Letter to the Editor,
Date:
Oct 28, 2009
The Editor of The Times
Dear
Editor,
Without
having had suffered from an inherited allergic rhinitis for over 30 years and
recently eased if not totally recovered not by the use of any magical medicine
nor surgical operations, it would not have triggered me to write this letter
trying to share my experience with and hopefully shed light to the millions of
people who are still suffering from similar nasal diseases.
Background
I
am an electronic engineer of around 60 years old. I have been afflicted with
serious inherited allergic rhinitis for the past 30 more years during which
time only under every medical treatment can I have good feeling for 3 days. There
were other irritating
nasal
problems continuously affecting my daily life. About four years ago, I was diagnosed
to have developed nasal polyp and its size was so large as to physically
obstruct my breathing passage. The doctor advised that there was no other way
to get rid of the polyps than by surgical operation! Learning from a friend who
had had similar nasal polyp issue and had undergone 3 operations in two years,
yet the “bloody” nasal polyps resurrected repeatedly, I was terrified to having
to go through this seemingly never-ending process not to mention any unforeseen
potential side effect of subsequent long term medications and repeated surgical
operations. As a result, I started reading books, medical papers and journals
all with reference to topics on nasal polyps and allergic rhinitis.
Think the unthinkable? Only
thinking, Yes!
In
the course of my anti-nasal polyp crusade, I have repeatedly noted from medical
articles revealing that nasal polyps contain a great deal of electrolyte. Ah,
Electrolyte! Being an electronic engineer for entire life, this has triggered
my interest and curiosity to thinking of co-relating nasal polyp electrolyte
with electrics. A faint idea flashed through my mind that there might be some
principles in the realm of electrical science that could be used to bring
impact on the subject. Along this line, I was therefore inspired to employ
electric current therapy to afford a cure on my nasal polyps as opposed to the
traditional surgery. As such, I was able to make them shrunk substantially, and
the “polyp torture” was finally relieved. In the course of undergoing the electric
current therapy, I incidentally discovered another usage by applying the same
principle to relieve the allergic rhinitis (Please refer to the attached paper
for details). Some of my friends who have similar nasal issues have also tried
the micro current therapy subsequently with remarkable results. Not only have
they all commended it highly, but they also urged me to disclose the theory to
the world (they even claimed that it was my responsibility to do so) because
millions of people who are struggling with their nasal problems may be afforded
a chance to gain relief from the agony.
Be a Pioneer- Never !
Obsessed
with the workability of the theory and driven by the “so-called” responsibility,
I spent almost one year to experiment and design an electronic device purported
to fulfill the following objectives:…
To
contract the Nasal polyps without Operation!!
To
Relief the Allergic rhinitis without Medication!!
After
a series of trial and error, that little magic box was invented. It can emit
functional electric pulses by switching simple buttons and is designed to be
battery operated, user friendly, and portable. It was my wishful thinking then
that this invention would benefit millions of nasal problems sufferers while
projecting a good business opportunity. That being the case, the device was put
into mass production. In the first month of product promotion, everything went
on smoothly. Responses have been exciting and encouraging at that time. I was
almost dancing to work every morning (yet, if you ask me today what are those
things that I detest most, I will definitely say “Dancing” within a second). “Luck
always pairs with misfortune”, are absolutely words of wisdom! With the benefit
of hindsight, the entire incident has proved that at that moment it was too
early for me to celebrate.
Not
long after the honey-moon period, a warning letter was issued by HK Health
Department about the magic box. It said that the functionality as described for
the electronic device and the nasal soothing effect it claimed to be able to
produce have violated the prevailing Medical Advertisements Ordinance. The
argument was that contraction of nasal polyps has been regarded as impossible
under the current medical practice.
On
my wedding day 32 years ago, my wife warned” From now on, leave all females”.
That said, not only have I left all females, I threw away all coins bearing a
lady face!
That
is the person I am. Therefore, upon receipt of the abovementioned warning
letter, I immediately stopped the production line and called off all sales and
marketing programs, putting a complete full-stop of the entire operation.
A Nightmare begins
The
only solution to work around with the accusation is the obtain a formal
publication of the workable theory in either one of the renowned medical or
science journals. The question is medical doctors are not familiar with
electronic theory while physicists are strangers in medicals. I did prepare a
simplified version of technical report in which I have avoided using difficult
equations, technical terms and complicated electronic circuits as it is meant
for medical professionals. The title of the paper is
To
Contract the Nasal Polyps without Operation!!
