coffee enemas, so they’ve gotten a great deal of “exposure” on his show. Luckily, Howard and the rest of the crew are quite skeptical about their health value, so the whole thing is much more a source of mockery than anything else. It’s a tad distressing to know that Ms. Quivers is a former nurse (though the FORMER part is a good thing).

    Kind of reminds me of THE RIGHT STUFF: lots of enema humor.

    Reply
  4. Boris

    I fell off a stool at Starbucks once and almost got a coffee enema, so I’m pretty much an expert in this field.

    Reply
  5. Carlos

    One way to measure the effectiveness of doctors is to see the average patient death rate per registered physician per decade. The national average in US is about eight. I wonder how many patients had Gary Null killed in the last ten years?

    Reply
  6. Jared

    Why, oh why does PBS insist on putting on quacks like this?

    Reply
  7. T. Bruce McNeely

    Gary Null does not have an MD. He has a so-called PhD of dubious quality. You can read about it here:
    http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/null.html

    Reply
  8. The Blind Watchmaker

    “One Vente Crapachino, please.”

    “Do you need room for cream?”

    (insert your own punch-line here)”____________________”

    Reply
  9. PalMD

    ROFLMAO!

    Reply
  10. Richard Eis

    Patient: I just can’t take my morning coffee without milk and sugar…will that be a problem?

    Of course what if the herbal tea companies get in on this. Just think of the flavours! or coca cola. Of course they will have to totally redesign the straws.

    Reply
  11. Anonymous

    all you people who say gary null is a quack are idiots. Im sure you are about a hundred pounds overwieght and constipated. That is why you are so crabby. You are full of processed foods and anger. Just let go.

    Reply
  12. The Perky Skeptic

    The most AWESOME SLOGAN EVER: “Denialism Blog– Full of processed foods and anger!”

    Reply
  13. PalMD

    when i’m not too lazy, i’ll put in the code for a quote generator

    Reply
  14. Bobby

    It’s hard to know if a person is a quack or not. Some doctors with legitimate medical degrees are quacks. Their quacks because having seen that radiation and chemotherapy haven’t worked for the majority of cancers, they still perscribe this protocal until the individual is dead. That is quackery to me. However that doesn’t neccessarily mean I believe that a coffee enema will solve the problem. I have been in hospitals, I believe that most of the people working in them are decent folks. I have also encountered some incredibly arrogant doctors.

    The problem with blasting people like Mr. Null is that it is a black or white issue with you guys. How do you know that some alternative treatments won’t work. Are you experts in the field? Some people would say you are pharmaceutical drug pushers. A plant compound was tested for years and years in Germany. It helps people with heart problems, and yet costs a fraction of what a big pharma drug would cost to treat the same thing. Their are all kinds of herbs that treat colds, flu, all kinds of conditions. Main stream doctors have no interest in this stuff and are ignorant of it.

    We don’t need to take Gary Null’s advice as the absolute truth but as the Philosopher Plato said, we need ALL of our knowledge to make the truth simple. But too often establishment medicine won’t give it to us.

    Reply
  15. LanceR, JSG

    Sorry, Bobby. You don’t seem to understand the situation. Chemo and radiation *do* help with most cancers. Unfortunately, it’s not always enough to save the patient. Sometimes the treatment starts too late, sometimes the cancer is too aggressive.

    It really is easy to tell if someone is a quack. Read the Quack Warning and the Crank Howto.

    How do we know alternative treatments don’t work? If they worked, they would not *be* alternative. Seriously, this is how medicine and science work. Alternative treatments that work, such as a tincture of willow bark, become mainstream medicine.

    You make the usual claim that “Their are all kinds of herbs that treat colds, flu, all kinds of conditions.” Any evidence? You do realize that “Big Pharma” spends millions every year testing herbal concoctions? If they can find the next Viagra, or Celebrex, or Zantac in a relatively cheap herbal form it will be on the market next week.

