Pull-My-Finger and Other Ways to Diagnose Disease

Kinesiology is basically using someone’s muscles strength (or sometimes balance) to make a medical diagnosis. Wait. Let me take that back. REAL kinesiology is the study of human movement. APPLIED kinesiology is a term stolen from true professionals by those with no medical or scientific training (Don't confuse the two). People who are drinking the kool-aid say that applied kinesiology can give feedback about how your body is doing and how it can be helped. The fact that most of the people using applied kinesiology are chiropractors is a strike against it (in my mind). Once again, Chiropractors are not doctors. To be fair, it’s also used by naturopaths, massage therapists, and multilevel marketing distributors. Of course, they aren’t medically trained either, so they shouldn’t be doing medical stuff on you anyway.

The ironically named George Goodheart made up Applied Kinesiology (AK) in 1964. Since most people thought the concept made absolutely no sense, he focused on teaching the technique to chiropractors. Then, like most people who make up medical procedures with no basis in reality, Goodheart started his own college-o-nonsense called the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK).

The AK theory says that every organ is connected to a muscle or muscle group (this is both wrong and dumb). The theory goes that when something goes wrong in an organ, there will be weakness in the associated muscle. Since there are 639 skeletal muscles in the body, and only 78 organs, that would mean each organ is connected to 8 muscles (on average). How do they know which to test? I bet if you quizzed an Applied Kinesiologist they would not even know that there are 78 organs, let alone understand them all well enough to tell you what is wrong with them.
Also, think about this. If I have had my tonsils, adenoids, and appendix REMOVED, doesn’t that mean 24 of my muscles won’t work or will have problems? I would think the medical community would have noticed something like that.

How it works
The practitioner (I prefer quack-titioner) applies a force to the target muscle while the patient tries to resist. This might involve holding up their arm, trying to keep their balance, or twisting from the hip (There are a bunch of variations). Notice that the quack-titioner has already made a partial diagnosis by choosing which muscles to test. According to the websites I read, the AK person is not looking for strength of the muscles but “smoothness” of response. That sounds more like a wine-tasting than a medical procedure, and is completely subjective. Of course, a "non-smooth" response means your body needs some help (weird medicine, unicorn pee, etc).

The Best Part
Once the problem has been located, we can then do nutrient testing. The AK practitioner gives the person a magical treatment and redoes the test to see if their performance changes. Supposedly this can also be used to test for allergies by holding the substance in one hand and watching to see if you are “less smooth” or more “unbalanced”. Alternately, you can hold the treatment to see if you get better! Supposedly, if they then try to push down your arms or unbalance you, the proper treatment will make you able to resist better. SPOILER ALERT! It turns out that doing the “Macarena” has a similar medical value (ie none). The best part is, some of these tests are done while the pills are in the bottle! The patient isn’t even touching the medicine he is supposed to be testing! By what magical process does medicine trapped in a bottle travel through the plastic and up your arms to whatever muscle is being tested? SPOILER ALERT! It doesn’t.

I must confess that I am aware of one case where someone pulled a finger and a colon infection was diagnosed. I guess that isn’t the same thing though because the diagnosis was based on the smell, not the muscle response.

Research
AK makes no sense on theoretical grounds. How does working my shoulder muscles (pushing down an arm) tell me if I am allergic to something? Or that I “need” a certain treatment?

All the research done showing that AK works has been done by chiropractors, paid for by the ICAK or published only by chiropractic trade publications. I can already see the emails coming to my inbox saying, “But the studies are peer-reviewed!”. Good point. If my 3 year-old published a study on Newtonian physics and had it reviewed by his peers, then it would also be peer reviewed. Tada! It makes a HUGE difference which “peers” review someone’s work. Medical claims must be reviewed by someone with medical training… not a chiropractor.

The ALTA Foundation for Sports Medicine Research did a DOUBLE BLIND study using professionally trained AK quack-titioners. Double bind means the AK folks and the patients had no idea what substances were being tested. The reported results were “that the use of Applied Kinesiology to evaluate nutrient status is no more useful than random guessing.” In other studies, different AK people made completely different diagnoses for the same people!

