Ryke Geerd Hamer
Encyclopedia
Ryke Geerd Hamer a former German physician, is the originator of Germanic New Medicine, also formerly known as German New Medicine and New Medicine,
a system of pseudo-medicine that purports to be able to cure cancer. The Swiss Cancer League described Hamer's approach as "dangerous, especially as it lulls the patients into a false sense of security, so that they are deprived of other effective treatments."
Hamer held a licence to practice medicine from 1963 until 1986 when it was revoked for malpractice. Hamer's system came to public attention in 1995, when the parents of a child suffering from cancer refused medical treatment in favour of Hamer's methods. Hamer is charged and convicted in several European countries and is responsible for numerous deaths among his patients.
Hamer purports that his method is a "Germanic" alternative to mainstream clinical medicine which he claims is part of a Jewish conspiracy to decimate non-Jews.
in 1935. He received his high school diploma at age 18 and started medical and theological studies in Tübingen
, where he met Sigrid Oldenburg, a medical student who later became his wife. At age 20, he passed the preliminary examination in medicine, married a year later, and completed his theological examinations at 22. He and his wife had two children. In April 1962 Hamer passed his medical state examination in Marburg
and he was granted a professional license as a doctor of medicine in 1963. There followed a number of years at the University Clinics of Tübingen and Heidelberg
, and in 1972, Hamer completed his specialization in internal medicine. He also worked in several practices with his wife, and he patented several inventions.
Hamer's license to practice medicine was revoked in 1986 by a court judgment in Germany, which was reconfirmed in 2003. As he continued to treat patients, Hamer was investigated several times on allegations of malpractice and the death of patients. He was jailed for 12 months in Germany from 1997 to 1998, and served a prison term from September 2004 to February 2006 in Fleury-Mérogis
, France on counts of fraud and illegal practicing. He subsequently lived in voluntary exile in Spain until March 2007, where Spanish doctors hold him responsible for several tens of preventable deaths. In 1997 he owned clinics in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands. Later he apparently moved to Norway.
and died on 7 December 1978. Sometime after Dirk's death, Hamer began to develop Germanic New Medicine (GNM), which can be summarized in its “five biological laws”:
Therefore according to Hamer no real diseases exist and what established medicine calls a disease is in reality a "special meaningful program of nature" (sinnvolles biologisches Sonderprogramm) to which bacteria, viruses and fungi belong too. Hamer's GNM explains every disease and treatment with those biological laws, making traditional medicine in most cases obsolete in his view. The cure is always the resolving of the conflict. Some treatments like chemotherapy
or pain relieving drugs like morphine
are deadly according to Hamer.
. Fearing the painful conventional therapy, the parents consulted Hamer. He diagnosed no cancer but instead several "conflicts". The parents refused conventional medical therapy for Olivia. The Austrian government finally removed their rights of care and control, and the parents fled from Austria to Spain with their daughter, where Hamer was present too. There they followed Hamer's instructions how to treat their child.
After negotiations including the intervention of the Austrian president, the parents were persuaded to return to Austria. By then, Olivia's health had deteriorated. The tumor had grown very large, weighing four kilograms, filling most of her abdominal cavity and was pressing against her lungs. The lack of treatment had dropped her probability of survival from 90 to 10%. After a court ordered conventional cancer treatment with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy was applied. The child recovered completely and was still alive in 2010. Her parents received an eight-month suspended jail sentence in Austria. Olivia's parents still support Hamer's method and have their own web site that explains the matter from their perspective.
In this Hamer follows the antisemitic "Neue Deutsche Heilkunde" propagated in Nazi Germany
. More precisely he asserts that chemotherapy
and morphine
are used to "mass murder" the western civilisation, while such treatment is not used in Israel where nearly no people die of cancer, according to him. Hamer also believes that the denial of recognition of his theories and the revocation of his practitioner's licence is due to a Jewish conspiracy.
In 2008, Hamer presented a document where one "Chief Rabbi
" "Esra" Iwan Götz confirms the existence of a conspiracy among Jewish oncologists to use the "torture" of chemotherapy
on all non-Jewish patients, while Jewish patients were to receive the "correct" treatment of GNM. Iwan Götz is a German holocaust denialist active in the German Reich revivalism
scene who has been repeatedly convicted by German courts on counts of holocaust denial, fraud, defamation, misuse of academic titles (the title "Chief Rabbi" is not legally protected in Germany), falsification of documents among others.
