In my years as a reporter covering health stories, I thought I’d seen it all. But nothing compares to my investigation into the latest “miracle” machine that is sweeping Canada.
It’s called the EPFX —Electro Physiological Feedback Xrroid. You can find it in alternative health care clinics, chiropractor and massage therapists. A session costs up to $200.
To buy the machine and start operating as an EPFX practitioner costs about $20,000 — not exactly chump change. The company’s inventor claims he’s selling about 40 devices a month in Canada (do the math — that’s $800,000 a month).
The device is hooked up to a patient with straps that wrap around the ankles, wrists, and forehead. The device supposedly reads the body’s reactivity to various frequencies, and then sends back other frequencies to make changes in the body.
Sound complicated? We thought so, too. But when we asked practitioners to explain it, they said it was too hard for anyone but the inventor to understand. We heard what practitioners promise the EPFX can do — and the claims are amazing. Not only can the device treat AIDS and Parkinson’s, some tell us it has made cancer disappear.
That’s what Karen McBeth hoped when she bought an EPFX to treat her bone cancer. The Seattle woman shelled out almost $20,000 after being told the device would heal her. Sadly, it didn’t, and McBeth died.
In North America, the EPFX is only licensed as a biofeedback device for stress reduction.
Practitioners aren’t allowed to claim it cures disease — because there’s no scientific proof that it does.
But that doesn’t stop practitioners from singing its praises.
So we travelled to Hungary, to talk to inventor Bill Nelson. When we met, he was dressed as his female alter-ego, Desire Dubounet. Nelson says he’s part female. And he made some pretty outrageous claims.
Nelson talked to us about a study he did on 7,000 cancer patients. After a few sessions on his medical device, he claimed that 2,000 people didn’t have cancer anymore.
Hard to believe? It should be.
We asked for studies to back up claims about this miracle machine, but the inventor couldn’t provide a single study that would stand up to scientific scrutiny.
And still, vulnerable people are buying in. And Health Canada is allowing the machine to be marketed to reduce stress — as a biofeedback device — so no one’s clamping down on false claims, while sales continue to grow.
