TM tries to bully Oncology Times

Letter from TM Attorney demands free publicity for MA-V

In 1992, almost one year after two British doctors affiliated to TM's World Medical Association for Perfect Health were sentenced to be struck off the medical register by the British General Medical Council for, amongst other things, circulating literature urging patients to "stop using modern medicine", and for prescribing untested drugs to AIDS an patient, the AIDS News section of a small New York medical journal, Oncology Times, carried a report which is reproduced in full here:

Cults Hook AIDS Patients

• Cults, sects, and fringe religious groups are finding that there's money to be made and members to be recruited from the large and growing population of AIDS patients. Among the most egregious examples: The Transcendental Meditation (TM) cult of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is selling a variety of Indian folk medicines as a replacement for the modern medicine it recommends stopping; representatives of a group known as Morningland promise an AIDS cure via the healing touch of its leader; and Insight, a New Age organization, is hyping its book You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought: A Book For People With Any Life-Threatening Illness--Including Life.

  Many desperate people with AIDS are being lured into becoming members of such groups and into paying for useless "cures". Physicians treating people with AIDS should not be surprised if their patients ask them about these and other such groups and should be prepared to carefully respond to the questions.

AIDS News, Oncology Times, October 1992.

The TM movement was already in the midst of litigation, since failed, aimed at penalizing Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Andrew P. Skolnick, for writing a devasting expose of dishonesty and chicanery in the TM movement's dealings with the medical establishment, the academic community, and the news media. The movement's attorneys moved into action against the much tinier Oncology Times. They objected to two points in the article:

• the description of TM as a "cult" ;
• the accusation that TM is "trying to make money by victimizing AIDS patients, and that it is selling Indian folk medicines as a replacement for modern medicine"

In one of the most illuminating parts of his response, the TM attorney, claimed:

• "contrary to the allegation in the article, the Maharishi Ayur-Veda and Transcendental Meditation organizations in the U.S. do not, and never have advocated that patients stop their 'modern medicine.'"

Though he may have been technically correct, it hardly alters the fact that the World Medical Association for Perfect Health, part of the TM organization, had urged patients to "stop using modern medicine", according to the findings of the British GMC.

In a most extraordinary letter, the attorney demanded free publicity for Maharishi Ayur-Veda as partial recompense for their "false and defamatory" article:

• We require a retraction and correction of the noted article. To mitigate the damage caused by your October article, we further require the printing of a response piece, to be written by leading researchers and/or clinicians in the field of Maharishi Ayur-Veda, which will provide an overview of the work being done in this field and its relevance to medical practice. This article should be a minimum of 3000 words in length. We will consider the failure to so act will result in continuing damage to my clients, for which we will hold Oncology Times responsible.

My understanding is that they did not get anywhere with their demand.

Full text of the attorney's letter.

Judyology