Narconon's Publications Fraud

On Narconon's detoxacademy.org web site one can find the following paper citation:
Treatment of Children with the Detoxification Method Developed by Hubbard. Presentation at the 123rd Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (1995).

Click here to read this document.

However, if one actually looks at the paper, one finds a significantly different citation:

The "Proceedings..." caption implies that this eight page paper was actually published in the conference proceedings. The problem is that there is no published proceedings for this conference! Two employees at the American Public Health Association confirmed that the only submissions to this meeting are 250 word abstracts, and the abstract is the only thing printed and distributed to attendees.

So not only was this paper not peer reviewed (no one at APHA laid eyes on it), it wasn't even published! At least not by APHA, as the caption claims.

Once again, Narconon proves themselves to be liars and frauds.

The paper also happens to be a piece of garbage, as skillfully pointed out by Mike O'Connor here.

The paper gives no citation for the "Hubbard method". But another document on the same web site sheds light on the matter. This is a report to FASE, another Scientology front group, from a bunch of Scientology-affiliated doctors who did a study of the "Hubbard method" of detoxification. (Gene Denk was at one point Hubbard's personal physician.) Where does this "Hubbard method" come from? Well, let's look at the reference they cite for it, which appears in the bibliography on p.12 of the paper:

Hubbard, L. Ron.: The Technical Bulletins - Volume 12. Los Angeles. Bridge Publications, Inc. 1980. pp. 163-181
This is deliberately obscure and misleading. What are "The Technical Bulletins"? Surprise: the full name of this volume is "The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology". So Megan Shields and her colleagues were testing a "method" that was taken directly from Scientology's core body of sacred scripture! Here is the first page of the material cited:

			 HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
		    Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

		       HCO BULLETIN OF 6 FEBRUARY 1978RA
Remimeo 		     REVISED 16 MARCH 1978
			  RE-REVISED 4 DECEMBER 1979

		     (Cancels: HCOB 6 Feb 78R-1 Addition of
		     16 Mar 78, "LSD and the Sweat Program --
		     Addition"; HCOB 30 Apr 78, "The Sweat
		     Program Further Data." Re-revises and
		     re-titles the original bulletin of this
		     date, "LSD and the Sweat Program.")

	       (Revisions not printed in a different type style)

			   THE PURIFICATION RUNDOWN
			  REPLACES THE SWEAT PROGRAM

	       Refs:   HCOB  5 Nov 74	 DRUGS, MORE ABOUT
		       HCOB 31 May 77	 LSD
		       HCOB 25 Oct 71	 DRUG DRYING OUT
		       HCOB  2 Jun 71	 Study Series 2
			      Issue I	 CONFRONTING

     (This issue has been revised to incorporate data from recent research
     into the progress of cases in view of the current environmental and drug
     scene, and to give the full steps of the new Purification Rundown.)

     (The Purification Rundown does not supplant technology developed and in
     use especially in Narconon for persons currently on drugs and apt to
     experience withdrawal symptoms when taken off of them. The rundown would
     be begun only after such technology was applied.)

     (While it is being published now as a holding action until the
     Purification Rundown is issued as an individual package, this issue does
     contain the rundown as it has been piloted.)

     (We are not concerned with handling bodies with the Purification Rundown.
     Our concern is freeing the individual up spiritually, The only dosages
     recommended are those classified as food. There are no medical
     recommendations or claims for it. The only claim is future spiritual
     improvement.)

     (This data is released as a record of researches and results noted. It
     cannot be construed as a recommendation of medical treatment or
     medication and it is undertaken or delivered by anyone on his own
     responsibility. I receive no percentage of fees for administering this
     rundown and my development of it is a contribution and gift to my
     friends.)

     Glossary: Any words you find in this HCOB which you do not understand can
be found in a normal dictionary or in the Dianetics and Scientology Technical
Dictionary or are explained in the following text.

     The planet has hit a barrier that prevents widespread clearing -- drugs
and biochemical substances. These can put beings in a condition that can
prevent case gain.

     That's the situation today.

				      163

This Scientology bulletin contains some real howlers. For example, from page 172: 

  "Niacin's biochemical reaction is my private, personal discovery. In
  the middle of the 1950s, I was doing work on radiation and I worked
  out that it must be niacin that operated on radiation. I was
  recently told by a doctor that Dianazene formula of that time is
  remarkably workable today."

Dianazene is some junk Hubbard invented that's supposed to run radiation out of the body. And here's another good one from the same page:

  "In 1973 someone got a Nobel Prize for curing insanity with niacin,
  but it was fairly marked that he didn't know the facts of what was
  actually happening because it was then promptly abandoned as people
  found that prolonged quantities of niacin "gave very bad side
  effects."

The 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was actually awarded to Karl von Frisch , Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, "for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns." Nothing to do with niacin.

This garbage is what Narconon's so-called "scientific research" is based on. Hubbard's book Clear Body, Clear Mind, which offers a secular version of the Purif, came out a little bit later, but it is based on this bit of Scientology religious scripture.

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Dave Touretzky
Last modified: Wed Apr 25 23:00:05 EDT 2007