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Have I got some snake oil for you. The Life Vessel(TM) is the newest breakthrough in medical science. It cures what ails you. More: it makes you better than you have ever been, by allowing you to decide just how much “wellness” you want to “achieve.” It will treat your diabetes or autism (or both!) and it’s available at a location near you, Westminster, CO (near Boulder, CO, and you know what that means: woo!). Our friend and paranormal investigator, Bryan Bonner of Bryan and Baxter (Rocky Mountain Paranormal), tipped off local news network CBS4 to this glorious find (article with video at CBS4) in a treasure trove of inanities.

My uncle was in a 1980s or early 90s B or even C movie, Brainscrambler (or something like that), in which a computer with all kinds of lights and sounds turned a man into a killer. The Life Vessel works something like that.

You enter a bed with nice-looking wood all over it, close yourself into the compartment, and relax to the sound of music, light of all colors, warmth from an infrared lamp, and vibration, presumably from a transducer that turns electrical signals into physical vibrations (such things are sometimes used — or were — by people seeking subwoofer thump without subwoofer speakers). This is supposed to relax you to the point where your body can naturally heal itself (as opposed to the times when it unnaturally healed itself). The buzzword “non-invasive” is thrown around by other people who talk about the device and by Gail Lynn — interviewed by CBS4 and surreptitiously videotaped making unfounded claims for the device — who charges a lot of money for the thing’s use.

I read in the CBS4 article that the device costs $100,000, whereas I’m sure you could get one built by someone who contributes to MAKE magazine for under $1000. (I suppose the exceedingly high cost is due to all the hard science that went into designing the apparatus.) Hour-long treatments are $125, and the customer (note that I didn’t say “patient”) is supposed to have four treatments within three days, although — suggested for athletes and people on the go — a single hour-long treatment can be bought. Oh, yes! It’s FDA approved! But that doesn’t mean the FDA has certified that it does anything, as far as I know, just that it isn’t harmful.

The Life Vessel Website for Colorado has a video with an interviewer throwing softball questions at Gail Lynn, “owner of Life Vessel of the Rockies in Westminster,” the same woman who was interviewed and secretly recorded by CBS4. The Life Vessel is billed as a replacement for “allopathic” treatments. Yes, they are encouraging people to forego medical treatment and use their woo device instead. Don’t worry, though: they have a nurse practitioner on staff and “several MDs in the area” who support them. Regarding the effects of the machine, “Wow!” the softball lobber exclaims, “So we’re talking about things you actually feel?” Certainly, if you feel it, it’s real. If they have real doctors and nurses, it’s real.

Lynn said to reporter Rick Sallinger of CBS4, “I was the biggest skeptic.” But — wait for it! — “[M]y eyesight improved. My asthma went away.” A satisfied customer. And there is no shortage of testimonials on the website. One softball was, “The energy that’s already there will take the body into the natural state it’s supposed to be in?” “That’s correct,” replied Ms. Lynn. She says in the video on the Website that it is used to treat diabetes, although the “quack Miranda warning,” the entrepreneurial-minded woo-meister’s get-out-of-jail-free card, is all over the site. (You can thank Dr. Steven Novella of The Skeptic’s Guide To the Universe for that bit about the woo-meister.) “I’ll walk into a room and I’ll smell heavy metals, I’ll smell yeast,” she says as evidence that the machine is effective in doing whatever it is supposed to do. Even Ms. Lynn is incredulous (or was momentarily, it seems) at some of the claims of treating disease she hears from customers, she says.

What is the Life Vessel supposed to do, anyway? According to a paper co-authored by Dr. Valerie Donaldson, one of the first people to see and work with the Life Vessel(TM), “The Life Vessel(TM), a novel relaxation device, was first described in a paper by Barry McNew and Valerie Donaldson that was presented at the Science of Whole Person Healing 2003, First Interdisciplinary International Conference, Bethesda, Maryland” (Donaldson, “Body Core Temperature and the Life Vessel(TM) Study,” pg. 1). So it’s a “novel relaxation device.” How can you argue with that? Nice lighting, comfy mattress, enclosed space (perhaps a bit like a lit coffin), warmth, micro-earthquakes, and soothing music ought to relax most people. The claims made for the device are ridiculous, however, no matter how many “energy-medicine” doctors they have giving their voices in support. Dr. Donaldson (http://iamcenterofpittsburgh.com/) has an MD, so she ought to know better; but she is eyes-deep in woo.

Formerly the existence of biological energy fields had been met with skepticism by the scientific and medical communities, but with advances in technology the existence of these biological energy fields has been confirmed. We now know that the human body is capable of generating electrical and magnetic fields due to the ions moving within our bodies. The electrocardiogram is one of the most readily recognizable tools that is used to measure the electrical activity of the heart. So while the existence of biological energy fields is no longer a debate their role as a therapeutic tool is gaining public interest and is still under some question in medical and scientific communities. ” (Donaldson, “Body Core Temperature and the Life Vessel(TM) Study.” pg. 1).

