Is Scientology breaking the law?

Allegations of practicing medicine without a license by Scientology

Excerpted from http://www.scientology-lies.com/re.cgi?http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/mystory/kim03.txt . Please see that page for the full text.

Emphasis added in red . Editorial comments, when added, are in purple .


MY EXPERIENCE OF THE PURIFICATION RUNDOWN:

Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
From: Kim Baker
Subject: MY STORY : PART 3
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 09:45:24 GMT

Having signed my 5 year contract, and full of enthusiasm to "save the planet", I went into Cape Town Org the following evening. G told me that my first step was the Purif. (Purification Rundown, an excersize, vitamin and sauna program designed to flush out drugs and radiation from the body). I was a bit skeptical about this - how did this address spiritual issues? G explained that spiritual progress was impeded by residue drugs and radiation. I bought it (in both senses of the word, it cost me R1500).

My ex left for Johannesburg for 3 weeks to complete a work project. Two nights later, after a medical check-up by a specifed doctor, I arrived to begin the Purif. I was given a vast quantity of vitamins, including niacin, and told to go jogging until I felt a prickly sensation. I did this, and then returned. G was waiting for me, and said : "Right. You are the new HAS."

"The WHAT?"

"HAS - Hubbard Area Secretary. Read this - it's a Hat write-up (job description) - while you're in the sauna. Spend at least 4 hours in the sauna , and come out when you're feeling good - take water and salt."

Somewhat overwhelmed, I trundled off to the sauna, and started reading my Hat write-up. I didn't understand a word of it. Jargon and terms everywhere. I started feeling panicky as a result. Five hours later, I still didn't "feel good", but gave up and went home .

The following night I returned, and continued the program. When in the sauna , I was still trying to make sense of the "Hat write-up" when I started feeling dizzy. I took water and salt. And then I passed out. I was told that I was in the sauna like that for an hour. I "came to" with a lot of shouting and someone hosing me down with water - I remember the panic on the faces of the staff. Clearly something had gone badly wrong. The next day, people at my place of employment remarked on how pale I was, and I felt shaky the whole day.

I returned to the Org that night and stated my reluctance to continue the program. Eventually, I agreed to continue on the understanding that they would check on me regularly to see that something like that did not occur again. I continued for another 5 nights, and nothing much happened. They attested me (a declaration, made on the e-meter that you have completed a Scn course or program), and asked me to write a success story. I didn't want to, but they said that I had to if I wanted to attest to completion, so I wrote down something about "feeling cleaned up", and that was the end of the Purif.

ABOUT THE PURIF:

I am not a doctor, or a scientist, so I am not going to attempt a scientific study here - others have addressed this issue more adequately than I can. However, to my non-scientific mind, the whole credibility of the Purif rests on the premise that Niacin flushes out radiation and drugs.

Niacin is nicotinic acid - a vitamin of the B group, which is prepared SYNTHETICALLY in a process that includes the oxidation of nicotine. The toxic effect is the DILATION OF THE VEINS, and this leads to hot flushes - high dosages also lead to abdominal cramps, tiredness and skin blemishes.

Hubbard had this to say about niacin:

"Niacin's biochemical reaction is my own, private, personal discovery. In the middle of the 1950's I was doing work on radiation, and I worked out that it must be niacin that operated on radiation...Niacin runs out radiation. The outpoint in medical thinking has been that they thought Niacin itself turned on a flush. Niacin all by its lonesome does not turn on any flush. What it starts to do is immediately run out sunburn or radiation. "

- From HCOB 1978RB, reissued 31 July 1985, "The Purification Rundown replaces the sweat program."

Hubbard is asserting here that medical science is incorrect in thinking that niacin caused the skin to flush. He states, instead, that the flush is caused by niacin "running out", or getting rid of, sunburn or radiation. He offers no research to back this up. As Kim Baker points out, this is the whole basis of the Purification Rundown - an assertion contrary to medical research, made without any scientific basis, but asserted as if it had been properly researched.

 

QUESTIONS:

No-where in this, or other bulletins does Hubbard explain exactly HOW he reached this conclusion - he tells us "he worked it out", but HOW? Where is the evidence and proof of this? I am willing to bet that if you gave someone niacin, who had NEVER been exposed to radiation, they would still turn on a flush, by the mere fact that their veins had been dilated. Also, the fact that something DID go wrong with my particular program, even though it was "off-policy" (not a correct application of Hubbard's policy) raises this question: how can amateurs be allowed to administer this program? Why are there no safety precautions? Who is to say that this program is "safe"? Hubbard, who was neither a doctor, a biochemist nor a scientist, is the sole author of this program. Apparently doctors scrutinised the program, and found it to be rigorous, but not harmful. But again, in the hands of unqualified personnel......

Kim Baker

This page was last updated on May 8, 1999.