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Royal Rife

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Royal Raymond Rife

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 and several prominent medical doctors who worked with him thought were causal factors in several diseases, most notably cancer. Rife also reported that a "beam ray" device of his invention could weaken or destroy the pathogens by energetically exciting destructive resonances in their constituent chemicals. However, Rife's claims were not readily 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 but was suppressed by a conspiracy headed by the American Medical Association. After the publication of this book, a variety of devices bearing Rife's name were marketed as cures for diverse diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

An analysis by Electronics Australia found that a typical 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. Several marketers of other "Rife devices" have been convicted for health fraud, and in some cases cancer patients have died as a result of substituting "Rife therapy" for standard medical care. Rife devices have been classified by some as a subset of radionics, a recognized form of quackery.

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 this.

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

In 1929 Rife was granted a patent for a high-intensity lamp for use in microscopes. The micrographs and cine films of disease organisms he made with his first microscope (picture, top of page) were widely reported in the press. 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 reportedly seen, still-photographed and also filmed with motion-picture equipment.

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.

One of Rife's microscopes was featured in the 1944 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

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, Rife stopped short of arguing that his device could cure cancer or any other disease, but claimed that it could "devitalize" disease organisms, "with certain exceptions".

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 2009 a U.S. court convicted James Folsom of 26 felony counts for sale of the Rife devices sold as “NatureTronics,” “AstroPulse,” “BioSolutions,” “Energy Wellness,” and “Global Wellness.”

In Australia, the use of Rife machines has been blamed for the deaths of cancer patients who might 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.

References

  1. "Local Man Bares Wonders of Germ Life: Making Moving Pictures of Microbe Drama". San Diego Union. November 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.
  7. ^ Willmsen, Christine (2007-12-21). "Pair indicted on fraud charges in medical-device probe". Seattle Times. Retrieved 2008-04-24. {{cite news}}: 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). PMC 1658030. PMID 18741967. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); 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. R.E. Seidel, M.D; M. Elizabeth Winter (1944). "The New Microscopes". Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution.
  13. Farley, Dixie (September 1996). "Investigators' Reports". FDA Consumer. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
  14. "Investigators' Reports". FDA Consumer. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. September 1996. Archived from the original on 2007-12-14. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  15. Stephen Barrett. "Rife Machine Operator Sued". Quackwatch. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference DW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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