OFF: Therapy!

Wed Mar 27 14:34:32 EST 1996

A friend sent this useful report from the wire service:
  PANJIM, India (Reuter) -- Retired Indian Admiral L. Ramdas drinks his neat.
Dr. Ryoichi Nakao of Japan likes to gargle with his each morning. "I splash
some on my face," said Coen van der Kroon of the Netherlands. "It's a great
aftershave." They are among millions who say urine has benefits beyond the
toilet bowl.

 The devotees are more than a fringe group of faith healers fed up with
conventional medicine. Their ranks are growing, they are organizing and they
claim pharmaceutical makers better listen up because it is big money.

 "Urine has tremendous political and economic implications," said Carmen
Thomas, a West German radio journalist who has written three books on urine
therapy. One of them entitled "A Very Special Juice" has sold 750,000 copies.

 Some 600 doctors, scientists and therapists gathered recently in Panjim,
capital of the southwestern Indian state of Goa, for the first World
Conference on Auto-Urine Therapy.

 Participants paid tribute to former Indian prime minister Morarji Desai, who
stunned the world when he disclosed that he drank a glass of his own urine
every day. He died last year at the age of 99.

 Conference enthusiasts were led by G.K. Thakkar, head of India's Water of
Life Foundation who says urine cured him of amoebic dysentery and eczema, and
made him a "bold orator overnight."

 Thakkar calls urine "the nectar medicine" which he claims can heal most if
not all illnesses, including AIDS.

 Tara Eich of Australia said she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She
began drinking her urine and recovered.

 Claude Jacot of Switzerland put up with 50 years of sinusitis. He began
pouring urine into his nose every day and has not had a recurrence since.

 An initiate might find urine a touch salty with a potent aftertaste, but
hardly rancid unless laced with lingering alcohol or pungent spices from the
night before.

 But many skeptics hold their noses. "It is most wholesome but world opinion
still considers it most unwholesome," U.S. chiropractor and urine therapist
John Wynhausen said.

 Dr. R.D. Lele of Bombay's Jaslok Hospital says the urine movement lacks
solid scientific proof to back its case. But he concedes there could be
something to it. "When 600 people gather, whether or not you like it, you are
certainly curious," he told the auto-urine conference.

 Van der Kroon says urine has not always been distasteful. In his book "The
Golden Fountain: The Complete Guide to Urine Therapy," van der Kroon says
each of us floated in amniotic fluid for nine months before being born. The
fluid is made up largely of urine.

 In a 1747 book German author Johann Heinrich Zedler wrote: "One can best
heal injuries to eyes with honey dissolved in the lightly boiled urine from a
young man."

 In the 18th century, French and German doctors used it to treat jaundice,
rheumatic disorders, gout, sciatica and asthma. Cannoniers used to keep a
bucket of urine nearby. If a hand was burned during firing, a quick dip
soothed the pain.

 British convert J.W. Armstrong treated 40,000 patients between 1925 and 1944
for ailments from cancer to tuberculosis.

 In the 1940s, German doctors gave urine enemas to children exposed to
measles or small pox. Today, according to van der Kroon, Eskimo women use
urine as a shampoo.

 Five million Germans indulge in urine therapy, many of them taking
injections, according to Dr. Johann Abele. "It has spread over Germany like a
huge wave," he said.

 Retired admiral Ramdas, head of India's navy between 1991 and 1993, first
heard of the therapy in 1989 from a friend who said it cured her of kidney
and liver failure.

 In perfect health but curious, he and his wife, Lalita, began drinking a
daily glass of urine. "We take a maintenance dose of owne glass a day," said
Lalita, who is president of the International Council of Adult Education
based in Toronto.

 The 63-year-old retired admiral said he did not advertise the therapy but
quietly told navy colleagues. "There was a predictable response. They were
quizzical and very skeptical," he said. "But many started the practice."

 Ramdas, who has a daughter who drinks her urine, credits the therapy with
helping him keep up a strenuous schedule. "There is nothing to be ashamed
about. One only has to lower one's mental barrier which is a result of
brain-washing as a child. It demands tremendous courage and will," said
Ramdas.

 Companies have begun waking up to urine, Thomas says.

 Enzymes of America Holding Corp. has developed a filter that collects
proteins found in male urine in 10,000 portable toilets owned by a
subsidiary, PortaJohn.

 The U.S. firm is working on marketing urokinase, an enzyme found in urine
that is used to dissolve blood clots and treat heart attack victims, van der
Kroon said. "There is an annual market of $500 million for these types of
substances," he said.

 Thomas says some drugs firms have caught on. In Shanghai urine is collected
in public toilets, sold to pharmaceutical firms which extract urokinase and
then exported. "Some firms in Europe are selling products like skin creams
with ads saying, 'With urea in it!'" Thomas said.

 A Dutch firm mixes the urine of nuns with that of pregnant women to make a
potion for sterile couples, van der Kroon said.

 Some say urine is the medicine of the future for billions of poor people
without access to health care. "It is the cheapest form of medicine and you
don't need doctors," Goan deputy chief minister Wilfred d'Souza said.