To be fair, there are studies that suggest Applied Kinesiology does work. However, they are not double blind studies (HUGE problem), they all have methodological problems and the results could not be duplicated by others. So there isn't much credible research that is pro applied kinesiology.

Bottom Line
Current evidence shows that applied kinesiology is worthless for diagnosing or determining treatment for ANYTHING. I take it back – It might be able to cure boredom. It may even seem that AK works because of the ideo-motor effect and confirmation bias. That’s a topic for another day, but the point is that if we remove them (ideo-motor effect and bias) from the equation by having a blinded study, AK doesn’t work AT ALL. For this reason, no one should be making decisions about their medications based on AK. If you have concerns about taking your medicine or want to add something new (even if it’s “natural”), ALWAYS discuss it with your professionally trained, licensed and experienced medical doctor (not some hobo behind a Dairy Queen, or a naturopath or something).

Since our minds can be used against us, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking there might be something to applied kinesiology. But if we ask how it works and who supports it, we can discover that applied kinesiology is pretty iffy. And by “iffy” I mean a completely made up and possibly unethical medical procedure that preys on sick people.

If you want to see what Applied Kinesiology looks like, and get a feel for how you too can use it to get money from sick people, watch this video on youtube. You can skip to about 5 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piu75P8sxTo

Awesome News!
The British Medical Association has announced, “Homeopathy is witchcraft. It is a disgrace. If people want to pay for homeopathy then that’s their choice, but it shouldn’t be paid for by [the government] until there is evidence that it works.”

Is Mister Rogers a Stone Cold Killer?

Sometimes you hear something so shocking that you almost wet yourself. Maybe something like “some TV channels will soon be broadcasting in 3d” or “cordless battery charging is now an option”. It happened to me this morning. Someone said to me, “Mister Rogers is a military sniper – he’s waxed over 100 people”. At first I was not surprised. I mean, he’s good with children so that makes sense. But then I remembered Mister Rogers wore creepy cardigans, and it made me very skeptical. NO Sniper would wear a cardigan.

According to my expert, Fred McFeely Rogers was a marine sharpshooter in the Vietnam war. Let’s just back up to ask, “Who gives their kid a middle name of ‘McFeely’?” I watched a few shows for research, and used my keen eye to watch for evidence of sniperhood. My I suggest that he wears long sleeves to cover his numerous tattoos, one of which is a body count on his right arm that covers the needle marks. One source suggests that Mr. Rogers was indeed a sniper, but that he also preferred face-to-face “interaction”. Supposedly he preferred the jumper cables & car battery method (ala Jack Bauer). The source claimed Rogers would always be humming the same tune on his missions. Reportedly the person later recognized the tune as being used for the theme of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

Some have suggested that Mr. Rogers was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, because investigators found a creepy marionette on the site.

I was told by my original source this morning that all of this is being covered up by BIG TELEVISION. Turns out that Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is a CIA front for recruiting and training killer cyborg children with the mark of the beast,who will eliminate people on the “red list” for the government.

If you are not skeptical by now, click this link and go buy yourself a brain. http://www.newint.org/easier-english/orgsale.html

It turns out that all of this horrible stuff is false. Well, mostly. His middle name really is McFeely. In reality, he was born in Pennsylvania and earned degrees in Music and Divinity. Not only did he not do drugs or have tattoos, he never drank or smoked and exercised daily. He eventually became an ordained minister and gave much of his life to helping children. For his service he collected numerous awards and honorary degrees. Believe it or not, there really are some people who aren’t hiding evil deeds. Some people really are as good as they seem.

Actually, I did find one skeleton in his closet though (metaphorically). There was a "Won't You Wear a Sweater Day" inaugurated for his birthday where people were invited to wear their favorite sweaters in celebration. That’s just sick.

Reader Feedback: Am I wrong about monavie?

I received an email from “Bruce” stating the following:

“I don't know where the blogger got their info but Dallin Larsen is still the president of the company. He didn't go anywhere. But the real question is, are you interested in making some extra money or not? If not, that's fine. If so, pay attention and I'll show you how to do it!"

