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U. S. Department of Defense studying Church of Scientology Purification Rundown

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
Shamans on the movies always throw 'magic powders' on the fire that make coloured sparkles and the ignorant 'natives' take it as proof that there heap big magic going on. Niacin does the same thing. You feel some kind of sparkling process happening and you are told that the body is running out radiation and you feel relief and because of regular exercise taking in good oils and resting four hours a day, cleaning your skin by sweating all this makes you feel and look good despite the toxic levels of vitamins. I doubt very much that the idea was Hubbard's anyway. He stole it from someone, that's almost certain.

If Gulf War Syndrome is as like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as I've heard then it will be nearly impossible to get the body through the half hour run which you need to do before the sauna starts.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
Not sure what the above comment is addressing. I may be missing something.....:confused2:

I was just noting the Sep 2012 annual report to the DOD (normal reporting for grants) which stated that after several road blocks and extensive protocol/consent revision, they finally had Chesapeake IRB (an independent IRB) approval and the concurrence of the IRBs from the three universities involved (the University at Albany, the University of Toronto and Sage Colleges). Since this took them to the end of the first year of the grant, that must have been quite a ride. I have never had a protocol take that kind of time with multiple study sites, so can only imagine what took so long.

At the end of the first year, they still needed to get final review by the DOD, which must have taken another year (maybe due to sequester? or due to the requested no cost extension mentioned in the report? or because the DOD still had issues with the protocol?>>who knows) because as of Sep 2013, they were 2 years into the grant, and the Clinicaltrials.gov site was updated in Jan 2014 to change the status to "recruiting" and change the start date to Jan 2014.

The change history is available for all changes made to the clinicaltrials.gov site is helpful to glen some info, but the annual reports they have to submit to the DOD for the grant progress and eventually the clinical study data and report will be the most interesting.

I was noting 2 things. One, they had to go through 3 IRBs, all of whom bought into this shit. The second was that this was not being done in Albany, which is odd. A Scilon business in MD makes a lot of sense, if true.
 

JBWriter

Happy Sapien
To help avoid/avert confusion, if this discussion continues here, it might help to better understand an oft-used phrase. :)

Here's the Wiki page about Gulf War Syndrome (GWS): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome

As you'll see, this term was initially used to describe the ill-health symptoms experienced by soldiers who participated in the 1991 Gulf War.
Physicians (military and civilian) were still trying to 'get their act together' about how best to treat these people when US-led military conflicts occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Soldiers who were stationed in these two countries and experienced ill-health symptoms were initially categorized as having GWS and treated with GWS-learned medical protocols, but physicians learned fairly quickly that the symptoms from the later 2 groups didn't exactly fit the existing definitions/treatment protocols.

More recently, physicians realized that the symptoms and illnesses reported by soldiers stationed in Afghanistan differ from those stationed in Iraq. What makes the task of separating the differences more difficult however, is that many soldiers were stationed in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
What makes the task most difficult, though, is that a majority of soldiers served multiple tours of duty in one or both places.
Ex.: Did Soldier X develop lung infections in Afghanistan, but only during his/her second tour, a time period when we see lung infections spike? Or did the lung infections develop because s/he already was diagnosed with early-stage COPD* during his/her tour in Iraq?

There exists true distinction between people who served in/around 1991 as having the GWS diagnosis, and those who, most unfortunately, came later.

At this point in time, using the term GWS as an umbrella term to discuss this awful topic on ESMB is reasonable enough. But when reading the US Army-generated bulletins, DoD policies, and other GWS-related medical literature, please note that in some documents GWS only means the 1991 group, not those who served later or in different places.
The US soldiers who served in Afghanistan and/or Iraq, along with their military and civilian physicians, don't all agree that GWS is the proper term for the illnesses from which they suffer. With so many overlapping ill-health symptoms reported by so many soldiers it's extremely challenging to all directly concerned, which almost guarantees that it's near-impossible for those not directly concerned.
What remains true, however, is that every reasonable person wants these people returned to good health. :)

By way of simple comparison, those here who were involved with the Los Angeles sea org in the 1970's have entirely different recollections than those who were in the Australian sea org in the 1990's.