It’s science! See her Website for the details of this wondrous discovery. Dr. Donaldson advertises a machine that looks exactly like the Life Vessel(TM), called LIFE FORCE(TM), that is “One of the Most Significant and Dynamic Developments in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Ever.” (LIFE FORCE(TM) page). The Website cites ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks such as Pythagoras, and — wait for it! — Albert Einstein, to support their claims. It has to be legitimate science if Einstein was on their side. Dr. Christine Horner and Dr. Joe Mercola talked about Life Vessel on Mercola’s show. (A transcript is available at Life Vessel’s Website.) Horner gives a woo-sodden monologue on the Life Vessel(TM), starting at just after 1:33:00 in the video. “So it works through quantum physics. It uses light frequency sound and vibration,” says Horner. Trifecta: ancient wisdom, Einstein, and QM!

Here is the “scientific” explanation for how the Life Vessel(TM) works, taken from the Donaldson paper. It’s worth reading.

The Life Vessel(TM) employs the entrainment of light and sound and a resonate frequency, as a means of restoring balance and harmony to the body. The Life Vessel™ is an enclosed chamber in which the patient lays flat while being non-invasively encompassed by sound in the form of music supplied by CD’s, and light. Entrainment is a process by which two oscillating systems become synchronous. The Life Vessel™ acts on this principle of entrainment through which a resonant frequency coupled with frequency, vibration, light waves and sound waves entrains the cells and tissues of the patient. In this process the resonance is thought to have some altering affects on the patient, bringing the cells/tissues of the patient into synchronistic cellular coherency and allowing the functions of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), to become balanced, allowing healing to take place. This achievement in the Life Vessel allows the human body to go to a level below the level of known consciousness at a conscious state. At this level of consciousness, the body starts the healing process due to rebalancing the ANS naturally, detoxing naturally and creating a de-gravitational effect to the body allowing for synchronized cellular coherency. The ANS is the unconscious part of the nervous system, controlling heart rate, respiratory rate, and physiological processes such as digestion. The goal of balance of the ANS and hence balance in the physiological processes of the entire body is thought to be attained through the interaction of The Life Vessel™ on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) of the individual being treated. As the ANS of the body is balanced, stress on the body is effectively reduced. Stress is known to be the biggest initiator and promoter of disease and dysfunction in the body. As stress is reduced throughout the body’s physiological mechanisms, it deters dysfunction and allows the body to balance and heal itself. (Donaldson, “Body Core Temperature and the Life Vessel(TM) Study.” pg. 2.)

Now I understand. But, really, what is it to go to “a level below the level of known consciousness at a conscious state?” I don’t know, and the rest of the paper doesn’t bring clarity. The experiment documented by the Donaldson paper apparently showed that the Life Vessel can be used to decrease a person’s core body temperature compared to a control group. That’s it. That’s the huge medical breakthrough that is based on anything like science. What does lowering body temperature have to do with “wellness” or levels of consciousness? Perhaps it really does lower body temperature. Maybe deep relaxation lowers body temperature, and the control group wasn’t as relaxed as the Life Vessel group.

Incidentally, the people in the study were “seeking treatment,” and, “The experimental group was aware that they were receiving a treatment and came seeking it, and the control group knew that they were not receiving any sort of treatment” (Donaldson, “Body Core Temperature and the Life Vessel(TM) Study.” pg. 6). The experimenters recognized that they had not placebo-controlled the experiment, but the salient point is that they were offering “treatment.” No quack Miranda warnings here, but maybe they had their subjects sign one. My point is they used the word “treatment.” Just what were they trying to treat? The paper doesn’t tell us. The marketing campaign certainly suggests they are offering the treatment that they deny, out of fear of FDA censorship, they are in fact providing.

They are skirting the law with their Rockies Website, which, as I said, is full of the quack Miranda warnings. Two links, called “Alternative Diabetes Treatments” and “Autism Treatments,” take us to testimonials and quack Miranda warnings on the same page with suggestions that Life Vessel(TM) can be used to treat these diseases. Yet they claim, over and over and even on the same page as testimonials about treating autism with Life Vessel(TM), that they do not offer treatments or cures:

The Life Vessel does not claim to diagnose or ‘treat’ disease. The Life Vessel’s ability to balance, de-stress, detox and relax the body is accomplished by its ability to take the body to a level below the level of consciousness at a conscious state and doing so has a direct affect on the whole body including but not limited to:

1.De-Stressing the whole body – physically, environmentally and emotionally
2.Detoxification of the whole body – physically, environmentally and emotionally
3.Reduce pain
4.Reversal of inflammatory processes
5.Balancing the parasympathetic and sympathetic parts of the ANS. (Life Vessel page)

The CBS4 undercover camera showed Gail Lynn claiming the device cures diseases such as cancer. This raises serious questions about their operation. Emotional detoxification? I think I know what they’re talking about; but maybe I don’t. What is it to “environmentally” de-stress and detoxify “the whole body?” I have no idea, but maybe that’s my own failing.

Particularly disturbing was a testimonial video of a woman with two children, one now nineteen years old, we are told, who are developmentally disabled. In fact, they are present in the front of the room while the video is shot. Both are in expensive-looking, special-looking wheelchairs and are not moving or making sounds. The woman believes Life Vessel, which has apparently been used on these unfortunate children of this unfortunate and credulous woman, is treating her children and making them better in various ways. It’s too much for me to comment on further.

I suggested this topic to Dr. Novella as a possible blog topic, for either Neurologica or Science-Based Medicine. Maybe it’s too narrow a niche or the larger subject has been covered thoroughly already, but maybe he or one of the other bloggers at SBM will take it up.

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