Bicom Biosresonance Machine Scam?

[eveares]

Was not sure what section of this site I should put this, but I have decided here has it is vaguely electrical related (or at least the theory behind it is supposed to be based on) and none the less I thought you would find this amusing.

So the other day I was on Facebook and I saw a post from a friend about how she had a long term cough/chest infection for 3 week's and that no cough medicine helped it, but after using a relatives Bicom Biosresonance machine just once, it finally went. (BTW her relative is a Vet and his FB page is full of Biosresonance related posts. )

For those who have not heard of a Biosresonance machine (like me at first), it is a machine that can be used to not only diagnose but also treat a whole host of common medical conditions (Asthma, Hayfever, Cancer , Pain, Depression, Neurological disorders, Migraines, Auto-immune disorders, etc... ) by using electro-magnetic waves to both detect and treat such conditions.

Now in my opinion with no scientific explanation behind it, this is complete quakery and such things belongs in the category of pseudoscience, the placebo effect, and non-western medicine.

I now what to know what others on here think of both the Bicom Biosresonance Machine and Biosresonance therapy overall. Would be interesting if someone did a tear-down on one of the machines to see what really is going on inside.


For more info and exact details on how it works (supposedly), see links below:

http://www.reson8.uk.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioresonance_therapy

Oh, and don't forget the clocks have now gone back for anyone who is working tomorrow.

Regards: Elliott

 

[ericmark]

You have got to consider pavlov's dogs. He was able to get dogs to salivate in response to a stimulus. Although one would think that it's all a placebo effect and that it really does no good can't see how one can give some one a fake electric shock to demonstrate if a placebo effect or not. The TENS machine is claimed to give pain relief but any thing which diverts one attention from pain will give some relief. If you have tooth ache and I stamp on your foot you forget about tooth ache and concentrate one beating me up for stamping on your foot.

Through the ages there have been reports of where some thing unexplained has happened both with electric shock and other stimulus. Sir Francis Chichester it seems had cancer and decided to do one last transatlantic crossing before he died only to arrive at the other side with no sign of cancer in spite of tests they were unable to work out why it had gone.

In other words it's just impossible to prove either way if any electric shock treatment works with the exception of electric shock to restart the heart and one would not use that machine unless heart had stopped one would not use it on a healthy person.

 

[JohnW2]

Now in my opinion with no scientific explanation behind it, this is complete quakery and such things belongs in the category of pseudoscience, the placebo effect, and non-western medicine.

I think you can rest very assured that you are by no means alone in having that opinion!!

Kind Regards, John

 

[bernardgreen]

TENS pain relief does work. ( well it did for me when suffering severe sciatica ). It stuns the nerve carrying the pain "message" to the brain. The pain is still there but the brain is unaware of it. The danger is by preventing pain "messages" from reaching the brain injuries or soft tissue / muscle spasm damage can go un-noticed. Hence the cause of the pain should be indentified an treat as well.

Bio-resonance I doubt has any genuine treatment value othe than placebo type effect. But electrical stimulus of muscles can improve muscle tone so that might be the base on which the quackery of bio-resonance was founded.

 

[JohnW2]

TENS pain relief does work. ( well it did for me when suffering severe sciatica ). It stuns the nerve carrying the pain "message" to the brain. The pain is still there but the brain is unaware of it.

Sure, but TENS is based on sound physiological principles related, as you say, to interference with nerve transmission. However, at least as yet, there is no established physiological mechanism (other than the generic placebo effect that will happen with any 'treatment') underlying the alleged therapeutic effects of bio-resonance - and even 'placebo effect' cannot explain the alleged diagnostic capabilities of this technology.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnD]

there are still plenty of people who believe that you can cure diseases with small amounts of pure water, so there is obviously no limit to what people will believe.

 

[JohnW2]

there are still plenty of people who believe that you can cure diseases with small amounts of pure water, so there is obviously no limit to what people will believe.

Indeed. The complication is that if they strongly believe that, it may well provide them with some beneficial effect - and, worse, the more expensive is the pure water (or whatever), the more likely it is to have such a ('placebo effect') beneficial effect.

