Today I received in the mail the opportunity to buy a 'miraculous Energy System'. It will cure cancer and just about every other disease known to mankind. This wonderful apparatus will only cost $2495.00, what a bargain! (Sigh!) This opportunity was sent by an organization calling themselves Natural Energies, Inc.
I am a retired person with lots of time to surf the web so I decided to do a little checking on this 'fabulous Energy System'.
What I found was rather surprising. First of all, a Google search for Natural Energies didn't bring up much of what I was looking for, so I searched on the inventor, Dr. Royal Rife. That brought up over 14,000 hits! (However, later I submitted a search without a period after Dr Royal Rife and over 400,000 hits!)
This is the first site listed,
Rife Health. This site has the same 'Frequency Generator' listed for $1995.00. It includes basically the same 'curing' information that I received in the mail, along with a history of Dr Rife, pictures of the original machine and Dr Rife.
Rife.org had a page of 500 letters. I didn't even begin to look at them all, but a random sampling didn't find any 'testimonials' just a lot meaningless notes.
This site is advertising a Rife Machine for under $100.00!
There is a forum for Rife machines!
A site that is claiming a miraculous cure.
Then there is: Dr. Bob Beck Blood Electrifier & Other Beck Devices
More of the same, but with added 'cures', this site seems to be informational only
There are sites with these domain names, rifetechnolgies, rifehealth, rifenovice, etc. and the list goes on.
By far, most of the sites I went to are either selling or proclaiming the Rite machine wonders. This was very surprising to me, but perhaps it shouldn't have been as probably these sites are visited mainly by desperate folks seeking a cure after the medical profession has failed them.
Finally, I found a site debunking all of the above as 'quackery'.
Interestingly, when I did a Google Search on Medical Quackery or Medical Quackery devices, I found no reference to the Rife machine. This may be because it has seemingly been called several different names, but still, I would have expected to find at least one reference. So maybe they don't think this is quackery? I am afraid I do!
While this site, Dr. Bob's Homepage for Medical Quackery, didn't mention a Rife machine (at least I didn't find a reference), it does provide a lot of information about medical quackery and some of the infamous things being hawked to the public.
It is understandable why people will fall for some of the 'Alternative' medical cures being touted today. The FDA appears to have sold the public out to the greedy drug manufacturers, and the cost of real or not so real cures has escalated to the point that people on limited incomes cannot afford to pay the price.
After all is said and done, desperate sick folks are willing to try anything for a cure. I just think that the people who exploit these individuals happen to fall into a category slightly above terrorists. But not very far above!
Now if only we could 'de-bunk' all those 'ask your doctor' ads on TV!