An integrative health journal has issued an expression of concern for an article it published two years ago last month about the “human biofield” and related topics after receiving complaints that the piece lacked scientific “validity.”
The article, “Energy Medicine: Current Status and Future Perspectives,” appeared in Global Advances in Health and Medicine, a SAGE title. The author was Christina Ross, of the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine, in Winston-Salem, N.C. Which happens to be where the two top editors of the journal are based.
Ross also is the author of Etiology: How to Detect Disease in Your Energy Field Before It Manifests in Your Body, which is available on Amazon and elsewhere.
According to the abstract of the article:
Current practices in allopathic medicine measure different types of energy in the human body by using quantum field dynamics involved in nuclear medicine, radiology, and imaging diagnostics. Once diagnosed, current treatments revert to biochemistry instead of using biophysics therapies to treat the disturbances in subtle energies detected and used for diagnostics. Quantum physics teaches us there is no difference between energy and matter. All systems in the human being, from the atomic to the molecular level, are constantly in motion-creating resonance. This resonance is important to understanding how subtle energy directs and maintains health and wellness in the human being. Energy medicine (EM), whether human touch or device-based, is the use of known subtle energy fields to therapeutically assess and treat energetic imbalances, bringing the body’s systems back to homeostasis (balance). The future of EM depends on the ability of allopathic medicine to merge physics with biochemistry. Biophoton emissions as well as signal transduction and cell signaling communication systems are widely accepted in today’s medicine. This technology needs to be expanded to include the existence of the human biofield (or human energy field) to better understand that disturbances in the coherence of energy patterns are indications of disease and aging. Future perspectives include understanding cellular voltage potentials and how they relate to health and wellness, understanding the overlap between the endocrine and chakra systems, and understanding how EM therapeutically enhances psychoneuroimmunology (mind–body) medicine.
The notice reads:
An investigation is currently in process in relation to this article as a result of receiving several complaints regarding the validity of the science. This notice will be updated once the Journal has completed its review.
Ross said:
I absolutely stand by the validity of the science I wrote about in this paper
and she confirmed that the paper underwent peer review and the editing process prior to publication. She also told us that the journal’s move:
was based on a complaint by a man in England who is an MD who chastised me for suggesting that human biology has a biofield. He also said strange things like “quantum mechanics only works on the subatomic level” and “there is no direct relationship between energy and matter”. These sound like the ramblings of someone stuck in 1930’s theories of physics and refused to believe Einstein and Neils Bohr’s theories.
I don’t know who peer reviewed my paper, but the editors of GAHM have sent it out to more reviewers. One neuroscientist / Ayurvedic instructor who was added to the peer review list, told me and the editors he thought the paper was outstanding. He said it would be unfortunate to retract it.
It’s by far the most down-loaded paper I’ve published. Hundreds (over 1,000) downloads. I have received rave reviews from energy medicine practitioners and instructors.
Suzanne Danhauer, one of the top editors at the journal, told us:
The investigation into the article is still underway, and we do not currently have any information to share beyond what is in the Expression of Concern. However, we will provide further information when the investigation is complete.
Without taking a position on the merits of Ross’ paper, the journal’s move strikes us as curious. After all GAHM has published several other papers on the human biofield, like this one and this one. It’s hard to argue that it didn’t know what it was getting with the latest article.
The case has echoes of this post, from earlier in 2021, involving a journal that cut an author loose over a controversial paper it reviewed, accepted, edited and published.
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I absolutely stand by the validity of the science I wrote about in this paper
There is no science in the paper.
The “rave reviews” are from like-minded woo merchants who can offer not even any outcome data to suggest a beneficial effect of energy medicine beyond placebo. Academic centres with “integrative medicine” tracks are simply cashing in on a gullible public.
PLACEBO!
https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78dmono.phtml
“Quantum physics teaches us…”
You can stop the investigation right there. This is clearly garbage.
The only mystery to me is why actual quantum physicists don’t cash in on this. They could be living a life of wealth and comfort, like Gwyneth, rather than working all the time on difficult problems.
“The only mystery to me is why actual quantum physicists don’t cash in on this. They could be living a life of wealth and comfort, like Gwyneth, rather than working all the time on difficult problems.”
Perhaps they are? And aren’t? In which case they’ll only collapse into one or the other when observed by the IRS.
That is weird, but I can see why it could be compelling to some who are not trained in chemistry.
She is using words like “resonance” and “quantum” that have specific definitions in chemistry and trying to change the definition, and establish links (cause and effect relationships) that are not there.
