Royal Rife

Little reliable published information exists describing Rife's life and work. In the 1930s, he made several optical compound microscopes and, using a movie camera, took time-lapse microscopy movies of microbes. He also built microscopes that included polarizers. Rife claimed magnifications of 17,000× or more for some of these microscopes. Rife claimed to have documented a "Mortal Oscillatory Rate" for various pathogenic organisms, and to be able to destroy the organisms by vibrating them using radio waves of this particular frequency. According to the San Diego Evening Tribune in 1938, Rife stopped short of claiming that he could cure cancer, but did argue that he could "devitalize disease organisms" in living tissue, "with certain exceptions". == Health fraud after his death ==

Interest in Rife's claims was revived in some alternative medical circles by the 1987 book by Barry Lynes, The Cancer Cure That Worked, which claimed that Rife had succeeded in curing cancer, but that his work was suppressed by a powerful conspiracy headed by the American Medical Association. The American Cancer Society (ACS) describes Lynes' claims as implausible, noting that the book was written "in a style typical of conspiratorial theorists", and that Lynes "... cites names, dates, events and places, giving the appearance of authenticity to a mixture of historical documents and speculations selectively spun into a web far too complex to permit verification by any thing short of an army of investigators with unlimited resources." An analysis by Electronics Australia found that one typical 'Rife device' cost AU$105 for a rudimentary circuit that simply produced a tiny pulsed electrical current (at a single fixed frequency of about 40kHz). It consisted of a nine-volt battery, wiring, a switch, a standard 555 timer chip and two short lengths of copper tubing meant to act as handheld electrodes, delivering a current which the author estimated at 1 milliamp at most. Its design was, in fact, almost identical to the "zapper" device promoted by Hulda Clark, rather than having much in common with Rife's original devices. He described this as "the tip of an enormous iceberg", with a wide range of more elaborate devices also on sale from different suppliers, varying widely in design and ranging in price from AU$1,500 to AU$34,000. Such 'Rife devices' have figured prominently in several cases of health fraud in the U.S., typically centered around the uselessness of the devices and the grandiose claims with which they are marketed. In a 1996 case, the marketers of a 'Rife device' claiming to cure numerous diseases including cancer and AIDS were convicted of felony health fraud. The sentencing judge described them as "target[ing] the most vulnerable people, including those suffering from terminal disease" and providing false hope. In some cases cancer patients who ceased chemotherapy and instead used these devices have died. A Washington State couple Donald and Sharon Brandt, who operated a clandestine health-care clinic from their home in Mount Vernon based on Rife's inventions were convicted for a short imprisonment period. Rife devices are currently classified as a subset of radionics devices, which are generally viewed as pseudomedicine by mainstream experts. In 2002 John Bryon Krueger, who operated the Royal Rife Research Society, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a murder and also received a concurrent 30-month sentence for illegally selling Rife devices. In 2009 a U.S. court convicted James Folsom of 26 felony counts for sale of the Rife devices sold as 'NatureTronics', 'AstroPulse', 'BioSolutions', 'Energy Wellness', and 'Global Wellness'. == Legacy ==

In 1994, the American Cancer Society's journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians criticized Rife's methods and devices in an article titled "Questionable Methods of Cancer Management: Electronic Devices". The ACS reported that Rife machines were being sold in a "pyramid-like, multilevel marketing scheme". A key component in the marketing of Rife devices has been the claim, initially put forward by Rife himself, that the devices were being suppressed by an establishment conspiracy against cancer "cures". Although 'Rife devices' are not registered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have been linked to deaths among cancer sufferers, The Seattle Times reported that over 300 people attended the 2006 Rife International Health Conference in Seattle, where dozens of unregistered devices were sold. Cancer Research UK, the world's largest independent cancer research charity, has stated: A 2000 article in The Sydney Morning Herald warned: == See also ==