News and Comment

Dr. Rosenfeld, a cardiologist and professor of medicine, has appeared on national TV talk/interview shows since the 1960s. He has written several books, including the 1996 best-selling Dr. Rosenfeld's Guide to Alternative Medicine. Upon locating the book, I found a discussion of the operation in question on pages 30-32. My quotations herein are from the Parade article, the book, and several e-mail communications to me from Rosenfeld.

Accompanied on his China trip by several other prominent American physicians (now deceased), the Rosenfeld party watched as a 28-year-old female patient was wheeled into an operating room at the University of Shanghai and prepped for heart surgery to repair her mitral valve. But in lieu of standard anesthesia, a practitioner placed "an acupuncture needle in her right earlobe" (per Parade), with an electrode attached to supply a mild electrical current.

Rosenfeld observed as "the surgeon . . . cut through the . . . breastbone with an electric buzzsaw [and] her chest was split in two [and] spread apart with a large clamp to expose the heart" (per his book). Rosenfeld shortly thereafter snapped the photograph that appears in Parade (it was not used in the book). Because Rosenfeld has denied me permission to reprint his photograph, artist Don Addis has faithfully reproduced its image (figure 1), which is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. (Addis, editorial cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times, is also the cartoonist for the Tampa Bay Skeptics Report.)

Only the patient's face and incision are visible through the gaps in the surgical sheets. Assume, as the photo appears to indicate, that her head is essentially "face up" as opposed to being significantly rotated right or left. (Her eyes are focused to her left, as if she is attempting to observe the operation but cannot rotate her head.) Drawing a vertical line down the midline of her body, the operative field appears to be displaced far to the patient's left, rather than being centered where the breastbone and heart are situated. In fact, it appears so far to the left as to exist beyond the border of the patient's body (see figure 2). There does not appear to be any appreciable distortion in the photo such as might be encountered from the use of a wide-angle lens.

Rosenfeld says that this apparent leftward displacement "must be due to the angle at which [the photo] was taken" (per e-mail to me). He informed me that one of the others present (Dr. Wilbur Gould, ENT) had also taken photos and that his widow ". . . no doubt has all his . . . pictures in her possession." But he would not assist me in contacting her to obtain the photographs for review, saying that he did not wish to "participate in your project to prove that my four colleagues and I did not see what we saw."

In addition to the photographic oddities, I asked Rosenfeld how such surgery could have been performed without artificial ventilation: With the chest split open as described, the negative pressure produced by chest-wall expansion could not be created, the lungs would collapse, and the patient would asphyxiate. I pointed out other problems as well, which are explored in a more extensive article on this matter that I have written with Dr. Wallace Sampson, tentatively planned for publication in the Fall/Winter 1999 issue of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine (SRAM).

I suggested to Dr. Rosenfeld that his party may have been taken in by a hoax perpetrated for propaganda purposes - a well-documented tactic used by the Chinese during the Cold War. But Rosenfeld scoffed at the notion (as he does in his book) and suggested that I contact Dr. Michael DeBakey, one of the world's foremost cardiac surgeons, who "witnessed a similar procedure one year later [and] can explain your legitimate technical questions about ventilatory support. I spoke with him yesterday . . ." (per Rosenfeld's e-mail).

I asked Sampson to speak with DeBakey on our behalf, and the results of that interview were quite enlightening.

DeBakey informed Sampson that despite his conversation with Rosenfeld just a few days earlier, he had neither read Rosenfeld's accounts of the operation nor seen his photograph, and he was thus unconversant with the details in question. As for his own experience in China, DeBakey recalled that the mitral valve surgery that he had witnessed involved a patient who, it turned out, had received not only acupuncture, but also intravenous medication before and during the operation. Additionally, DeBakey told Sampson that artificial ventilation had not been needed in the operation that he saw because it had been performed through an incision between two right ribs, thus sparing one (the left) lung. He added that, in his opinion, a midline, split-breastbone approach, such as described by Rosenfeld, would likely cause both lungs to collapse, just as we had suspected.

Before I knew of Sampson's own interest in this case, and at about the time I was initiating my correspondence with Rosenfeld, Sampson had written to Parade editor Larry Smith (Rosenfeld is the magazine's health editor), pointing out some of the incongruities I've noted here. He asked how he might assist Parade in rectifying "the incorrect impressions given by the article." Sampson, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and editor in chief of SRAM, did not receive a reply.

A few additional observations about the precision of Rosenfeld's recollections and his attention to detail in recounting them: He acknowledged to me that, not being a surgeon, he actually "did not pay any particular attention at the time to the surgical technique used." He says in his book (contrary to the Parade version) that "needles" (plural) had been placed in the patient's "left" (not "right") earlobe. He explained to me that this "was a typo, which was not picked up since I did not use the photo" in the book. But the image was presumably indelibly imprinted in his mind. From the book: "I took a color photograph of that memorable scene: the open chest, the smiling patient, and the surgeon's hands holding her heart. I show it to anyone who scoffs at acupuncture." Yet, the photo clearly shows the surgeon's hands to the lower-left of the patient's heart - hardly another "typo."