I like this kind of feedback. I think I am decent at admitting my mistakes and adapting as more evidence comes out. Bruce is sort of right. In trying to simplify a long company history, I made a misstatement. I said that Dallin left the company. This is incorrect and unclear. What I should have said is that he sold ownership interest in the company he started (offloading the risk to other people). Unfortunately, Bruce is wrong about everything else. This is especially sad because Bruce works for monavie! Dallin Larsen is NOT the president. He is the CEO. Dell Brown is the president. It is very interesting that of all the concerns I raised about monavie, Bruce says the only question is whether or not I want to make money. “Who cares if the product is a sham, let's dishonestly market it and dupe people out of their money!” Bruce, I would bet just about anything that you have never made a dime from selling monavie.

I should also point out that Dallin Larsen also started the company Dynamic Essentials which was shut down by the FDA for… (you guessed it) making fraudulent medical claims regarding their products. (The company has since been re-formed under a slightly different name)

I found a video on youtube of a monavie distributor claiming that the not-so-super juice cures cancer. With any luck, the video has been taken down because they died of cancer (oh sweet ironic justice!). I suppose it’s more likely that the government got involved since they were making unsubstantiated (and stupid) medical claims. The FDA has warned monavie about saying idiotic things on the web, and it appears the company is being careful. However, I personally heard a neighbor telling falsehoods about the juice just a few weeks ago, so the message may not have gotten to the distributors.

Deceptions and sneakiness

I was told by another person that TONS of distributors make money. They pointed out that monavie posts something called an Income Disclosure Document that describes the average earnings of their distributors. www.monavie.com/ids In mid year 2009, the document shows that the average person gets $23-65k per check. 65k sounds pretty good! Was I wrong?

First of all, look at the % column and the annualized check column. Now recall that these people are buying about $2000 per year of product for themselves. That means that 85% of their distributors are losing money every year!

Secondly, if you read the fine print, in order to be counted in these averages you have to have recruited at least one person AND earned a bonus AND been active in the previous 8 weeks. So their “averages” don’t even include all their employees!

Thirdly, the government requires companies like this to file a report on distributor earnings. For monavie it shows that 90% of their “commissions” were people getting sales discounts on their own product. (In other words, they are counting products that people sell to themselves in their sales numbers).

Fourthly, since their impressive income numbers only count people getting commissions, and only 1% of distributors earn commissions (Newsweek), this means that only .85% of distributors make money! (So sorry Bruce)

What’s the Skinny?

The Income Disclosure Statement is for marketing purposes. They have left out the information that makes their numbers look bad. It exists to convince people who are bad at math that they should spend $2,000 per year for a juice which seems to have no effect other than to make people gullible.

Ridiculous claims of monavie saving people from outlandish diseases and situations are everywhere and they are FALSE. Maybe I’m crazy for thinking this, but not everything we hear is true.

The company is a house of cards. It will look sweet and tempting while being built, but eventually it WILL collapse. (That is unless they make some major changes)

Skeptical thinking means we follow the evidence wherever it leads (even if we don’t like it). It should not be confused with cynicism which is only following the contrary evidence . I would bet that most “magical” juice distributors are not dishonest. They may even think they are doing people a favor by selling to them. Do them a favor by helping them to stop drinking the kool-aid and think more skeptically.

Choosing a College

I recently read that unemployment is around 20% for people without a high school diploma, and 10% for people who got through high school. Do you know what it is for college graduates? 5%. So smart people everywhere are starting to realize they need more education. That’s fantastic. Unfortunately, not all schools are created equal. Actually, schools range from amazing to fraudulent. Today’s Daily Skinny is about recognizing a bad school, so you can stay away. I should point out that these opinions are based on my own research, and may not paint the whole picture. Don’t make a decision about what school to attend without consulting many people.