Here's a single-post thread that will also help to better understand a portion of this topic: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?34019-Book-Recommendations&p=879891&viewfull=1#post879891 It's a very long post, but if you read it all and then think a 'purif' will help in any way, please let me know.

JB (*COPD = Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
To help avoid/avert confusion, if this discussion continues here, it might help to better understand an oft-used phrase. :)

Here's the Wiki page about Gulf War Syndrome (GWS): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome

As you'll see, this term was initially used to describe the ill-health symptoms experienced by soldiers who participated in the 1991 Gulf War.
Physicians (military and civilian) were still trying to 'get their act together' about how best to treat these people when US-led military conflicts occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Soldiers who were stationed in these two countries and experienced ill-health symptoms were initially categorized as having GWS and treated with GWS-learned medical protocols, but physicians learned fairly quickly that the symptoms from the later 2 groups didn't exactly fit the existing definitions/treatment protocols.

More recently, physicians realized that the symptoms and illnesses reported by soldiers stationed in Afghanistan differ from those stationed in Iraq. What makes the task of separating the differences more difficult however, is that many soldiers were stationed in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
What makes the task most difficult, though, is that a majority of soldiers served multiple tours of duty in one or both places.
Ex.: Did Soldier X develop lung infections in Afghanistan, but only during his/her second tour, a time period when we see lung infections spike? Or did the lung infections develop because s/he already was diagnosed with early-stage COPD* during his/her tour in Iraq?

There exists true distinction between people who served in/around 1991 as having the GWS diagnosis, and those who, most unfortunately, came later.

At this point in time, using the term GWS as an umbrella term to discuss this awful topic on ESMB is reasonable enough. But when reading the US Army-generated bulletins, DoD policies, and other GWS-related medical literature, please note that in some documents GWS only means the 1991 group, not those who served later or in different places.
The US soldiers who served in Afghanistan and/or Iraq, along with their military and civilian physicians, don't all agree that GWS is the proper term for the illnesses from which they suffer. With so many overlapping ill-health symptoms reported by so many soldiers it's extremely challenging to all directly concerned, which almost guarantees that it's near-impossible for those not directly concerned.
What remains true, however, is that every reasonable person wants these people returned to good health. :)

By way of simple comparison, those here who were involved with the Los Angeles sea org in the 1970's have entirely different recollections than those who were in the Australian sea org in the 1990's.

Here's a single-post thread that will also help to better understand a portion of this topic: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?34019-Book-Recommendations&p=879891&viewfull=1#post879891 It's a very long post, but if you read it all and then think a 'purif' will help in any way, please let me know.

JB (*COPD = Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)

War, it seems, is something that effects soldiers. It seems to me that it's not just the many thousands of innocent citizens that have their doors kicked in by strangers before being shot with nice modern weapons that suffer. Soldiers suffer if only because they are day and night on high alert. The fight or flight area of the brain gets stuck in panic mode and the immune system is working at full blast. Hardly surprising when any car you go past could be full of explosives, when anyone walking towards you with a hand outstretched in greeting could have a bomb strapped to his chest. Years after they return from war it's best not to tap a soldier on the shoulder from behind, it can be fatal. It's the same as chronic fatigue syndrome and it's sister fibromyalgia. There are about 11 types of CFS, no case is identical. PTSD and Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Gulf War Syndrome all overlap, too much stress for too long and possible viral or even parasitic infection as in Lyme Disease. The purif will not relieve the problem. Scientology causes stress it does not take it away.
 

JBWriter

Happy Sapien
War, it seems, is something that effects soldiers. It seems to me that it's not just the many thousands of innocent citizens that have their doors kicked in by strangers before being shot with nice modern weapons that suffer. Soldiers suffer if only because they are day and night on high alert. The fight or flight area of the brain gets stuck in panic mode and the immune system is working at full blast. Hardly surprising when any car you go past could be full of explosives, when anyone walking towards you with a hand outstretched in greeting could have a bomb strapped to his chest. Years after they return from war it's best not to tap a soldier on the shoulder from behind, it can be fatal. It's the same as chronic fatigue syndrome and it's sister fibromyalgia. There are about 11 types of CFS, no case is identical. PTSD and Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Gulf War Syndrome all overlap, too much stress for too long and possible viral or even parasitic infection as in Lyme Disease. The purif will not relieve the problem. Scientology causes stress it does not take it away.

