Posted by I recently listened to a true crime podcast (for the German speakers among you, it’s called Mordlust), and I had a weird deja-vu, (or is it deja-entendu, if it is for listening?). The case was about Ryke Geerd Hamer, a German self-styled miracle healer, who literally left bodies in his wake, destroyed families (and their finances) and, as if that’s not enough, promulgated anti-semitic and racist conspiracy theories.
A doctor by training, he came up with his own kooky health system that he named “Germanic New Medicine” (Germanische Neue Medizin), postulating that any cancer, or disease is the result of either a traumatic/shock experience and/or a conflict in one’s life that needs to be confronted and resolved. Over the years, he built up a network of private clinics where people were treated and told to reject chemotherapy and other pharmaceutical interventions.
He rose to fame/notoriety in the mid 1990’s with the case of then eight-year old Olivia Pilhar. She had a fairly treatable tumor, but her parents refused chemotherapy, instead opting for his treatments. After a lot of back and forth, the Austrian government decided to temporarily remove their parental rights, so that she could receive treatment and surgery. In a dramatic escape to Spain, the parents and Hamer tried to win the public to their side, a move that backfired when they presented the young girl, visibly in pain, her belly bulging from the soccer-ball-sized tumor, to the media. In the end, the parents agreed to the treatment, and young Olivia survived. Hamer escaped the authorities to Norway, where he continued to disseminate his crude theories until his death in 2017. Journalist Krista Federspiel, who has written extensively about the man and his victims, estimates that around 500 people have died from his “treatments” (or lack thereof!).
As I was listening, I was outraged, and then I realized why it all sounded so familiar: Around that time, an acquaintance of my parents was obsessed with the idea of getting me to be treated by him! I was, of course, pretty young, 12 or 13 years old, but old enough to be not really interested. I was lucky that I had a good pediatric gastroenterologist and that my parents are not easily impressed and protected me. But I remember, every time, every time we happened to see this woman, she brought up Hamer. My parents and I joked about him being her “guru,” now looking back, we were right! I saw her once after the Olivia Pilhar case and asked her about it. She vigorously shook her head, “no, no” she started to lecture, “the media has a vested interest to make him look bad,” and that the story was completely different. The irony here is, that the media had previously done the absolute opposite. Over the years, he had frequented TV talk shows, and was often uncritically presented as a viable alternative to “standard medicine,” giving speeches, and doing whatever he could to grow the audience for his con-artistry.
I had not seen that woman again and had completely forgotten about her until the podcast. Too many miracle cures and treatments have been suggested to me and my family over the years. But it made me wonder: how do these people find their victims? I think part of it may be that they exploit certain ambiguities. As in, we know that stress, conflict, and trauma can have physical responses; we know that certain herbs have medical properties. And we know that science is an ever-evolving project- and constantly re-evaluates findings, improves and/or treatments, keeps researching. So, there could be the possibility that treatment X will cure you from disease Y, right? Without pretending to be a statistician, there is also the possibility that you win the lottery, but the likelihood of that happening? It’s not zero, people will say, and that is where con artists and miracle healers seize their opportunity.
They prey on fears and vulnerabilities. No one likes to see their loved ones in pain. Chemotherapy, radiation treatments, surgeries, high doses of prednisone, infusion treatments, and in some cases, prolonged use of opioid painkillers are scary prospects. Wouldn’t a more natural, gentler approach be better, they suggest? But the reason for the severity of the treatment is that they are proportional to the disease they are targeting. More than that, the discourse on what is “natural” is flawed, “natural” does not always mean gentle. For what it’s worth, Ricin is “natural” too, but nobody would associate the word “gentle” or “without side-effects” with it.
But, I don’t want to sound like I am victim-blaming. From everything that I have read, Hamer, like so many other charlatans, must have been incredibly charismatic, using his personal tragedy (both his wife and son died) to give him an air of authenticity, and to connect with his victims. Who knows anymore, maybe he actually believed in his theory- the best lies are those we tell ourselves, no?
In any case, even with him gone, there are many, many more like him out there, and I hope you will never cross their paths.
The Morbus Crohnicles 