TA has sent me a list of interesting questions about different alternative medical techniques which I will investigate and report on individually.
The first is the SCIO machine, otherwise known as quantum feedback.
This machine, also known as the Quantum Xrroid Interface System (QXCI), the EPFX, or SCIO claims to balance “bio-energetic” forces (these are putative forms of energy that are not recognized by science).
According to distributors of the machine, (which costs in the neighborhood of $19,000 but you can pick up a used machine for around $8,000) the SCIO “gathers bio-energetic data from the body . . . at nano-second speeds” and offers “over 70 unique bio-resonant therapies to rectify health patterns, thus providing a full spectrum of wellness measurement and enhancement technologies.” It does this by “engaging the body electric in an unconscious biofeedback process, thus healing and rectifying the wounds and ailments via the unconscious process of the being.”
It’s purpose is to scan the body looking for viruses, deficiencies, weaknesses, allergies, abnormalities and food sensitivities, then reports “on the biological reactivity and resonance in your body and indicates needs, dysfunctions and vulnerabilities.”
The information the SCIO provides is apparently different from X-rays, blood tests, etc. because “it tells us about the energetic state of your body and the direction in which the body is focusing its energy. . . .”
It supposedly “shows up anything that is affecting the health.” For example, if someone has digestive trouble, the SCIO might show that the patient had salmonella as a child, which is still causing them problems.
Users of the machine claim that there are many programs on the SCIO which know how to read measurements of the body’s “frequencies” and can “redress or neutralize destructive wave patterns. In some cases it may add frequency, in others reverse it to either enhance or counteract the body’s own resonances.”
Needless to say, there is not a shred of scientific evidence to back up any of these claims.
This complete quackery was “invented” by a man named William C. Nelson who claims to be everything from a medical doctor to a Ph.D in quantum physics, even though medical fraud expert Stephen Barrett, MD, could locate no evidence of any of these credentials. He supposedly has credentials from spurious alternative medicine “schools” such as the American Nutrimedical Association that at one time offered NMD (doctor of nutrimedicine) degrees to anyone who filled out an application and paid the $250 fee.
The machine has been around since 1985 and a 1992 FDA report found that it was being used primarily by chiropractors, dentists, and physicians interested in homeopathic diagnosis and treatments. It is manufactured by QX Ltd. in Budapest, Hungary and is not legally marketable in the U. S. (although importers and distributors get around the law by claiming it to be a biofeedback machine used for stress reduction).
This article, written in 2007 by investigative reporters at The Seattle Times, documents the fraud Nelson is perpetrating by selling his SCIO or EPFX machine and lists several heartbreaking cases where people died because they relied on this machine rather than on the conventional medicine that could have saved their lives.