I don't disagree with anything you've posted above, LaLaLouLou. :)

The individual diagnoses you've listed above do indeed share (too many) symptoms and, as a result of the overlapping, the risk of misdiagnosing (and double-diagnosing) someone is increased.

Here's a link which, when you click on Ring Of Fire, directs to a long, but informative blog article of interest: http://longform.org/posts/ring-of-fire While this article focuses on the effects experienced by soldiers, basic common sense informs that those people who actually live nearby - local civilians - probably suffer worse. It's not an easy article to read and I urge anyone who chooses to do so to take care as it's quite chilling.

GWS - whether as applied only to 1991 soldiers or also those who came later - cannot yet be attributed to any one event that happened in one place. Did the inhalation of poisonous gases produced by simple trash burning cause all 28 symptoms of Soldier X, or did it only cause 4? No one yet knows.
That's the main problem -- correctly identifying the event that caused the symptom.
One person + too many causal events/exposures + too many symptoms = multiple diagnoses.
Multiple diagnoses lead to conflicting treatment regimens.
Conflicting treatment regimens can lead to no health improvement/symptom reduction.

IMO, the 'purif' regimen will neither alleviate suffering caused by illness, nor improve anyone's physical health.

JB
 

shadow

Patron with Honors
I have never designed such a study but I don't see adequate testing or controls or evaluation of Niacin (the claimed Key to the detox program itself).

If this study is going forward is the liver being adequately monitored? (as I have heard that there is risk to it from such high doses of Niacin)

This study should have not been funded because it is based on an unsound theory that toxins remaining in the body from the gulf war in the '90s is the single thing responsible for this syndrome (not likely the case), and that these supposed toxins can remove by sweating (when the liver is by far the organ most responsible for this function, with the kidneys playing the part of dumping the metabolites). There are known risks with the large niacin doses and saunas are not safe for people with many conditions, so basically this study has not balanced risk with potential benefit properly.

This is a pilot study so is not blinded, but it has a control group which will have standard care while the test subjects go through the program, then the controls will go through the program (cross-over study). I am hoping that with reviews by the DOD, an independent IRB and 3 institutional IRBs, there are adequate safety measures. I said adequate, because the only safe way to do this program is to not do it.

The exclusion criteria on the clinicaltrials.gov site are: "Veterans who meet the inclusion criteria but have been diagnosed by a physician with (1) chronic conditions (eg., cancer, heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, multiple sclerosis, etc.) that are not associated with Gulf War service but can produce diverse symptoms similar to Gulf War Illness; (2) conditions that might interfere with respondents' ability to report symptoms (eg., psychiatric conditions or history of hospitalization for depression, alcohol or drug dependence; (3) pregnancy or unwillingness to use contraception." There will be a more detailed list in the protocol, and since there will be screening tests, it is likely that elevated liver enzymes will exclude some subjects (I hope so at least). Also, the consent should have a pretty comprehensive list of the risks, but I am concerned the risks will be played down because of investigator bias.

Before the study, after the 4-6 weeks of sauna, and 3 months later, these subjects will be tested with blood tests [comprehensive metabolic panel (electrolytes and enzymes such as liver, heart, ext), lipid panel, complete blood count with differential and thyroid panel], cognitive tests and the ever nebulous quality of life measure. There may also be stopping rules, but they may or may not be well chosen.

THere are usually a whole set of rules guiding dosing of the main study med and with known issues of high dose niacin, there are likely a list of when to reduce niacin to reduce and manage side effects.
 

shadow

Patron with Honors
I was noting 2 things. One, they had to go through 3 IRBs, all of whom bought into this shit. The second was that this was not being done in Albany, which is odd. A Scilon business in MD makes a lot of sense, if true.

