A Scientist Keeps Claiming His Life Force Can Somehow Kill Cancer Cells

, And Researchers Are Calling Him Out

When Elisabeth Bik came across a series of research approximately a new cancer-preventing method, referred to as “YXQ-EQ,” they sounded valid at first. A few of the scientists in the back of the research were associated with Harvard University, and their paintings had federal research investment.

But what, precisely, turned into YXQ-EQ?

The answer, Bik in the end decided, turned into this: A researcher takes cancer cells right into a locked room and does…something. When he brings them back out, they’re useless. That’s as particular as these research seem to have ever gotten in explaining YXQ-EQ, in line with Bik, an independent technology integrity consultant with a microbiology heritage. In a viral Twitter thread ultimate week, Bik criticized a minimum of seven of those studies for failing to transparently describe the remedy they have been testing, mostly on various most cancers cells. She also requested the educational establishments of the scientists concerned and the journals that published their work to investigate the problem.

Only after retracing the dense footnotes in these papers did Bik discover that “YXQ-EQ” is outwardly an acronym that refers to the “external Qi” and “Qigong” of scientist Yan Xin. In the Chinese way of life, Qi is the existence force believed to exist in the whole lot, and Qigong is a gadget of movement, breathing, and meditation believed to boost health. According to what seems to be the lone 2004 take a look at that spells out the “YXQ-EQ” method, it turns out that the treatment includes Yan status alone in a room and emitting his Qi toward a group of lab-grown rat eye cells. Yan seems to be the best scientist who has ever executed this method. He is likewise the handiest scientist on all the papers in question, which, apart from the 2004 look at, involve deploying the method on a ramification of cancer cells.

Bik stated that her purpose isn’t to mock conventional Chinese medicinal drugs. “But if one unmarried researcher claims that he — and simplest he — can use Qi to kill off cancer cells, he ought to be inclined to share how they do this,” she argued on Twitter. “If it takes place behind closed doorways, scientists have every cause to be suspicious.”
“If it happens at the back of closed doors, scientists have each cause to be suspicious.” James Heathers, a research scientist at Northeastern University, acknowledged for calling out inconsistencies in medical information, stated the issues raised using Bik seemed “very unusual.”

“People say humorous matters on the net all the time, and a number of this is in studies and of little or no result,” he told BuzzFeed News. “But if they’re doing it on authorities’ profits, or if they’re doing it at an institution that prides itself on its capacity to take technological know-how seriously, it’s a particular tale.” On his internet site, Yan describes himself as a so-called miracle health practitioner in China who, since the 1980s, has been analyzing how to project Qi out of the body and “affect physical materials and items.” He claims his “experiments in lifestyles technological know-how and bodily sciences provide the first concrete clinical corroboration for the clinical exploration of Traditional Chinese Qigong.” Yan did not reply to a request for comment. A query to his group, the Chongqing Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Chongqing, China, became now not again through press time.

From 2004 to 2018, Yan and a rotating solid of different scientists posted as a minimum of seven studies approximately outside Qi, ordinarily about its seemingly toxic consequences on most cancers cells. A spokesperson for the publisher of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, which featured Yan’s papers, declined to remark beyond pronouncing that it appears into all concerns raised. The editor of Cell Physiology and Biochemistry, who posted three of Yan’s papers, said he had asked the authors for rationalization. He additionally mentioned that those papers stated preceding studies for the description of YXQ-EQ.

Two different journals that revealed Yan’s paintings — International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology and Brain Research, which published his unique 2004 paper — did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ questions about whether or not they planned to analyze the studies. Two of Yan’s maximum frequent coauthors in the United States — neurologist Dan Hu of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Xin-Qi Wu, a medical researcher on the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — did no longer return requests comment either. A studies integrity officer for Dana-Farber stated the institute “will evaluate this be counted constant with relevant regulations,” and a health facility spokesperson said that any evaluation of studies worries is personal. Both institutions are affiliated with Harvard.

In Bik’s view, her hollow rabbit research discovered critical flaws inside the machine supposed to make certain technology obvious. “Seven units of peer-reviewers and editors who have been no longer doing their jobs,” she tweeted. Also, as Bik noted, a number of the studies renowned investments from the National Institutes of Health. The dozens of federal offers indexed total as a minimum of $31 million, in step with the company’s website. It is doubtful how an awful lot of the money, which included large grants that spanned a couple of projects, sincerely funded the outside Qi experiments. At least a few amounts went to different costs related to the undertaking, consistent with Michael Centola, a researcher worried with one of the studies.

An NIH spokesperson stated the agency does not speak ongoing audits of offers, or courses as a consequence of offers, to make certain that they may be meeting necessities. Bik first discovered approximately the outside Qi studies when an “involved reader” got in contact. Starting with the most current paper, she searched for an in-depth description of “external Qi of Yan Xin Qigong (YXQ-EQ),” which, as the textual content placed it, was believed to have a “cytotoxic impact” on lung cancer cells. The best other element turned into that it lasted 5 minutes.

Dissatisfied, she combed via the references and observed extra research approximately YXQ-EQ’s effects on other types of cancer cells. None described what the approach surely entailed. Finally, she discovered a reference to a 2004 paper that laid out the approach. Cells were installed in a room, it says, and the remedy consisted of “emitting outside Qi from Dr. Yan Xin toward the neuronal tradition” 10 mins at a time. During this procedure, “the door changed into locked so no person should input into the room while outside Qi becomes being emitted.”