We have good reason to be skeptical regarding small colleges that almost no one has heard of. Any idiot can start their own school. I know, because I’ve started doing it. My co-conspirator and Daily Skinny supporter Rosita Belladonkenstein and I have formed The Franklin Institute of Advanced Study. It’s an incredible place to learn! Naturally, our motto is “We put the “G” in Higher Education”. Sign up now! We are accredited by the NPCDR! The N stands for “National” so you know our college is tops! For $30 bucks, I can own the domain and for another $1000 I found a guy who will build a website (including student testimonials) that looks just like a real university! The school colors are puce and vermillion. The best part is that I know a guy who will print “real” diplomas for any discipline. We’re talking gold embossed seals and all the diploma bells and whistles. For $400-$500 he can print a diploma package that includes transcripts, grades, and letters of recommendation that will be indistinguishable from the real thing. Since I don’t want to be responsible for illegal activities, I won’t share his ordering website address (in his defense, his wares are technically “novelty” items). If you think this doesn’t happen frequently, just Google “doctor of homeopathy” and you’ll get 1.7 million examples of made-up degrees from made-up schools accredited by made-up institutions.

As usual, I like to choose one entity to represent problems so that we can simplify our discussion. To keep things easy, let’s discuss an actual school and not someplace offering degrees in telepathy or unicorn magic. When I lived in the ATL (Atlanta if you didn’t know) there was a school that did a lot of advertising for “Fast, easy, accredited private college”. The school was Brown Mackie College. Basically, they accept everyone so getting in is no problem. They let you pay monthly, so if paying for school is your problem, they believe they have the answer. According to their website, they offer “Flexible course schedules, Day and evening classes, Small classes with personalized attention, "One-course-a-month" delivery option”.

The location in Georgia is the one I know, but the closest facility to me now is the one in Idaho. So I tried to focus my research on these locations.

What is Accreditation and Who Cares?
Even a caveman knows to ask if a school is accredited. Scam schools know this and will make up their own accrediting company with fancy sounding names (Like my NPCDR). That’s why you need to verify their accreditation. Accreditation is the way a school certifies that they do a good job educating people. Accreditation means that an agency over a region or occupation thinks they pass basic standards that they think decent schools should have. If a school is legit, they should tell you who has accredited them. Accreditation is voluntary, so stay away from schools that say accreditation doesn't matter. They are probably running a long con, and you may wake up in a tub of ice with a pain in your side (Barry Manilow in the background) if you enroll in the school.

There are two kind of accreditations: institutional and specialized. Institutional accreditation means the overall school passed their minimum standards. Specialized accreditation is really important because the accrediting agencies establish standards for specific fields of study, like nursing, engineering, etc. to make sure that the school is providing education that can meet the requirements of employers, licensing boards, etc.

The BMC website proudly states: “Each Brown Mackie College location is licensed by the state in which it is located, and is authorized to confer associate's degrees and/or diplomas and certificates.” With a little help from Google, I checked on their accreditation status. It’s true! They really are an accredited school! Their accreditation is good through 2011. Here’s the problem. Read what they are accredited to do from the ACICS website: “Certificates or diplomas, and … associate, bachelor's, or master's degrees in programs designed to educate students for professional, technical, or occupational careers, including those that offer those programs via distance education.” That sounds okay, right? The problem is that (according to the ACICS) they are NOT accredited for any specialized programs. So if you were to get a degree in Engineering, Law, Accounting or another field that requires professional testing… you may have a hard time getting people to accept your degree and let you get licensed.

Also, they are nationally accredited and NOT regionally accredited. So if you transfer to a regionally accredited school, they will almost certainly not accept your credits. In other words, if you finish your degree, some employers and states may not see it as valid and if you don’t finish your degree you may not be able to transfer the credits you took.

The Teaching Staff
The BMC website says, “[Our] standards [for professors] include earned degrees and/or significant professional experience. Many of the school's instructors are or have been practicing professionals in the areas they teach.” Allow me to translate their statement: “We know our teaching staff is excellent because some of them have degrees. The rest just learned a lot from their jobs. Some of our professors have actually used their professional knowledge in a work environment. The rest of them are right out of school and have never worked in the type of jobs you will want after you graduate.” Also, notice they there is HUGE lack of bragging about the accomplishments and credentials of their professors. All the school websites I have seen have this.