Ahhhh.... I get what you meant now. I was thinking that because it has had so much review and has taken so long, that safety points may have been better addressed than if this had been rushed into trial with a single review (by a possibly "friendly" IRB). Unfortunately, many trials seen as alt med, are not held to quite the same scrutiny and get approved without sound scientific rationale and with an imbalanced risk/benefit profile.
 

secretiveoldfag

Silver Meritorious Patron
My opinion is not worth two cents, admittedly, but I have read enough to worry me about Hubbard's Purif and this new scheme seems like yet another case of putting human volunteers at unnecessary and unjustifed risk.

I believe from what I have read that, far from being justified in terms of probable benefit, that the Purification Rundown (or any similar program involving oil, niacin and overexposure in a very hot sauna) is dangerous to people in normal health and very dangerous to people with health issues. One Chicago dentist is not a whole data bank but her liver damage was serious enough to make her ineligible for medical insurance (interviewed by Mark Bunker several years ago). And then of course there was the mysterious death of Conrad Agner in Germany; total and rapid system collapse can follow repeated episodes of hyperthermia.

Is there any published data from the program set up in NY City after 9/11 by Tom Cruise which everyone believed would help affected firemen? I have read that several hundred firemen died after (if not as a certain consequence of) their involvement with Ground Zero. Were those who died already Purified or was the program set up after the most exposed had died? Scientology is capable of working that one out.

And HOW MUCH are local Scilons being paid for perpetrating this scam?
 

Lermanet_com

Gold Meritorious Patron
Yeah, didn't finish the thread on WWP before I posted. This is a real trial (the only acceptable evidence is clinicaltrials.gov):

ArmsAssigned Interventions
Experimental: Hubbard detoxification programDaily mild-moderate exercise for 20 minutes, intermittent Finnish saunas at 140'F for approximately 4 hours, dietary supplements including immediate release niacin in gradually increasing doses perHubbard protocol.
Other: Hubbard detoxification programA four to six week regimen consisting of daily, supervised, mild-moderate exercise as tolerated for 20 minutes, supervised, intermittent Finnish saunas (at about 140'F) sauna time with breaks and showers, gradually increased as tolerated to approximately 4 hours, dietary supplements including immediate release niacin in gradually increasing doses from 100 mg to a maximum of 5000 mg per day, salt and water, other vitamins, minerals and oils per Hubbard protocol.

Holy shit I don't know how this got through the Institutional Review Board.

It is fully funded by the DoD, which really pisses me off on two levels. First, that Johnny-boy has the gall to ask for donations, and second that some shithead at the DoD was asleep at the wheel enough to give the go-ahead.

I know people at Albany. A lot of people. The IRB / ethics committee is going to hear about this.


Well, well, the results of this 'trial', if 'found' favorable, might be considered an admission that it really was D.I.A.netics along...
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
I don't disagree with anything you've posted above, LaLaLouLou. :)

The individual diagnoses you've listed above do indeed share (too many) symptoms and, as a result of the overlapping, the risk of misdiagnosing (and double-diagnosing) someone is increased.

Here's a link which, when you click on Ring Of Fire, directs to a long, but informative blog article of interest: http://longform.org/posts/ring-of-fire While this article focuses on the effects experienced by soldiers, basic common sense informs that those people who actually live nearby - local civilians - probably suffer worse. It's not an easy article to read and I urge anyone who chooses to do so to take care as it's quite chilling.

GWS - whether as applied only to 1991 soldiers or also those who came later - cannot yet be attributed to any one event that happened in one place. Did the inhalation of poisonous gases produced by simple trash burning cause all 28 symptoms of Soldier X, or did it only cause 4? No one yet knows.
That's the main problem -- correctly identifying the event that caused the symptom.
One person + too many causal events/exposures + too many symptoms = multiple diagnoses.
Multiple diagnoses lead to conflicting treatment regimens.
Conflicting treatment regimens can lead to no health improvement/symptom reduction.

IMO, the 'purif' regimen will neither alleviate suffering caused by illness, nor improve anyone's physical health.