Also the German Cancer Research Center
, the German Cancer Society, the German Medical Association and German Consumer Councils strongly disagree with Hamer.
Proponents of alternative cancer treaments also regard his theory sceptically and argue for supportive evidence and proofed patient cases.
Hamer's habilitation
thesis about the GNM at the University of Tübingen was rejected after multiple examinations by several members of the medical faculty, who came to the conclusion that his work lacks scientific methodics and reproducibility and his argumentation does not back up his theories.
Hamer says that his system is verifiable and that the Trnava University and others have already confirmed some of his theories. In fact the Trnava University has no real medical faculty and the documents which allegedly confirm his view are not available and registered at the university. The Trnava University also rejected his habilitation
thesis.
The Hamer foci which Hamer sees in the brain CTs are identified by radiologists as common ring artifacts.
The medical establishment in Germany and the European Union warns of the threat posed to patients by Hamer's therapies. If effective treatment is neglected, the applying of Hamer's theories is punishable in some countries as malpractice.
Hamer accuses an international Jewish conspiracy of withholding his ideas from the world, which some consider to be anti-Semitic.
Until today no documented case of a patient who got cured by Hamer's method is known, instead newspaper repeatedly report about victims of Hamer's practice throughout Europe.
a system of pseudo-medicine that purports to be able to cure cancer. The Swiss Cancer League described Hamer's approach as "dangerous, especially as it lulls the patients into a false sense of security, so that they are deprived of other effective treatments."
Hamer held a licence to practice medicine from 1963 until 1986 when it was revoked for malpractice. Hamer's system came to public attention in 1995, when the parents of a child suffering from cancer refused medical treatment in favour of Hamer's methods. Hamer is charged and convicted in several European countries and is responsible for numerous deaths among his patients.
Hamer purports that his method is a "Germanic" alternative to mainstream clinical medicine which he claims is part of a Jewish conspiracy to decimate non-Jews.
Biography
Ryke Geerd Hamer was born in MettmannMettmann
Mettmann is a Rhenish town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Mettmann, Germany's most densely populated rural district...
in 1935. He received his high school diploma at age 18 and started medical and theological studies in Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
, where he met Sigrid Oldenburg, a medical student who later became his wife. At age 20, he passed the preliminary examination in medicine, married a year later, and completed his theological examinations at 22. He and his wife had two children. In April 1962 Hamer passed his medical state examination in Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
and he was granted a professional license as a doctor of medicine in 1963. There followed a number of years at the University Clinics of Tübingen and Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, and in 1972, Hamer completed his specialization in internal medicine. He also worked in several practices with his wife, and he patented several inventions.
Hamer's license to practice medicine was revoked in 1986 by a court judgment in Germany, which was reconfirmed in 2003. As he continued to treat patients, Hamer was investigated several times on allegations of malpractice and the death of patients. He was jailed for 12 months in Germany from 1997 to 1998, and served a prison term from September 2004 to February 2006 in Fleury-Mérogis
Fleury-Mérogis
Fleury-Mérogis is a commune in the Essonne department in northern France, in the southern suburbs of Paris. The commune has the Fleury-Mérogis Prison, France's and Europe's largest prison.Inhabitants of Fleury-Mérogis are known as Floriacumois....
, France on counts of fraud and illegal practicing. He subsequently lived in voluntary exile in Spain until March 2007, where Spanish doctors hold him responsible for several tens of preventable deaths. In 1997 he owned clinics in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands. Later he apparently moved to Norway.
Germanic New Medicine
On 8 August 1978, Hamer's son, Dirk, was shot while he slept on a yacht off CavalloCavallo (island)
Cavallo is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea located between Corsica and Sardinia.- Geography :Cavallo is the only inhabited island of the Lavezzi Archipelago, 2.3km from the Corsican coast , close to the Strait of Bonifacio. It is about 13km from Sardinia. The island is French territory,...
and died on 7 December 1978. Sometime after Dirk's death, Hamer began to develop Germanic New Medicine (GNM), which can be summarized in its “five biological laws”:
- 1st law (“Iron Rule”): Severe diseases originate from a shock event which is experienced by the individual as very difficult, highly acute, dramatic and isolating. The shock’s psychological conflict content determines the location of the appearance of a focus of activity in the brain that can be seen in a CT scan as a set of concentric rings, called "Hamer foci," which correspond to the location of the disease in the body. The subsequent development of the conflict determines the development of both the brain focus and the disease.
