Scientology Clinic Under Fire

I've written here before about the New York City firefighters who worked in the ruins of the World Trade Center seeking relief and emotional counseling in a medical clinic that's actually a front Scientology, peddling pseudoscience about mental and physical health. Critics continue to complain, not that anyone seems to care about whether the clinic is involved with science or pseudoscience.

The New York Daily News reports:

[T]he Fire Department has no use for Downtown Medical and its disputed detoxification program. FDNY officials are concerned that many of the 120 firefighters who sought help at the clinic stopped using inhalers and medications prescribed by department doctors. Fire officials also say the department has no proof that the clinic's regimen of moderate exercise, vitamins and saunas removes toxins from the body.

"Our doctors went down there and checked it out," said Deputy Commissioner Frank Gribbon. "Their opinion was this was not a detoxification program. We don't endorse it." This month, the city's largest firefighters union yanked its support of Downtown Medical. ... Clinic officials said they will have the regimen peer-reviewed, but added such research takes time. [Jim Woodworth, director of Downtown Medical] argued it would be unfair to deny the firefighters treatments until the research is complete. He insisted existing data prove the regimen works.

This entire "detoxification" program is unsupported by objective, peer-reviewed medical evidence - and so people like Woodworth try to claim that it would be "unfair" to wait until the evidence comes in. Of course, it's only "unfair" if the treatments work, not if they are quackery, and that's what we need to evidence in order to find out. Scientology wants to be considered a religion, but when it comes to getting others to apply their beliefs, they want it to be a science instead. Either they can't make up their minds, or they are trying to fleece people in as many different ways as they think they get away with.

Read More:

• Scientology: Basics
• Scientology: American Critiques
• Scientology: L. Ron Hubbard