JB
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic wanted nothing to do with diagnosing GWS, it would be expensive. Guns and Planes and Tanks and bullets were bad enough, guys coming home unable to move due to injuries was bad enough but thousands of guys unable to lead a proper life due to permanent exhaustion and a whole bag of varying symptoms should have put them off war for life. Unfortunately lessons were not learned, and someone had to do something to show that the mighty Capitalist Western Civilization was the boss and so we marched in to Iraq and Afghanistan and failed, how many lives have been destroyed to kill Osama Bin Laden and Sadam Hussein? All that and Afghanistan is producing more drugs than ever, sectarian violence is ripping Iraq apart. The Taliban are set to inherit not just Afghanistan but Pakistan too. Bush, Cheyne, Blair and Rumplestiltskin or whatever his name is are all war criminals that will never be tried. They earned too much from the war. The once free world is now a virtual police state with big brother checking our emails and phone calls.

The toxic fumes from toxic waste couldn't have helped anyone, but it's really living in continuous fear that causes the problem, isn't that why we're still here on this board?
 

JBWriter

Happy Sapien
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic wanted nothing to do with diagnosing GWS, it would be expensive. Guns and Planes and Tanks and bullets were bad enough, guys coming home unable to move due to injuries was bad enough but thousands of guys unable to lead a proper life due to permanent exhaustion and a whole bag of varying symptoms should have put them off war for life. Unfortunately lessons were not learned, and someone had to do something to show that the mighty Capitalist Western Civilization was the boss and so we marched in to Iraq and Afghanistan and failed, how many lives have been destroyed to kill Osama Bin Laden and Sadam Hussein? All that and Afghanistan is producing more drugs than ever, sectarian violence is ripping Iraq apart. The Taliban are set to inherit not just Afghanistan but Pakistan too. Bush, Cheyne, Blair and Rumplestiltskin or whatever his name is are all war criminals that will never be tried. They earned too much from the war. The once free world is now a virtual police state with big brother checking our emails and phone calls.

The toxic fumes from toxic waste couldn't have helped anyone, but it's really living in continuous fear that causes the problem, isn't that why we're still here on this board?

The various and broader issues you've raised above certainly have merit, but, with all due respect, I'll refrain from posting my own opinions/thoughts as to each one primarily because doing so won't benefit anyone here, LaLaLouLou.

Minor point: Is it okay to add that I don't think you intended to exclude females who've served by the use of "guys" above? :)
(I'm a 'never-in', so your final question as phrased isn't one I'm able to answer.)

JB
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
I got to say this is very good news. Here we have Hubbard's bogus claims being publicly tested. When it fails completely to do what Hubbard/Scientology claims it will be public knowledge. It will be proven to be bogus. Every Narconon in the world will be proven to be a fraud and a scam.

Good news! 4 to 6 weeks of trial and then Narconon is dead.
 
The description of the study is posted at http://www.albany.edu/ihe/gulf.htm

The study is taking place at Severna Park, a Narconon facility in Maryland. http://www.drug-detox-rehab.org/sta...yland_drug_detox_rehab_info~Severna+Park.html

The principal investigator is David O Carpenter, doesn't seem to be a $cilon - he could be the same David Carpenter that took the courses but it may be a common name. But his co-investigator is Kathleen Kerr, director of Narconon Canada.

The study design seems quite bogus. Both the "experimental" and "control" group get the purif, and get tested before and after. The only difference is that the "experimental" group gets the purif right away, while the "control" group has to wait 4-6 weeks before they start the purif. They also exclude people with psychiatric conditions.

I can't believe this got past peer review.
 
The study takes place at a Narconon facility… They can and will fake the data.

I got to say this is very good news. Here we have Hubbard's bogus claims being publicly tested. When it fails completely to do what Hubbard/Scientology claims it will be public knowledge. It will be proven to be bogus. Every Narconon in the world will be proven to be a fraud and a scam.

Good news! 4 to 6 weeks of trial and then Narconon is dead.
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
The various and broader issues you've raised above certainly have merit, but, with all due respect, I'll refrain from posting my own opinions/thoughts as to each one primarily because doing so won't benefit anyone here, LaLaLouLou.

Minor point: Is it okay to add that I don't think you intended to exclude females who've served by the use of "guys" above? :)
(I'm a 'never-in', so your final question as phrased isn't one I'm able to answer.)

