Claim that Rife machines can cure cancer is fake
Cancer Research UK told Reuters there is no evidence that Rife machines cure cancer.
(Reuters) - An American scientist did not create a machine that cures all cancers, Cancer Research UK told Reuters.
Rumours that Doctor Raymond Rife created a device in the early 20th century that could cure “over 5,000 diseases including all cancers” popped up online this month via a meme that asked: “WHY AREN’T WE USING THIS?”
Similar statements appeared on Twitter and the same image can be found on Instagram as far back as 2019.
An explanatory page written by Cancer Research UK matches some of the meme’s claims. The charity’s website says the article was last reviewed in 2018, but a spokesperson said there had been no new studies to alter the information.
The page explains that American scientist Royal Raymond Rife developed a machine in the 1920s that produced low energy waves. He believed that all medical conditions had an electromagnetic frequency, and that an impulse of the same frequency would kill diseased or cancerous cells. The machine delivered low energy to a person’s hands or feet via electrical pads or plasma tubes.
“There’s no reliable evidence that Rife machines work as a cure for cancer”, Martin Ledwick, Cancer Research UK’s head cancer information nurse, told Reuters in an email.
He said that alternative treatments can be dangerous and should not be chosen instead of conventional cancer therapy.
The charity adds that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the Rife machine as a treatment for cancer.The FDA website also warns against any products claiming to treat “all forms of cancer”.
Fact-checkers Full Fact also concluded there was not sufficient evidence that Rife machines cured cancer.
VERDICT
False. Cancer Research UK told Reuters there is no evidence that Rife machines cure cancer.