To
Relief the Allergic Rhinitis without Medication!!
The
electronic theories as described in the simplified version of the paper are relatively
simple. It also contains the endoscope images of the nasal polyps which
demonstrated the gradual shrinkage of the lump resulting in the re-appearance
of the breathing passage. Therefore, at that moment, I strongly believed my
findings, thus the paper, would be accepted for publication in the prestige
medical journals.
On
the other hand, the traditional medical therapy has been developed
systematically over hundreds of years; the space for further development may be
limited in applying Chemistry and Biology theories. Therefore, it is no doubt
to predict that there are some new break-through on medical therapy/medication.
It can be, must be and will be content another technology especial “Electronics”.
With
such an engineer’s thinking cause me fallen in to a very difficult and painful
status. The story goes on as follows:-
I
was naïve to have assumed that the invention supported by proven electronic
theory with empirical examples would be received in general. Having written the
above-mentioned report, I started to enroll in the submission process. By
practice, submission to such academic journals should be made one after one and
multiple submissions to another journals at the same time is considered
unethical and is subject to reprimand. I tried medical journals as they were on
the top of the scale of preferences. Submission was being turned down one after
another, from medical to semi-medical to other branches of science journals. During
the past 18 months, I have totally made 31 submissions to 7 different
categories of international medical/science journals just to receive 31
knockouts. Oh my God!! 31 times of disappointment and discouragement!
Failure Analysis
1)
Most
of them did not provide any rejection reason. None of them has raised any
challenge on the content and the theory.
2)
Those with positive feedback have pointed out that this new
technique would only be acceptable subject to a properly controlled clinical
trial being conducted.
3)
As a matter of fact, I have reserved some of the
electronic devices for testing purposes; but none of them seemed interested.
4)
Only 3 out of the 31 submissions received attention
and were admitted for peer-review process. (Applied physics Letter, Journal of
Applied Physics and Lancet) (Note: only around 5% of submissions can enter into
the peer-review process). They were all being turned down at last.
5)
Only until recently, I had found out the actual
rejection cause of my report, which was mentioned on HKU clinical Trial
Register form, term 14- Effective from 1 July 2005, the
International committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) requires
registration in a publicly accessible trial registry as a condition of
consideration for publication in their member journals.
There is light at the end of the
tunnel…..
Form
the above; I finally understand that, if I want to escape from the dead end,
the recognized clinical trial report is a must. Without it, publication of the
applicable therapy in the representative journals becomes impossible. In the
absence of such publication, the magic box, thus its functionality, is
considered as a violation of the Medical Advertisements Ordinance in the course
of product promotion.
As we know "The
Times" ranked No. 1 in most-important-newspaper and with a submission
channel go public. Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate to write to
present the story to you hoping that for the benefit of millions, of nasal
disease sufferers, you would consider posting my story and perhaps the therapy
in whatever column in "The Times" as you sees fit.
The last but not the least
This
“Letter to the Editor” may be considered as my last submission.
As
you may be aware, Allergic rhinitis, Hay fever and Nasal Polyps are common
nasal diseases. Globally, it is estimated to have around 600 million people
afflicted in one or more of them. The method as described in my report is the
first electronic therapy in the world applied on such nasal disease with proven
healing effects.
I
am an ordinary man and have already put all my efforts in trying to let the
world know that there is a cure on allergic rhinitis and nasal polyps without the
need of medication or surgery but in vain. I really have lots of regrets should
my invention fade away. As you can see I am now stuck in the cul-de-sac and
unable to move one step forward without help. It has been more than four years
since I started the research and development process on this project. At
present, I dare to say that I am no longer thinking of any pecuniary benefit!
In my mind I just do not want to put a “full stop” to this project. Alas! As I
mentioned at the beginning, I am but an electronic engineer only….!!!
Please
find my enclosed title page and manuscript for your reference. Your attention
and consideration of my submission will he highly appreciated.
Best
regards,
Wan
Ching Ho
Remarks: as mentioned
above, in order to prove the theory works, I have prepare many micro current
devices for your use. For your information, the size of the host machine is
just a like a cigarette package, driven by 3 pieces of 1.5V AAA batteries and
simple operating.
Reference
1)
Detailed
submission flow
2)
E-mail
of Applied Physics Letter
3)
E-mail
of Journal of applied Physics
4)
E-mail
of the Lancet Peer review Team
5)
Rejection
letter of CMAJ
The
End