JB

You're right, I don't want to derail the thread with politics or gender politics either. I was of course referring to everyone not just males, soldiers and nurses and and breakfast cooks can all be male or female or any mixture of the two, I tend to use guys in a genderless way.
 

The_Fixer

Class Clown
My opinion is not worth two cents, admittedly, but I have read enough to worry me about Hubbard's Purif and this new scheme seems like yet another case of putting human volunteers at unnecessary and unjustifed risk.

I believe from what I have read that, far from being justified in terms of probable benefit, that the Purification Rundown (or any similar program involving oil, niacin and overexposure in a very hot sauna) is dangerous to people in normal health and very dangerous to people with health issues. One Chicago dentist is not a whole data bank but her liver damage was serious enough to make her ineligible for medical insurance (interviewed by Mark Bunker several years ago). And then of course there was the mysterious death of Conrad Agner in Germany; total and rapid system collapse can follow repeated episodes of hyperthermia.

Is there any published data from the program set up in NY City after 9/11 by Tom Cruise which everyone believed would help affected firemen? I have read that several hundred firemen died after (if not as a certain consequence of) their involvement with Ground Zero. Were those who died already Purified or was the program set up after the most exposed had died? Scientology is capable of working that one out.

And HOW MUCH are local Scilons being paid for perpetrating this scam?

If I know the scilon mindset, these saps will by paying their own way with a considerable profit margin involved.
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
The study takes place at a Narconon facility… They can and will fake the data.
... From my experience with doing work in private companies funded by the government, the amount of logging, tracking, documentation is extreme. It is highly doubtful that Narconon could get away with faking data. If they tried, the repercussions would be pretty severe.

I could be wrong, but I don't think so. A government-funded study of Hubbard's "detox" will uncover the fraud.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
... From my experience with doing work in private companies funded by the government, the amount of logging, tracking, documentation is extreme. It is highly doubtful that Narconon could get away with faking data. If they tried, the repercussions would be pretty severe.

I could be wrong, but I don't think so. A government-funded study of Hubbard's "detox" will uncover the fraud.

The DoD paperwork only goes so far. The DoD inspectors do not regularly conduct audits of the individual medical records, and in the past this is the level at which fraud has occurred. Usually this is detected by comparing center against center, but this trial is being conducted at a single center, which is another reason I'm concerned.
 

Mick Wenlock

Admin Emeritus (retired)
This article contains the background information of how a Scientology front group, FASE, was involved in the Manhattan 9/11 TC detox program and approached one of the doctors who is now running the trial.

http://articles.philly.com/2007-10-07/news/25233591_1_dirty-work-scientology-detox


In the 1980s, Bruce Roe, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma, was asked to examine the rationale behind Narconon, a Scientology-linked drug-rehabilitation program that employs a similar detox protocol. After studying a stack of published material, Roe called the method "pure unadulterated cow pies."


It's "a scam," he said, based on "half-truths and pseudo-science" and "as medically valid as using copper bracelets to cure arthritis."


Keith Miller, president of FASE, the Los Angeles nonprofit that supports the Manhattan clinic, says his organization has long sought a partnership with other institutions to produce "an independent, university-based research study" of the detox program.


Indeed, one of the experts FASE approached is David Carpenter, a research physician whose professional focus is the effect of environmental contamination on human health.


After FASE contacted him, he twice applied for grants from the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the detox regimen, but was turned down both times. He is committed to trying again.


A professor of environmental health and toxicology, Carpenter is director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the State University of New York at Albany.


"I'm convinced the program has beneficial effects," he says. "The question from my perspective is: Are they mainly psychological, or is it really ridding the body of nasty chemicals?"

I have often wondered why institutions that are approached by the likes of Narconon for funding do not just direct them to the CofS? The CofS, with its IAS reserves could easily fund a full four or five year study under the auspices of the relevant IRB's - what an opportunity for Scientologists - imagine the world getting to know that the flabby con man was, in fact, brlliant and his 'detoxification" is the bees knees.

Scientologists always seem so reluctant in things like this - I wonder why?
 
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