- 2nd law (Two phased nature of disease): A patient who has not solved their conflict is in the first, active conflict phase, where the sympathetic nervous systemSympathetic nervous systemThe sympathetic nervous system is one of the three parts of the autonomic nervous system, along with the enteric and parasympathetic systems. Its general action is to mobilize the body's nervous system fight-or-flight response...
predominates and which manifests as a “cold disease” accompanied by cold skin and extremities, stress, weight loss and sleep disorders. If they manage to resolve the conflict, they enter a second, post-resolution healing phase, in which the parasympathetic nervous systemParasympathetic nervous systemThe parasympathetic nervous system is one of the two main divisions of the autonomic nervous system . The ANS is responsible for regulation of internal organs and glands, which occurs unconsciously...
predominates, commonly diagnosed as a separate “warm” (rheumatic, infectiousInfectionAn infection is the colonization of a host organism by parasite species. Infecting parasites seek to use the host's resources to reproduce, often resulting in disease...
, allergic, etc.) disease. This second phase is the one which usually entails more risks, and a complete cure only comes upon its completion. In some circumstances, not solving the conflict but downgrading it to a reasonably livable level may be preferable than facing the second phase.
- 3rd law (Ontogenetic system of diseases): Hamer proposes that disease progression is primarily controlled by the brain, either by the "old brain" (brain stem and cerebellum) or the "new brain" (cerebrum). The old brain controls more primitive processes, having to do with basic survival, such as breathing, eating, and reproduction, whereas the new brain manages more advanced personal and social issues, such as territorial conflicts, separation conflicts and self-devaluation and identity conflicts. Hamer's research is tied to the science of embryology because he links the type of disease progression—whether involving tissue augmentation (tumor growth), tissue loss (necrosis or ulceration) or functional impairment—with the embryonic germ layer (endoderm, mesoderm or ectoderm) from which both the organ tissues and the corresponding brain regions originate. Conflicts which have their focus either in the brain stem (which controls body tissues that derive from the endoderm) or the cerebellum (which controls tissues that derive from the mesoderm) show cell multiplication in the conflict active phase, and destruction of the resulting tumors in the healing phase. Cerebrum directed conflicts (affecting the rest of mesoderm-derived tissues and all ectoderm-derived ones) show either cell decrease (necroses, ulcers) or function impairment or interruption in the active phase, and the replenishment of the damaged tissues in the healing phase (which can also be diagnosed as a tumor).
- 4th law (Ontogenetic system of microbes): Microbes do not cause diseases but are used by the body, coordinated by the brain, to optimize the healing phase, provided that the required microbes are available when needed. Fungi and mycobacteria work on tissues that originated in the endoderm, as well as on some of the tissues originating in the mesoderm. Bacteria work on all mesoderm derived tissues and viruses on ectoderm derived ones. Hamer maintains that these microbes, rather than being antagonistic to the body, actually perform a necessary role in healing. And that some of the interventions of conventional medicine are counterproductive, by interfering with these natural processes.
- 5th law (“Quintessence”): The conflict active phase and the healing phase of diseases, as described above, constitute “special meaningful programs of nature,” developed during the evolutionEvolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of the species, to allow organisms to override everyday functioning in order to deal with particular emergency situations.
Therefore according to Hamer no real diseases exist and what established medicine calls a disease is in reality a "special meaningful program of nature" (sinnvolles biologisches Sonderprogramm) to which bacteria, viruses and fungi belong too. Hamer's GNM explains every disease and treatment with those biological laws, making traditional medicine in most cases obsolete in his view. The cure is always the resolving of the conflict. Some treatments like chemotherapy
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....
or pain relieving drugs like morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
are deadly according to Hamer.
Olivia Pilhar case
Hamer was associated with the Olivia Pilhar cancer case in 1995. Olivia, then aged six, suffered from Wilms' tumorWilms' tumor
Wilms' tumor or nephroblastoma is cancer of the kidneys that typically occurs in children, rarely in adults.Its common name is an eponym, referring to Dr. Max Wilms, the German surgeon who first described this kind of tumor....
