{"id":32339,"date":"2026-11-09T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/?p=32339"},"modified":"2026-11-09T19:55:52","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T01:55:52","slug":"nyt-columnist-ross-douthat-his-chronic-lyme-and-his-rife-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/09\/nyt-columnist-ross-douthat-his-chronic-lyme-and-his-rife-machine","title":{"rendered":"NYT COLUMNIST ROSS DOUTHAT, HIS CHRONIC LYME AND HIS RIFE MACHINE\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unless you\u2019ve been a regular reader of the Opinion Page of the New York Times, or more recently, have been watching 60 Minutes, you may not know that Mr. D. has been somewhere in public view for years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, one day, having fulfilled a life wish to buy a home in the Connecticut woods (Tehran is probably safer), he felt a large squishy lump stuck firmly in his scalp, and WHC readers know where this story is going. Douthat documented his years of seeking to be cured of his chronic Lyme. He saw \u201ceverybody\u201d and describes his quest in the well written, \u201cThe Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He finally ended up getting physical and emotional relief to the extent he is functioning at what seems like a 95% level. In fact, he\u2019s doing quite well.\u00a0He\u2019s a correspondent on CNN, writes columns, and published another book, unrelated to his chronic Lyme, \u201cBelieve: Why Everyone Should be Religious<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this isn\u2019t about Mr. Douthat. It\u2019s about the unusual treatment he resorted to that apparently rescued him. Here he is<\/a> being interviewed by the Harvard Gazette and talking about Lyme working with something you probably never heard of, a Rife Machine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE RIFE MACHINE: OUR MOST CONTROVERSIAL HEALTH CARE DEVICE<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Little is really known about the personal details of scientist and inventor Royal Rife, who, working in the 1920\u2019s and 1930\u2019s, was mainly interested in ultra-high-power microscopes. He wanted to demonstrate that all living microorganisms, especially bacteria and cancer cells, had their own unique vibrational frequency that could be turned against them to cure illnesses they caused. You could destroy a \u201cbad\u201d cell (cancer, bacteria) with an ultra-high frequency sound wave matched to its frequency. If no cancer cells were present, or no disease-causing bacteria, the frequencies were harmless.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reasonable comparison was drawn between an opera soprano hitting a high note and shattering a wine glass. If there\u2019s no glass nearby, nothing happens.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although about 16 individuals claimed their Rife Machine did cure their cancers, the publicity negative spread quickly. Rife had written books and articles about making your own machine and received more than enough adverse publicity of the \u2018crackpot inventor\u2019 type. With his reputation shredded by medical associations, he died alone and quite penniless in 1971. To this day, Wikipedia, whose negatively prejudiced alternative medicine pieces are mainly written by Stephen Barrett, M.D. of Quackbusters, is quite brutal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HULDA CLARK\u2019S PARASITE ZAPPER<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During the AIDS epidemic, an unlicensed Canadian naturopath, Dr. Hulda Clark, over the course of two years, wrote three bestsellers: \u201cThe Cure for All Cancers,\u201d \u201cThe Cure for HIV\/AIDS,\u201d \u201cThe Cure for All Diseases.\u201d She attributed all illness to the presence of an internal parasite, Fasciolopiasis<\/a>, an intestinal fluke, generally not found in the U.S., though every few weeks we get requests to be tested for them. In her own private lab,\u00a0Dr. Clark\u2019s patients managed all to test \u201cpositive,\u201d and would be sold an assortment of supplements and a Parasite Zapper. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Clark\u2019s Zapper looks pretty much like a smaller version of a Rife Machine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this is sounding a little confusing, a Rife Machine comes with a detailed manual in which you set your wavelength to your illness, e.g., Lyme. Dr. Clark\u2019s Zapper is a \u2018one size fits all.\u2019\u00a0 Dr. Clark herself faced multiple medical fraud charges, opened and closed several clinics in the U.S. and Canada, finally dying of multiple myeloma in California at 83.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mention Dr. Clark in the same breath as Rife because Dr. Clarke had all the trappings of a pure medical con artist, while Rife sincerely was trying to figure out why his Machine worked for some patients and not for others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I would tell Dr. Rife today is that chronic Lyme, coinfections, and possibly even cancer cells, are all much smarter than we think. Bacteria develop multiple resistances to antibiotics and protective sticky biofilms to make it up to 10 to 10,000 more resistant to antibiotics and the host immune system. Rife was likely completely unaware of this. Cancer cells change subtly, and a chemotherapy treatment program that seemingly was curative for years now \u2018fails\u2019 with recurrence and our oncologist pieces together a new chemo program or strengthens your immune system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are couple Rife Machine options on Ebay: <\/p>\n\n\n\n