It must be tough to be an HIV denier these days. Back in the 1980s HIV was just being discovered and researched. The connection to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) quickly became clear, but the early treatments (remember AZT) were minimally effective.

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) in association with the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT) formally issues its $1 Million Challenge to any Therapeutic Touch Practitioner (TTP) who can detect the Human Energy Field (HEF).The test will be held April 20, 2013 in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute, one of America's leading hands-on science centers.

Randi at the Therapeutic Touch challenge in 1997.

A success in this simple, direct, test could provide evidence for and would justify the continued existence and promotion of both Therapeutic Touch (TT) and the Energy Field Disturbance Nursing Diagnosis (EFD).

The existence of the Human Energy Field (HEF) is the entire basis of the “energy based therapy” known as Therapeutic Touch (TT). TT was created, and has been promoted as science, by the Nursing profession since the 1970's, which has claimed it is supported by Quantum Mechanics and research published by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).

I saw director Eric Merola’s new documentary Burzynski: Cancer is Serious Business, Part II. I wish I could take the film as seriously as I take the lives and livelihoods of cancer patients.

Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski operates the Burzynski Clinic, a cancer treatment center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Burzynski claims to have discovered a deficiency of peptides he calls “antineoplastons” in many cancer-afflicted people. Since the mid-’90s, he’s conducted a series of clinical trials hoping to cure cancer by administering these antineoplastons to patients.

Many doctors, scientists, and public health advocates have criticized Dr. Burzynski for not publishing any randomized, controlled trial results in peer-reviewed medical journals. The FDA admonished the Burzynski Clinic for advertising its unproven therapies as effective cancer cures. Antineoplaston treatments are also very expensive, often costing patients $7,000 to $9,500 per month for several months of therapy.

Burzynski: Cancer is Serious Business, Part II (hereafter abbreviated to Burzynski II) takes a three-pronged approach to defending the clinic and its methods. First, Merola interviews several cancer victims who seem to have come away from the Burzynski Clinic with positive results after mainstream oncologists told them they had only weeks or months to live. Second, Burzynski II blames Dr. Burzynski’s inability to establish a foothold for his experimental treatments in the medical establishment on pharmaceutical companies who have taken over the FDA. According to the film, the FDA is a corrupt organization willing to suppress any breakthrough cancer treatment that may be less profitable than established drugs, surgeries, chemotherapies, and radiation. Finally, Merola paints the clinic’s public and private critics as an organized cabal of evil schemers who delight in the deaths of cancer victims.

Following my earlier attention to this forum, I am continuing a run-down of the “Parapsychology and alternative medicine forum,” eight of which have been sifted through, here are the next six…

Since the TESTS (there’s not a single test) are created and agreed upon by both the applicant and JREF – yes, I think it’s fair. There are many other games in town also. Many ways that even the MDC could be dealt with, with the help of a third party group – media would be a likely source that gets to publicize the event/effort. You can whine and complain all you want. It does not change the basic concept that there are many out there making wild paranormal claims that cannot support the claims they make under any kind of controlled conditions. There are also claims made out there that are impossible to detect one way or another without large statistical data pools – the MDC is not looking for or speaking of those kinds of claims.

Okay, what’s “not fair” about the MDC, I ask? The rules are carefully laid out, having been revised several times over the years with the input of legal advice to satisfy legitimate complaints, and yet I continue to hear this mantra. Is it “unfair” to require evidence rather than only claims? Should the JREF accept anecdotes as well, all the “Goldilocks & the Three Bears” material? Let’s get a discussion going, folks! I can tell you, up front, that we answer both those questions with “No!” So just what is “not fair” here? Do I hear more crickets…?