This leads to various dilemmas, since disillusioning people about the 'true' effect (or lack of it) of a treatment may result in their being deprived of potential therapeutic benefit.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

this is complete quakery

You're lucky that the Society Of Friends is not very litigious.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

This leads to various dilemmas, since disillusioning people about the 'true' effect (or lack of it) of a treatment may result in their being deprived of potential therapeutic benefit.

Scientific progress often comes at a price.

Don't look on it as "disillusioning people about the 'true' effect (or lack of it) of a treatment" - look on it as inculcating the concepts of rationality, and insistence on evidence. On balance, mankind is far better served by those than by ignorant superstitions.

 

[bernardgreen]

this is complete quakery

You're lucky that the Society Of Friends is not very litigious.

I dont't doubt that eveares is now quaking in his boots.......

 

[EFLImpudence]

He may end up doing porridge.

 

[JohnW2]

Scientific progress often comes at a price. Don't look on it as "disillusioning people about the 'true' effect (or lack of it) of a treatment" - look on it as inculcating the concepts of rationality, and insistence on evidence. On balance, mankind is far better served by those than by ignorant superstitions.

That's fine as a idealistic concept but, at the individual level, I have seen situations in which the 'price' has been a lot of suffering for the individual concerned. Whether that is a 'price worth paying' for upholding a principle is obviously a matter for debate.

If conventional evidence-based medicine has an effective alternative to offer, it's probably OK to disillusion the patient about something for which there is little, or no, evidence or (as yet known) scientific basis. However, if conventional medicine cannot offer as much benefit as a patient is deriving from some very 'suspect' treatment, then successfully convincing them that the treatment is actually 'useless' can, and sometimes does, result in the efficacy of that 'treatment' diminishing (partially or completely) and the patient hence experiencing symptoms that conventional treatment cannot address. It has been demonstrated that even the efficacy of a conventional evidence-based treatment can diminish markedly if the patient is told that it is a placebo!

It is also worth remembering that (even if we don't yet understand the mechanisms very well) placebo effect is real, not fiction. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to generate, in the usual way, evidence of the efficacy of a 'placebo', since the only thing one can really compare it with is 'no treatment at all', and there is usually no way of disguising the fact that one is giving 'no treatment at all'! It's also worth remembering that there are countless examples of effective 'remedies' that were used for centuries with absolutely no understanding of mechanism, and nothing more than anecdotal evidence of their worth, which eventually evolved into conventional evidence-based medicines.

Kind Regards, John

 

[stillp]

I dont't doubt that eveares is now quaking in his boots.......

Or even quacking.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

That's fine as a idealistic concept but, at the individual level, I have seen situations in which the 'price' has been a lot of suffering for the individual concerned. Whether that is a 'price worth paying' for upholding a principle is obviously a matter for debate.

Not with me.

If conventional evidence-based medicine has an effective alternative to offer, it's probably OK to disillusion the patient about something for which there is little, or no, evidence or (as yet known) scientific basis. However, if conventional medicine cannot offer as much benefit as a patient is deriving from some very 'suspect' treatment, then successfully convincing them that the treatment is actually 'useless' can, and sometimes does, result in the efficacy of that 'treatment' diminishing (partially or completely) and the patient hence experiencing symptoms that conventional treatment cannot address.

Superstition is wrong. Far more people experience suffering because of it than because they reject it. Question everything. Demand evidence. Nothing else will do.

It has been demonstrated that even the efficacy of a conventional evidence-based treatment can diminish markedly if the patient is told that it is a placebo!

That makes sense.

It is also worth remembering that (even if we don't yet understand the mechanisms very well) placebo effect is real, not fiction. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to generate, in the usual way, evidence of the efficacy of a 'placebo', since the only thing one can really compare it with is 'no treatment at all', and there is usually no way of disguising the fact that one is giving 'no treatment at all'! It's also worth remembering that there are countless examples of effective 'remedies' that were used for centuries with absolutely no understanding of mechanism, and nothing more than anecdotal evidence of their worth, which eventually evolved into conventional evidence-based medicines.

It's perfectly possible to acquire sound evidence of the efficacy of something without having to understand the mechanisms involved. If you could go back in time with some broad-spectrum antibiotics a mediæval physician could attest to their performance even though he would not have a clue as to why.

 

[eveares]

I dont't doubt that eveares is now quaking in his boots.......

I still hold that it is quackery IMO, meaning it has no sound scientific explanation behind it other than the placebo effect.