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From: lindsay@esl.cs.colorado.edu (Don Lindsay)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Letter In Boulder Weekly
Date: 29 Sep 1995 06:02:20 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 65
Message-ID: <44g25c$sen@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: esl.cs.colorado.edu
I sent the letter, below, to the Boulder Weekly. It was printed in the
September 28 - October 4 issue, which appeared on the newsstands
today. They titled it "Weird science".
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Last week, you ran a letter under the title "In Defense of Scientology". I
am not going to argue about its author's personal experiences or
viewpoint. However, I am not about to let quack medical claims pass
unchallenged.
One of the strange things about Scientology is that it has religious
beliefs about scientific fact. For example, Hubbard taught that LSD users
had LSD residues in their body fat. Supposedly, the Church's Purification
Rundown removes such LSD residues. Because Hubbard's words are now
unalterable scripture, the Church still makes these and many, many other
claims. They are unwilling to do what I did: check in standard medical
texts, and in books on addiction. The books state unanimously that LSD
leaves no residues: nor is it fat soluble. In short, Hubbard's claims are
pseudo-science.
Unfortunately, this bit of technological hogswill is not an isolated case.
Hubbard was a scientific ignoramus, and he paraded it. The average person
(and the average drug user) does *not* have toxins in his fat. And, if a
person did, the Purification Rundown would be a terrible way to get the
toxins out. The "Purif" involves taking dangerous amounts of niacin. But,
medical texts tell me that niacin is antilipidemic. Niacin prevents things
from leaving the fatty tissues.
I am not the only person with this opinion. Physicists snicker at
Hubbard's book, "All About Radiation". Archaeologists snicker at his book
"History of Man," which talks about reincarnation memories of having been
a Piltdown Man. A year or two after Hubbard wrote that book, it was
revealed that Piltdown Man had been a hoax, and had simply never existed.
In the specific case of the "Purif", I am definitely not alone. The
Oklahoma Board of Mental Health said in its Findings, "This evidence
indicates a lack of safety and effectiveness." The authorities in Italy
and Spain have gone further, and arrested staff members on charges ranging
from fraud and medical malpractice to criminal conspiracy to extort money
and unlawful detention.
Mr. Borichevsky's letter says he's seen two independent studies showing
Narconon's 69% or 78% success rate. I'm glad he's not quoting the 86% rate
that they unsuccessfully testified to in Oklahoma. However, I am dubious
that he's really seen the studies. We on the Internet made a project of
trying to track down the Narconon studies, but we never managed to find
more than brief summaries of them. Neither study was independent - or
even arm's length: they were both done by the Church. And they reported
70% and 76%. So, where does Mr. Borichevsky's 69% and 78% come from? And
where did the Church publication "What is Scientology" get 78.37% and
84.6% for the same studies? And just how does one get 76% or 78.37% in a
study of 13 people?
The Church's Narconon subsidiary is for-profit, and sells an expensive
drug rehabilitation "treatment". Drug abusers would be well advised to go
elsewhere. Although, of course, if you're poor, the question is moot. It
is against Hubbard's scriptures to help the poor.
Don Lindsay
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Don D.C.Lindsay University of Colorado-Boulder Computer Science
ÿ