To me, this seems a bit Orwellian.
from: https://www.e-wellnesssolutions.com/expert-authors/christina-ross/
“Christina Ross, PhD, is a Board Certified Polarity Practitioner (BCPP), Registered Polarity Educator (RPE), and Certified Energy Medicine Practitioner (CEMP), who has earned bachelor’s degrees in both psychology and physics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She earned her PhD in Energy Medicine from Akamai University, with a research appointment to the Wake Forest School of Medicine’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), through the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine (WFCIM).”
From Akamai U:
AKAMAI UNIVERSITY IS NOT ACCREDITED BY AN ACCREDITING AGENCY RECOGNIZED BY THE UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF EDUCATION. Note: In the United States, many licensing authorities require accredited degrees as the basis for eligibility for licensing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unaccredited_institutions_of_higher_education
some suggestion on the internet that Akamai may be a diploma mill.
This is depressing. Why do I even bother doing research, when people like this publish crap?
“understanding the overlap between the endocrine and chakra systems, and understanding how EM therapeutically enhances psychoneuroimmunology (mind–body) medicine.”
Is anyone with even half a brain seriously buying any of this crap?
This is pure alt-med mumbo-jumbo. She knows as much about quantum physics as Mr Magoo.
Anyone who refers to “allopathic” medicine and “chakras” has abandoned science from the off.
This kind of rubbish is just an excuse to use “bio-resonance” machines to scan and reprogram your “biofield” and all that baloney when all they are are is galvanometers.
If you believe any of this:
a) you know nothing about quantum physics
b) you know nothing about conventional medicine
c) you’re a quack or a mark
I agree with your comment, but I’ll put in a small quibble about your statement that “Anyone who refers to ‘allopathic’ medicine…. has abandoned science from the off.”
The identification of mainstream, science-based medicine as “allopathic” was intended to distinguish it from a variety of alternative medical systems, including osteopathic medicine and chiropractic medicine. The use of “allopathic” signals a commitment to science, not abandoning science.
The identification of mainstream, science-based medicine as “allopathic” was intended to distinguish it from a variety of alternative medical systems, including osteopathic medicine and chiropractic medicine
I concede that it was coined with that intention — but the desire to distinguish it from alternative belief-systems came from those systems. It is intended as a pejorative term, with connotations of ‘inferior’, ‘merely treating symptoms rather than underlying dis-ease’, etc. From an evidence-based perspective, there is no “allopathy”. There is medicine; and then there are osteopathy, homeopathy, chiropractice.
This link is a comment linked from PubPeer from last November that the commenter asked the author to respond to which she hasn’t deigned to do.
It is effectively a blow by blow rebuttal of her whole paper and all her arguments – read it and weep!
https://majikthyse.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/energy-medicine-review-of-paper-by-christina-l-ross/
Thanks for that link. The ross article is obvious hogwash, but it’s good to be reminded of the actual science involved.
If GAHM is a real “journal,” it has no business publishing crap like this.
That’s just it. GAMH is an example of “quackademics”, fake journal, fake papers, fake, fake fake!
This type of BS is spreading distrust of journals in general. But I came to distrust ANY journal or publication coming from SAGE years ago. They simply have no mechanism to ensure that the journals or pubication (book / encyclopeadias/ etc.) are sound academically nor scientifically. I’ve seen them publish flat out falsehoods, easily disproven.
actually some real top notch theoretical quantum physicists have studied this sort of issue and still do –they are divided (these can be found in Nature, Science, PNAS and more). experimentalists have as well to some extent—very difficult to do experemints.
there is a ton of ‘woo’ and this paper looks like part of that.
I do believe in some alternative medicine, proven there is evidence for them. But what I have been seeing is a bunch alot of at best pseudoscientific, at worst grossly misleading covid papers out there… https://jmedicalcasereports.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13256-020-02624-1
LEMMINGS UNITE! Since when did “Science” depend on how many uninvolved laymen agree or disagree? Why does anyone need to be told? Try i- gauge results…..if you don’t know, don’t opine, pls. If you have, let’s hear from you. M.D.’s need to have colored ribbons tied around the limb that needs severing….why are we surprised that they cannot proffer anything but the standard Big Pharma photocopy drivel disseminated in their state licensed seminaries? If you don’t have the balls to offer your own opinion, then write anonymously. Please do not add your own canned reply to the other lemmings self-congratulatory backslapping evident above…..