. Fearing the painful conventional therapy, the parents consulted Hamer. He diagnosed no cancer but instead several "conflicts". The parents refused conventional medical therapy for Olivia. The Austrian government finally removed their rights of care and control, and the parents fled from Austria to Spain with their daughter, where Hamer was present too. There they followed Hamer's instructions how to treat their child.
After negotiations including the intervention of the Austrian president, the parents were persuaded to return to Austria. By then, Olivia's health had deteriorated. The tumor had grown very large, weighing four kilograms, filling most of her abdominal cavity and was pressing against her lungs. The lack of treatment had dropped her probability of survival from 90 to 10%. After a court ordered conventional cancer treatment with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy was applied. The child recovered completely and was still alive in 2010. Her parents received an eight-month suspended jail sentence in Austria. Olivia's parents still support Hamer's method and have their own web site that explains the matter from their perspective.
Jewish conspiracy theory
Hamer purports that his method is a "Germanic" alternative to mainstream clinical medicine which he claims is part of a Jewish conspiracy to decimate non-Jews.In this Hamer follows the antisemitic "Neue Deutsche Heilkunde" propagated in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. More precisely he asserts that chemotherapy
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....
and morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
are used to "mass murder" the western civilisation, while such treatment is not used in Israel where nearly no people die of cancer, according to him. Hamer also believes that the denial of recognition of his theories and the revocation of his practitioner's licence is due to a Jewish conspiracy.
In 2008, Hamer presented a document where one "Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
" "Esra" Iwan Götz confirms the existence of a conspiracy among Jewish oncologists to use the "torture" of chemotherapy
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....
on all non-Jewish patients, while Jewish patients were to receive the "correct" treatment of GNM. Iwan Götz is a German holocaust denialist active in the German Reich revivalism
Kommissarische Reichsregierung
thumb|right|300px|The German ReichKommissarische Reichsregierung is a label for multiple groups and individuals in Germany and elsewhere who assert that the German Reich continues to exist in its pre-World War II borders and that they are its government or government in exile.The KRRs often...
scene who has been repeatedly convicted by German courts on counts of holocaust denial, fraud, defamation, misuse of academic titles (the title "Chief Rabbi" is not legally protected in Germany), falsification of documents among others.
Response to medical views
The Swiss Cancer League of the Swiss Society for Oncology, Swiss Society for Medical Oncology and Swiss Institute for Applied Cancer Research say that no case of a cancer cure by Hamer has been published in the medical literature, nor any studies in specialised journals. Reports in his books "lack the additional data that are essential for medical assessment" and the presentations, of his investigations, at medical conferences "are scientifically unconvincing".Also the German Cancer Research Center
German Cancer Research Center
The German Cancer Research Center , is a national cancer research center based in Heidelberg, Germany...
, the German Cancer Society, the German Medical Association and German Consumer Councils strongly disagree with Hamer.
Proponents of alternative cancer treaments also regard his theory sceptically and argue for supportive evidence and proofed patient cases.
Hamer's habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
thesis about the GNM at the University of Tübingen was rejected after multiple examinations by several members of the medical faculty, who came to the conclusion that his work lacks scientific methodics and reproducibility and his argumentation does not back up his theories.
Hamer says that his system is verifiable and that the Trnava University and others have already confirmed some of his theories. In fact the Trnava University has no real medical faculty and the documents which allegedly confirm his view are not available and registered at the university. The Trnava University also rejected his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
thesis.
The Hamer foci which Hamer sees in the brain CTs are identified by radiologists as common ring artifacts.
The medical establishment in Germany and the European Union warns of the threat posed to patients by Hamer's therapies. If effective treatment is neglected, the applying of Hamer's theories is punishable in some countries as malpractice.
Hamer accuses an international Jewish conspiracy of withholding his ideas from the world, which some consider to be anti-Semitic.
Until today no documented case of a patient who got cured by Hamer's method is known, instead newspaper repeatedly report about victims of Hamer's practice throughout Europe.
External links
- Hamer's official English language site
- New site about the GNM
- Searchlightmagazine and Hamer
- Critical examination of Hamer at EsowatchEsowatchEsowatch.com is a internet project founded in 2007 with articles critical of esotericism, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience in CAM The platform offers a Wiki, a Blog and a forum. The Esowatch wiki is based on MediaWiki-Software. The German wiki is the largest, with the English a close second.-...