Costs
Make sure you shop around for colleges. Numerous students of BMC complained of hidden fees and high costs. Students paid an average of $1,400 per month. (An average of 6 people at multiple locations). To put this in perspective, I attended a University that is ranked 55th in the WORLD (for my field) and I paid less than that.

Here is what some students and employees of Brown Mackie College said:
1. Some of the instructors are rude, conceited, and treat each student as a dollar sign.

2. Allegations of competitions between admissions counselors to see who can get the most students enrolled. The winner apparently gets a free paid vacation. Some students said this lead to “less than honest” information from the admissions people.

3. When a few students complained about being mislead, they claim the school filed charges against them claiming academic integrity violations to shut them up.

4. One complaint of high professor turnover with some professors leaving mid class.

5. One employee said there was significant sexual harassment of students by multiple BMC employees.

6. One Employee said BMC forced them to hide things from state and government agency's as well as accrediting bodies.

7. 9 Complaints of being told their credits would transfer, and finding out it wasn’t true

8. I found 4 people starting class action law suits against BMC for various kinds of fraud or negligence. (On the other hand, I looked up their Better Business Bureau record, and it was pretty clean.)
a. Pam Fennelly sued them for fraud and misrepresentation; the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
b. In 1992, 35 Students filed complaints as part of a lawsuit, and withdrew from the school
i. Under allegations of misconduct, legal counsel told them not to pay their tuition. MBC sued counter sued them and lost.
c. Here’s one of the cases if you want to look it up. United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. - 981 F.2d 1149

9. People reported problems finding jobs, because employers don’t view their degrees very highly.
a. One person who got their degree in accounting from BMC was unable to find a job. That says a lot, because accounting is one of the fastest growing areas in business.
b. One person finished their degree went to sit for some board exams, and was denied because the state did not recognize their accreditation.

10. Three allegations of financial aid fraud.

11. Three allegations of NACAC admission violations.

12. One Employee said some teachers accepted bribes for grades.

13. One Department Chair at BMC filed an EEOC complaint against the campus, recommending legal action.

14. One student commented that they didn't feel safe. They said, “The student population consisted of ex-convicts, there was cussing in the hallways, cussing in the classrooms... I even walked out and saw a group of professors arguing with each other…”
Other tips for choosing a school
1. Look for a school with a good reputation. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small school, if they do a good job. Interview some alumni and find out what they think of the school. Write and ask for the results of the school's latest accreditation review. The agency can tell you if the school passed, and if they found problems.

2. A big school may get you better programs for your field. Sometimes the cost is worth it.

3. A small college will probably have smaller classes and more one-on-one time with professors.

4. Large universities tend to have a central advising office and at small colleges the advising is frequently handled by the professors. One is likely to be more professional, but the other may be more personal.

5. If your school prints tuition coupons in the Sunday comics, GET OUT NOW!

6. Find out the schools graduation rate. If it’s much less than 50%, be wary.
What’s the Skinny?
If you want to go to college, do your homework on the school first. Many people probably went to Brown Mackie College and were fine. But when you choose a small school like this, make sure you know the risks. Odds are good that you will pay less, learn more, and have a more respected degree if you stick to your local community college.

Remember that any idiot can start a college, or write a book. When someone claims to have a doctorate in something, ask them where they got it and what it is in. For all you know, “doctor” is their first name, or they have a PhD in nose picking.

So when someone makes a claim, verify their evidence. A little skeptical inquiry can prevent a lot of problems, except for in marriage. You should not always want evidence of stuff from your spouse. Apparently that comes across as calling your wife a liar, and Weather Principio doesn’t like that. What can I say? Once an investigator, always an investigator.

Real Life Stories From College

Having been asked to instruct the Fraud & Forensic Accounting class, Shaunessy O'Dempster moves a portable whiteboard to a place where it could be used more conveniently... on top of another whiteboard. I almost laughed myself sick.

Can you think of good caption for this picture?

D.H. "There is never a whiteboard where you need one!"
A.H. "It's a good thing these things are portable!"