    Gary Null is an idiot. Full stop. Anyone who takes *any* of his advice is likewise an idiot. “Stupid is as stupid does.” Whether you’ve got an ax to grind about “establishment medicine” doesn’t change that.

    Reply
  16. Bobby

    I have come back to this post quite late, I realize.Lance, my man, I have seen first hand what a joke “establishment medicine”, CAN BE. I will not go into what they did to my uncle who was dying of lung cancer. The utter idiots who did the raditation burned his tissue. Then the “docter” prescribed some stupid over the counter medicine, I just can’t remember it’s name, for the purpose of “soothing” his throat. MY sister worked in a large general hospital in Los Angeles, as a medicial technician. Those are the people in labs, who tell doctors what the diagnosis is, of so many diseases. If even she admitted to me of the over testing involved in these hospitals, just to increase their budgets, etc., and told me also of the utter incompetence of so many doctors, then excuse me,Lance, but I believe her. How many times do we need to read the stories of wrong organs removed, wrong leg, wrong kidney, etc.etc. We read about it all the time, that’s how often.

    All I am saying is, do not try to tell intelligent people that they don’t UNDERSTAND the situation. I understand things quite well. I am college educated and have taken inumerable classes in clear thinking, critical thinking, etc. I know that medicine in the U.S. today, is TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY CORRUPT. The guy or gal with the huge suitcase of “new Pills” along with the presents they bring to medical offices says it all to intelligent people who are alert. There is too much money involved in American medicine. That is why it cannot be honest about anything. That doesn’t mean there are not brilliant and intelligent people working in the field. My own doctor quit working for the HMO’s because he could not practice medicine with integrity. Give me a break. If Medicine under HMO’s and pharmaceutical companies is honest, than Gary Null sure as hell is honest also. Your statement, “how do we know alternative treatments don’t work?” If they worked they would not “be” alternative–is a circular argument.

    Reply
  17. Dr. Karry Fafufnick

    DISCLAIMER from Null’s website. “The information on this website is presented for educational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment and advice of a qualified licensed professional. Throughout this website, statements are made pertaining to the properties and/or functions of nutritional products. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and these materials and products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

    THAT SAYS IT PRETTY WELL.

    Gary is spending all his time exclusively focused on his most seriously ill patients. If I remember correctly, and I think I do, he stated several times that he devotes every moment of his medical practice to those poor souls who are desperately ill. At least that is what he said during a fund raiser on PBS.

    Odd, he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on his business, merchandising products. He obtained his PhD. from research on the topic of coffee and hormonal irregularities, I believe. And today he fancies himself an expert on a wide range of diseases.

    I don’t trust this guy at all, but particularly in the field of medicine and as a critic of modern medicine. I am not very intelligent, but I am a genius compared to this bird brain. He is really, really dull. Seriously. If he helps others with his advice and products, wonderful. But, just think. If this guy can help others, how much more could someone with intelligence? Don’t you have a conflict of interest when you in make assertions about health issues and sell the “remedies.” Talk about the self-interest of big medicine.
    Always reveal that you have a PhD., not an M.D. up front. Identify the school where you received it.
    Use your disclaimer at the beginning of any information you present, won’t you? IN BOLD PRINT.

    “The information on this website is presented for educational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment and advice of a qualified licensed professional. Throughout this website, statements are made pertaining to the properties and/or functions of nutritional products. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and these materials and products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

    Reply
  18. Gary Null

    You are a jerk.
    Keep eating your corn dogs you fat idiot.
    Gary Null is the smartest and healthest person
    in America. Get a Life you jealous loser.

    Reply
  19. joe bannon

    Gary Null once claimed to have been balding and regrew his hair with his nutritional regimen. When asked if he any before & after photos, he said that his hair grew back so fast, he didn’t have time to take photos! WHAT?? Did his hair grow back over-night?? What a QUACK!!!!!!

    Reply

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