Media Coverage

Miracle Machine

Reporter: Vassil Malandris
Broadcast Date: 24 Jul 2006

It may look like something out of Dr Who, but this Adelaide practitioner reckons he could be onto a medical breakthrough.

No magic potions, no pill popping, no joke.

Dr Andy Barrie believes a single machine called the BICOM 2000 is diagnosing and treating serious illnesses and allergies, but is it all just too good to be true?

Well according child psychologist Louise Porter who was struck down by Fibromyalgia 4 years ago, there’s no doubt in her mind. "I was fairly sceptical but after I gained back the mobility and the pain started to recede I became a convert" Louise says.

She even brought her daughter Hannah, a long time sufferer of chronic fatigue syndrome and after a few treatments later at a hundred dollars a pop... "I'm now able to ride my horse again and play the flute and I'm able to go out and run around without becoming breathless and that type of thing” Hannah says

But no one has astounded Andy more from the treatment than Adelaide mum Ursula Weatherly who spent the last 35 years suffering from a life - threatening allergy to eggs and chicken products. That is until… “Where I work one of the volunteers mentioned energy waves and she explained it to me and I thought gee that sounds good won't hurt to have a go on it. I had 12 treatments and finally I can actually eat eggs and chicken after 35 years no problems and it tastes good!”

So how does the technology work? According to Andy it's all based on a science called Bioresonance, where all the cells in our body supposedly communicate with each other via electric signals.

“What the machine's doing is separating the healthy signals from the unhealthy signals, the unhealthy signals are then put through what's called a mirror circuit so the waves are turned upside down and fed back to the body” Take for example Louise's allergy to milk and cheese. “What the machine does is pick up the signal from the cheese and inverts it”

But how does the machine know what is causing the allergic reaction - well it's a matter of elimination Dr Barrie puts the suspect substance into the machine and hey presto! The electric waves pass through the cheese and within minutes the machine starts to reverse Louise's symptoms.

After a few sessions your allergy, virus or ailment is cured - you can even use it on the family dog!

However Andy's at pains to point out the therapy can’t cure the incurable.

“Well we don't use the word 'cure' we talk about symptom free and Peter Schumacher the Austrian paediatrician who developed this method, his studies show over 80% of patients were symptom free after a course of treatment.”

With statistics like these, and a waiting list of up to 5 months, you must be wondering how Andy keeps up with demand? Simple, he’s now recruiting the next generation of BICOM therapists.

But despite the testimonials, not everyone is convinced by the BICOM 2000. Peter Bowditch is the Vice President of the Sceptics society. He says the technology is false and there's nothing new about it. The machines just keep getting reinvented every few years.

“They're just a way of extracting money out of the wallets of desperate people. They generally operate in Tijuana in Mexico outside of the reach of the Federal Drug Administration … many of them are multi purpose and so I've got a zapper here which you can set it at one frequency and it cures aids, you set it at another it cures cancer - all cancers of course, for quackery all cancer is the same thing.” Peter says.

Peter also wonders if Dr Andy Barrie’s patients know that he is not a medical doctor, but instead holds a PhD in Atomic physics.

“There's no pretence, there's no attempt to mislead people” responds Andy.

Certainly Andy's patients didn't seem to feel misled when swearing by the treatment. It’s just that the practitioners can't actually prove they've cured or treated their patients for anything as a disclaimer on their DVD illustrates: 'The success stories of therapists and patients do not present any basis for 'scientific proof' in today's medicine”

With the BICOM 2000 now in the hands of our health authorities awaiting approval by the TGA, Louise Porter says it's up to the individual to be open to the technology and try it before you knock it.