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Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 – August 5, 1971) was an American inventor and early exponent of high-magnification time-lapse cine-micrography. He claimed that using a specially designed optical microscope, only five of which were ever constructed, he could observe a number of viruses which he thought were causal factors in several diseases, most notably cancer. Rife also claimed that a "beam ray" device could devitalize the pathogens by inducing destructive resonances in their constituent chemicals. Rife's claims could not be independently replicated, and active scientific interest in the devices had dissipated by the 1950s.

Interest in Rife's claims was revived in some alternative medical circles by the book The Cancer Cure That Worked (1987), which claimed that Rife's work was successful. The book also claimed that his cure for cancer was suppressed by a conspiracy headed by the American Medical Association. After publication, a variety of devices bearing Rife's name were marketed as cures for diverse diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

The relationship between these "Rife Devices" and Rife's original equipment is tenuous. An analysis by Electronics Australia found that one such Rife device consisted of a nine-volt battery, wiring, a switch, a timer and two short lengths of copper tubing, which delivered an "almost undetectable" current unlikely to penetrate the skin. According to Popular Science magazine in 1931, Rife made a point of dissociating his theories from the claims of medical fakers that they can cure disease by applying electrical "vibrations" to the body of a patient. Several marketers of such devices have been convicted for health fraud, and in some cases the Rife devices have led to the deaths of cancer patients who used them instead of medical therapy. Rife devices are a subset of radionics devices, which have been classified as pseudomedicine.

Biography

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Rife was of Scottish ancestry, born on May 16, 1888, in Elkhorn, Nebraska. While still at university, he began working part time for Carl Zeiss, a leading manufacturer of camera lenses and microscopes, at their New York offices. Rife said that after a while he moved to Germany and worked part time for Carl Zeiss at their Heidelberg offices. It has been asserted he attended the University of Heidelberg but the university does not confirm that.

Rife married Mamie Quin in 1912 and she died in 1957. In 1960, Rife married Amelia Aragon. Rife died of a heart attack on August 5, 1971 at the age of 83 and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego alongside his first wife.

Rife's microscopes

Little reliable information exists regarding Rife's microscopes. Rife did patent a high-intensity lamp for use in microscopes. On November 20, 1931, forty-four doctors attended a dinner advertised as "The End To All Diseases" at the Pasadena estate of Milbank Johnson. This dinner was honoring Arthur I. Kendall, professor at Northwestern Medical School and developer of the "Kendall Medium" or "K-Medium," and Royal Rife, the developer of the "Rife microscope." Moving microorganisms from prepared, diseased human tissue were supposedly seen in Berkefeld-000 filtered form, still-photographed and motion pictured.

In a 1932 report in Science, a Mayo Clinic physician named Edward C. Rosenow wrote that in addition to other small particles viewable with the standard lab microscope, small turquoise bodies termed eberthella typhi were seen in the filtrate that were not visible in the lab microscopes, which Rosenow attributed to "the ingenious methods employed rather than excessively high magnification". The identity of these bodies is unknown. The normal limitations of light microscopes are such that even the best resolution of a conventional microscope (at roughly 200 nanometers) is inadequate to visualize most viruses. This limit was broken in 2000.

Rife's second (1932) microscope was sold at auction in November 2009.

1. "Local Man Bares Wonders of Germ Life: Making Moving Pictures of Microbe Drama". San Diego Union. Nov 3, 1929.
2. H. H. Dunn (June 1931). "Movie New Eye of Microscope in War on Germs". Popular Science. pp. 27, 141.
3. "BACILLI REVEALED BY NEW MICROSCOPE; Dr. Rife's Apparatus, Magnifying 17,000 Times, Shows Germs Never Before Seen". The New York Times. November 22, 1931. p. 19.
4. Jones, Newell (1938-05-06). "Cancer Blow Seen After 18-year Toil by Rife". San Diego Evening Tribune - Search for "5/6/38" near "Evening Tribune San Diego, Calif, Cancer Blown Seen". Retrieved 2007-08-22. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
5. ^ "Questionable methods of cancer management: electronic devices" (PDF). CA Cancer J Clin. 44 (2): 115–27. 1994. doi:10.3322/canjclin.44.2.115. PMID 8124604.
6. Hills, Ben (2000-12-30). "Cheating Death". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2009-01-11. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
7. Willmsen, Christine (2007-12-21). "Pair indicted on fraud charges in medical-device probe". Seattle Times. Retrieved 2008-04-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
8. "Scientific Genius Dies". The Daily Californian (obituary). August 11, 1971. Retrieved Feb 27, 2009.
9. "Patent 1727618 - Microscope lamp". US Patent Office / Google Patent Search. 1927. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
10. Kendall, Arthur Isaac, MD., PhD. (December, 1931). "Observations on bacillus Typhosus in Its Filterable State". California and Western Medicine. XXXV (6). Retrieved 2009-02-16. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
11. Rosenow, Edward C., M.D. (1932-08-26). "Observations with the Rife..." (Adobe/PDF). Science Magazine (Column 2 first page, last paragraph, fourth line, "herpes"). Retrieved 2007-09-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
12. Natalie de Souza (2009). "Light microscopy at the limit". Macmillan.
13. "An exceptionally rare Royal R Rife polished steel compound microscope, American, dated 1932". Retrieved 5 July 2010.

