Johnnie's in the basementMixing up the medicine

When last we looked in on Marco Ruggiero (impresario of magic medicinal yoghurt) he was using the august pages of the American Journal of Immunology to deliver the apostatic message that GcMAF -- the special bacteral-ferment-created ingredient that distinguishes Magic Yoghurt from all other kinds -- in fact has no therapeutic relevance, so people will have to look elsewhere to cure their ills.


This is why Dr Ruggiero missed out on winning the inaugural Riddled Cheese Promotion Cup.

The boy who win this kup must be noble, up-
right, brave, fearless, intreppid and honnest

On questioning the particulars of the Am.J.Immunol., one is informed by the library pixies that it boasts the classiest cover logo that pirated stock art can provide, and exudes from a "Science Publications" virtual publisher... along with 18 other American Journals of X, two International Journals of Y and three Current Researches in Z. The domain "thescipub" being registered to a MUHAMMAD S AHMAD, who does claim an American address, but it is strangely abridged and undetailed in nature, and for all their ingenuity the US Postal Service would struggle to deliver a parcel addressed to "# S-207 NEW YORK CITY". In practice the publisher's office is located in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.*

Now one hesitates to profile, and to stoop to hasty generalisations, but this combination of New-Worldly titles and South Asian location is often found in the ecology of academic parasitism, where knocking-shops provide negotiable peer review for aspirants to Academe who need to tart up their CVs with some pretense of developed-world intellectual recognition. We tried warning Dr Ruggiero that the Am.J.Immunol. is not a proper outlet for his research and appearance there can only erode his scholarly reputation, but did he listen? DID HE BOG-ROLL. His decision to accept editorship of the shitspigot [some time between January and April 2015] was equally unwise. The Am.J.Immunol. has become the Journal of Ruggiero Studies:

#1.

#2.

#3.

The different Correspondng Addresses in successive publications -- Washington State, Germany, Switzerland -- are suggestive of a peripatetic couch-surfing life-style, for Ruggiero is promiscuous with his affiliations.

#1 on the list, the collaboration with Dietrich Klinghardt, foreshadows an entry into the lucrative "Chronic Lymes" market, and we are disappointed to find no mention in the References section for Bernouli's Encyclopedia of Imaginary Diseases.** The present Autonomic Response Testing is a re-boot of an old favourite fraud, the fiction of "Applied Kinesiology". Klinghardt has featured in Riddled before for his invention of homeopathic GcMAF, but that is just part of an all-embracing scammacopia of Healing Modalities, for his scholium of thought is eclectic and there is no grift it cannot assimilate (and conversely, when the possible origins of any ailment range from dental fillings to unresolved ancestral trauma, there is always an excuse for therapeutic failure). He accomplished the rare accolade of disciplinary action from a US State medical association for his saline-injection-related activities, and needless to say he is waist-deep in the Curing-Autism trough. It is invidious to single out any single Klinghardt pronouncements but here is his advice on eliminating neurotoxins:

Level 3: The next higher body, which I call the “mental body” or “mental field”, extends theoretically into infinity squared (and the higher two levels extend beyond that). Only mathematics is able to conceive the expansive size of the higher levels. Beliefs, attitudes and thoughts form and organize this level. There is an individual mental field and a consensus field (consensus reality). Rupert Sheldrake has named this level morphic field. Every idea or thought ever thought goes into this field and becomes part of an invisible library that can be accessed by anyone.

[h/t Orac]

Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher? It is not clear why Klinghardt is sudenly seeking academic respectability via the medium of a parasitic journal-shaped jizzmop. It is also a moot point which of the co-authors should feel more ashamed of association with the other.

#2 of these publications is an understandable attempt to re-imagine Bravo Magic Milk-Phlegm. The term "GcMAF" is notably absent from descriptions of the soured milk, the authors having abandoned the claim that bacterial enzymes create the stuff by deglycolation of VDBP fritillary calenture hatstand. Thus it no longer cures cancer in its own right, and is now part of a comprehensive and expensive protocol that includes the Ruggiero-Reinwald "Rerum", and Reinwald's "ketogenic diet" of artisanal amino acids.*** We also learn that "Determination of serum α-N-acetylgalactosaminidase, an enzyme also known as Nagalase, was performed by the European Laboratory of Nutrients (The Netherlands)" -- that is to say, by a convicted mountebankrupt fraudster.

#3 on the list is the cream of the jest, or possibly vice versa, for Marco Ruggiero has a new gift for the world in the form of magic yoghurt without milk. That is to say, medicinal fermented fruit-juice. (though using the same bacterial culture prevously optimised for a dairy diet). And if bacterially-altered milk proteins are not curative (and never were curative), then why not?. If I were marketing the stuff, I would call it "A great Boon Kriek", but no-one listens to Uncle Smut. The recipe does include Chondroitin sulphate, so essentially this is an especially expensive way of drinking a commodity food supplement... or to look at it another way, an especially expensive way of feeding the bacteria in your bowels.

via Kirsty Terry -- "Autism Therapist", "Energy Medicine Practitioner", broad-spectrum grifter -- who is as opposed to mainstream spelling as she is to vaccination and rational thought

So far there is no talk of administering the juice by way of enema tube, but such is the enthusiasm in Alt-Med circles for coffee enemas and magic-yoghurt suppositories, this cannot be far away. This is good news for those of us who look forward to consuming an entire continental breakfast per vas nefandum.

[...] now he was surprised to find himself all of a sudden pondering over combinations of a posteriori gourmandise! Then a grotesque notion shot across his brain. [...] Once started on this train of thought, Des Esseintes busied himself in composing novel recipes, contriving dinners for fast days and Fridays, strengthening the dose of cod-liver oil and wine, while striking out the beef-tea as being meat and therefore expressly forbidden by the Church.

[Thx Dora]

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* The same grifter also calls himself the "American Association for Promotion of Research", to "disseminate scientific results to the scientific community about the latest research in science."

** Ruggiero's difficulties with proper citation have been noted previously.

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*** This is Stage #1 of response to the current panic in alt-med circles resulting from the cessation of GcMAF supply, with police raids and arrests in France and Guernsey interrupting the flow of spice.

Stage #2 is "Naked opportunism": revive a link to a 6-month-old webpage claiming to have some for sale.

These are not the Kübler-Ross Stages I was used to.

UPDATE: This is a day ending in a W [here in the Riddled office we follow Centauran time, with the 33-hour days and the 10-day weeks], so here is bonus fruit juice imagery stolen from Oglaf:

Belated UPDATE². Another Am.J.Immunol. paper from a few years ago, when Team Ruggiero were still playing nice with David Noakes and his team of elves, and when it was still necessary to pretend that GcMAF was clinically active, because replacements had not yet been devised. See if you can guess which patient group they were targetting for an income stream!

The publisher was not bothering to prettify the PDFs then, or pretending that anyone would ever read the wretched wastes of pixels.