CM writes: “I checked the Cochrane Collaboration for an answer to this question. They did not seem to have any info. What do you know about EDS (Electrodermal Screening) or EAV Meridian Assessment? My doctor uses this as one of his evaluation methods. . . 

” . . .  It is a computer that I am attached to and it checks for any blocks in my electricity that runs along the meridians in my body. He has found exactly the same stuff my regular doc was able to find plus more and with much more detail. The machine can check for what kind of meds and amounts of meds that will best take care of my issue. Sometimes my body will need an antibiotic, sometimes an herb, sometimes a homeopathic remedy, sometimes a food and sometimes a combination of these things. This has been used all over the world (developed in Germany). Let me know what you know.”

If what CM describes sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.  These so-called diagnostic devices are nothing more than hocus-pocus and whatever benefits you may have received should be attributed to the placebo effect.  In fact, medical watchdog groups recommend that practitioners who use these devices should be reported to the FDA, the FTC, the FBI as well as the Better Business Bureau because they are generally used to diagnose nonexistent health problems and defraud insurance companies.

According to this article appearing on the Quackwatch website, ” The practitioners who use them are either delusional, dishonest, or both.”

For those who have never heard of these devices, they are known as “electrodiagnostic” devices and were originally developed by a German acupuncturist named Reinhold Voll. As I explain in this blog on Bio Meridian Testing, Voll first developed this electronic device in the 1950s which he claimed could be used to find acupuncture points electrically. He allegedly discovered that tissue found at acupuncture points exhibits a different kind of resistance to a tiny electric current than does adjacent tissue. This led to a lifelong quest to identify correlations between disease states and changes in the electrical resistance of the various acupuncture points. Voll believed that if he could identify electrical changes in certain acupuncture points associated with certain diseases, then he might be able to identify those diseases more easily, or earlier, when treatment intervention was likely to be more effective.

As impressive as it might sound, studies conducted in England and Austria have found his methods to have no scientific validity, which makes sense because they are based upon a flawed premise – a belief in the existence of a putative energy force supposedly found in the universe and the human body that can be measured, manipulated, etc. No evidence has ever been found for the existence of this energy upon which this and so many other New Age healing techniques are based.

Unfortunately, these bogus machines are being used to diagnose and then recommend treatment for everything from allergies to cancer, even though they are nothing more than a trumped up galvanometer that measures the electrical resistance in a person’s skin when touched by a probe.

As Quackwatch explains: “The device emits a tiny direct electric current that flows through a wire from the device to a brass cylinder covered by moist gauze, which the patient holds in one hand. A second wire is connected from the device to a probe, which the operator touches to “acupuncture points” on the patient’s other hand or a foot. This completes a low-voltage circuit and the device registers the flow of current. The information is then relayed to a gauge or computer screen that provides a numerical readout on a scale of 0  to 100. According to Voll’s theory: readings from 45 to 55 are normal (“balanced”); readings above 55 indicate inflammation of the organ “associated” with the “meridian” being tested; and readings below 45 suggest “organ stagnation and degeneration.” However, if the moisture of the skin remains constant—as it usually does—the only thing that influences the size of the number is how hard the probe is pressed against the patient’s skin.”

These testing devices go by a variety of names, including electrodermal screening (EDS), bioelectric functions diagnosis (BFD), bio-resonance therapy (BRT), bio resonance therapy (BRT), bio-energy regulatory technique (BER), etc. The actual devices go by the name of Dermatron, Accupath 1000, Asyra, Avatar, BICOM, Bio-Tron, Biomeridian, etc. etc.

It is important to note that the FDA classifies “devices that use resistance measurements to diagnose and treat various diseases” as Class III devices, which require FDA approval prior to marketing. Certain devices used in bio-meridian testing were found by the FDA to pose a “significant risk” which led to the ban of all such devices from being legally marketed in the United States for diagnostic or treatment purposes.

However, according to Quackwatch, no systematic effort has been made to drive these devices from the marketplace, which has resulted in these machines being found in the offices of chiropractors, acupuncturists, and any number of New Age practitioners.

In this economy, money is too scarce to be wasted on scams.

Send your New Age question to newage@womenofgrace.com