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Faith healer’s prison term extended

A ‘faith-healer’ who operated from Leicester, England, has had his nine-year prison sentence extended by five years as he has not paid back £613,500 conned from his victims. ‘However, the extension to Mohammed Ashrafi’s sentence could be cut if he pays back the missing cash. Ashrafi (51) was found guilty last year of 14 counts of fraud involving 18 victims, by falsely claiming that in return for payments for materials required for prayer, they would win the lottery, between January and April 2014. He called himself Kamal-Ji, and purported to be in spiritual contact with an Indian Saint, Sai Baba, with special powers to solve problems and financial difficulties.’

‘Alternative cancer treatments waste of precious time’

Dutch newspaper Trouw featured an article critical of alternative cancer therapies today, which highlights that unreliable anecdotal stories are easily found online, and omit the dark side of unproven treatments. It refers to a case in Skepter (magazine of Stichting Skepsis) where a woman, Willeke, died of breastcancer after having visited multiple naturopaths, who all claimed her worsening condition proved the treatments were working.

Frits van Dam at the 2014 VtdK symposium. (Vera de Kok CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Frits van Dam, secretary of the Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (VtdK, Dutch Society against Quackery), points out that many of these treatments (Trouw mentions faith healing, bioresonance, mistletoe, an exotic worm called Fasciolopsis buskii, the Moerman and Houtsmuller diets, herbal supplements etc.) may often just be ineffective and not harmful in themselves. But they do waste cancer patients’ precious time (and money), in which they could have gotten a regular treatment, recovered and survived. Many alternative treatments may however be even more dangerous than the cancer itself, as evidenced by patients who died at the hands of Tullio Simoncini’s salt solutions or Klaus Ross’ glucose injections.

Here she talks to horses

In a tv interview the norwegian princess claims to communicate with horses. Having previously competed in showjumping on a high level, the princess has started to dabble in pseudoscience.

She also claims to communicate with angels, offers courses for communicating with angels, animals or simple healing.

She and her associate have also collaborated with Lisa Williams.