• Flanagan has an MD (MA) - what the hell is that? Patrick Flanagan, Ph.D., M.D.(MA) 1997 Scientist of the Year

  Dr. Patrick Flanagan was a child prodigy with an intense interest in electronics, biochemistry and physics. As an avid inventor, even at the age of 12, Patrick Flanagan shook up the Pentagon with his guided missile and atomic bomb detector. At 14 he developed the Neurophone , an electronic device that transmits sound from the skin directly to the brain, through the nervous system, not the bones or ears. Dr. Patrick Flanagan's curiosity in energy led him to the research and writing of his widely known book of 1973, Pyramid Power. Dr. Patrick Flanagan's deep personal interest in health and nutrition has led him to the development of the structured Crystal Energy water supplement, Flanagan's Microcluster Technology -- which was submitted to the Nobel Prize Committee, and the new revolutionary discovery Microhydrin.

• Now it's called MICROHYDRON - can't they make up their minds? So What's All the Fuss About? Have the Flanagans Created the "Antidote To Aging"?

  That's what many people think. And to look at the joy and vibrancy that radiates from Patrick -- you have to believe the secret has truly been found. Ask Patrick the secret to his youthful appearance and he will smile and hand you a bottle of Crystal Energy -- the first in a long line of Royal BodyCare Products to contain the Flanagan Microclusters. This technology is backed by scientific research.

• PYRAMID ENERGY IS FOR MONEY MAKING - Skeptical Inquirer - 1985Flanagan also charged up a number of crystals full of pyramid energy during the alignment and offered to give one free to everyone who signed up for his $145 seminar near San Francisco. These crystals "were also charged at the apex of the Pyramid in the full moon-light on the last day of this most powerful alignment." If you missed this seminar, you're simply out of luck, because these crystals "will not be available again, not for the next 2000 years!"

  PATRICK FLANAGAN - THE GURU OF PYRAMID ENERGY MARRIES SECOND TIME. - As noted in the Flanagan Research Report, a wedding invitation was extended to "the enlightened spiritual community that once comprised the former spiritual hierarchy on the highly evolved lost continent of Atlantis."

• The Amazing Neurophone - 1995 "The neurophone is an electronic telepathy machine," says inventor Dr. Patrick Flanagan. According to the inventor, the device allows people to hear through their skin with an extremely low bandwidth signal. Applications of the current model include hearing for the deaf and brain synchronization, which according to some researchers may enhance learning.

  Dr. Patrick Flanagan invented the neurophone in 1958 when he was 14 years old. Portrayed in "New Alchemy" as a boy genius who invented (among many other things) a better ICBM launch detector in elementary school, Flanagan received a good deal of media attention even then. Unable to get a patent on the device until 1967 because the patent office didn't believe him, they eventually recanted when, according to Flanagan, the neurophone allowed a deaf patent office employee to hear. On the strength of his demonstration, and with his attorney present, the patent was issued immediately.

• Patrick Flanagan's Neurophone Hope for the deaf and superlearning for all

Dr. W. Gifford-Jones -
aka Ken Walker, M.D.

Walker graduated from Harvard medical school in 1950 and has his FRCS(C) specialist certificate in OB/GYN. He worked at the King 's Health Centre in Toronto. The Centre was shut down after its owners, the Kovals, fled the country last year after they were accused of massive fraud.

It's really funny that the King's Health Centre web site was still up when this web page was updated on April 9, 2001. The Kovals plead guilty at the end of March, and were in custody before Christmas last year, and all the other people who rented from the Kovals still had their name on the site, as if nothing had happened.

The tenants were left high and dry, and Ken Walker let them have it with both-barrels, and then some, during a CBC radio interview after the Kovals plead guilty in March, 2001.

I am sure that the Cleveland Clinic, and other health providers would rather that their names and logos not be kept on the web site of the King's Health Centre. So why is the site still up, and why are their logos displayed. Does this give Microhydrin more credibility?

