"The authors accuse the promoters of Vega testing of convoluted pseudoscientific jargon, irrelevant citations of other papers, apparently irrelevant allusion to accepted physical principles such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and begging the question by comparing Vega testing to equally uncertain concepts such as 'bioregulatory techniques'.

"They add that the test is confounded by the moist skin of ill, worried subjects and the dry skin of relaxed, healthy subjects.

"They conclude that it has no established scientific basis and there are no controlled tests to support its usefulness.

"It may lead to inappropriate treatment and expense to the patient and community. At best it is a prop which can help some patients overcome ill-defined symptoms. "

"The Vega test employs a Wheatstone bridge circuit to measure electrical conductivity in the body - so called bioenergetic activity. The apparatus is connected to the patient and the circuit is completed by a metallic honeycomb containing the test allergen. The machine is calibrated using a glass vial containing a poison like paraquat to give a ‘disordered’ reading. Test substances that then give a disordered read as paraquat does, are considered to be potential allergens. Katelaris et al in Australia found no valid trials to show any diagnostic value for this procedure.."

"The FDA classifies ‘devices that use resistance measurements to diagnose and treat various diseases’ as Class III devices, which require FDA approval prior to marketing. In 1986, an FDA official informed me that the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health had determined that the Dermatron and Accupath 1000 were diagnostic devices that posed a ‘significant risk’. No such device can be legally marketed in the United States for diagnostic or treatment purposes. The FDA has prosecuted a few manufacturers and banned the importation such devices into the United States. State regulatory agencies have also taken a few actions. However, no systematic effort has been made to drive them from the marketplace...."

"I believe that EAV devices should be confiscated and that practitioners who use them should be delicensed."

"Another test without any basis is the so-called Vega Test or Bioprobe Test. Here you hold one wire while the tester touches you with another wire or probe. The wires go through a machine. I don&';t use this test either....

" These tests - Applied Kinesiology, Vega Test, and Pulse Test - are what I call UGLY tests. They have no redeeming features."

"Naturopaths routinely use electrodermal screening to diagnose illnesses and prescribe remedies. The method involves using a galvanometer to measure electrical conductivity between various points on the skin. The gadgets are unapproved medical devices, the methods are entirely bogus, and the claims made for them entirely fraudulent. Naturopaths also use many other phony diagnostic methods and remedies, they lie to state legislators about their training, they deliberately alienate patients from medical doctors, and they disparage proven public health measures such as vaccinations.

"The Vega Machine

This is a "black box" with a meter, receptacles to hold small vials, and a probe. The vials may contain a "disease-representative" liquid or proposed medicines, usually herbal. The probe is then run along the patient's finger to see if he/she has the disease or if the medicine is efficacious. This machine and other tests are usually said to depend on resonant vibrations, i.e. if the disease or medicine in the vial has molecular oscillations at the same frequency as the body disease the two vibrations resonate and cause the probe to pass that information to the meter. In fact we suspect that the probe is of the capacitive coupling type and therefore dependant on skin moisture or salinity. The above resonant theory shows a great ignorance of electronics and biology. "

"Because the advertisers could not demonstrate that the machine identified their patients' susceptibility to the stated conditions, the Authority asked the advertisers to amend the claims and take copy advice."

"The Vega test machine operates on the principle of a wheatstone bridge, and measures the potential differences between a small hand held electrode and a pencil probe electrode applied to the patient?s left middle toe, a recognized acupuncture point, with the meter reading the result. Organ pathology is allegedly diagnosed by inserting a specific organ/disease ampoule in a receptacle which is part of the circuit. Dr Steeper extended the usual application of the machine by "directing questions from his subconscious mind to the patient?s subconscious" and received answers through the response of the machine. Dr Steeper acknowledged that this bioenergetic system was operator dependent and not amenable to critical evaluation or examination. The hand out information sheets used by Dr Steeper gave the impression that the procedure and capabilities of the machine were established facts whereas in fact they were not. His use of the machine together with the hand out was misleading and caused the mothers considerable distress. The committee concluded that Dr Steeper?s use of the Vega machine comprised professional misconduct. The committee recognized section 58 (4) of the Medical Practitioners Act 1968 which provides that "no person shall be guilty of disgraceful conduct in a professional respect merely because he has adopted and practised any theory of medicine or surgery, if in so doing he has acted honestly and in good faith". The committee accepted that Dr Steeper acted in good faith, but it did not consider that he adopted any "theory of medicine or surgery" in the use to which he put his machine. His use of the machine was far beyond any accepted theory of medicine."

"In a 64-page ruling, a four-member panel of the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (consisting of two public members and two physician members of Council) found Dr. Krop guilty of professional misconduct for failing to maintain the standard of practice in the management, treatment and care of six patients...... Regarding his use of the ’Vega Machine’, the Committee found’....that there is no scientifically-valid evidence to justify the use of the Vega electro diagnostic apparatus, or any other similar machine, as either a screening or a diagnostic tool. All the experts called by the College agreed on this; none of the experts called by the defence maintained that such evidence existed.’ (It was claimed by Dr. Krop that the Vega machine - one electrode of which was held by a patient while the other electrode was applied to the patient’s toe - assisted him in arriving at diagnoses)."

"It was a special machine, she said, for special people.

Edwards would touch the probe to points on the patient‘s hand, acupuncture-style, Amish Patients said. Supposedly the Interro detected the body‘s electrical impulses. The computer software, in theory, measured those impulses to see how well various organs in the body worked. The diagnosis was instant.

And completely worthless. The Interro does not work. It can treat nothing. It can make no valid diagnosis.

"The Virginian-Pilot, the local morning paper, whose main office is in Norfolk and which serves Tidewater Virginia. The paper included an article that a local physician (highly respected as an oncology specialist for many years) was being formally questioned by the Virginia Board of Medical Examiners for his use of alternative treatments. Several years ago he began to study and practice homeopathy, using the Electro-dermal Screening (EDS) system for diagnosis. When I went to him in February 1992 to see if my energy field showed residuals of cancer after successful surgery in August 1991 (it did not, thanks be), he told me that medical examiners had visited him a number of times, confronting him and questioning him on his unorthodox treatment. He said that he usually responded by saying that he was sorry that they were not current in their understanding of the new developments in the field.

Newspaper reporter Tom Holden wrote that the physician was being accused by the board of using an 'electro-acupuncture' device to diagnose cancer and of falsely diagnosing patients as having lead and mercury poisoning by using a 'bio-energetic testing' machine. (The correct term for the device and machine mentioned above is the Electrodermal Screening System (EDS)). The board cited 13 cases in which (the physician) allegedly conducted treatments that were 'without accepted therapeutic purpose and contrary to sound medical judgment'..."