The following are excerpts (due to space restrictions and the volume of letters received on this subject) from letters regarding the article "Toftness or Abrams-like Devices -- Are they Chiropractic?" that appeared in the July 5, 1991 issue of Dynamic Chiropractic.
Dear Editor:
I recently had the experience of reading your article about Dr. Toftness ... as a scientific person understanding the benefit and as a reader of your magazine, your treatment of this topic creates questions in my mind:
- Why do you care to bring this issue up at this time?
- Dr. Toftness claimed some phenomenal results of which I have had the privilege of seeing some including before and after pictures of many skin conditions, spinal conditions ...
- Why would you choose to print such a negative report on a beneficial technique, when the only real basis for criticism appears to be that it is tied to the Abram's black box? ...
In my opinion, pioneers like Dr. Toftness, Dr. Reaver, and others who were willing to go to jail and risk their personal status for the sake of this profession deserve whatever credit they can be given for their bravery in pioneering new methods.
Critics like you who come off with a scathing attack on a hero of our profession are the very thing which will push us into a corner and limit us, reverting us to the role of a technician. We must be free to explore and widen our abilities by the use of new methods. Some of these methods will be perfectly good, and some of these methods will be perfectly bad.
Choose to stand behind chiropractic and the need for research and continuing exploration instead of stabbing a dead patriarch in the back.
J. Joseph Abeler, D.C.
Anoka, Minnesota
Dear Editor:
Dr. I.N. Toftness passed from this world in November 1990, leaving behind a legacy of more than a half century of dedicated service to his profession, researching the biomechanics of the human body and developing a benign technology on the frontier of science.
His bones are barely cold in the ground when this article appears ... An unsigned, poorly researched piece of character defamation which is a clear case of cannibalism, in a profession which is apparently willing to eat its own.
Odd that the writer should choose as its authority the 1920 JAMA which describes Dr. Abrams as "the greatest quack of the 20th century," citing the "research" of the AMA.
Over several decades of harassment by the FDA, Dr. I.N. proved in court that the "Toftness Radiation" frequency -- 69.5 gigahertz -- was linked to pathology and directly attributable to nerve pressure; he proved that the instrument (TRD) developed by NASA scientists did amplify the frequency, and that it was measurable, and reduced by a directed low-force adjustment. The case failed to surmount the final obstacle when a judge was switched in U.S. District Court ruled that the TRD was a prescriptive device (like a CT scan) without sufficient instructions to be operated by lay personnel.
The assertion that 30 years of citizens' complaints prompted FDA action is surely unfair: Dr. I.N. had refused to yield up his instrument to the medical profession for their research; he had kept it for chiropractic alone. In the end, his life's work was seized by the federal government for destruction or development as they see fit.
This decision in 1984 was a real low point for chiropractic. Those of you who shake your heads at this might feel differently if your activators, spinolators, orthotics, supplements, G5s, ultrasound, diathermy, isotron ad infinitum were abruptly seized and destroyed.
It has been said that any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to an ignorant public.
Linda W. Lupowitz
Corrales, New Mexico
Dear Editor:
After the death of Dr. Abrams it was the chiropractors that really promoted and began using these devices to enhance their diagnostic and treating capabilities. The term Radionics was a term coined by a Dr. Blanchard, a chiropractor from California that really promoted the new technology.
Psychotronics is the term used mostly today and it means "Mind Into Matter." The United States Psychotronics Association defines Psychotronics as the Science of Mind-Body-Environment relationships, an interdisciplinary science concerned with the interactions of matter, energy, and consciousness.
By understanding these definitions, we research the obvious conclusion that by using these devices we are employing the use of our mind energy in some fashion. The instruments are an extension of the operators mind. It doesn't matter if it is a Toftness device or any other Radionic device, the principle involved is the "use of the mind."
The FDA has never understood the principles involved in Radionics. In my court case that took place in 1980 in the state of Virginia, I lost my license to practice chiropractic because I used Radionics and color therapy in my practice.
Another point to keep in mind is that some Radionic devices have been patented and in order to get a patent one must prove that the device works. The United States Navy contacted me in 1978 to design a Radionic device for surveillance purposes which we did and sold to the Navy for $5,111 and trained CIA and DIA personnel in the use of the device. We tracked a submarine in the Pacific from my office in Virginia Beach, Virginia using a photo, and we were told by the Navy that we had an 85 percent accuracy. At a distance of 80 miles using a photo of a Maxitron and its computer (x-ray beaming device) using psychokinetic energies (mind energies) we were able to break an electromagnetic beam six out of ten times in an hour program at the United States Radiobiological Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The list goes on and on of solid research programs that are repeatable and certainly the use of the instruments can not be classified as "BOGUS."
On the 5th of August I will be testifying against the government on the behalf of a person having the right to "use these instruments in conjunction with his mind." (Texas vs Jimmy Keller, a non medical person who used Radionics in healing himself of cancer and other people.) I will give you an update after the hearing.
P.S. The first Radionic device I ever saw was on a shelf in the adjusting room of the National College of Chiropractic in 1953, and I was told that when I got to be a senior we would be instructed on how to use it. By the time I became a senior it had vanished.
C.F. Whitehouse, D.C.
Paradise Valley, Arizona
Dear Editor:
The article on Toftness or Abrams-like devices caught my eye as I was marginally involved in a research project at Palmer College about five years ago that attempted to duplicate earlier work reported by Toftness. The project considered the effects of biological radiation on yeast and as it was inconclusive, no paper ever resulted. Dr. Toftness, himself, cooperated in the execution of the experiment.
I found the article to be very interesting, and aside from one factual error I would enjoy seeing the topic expanded and properly referenced and then submitted to Chiropractic History, which is the archives of the profession.
The factual error? An ISBN number is an international standard book number and is only assigned to books. An ISSN number is assigned to journals, whether or not they are indexed anywhere.
An indexed journal is one that is carried by an indexer such as the National Library of Medicine (Index Medicus) Current Contents, Education Index, Index to Chiropractic Literature, etc. These index are of varying prestige and so to be "indexed" has various interpretations.
Alana Ferguson, M.S.L.S.
Executive Director,
Association for the History of Chiropractic
Davenport, Iowa