Disease treatment claims

Rife claimed that he could find a Mortal Oscillatory Rate (MOR) for various pathogenic organisms, and directed his research accordingly, culturing and testing various pathogens with his Universal #3 microscope and his directed radio frequency energy 'beam ray' tube machine. Rife claimed to have documented the precise frequencies which destroyed specific organisms. According to the San Diego Evening Tribune in 1938 "We do not wish at this time," Rife commented, " to claim that we cured cancer, or any other disease, for that matter. But we can say that these waves or the 'ray' has the power of devitalizing disease organisms, of 'killing ' them, when tuned to an exact particular wave length, or frequency, for each different organism. This applies to the organisms both in their free state and, with certain exceptions, when they are living tissues." There is no independent verification of this claim. However, selective inactivation of micro-organisms by forced resonance has recently been demonstrated using near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses.

Modern revival, marketing, and health fraud

An interest in Rife was revived in the 1980s by author Barry Lynes, who wrote a book about Rife entitled The Cancer Cure That Worked. The book claimed that Rife's beam ray device could cure cancer, but that all mention of his discoveries was suppressed in the 1930s by a wide-ranging conspiracy headed by the American Medical Association. The American Cancer Society described Lynes' claims as implausible, noting that the book was written "in a style typical of conspiratorial theorists" and defied any independent verification.

Following this revival of interest, devices bearing Rife's name began to be produced and marketed. Such "Rife devices" have been at the center of a number of cases of health fraud in the U.S. In one such case, Life Energy Resources mass-produced the REM SuperPro Generator, marketed as a "Rife device" which could cure numerous diseases including cancer and AIDS. The marketers of this device were convicted of felony health fraud; the sentencing judge described them as "target the most vulnerable people, including those suffering from terminal disease" and providing false hope. Similarly, the American Cancer Society reported in 1994 that Rife machines were being sold in a "pyramid-like, multilevel marketing scheme"; a key component of the marketing approach was the claim that the device was being suppressed by an establishment conspiracy against cancer "cures".

The Attorneys General of Wisconsin and Minnesota sued a marketer of one such frequency generator for deceptive trade practices and consumer fraud. The Court found that she had violated the law and that, as a result of her actions, a cancer patient had ceased chemotherapy and died four months later.

In 2002 John Bryon Krueger, who operated the "Royal Rife Research Society," was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a murder and also received a concurrent 30-month sentence for illegally selling Rife devices.

In Australia, the use of Rife machines has been blamed for the deaths of cancer patients who could have been cured with conventional therapy. Although "Rife devices" are not registered by the U.S Food and Drug Administration and have been linked to deaths among cancer sufferers, the Seattle Times reported that over 300 people attended the 2006 Rife International Health Conference in Seattle, where dozens of unregistered devices were sold.

In 2009 a US Federal jury convicted James Folsom of 26 felony counts for sale of the Rife devices sold as “NatureTronics,” “AstroPulse,” “BioSolutions,” “Energy Wellness,” and “Global Wellness.”

"According to testimony at trial, the defendant purchased over 9,000 units, which he sold to distributors for approximately $1000-1200 and to retail customers for $1995, with sales of over $8 million. The devices were manufactured by the defendant and others in a San Diego location, which he failed to register with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a device manufacturing establishment. The defendant used the false name “Jim Anderson” when selling the device and used post office boxes, self-storage units, and bank accounts opened in the names of others to conduct his business, all in an effort to avoid detection by the FDA."

He was placed in custody, with sentencing originally scheduled for May 2009. He was released on bail on 18 December 2009.

References

1. ^ Cite error: The named reference NewsPapers was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. "Selective inactivation of micro-organisms with near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses". Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. 19 (47): 472201 (1—7). 2007. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference acs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. "Investigators' Reports". FDA Consumer. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. September 1996. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
5. "Investigators' Reports". FDA Consumer. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. September 1996. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
6. Stephen Barrett. "Rife Machine Operator Sued". Quackwatch. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
7. ^ Stephen Barrett. "Rife Device Marketers Convicted". Quackwatch. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
8. Cite error: The named reference SMH was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. Cite error: The named reference stimes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
10. http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cas/press/cas90219-Folsom.pdf
11. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2000/UCM069067.pdf
12. http://www.jimfolsom.net/jimfolsom/latest_news.htm Jim Folsom website

External links

• Rife Research - Europe by Peter Walker
• Electromagnetic Therapy from the American Cancer Society
• Rife devices from the National Council Against Health Fraud

• 1888 births
• 1971 deaths
• American scientists
• People from Douglas County, Nebraska
• People in alternative medicine
• Alternative cancer treatments
• Pseudoscience
• Health fraud