As an aside, and of special interest to Healthwatcher, the King's Health Centre sported the logo of one of Canada's largest selling addictive and deadly products, du Maurier, on their web site for years. It was part of their sports medicine section where they talked about tennis elbow, or golfer's afflictions. I made several phone calls to King's Health Centre over the years, and told them about it, and they still left the logo on their site. The Kovals also published a slick magazine, Health Digest. Their doctors and other health professionals were regular contributors. Kings wanted the town and gown folks who could afford their "Mayo Clinic of the North" taste to know what they all looked like. I guess the image of a doctor's name or face associated with a tobacco logo didn't bother those folks who rented from the Kovals.

In their Fall 1998 edition, the Digest featured a small piece on Quackwatch.com, and Stephen Barrett. It's really too bad that the writer didn't recognize the pioneering efforts that HealthWatcher.net has made in exposing questionable web sites, and conflict of interest in the health community over the years.

Dr. Gifford-Jones' columns have featured at least two products with dubious claims in 2000. The first one was Imedeen, and the other one Microhydrin. For a while one of the columns was not posted on the CANOE.CA web site. We don't know why. But there's more to it than meets the eye.

But, here's the original column of May 28, 2000, that caused Gifford-Jones to take a second look after he called Microhydrin nothing more than gobbledegook.

Claims have been made that Gifford-Jones actually used the product himself, and it changed his mind. The second column, on July 30, 2000 is a complete 180 degree about face for Dr. Gifford-Jones. We wonder who pointed him in that direction.

In this column, he seems to approve of chiropractic treatment, and cited one of the chiropractors who worked at the King Health Centre.

Let's make this simple, doctors can't endorse specific products in Ontario.

Why would a medical columnist, lend support to products like Imedeen or Microhydrin in the first place? Why would anyone provide the phone number for readers to call up, when those numbers are basically sales arms or publicicity hounds for the company.

The College of Physicians has stated this:

• In his July 30, 2000 column, Gifford-Jones criticized the credibility of one of the leading antioxident experts in the world, Dr. William Pryor, of Lousiana State University.

• Instead, he chooses to use one Dr. Lester Packer, who is a University of California researcher that Gifford-Jones says supported Microhydrin research. Funny thing is that he hasn't published a single paper that mentions Microhydrin that I could find on Medline.

• This is the famous review from the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter - Nov. 1999 Claims, Benefits: Ultimate antioxidant. Cure-all.

  Bottom Line: The health claims made about Microhydrin are outrageous and not supported by science. Don't fall for products that are being promoted with piles of technical, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook.

Gifford-Jones column used to market Microhydrin

• RBC's own web site, complete with picture - this one is from the Winnipeg Free Press on July 16, 2000

• RBC's Canadian site

• Search the Royal=Health.com web site for Gifford

• Microhydron.com - this is Debby Allen's site. It may not display so use your browser to look at source.

• Homestead.com - This one says that if you want more information read the column, and then you can order some Microhydrin. Don't forget it's listed under the category of "Professional Opinion", so it must be right....or is it?

• Syndicated Columnist Reveals the Truth About Microhydrin - Toronto Sun syndicated columnist, W. Gifford Jones, M.D., has written an article touting the medical benefits of MicrohydrinÆ. He cites the experiments of Dr. Lester Packer of the University of California's Department of Molecular and Cell Biology among other studies supporting the power of MicrohydrinÆ. Is there a possibility that a few well-placed calls and perhaps a letter from a company spokesperson or legal eagle refreshed the memory of some people so much that the story changed significantly?

What others have to say

• WHY BOTHER WITH ANTIOXIDANTS WHEN YOU CAN HAVE REACTIVE ELECTRONS?
  Health Care Reality Check - Dr. Tim Gorski, OB/GYN with a lot on the ball. So, it was inevitable that the antioxidant craze would eventually result in someones claiming to sell, not a simple "decoy" substance that can serve as an electron source for stray oxidizing species, but an actual strong reducing agent. And why not go all the way and claim to have a product that releases naked hydride anions into the body? Royal Body Care of Dallas is doing just that in the from of "Microhydrin^TM " which is said to be "silica hydride ... encased in microclusters^TM , that produce an antioxidant effect." To anyone who understands the essential facts of redux chemistry, of course, this product is an obvious, blatant, and outrageous fraud.