Toward the end of our correspondence, Rosenfeld told me that, in publicizing the China story, his motivation had simply been "to draw attention to the possible use of acupuncture to alleviate chronic pain and suffering. . . . I thought acupuncture was worth looking into. I still do, as does a panel convened recently by the NIH. . . . I continue to keep an open mind on the subject." While I expressed my appreciation of that position, I also conveyed my concern that many of Parade's 80-plus-million readers could easily have drawn a conclusion that Rosenfeld says he did not intend - that acupuncture appears to possess mysterious and unexplained, perhaps even supernatural, anesthetic properties.

To this point about the important role that authorities such as Rosenfeld play in educating the American public on health-related issues, he replied, "As far as your fear that my readers will opt for acupuncture anesthesia during heart surgery, I think I can reassure you not to worry about it." Oh. Well, never mind, then.

-- Gary Posner

Gary Posner, M.D., an internist and medical software company executive, is a contributing editor to The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, founder of Tampa Bay Skeptics, and a CSICOP scientific consultant.

The victim believed Tene's tarot readings to be accurate and agreed to subsequent regular meetings with Tene. During the meetings, Tene befriended the victim and learned that she had received a substantial inheritance.

In November 1996, Tene told the victim that her inheritance was the cause of her personal and professional unhappiness. Tene convinced her client that she could cleanse the money of evil spirits and, thereafter, Tene would return the money and the victim's life would get back on the right path.

Tene instructed the victim to make cash withdrawals, which would later be used during "cleansing ceremonies" so that Tene could "rid it of evil." After receiving nearly $160,000 in cash and items valued at more than $40,000, Tene left Boston for New York, never returning to see the victim again.

Tene was finally arrested by the FBI in March 1998. In addition to the prison time, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner ordered restitution of $202,817 and ordered that Tene serve three years of supervised release upon completion of her sentence.

In another case in New York City, two women were arrested for pulling a similar scam in the borough of Queens. Sonya Cruz (also known as Signorita Rita), 34, and Estee Lee, 43, were arrested in late January 1999 and charged with scheme to defraud, grand larceny, and fortunetelling. Cruz reportedly hosted a fortune-telling radio show and placed ads in newspapers to attract customers. The women charged customers more than $1,000 to take away supposed curses or heal problems, such as a husband's drinking.

Ben Radford is Managing Editor of Skeptical Inquirer.

According to news sources, fifty people had witnessed poltergeist-like phenomena, including toppled statues and candles flying across the nave. The church was soon closed, while an exorcist was called in to drive out the sinister force.

Then came a follow-up from the Associated Press. The November 1 report explained that the village mayor, Thierry Marceaux, 32, had been detained by police after admitting he was responsible for the apparently paranormal events. He had produced all of the effects, lurking in shadows and tossing the objects, then appearing moments later to feign horror.

Local authorities, threatening to charge Marceaux for wasting police time, freed him on condition he see a psychiatrist. He apologized for his mischief - supposedly intended to amuse - through his attorney.

-Joe Nickell

Joe Nickell is Senior Research Fellow at CSICOP.

"Lord Narayana" - actually Austrian-born Alfred Schmielewski - gave readings at psychic fairs where he claimed to be, among other superlatives, "the world's foremost authority in the field of world prophecy." Although he was one of millions who correctly predicted (in 1980) that Ronald Reagan would win the U.S. presidency, he had numerous "misses." For example, the planet's "greatest natural disaster" did not hit Montréal in 1988; neither was Mikhail Gorbachev assassinated in the Kremlin in 1987.

Although the 71-year-old seer also styled himself "the businessman's psychic," his 1980 and 1994 visions of imminent economic crisis were failed prophecies, and at the time of his death he remained a man of modest means.

Lord Narayana was killed on April 11, 1999, when he answered a knock at the door of his Mississauga, Ontario, home and was shot in the head at point-blank range by an unknown assailant. Police were speculating - but not predicting - that his killer would prove to be a disgruntled client. They said genuine psychic information was welcome.

-Joe Nickell

The Boeing 747 aircraft exploded mysteriously off the coast of Long Island in 1996, engendering many conspiracy theories.

The psychic, who was not named, attributed the explosion to a bomb near the left wing. That claim corroborated the FBI's initial conviction that the plane was downed in an act of terrorism, despite contrary evidence provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the National Transportation Safety Bureau, and the CIA.

In the end, the psychic was wrong: an exhaustive investigation showed that the cause was likely a center fuel tank malfunction. The psychic's proclamation may have been used to justify prolonging the FBI's $20 million investigation, thereby wasting taxpayer's money. But perhaps more dangerously, airline passenger safety was compromised when corrective fuel tank recommendations were put on hold pending the outcome of the FBI's investigation.

-Benjamin Radford

The story actually began earlier when the pastor of Ascension of Our Lord Church attempted to dispose of a discarded communion wafer by dissolving it in holy water as mandated by church policy. Instead, in a few days it had become stringy and fleshlike, seeming to many parishioners to confirm the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. This holds that the consecrated wafer and wine of holy communion are not merely symbolic, as most Protestants believe, but actually become the body and blood of Christ.

Archdiocesan authorities responded with caution, predicting "a scientific, naturalistic explanation" for the phenomenon and commissioning a medical school professor of biochemistry to test samples of the substance.

After a week of analysis the scientists reported that "no human cellular morphology or structure was seen," only "mold or fungus." At least one church member was undaunted. She told reporters, "to me it was a miracle."

-Joe Nickell

Feedback | Reverse links for this page | Translate this page