Full Investigation · Quebec & Europe · 1981–2017
“Your Cancer Is a Conflict”: Ryke Geerd Hamer, German New Medicine and Biologie Totale in Quebec
A German doctor stripped of his licence taught that every cancer is the body's response to an emotional shock, and that chemotherapy is a Jewish plot. His followers in France rebranded the idea as “biologie totale”. In 2008 two Radio-Canada journalists posing as cancer patients found it being practised in about thirty Quebec towns, and were told to delay their treatment and keep it from their doctors.
Hamer
Ryke Geerd Hamer was a German internist. In 1978 his son Dirk was shot on a yacht off Corsica and died months later. Hamer then developed testicular cancer and, by his own account, decided the one had caused the other. From that he built a system: every cancer and most other diseases arise from a specific, unexpected emotional shock, each mapped to a particular organ and a particular ring he claimed to see on brain scans. Disease is the body's “meaningful special program” for dealing with the conflict, and it resolves on its own once the conflict does.
It follows from this that cancer treatment is not merely useless but harmful, and that the pain and swelling of a growing tumour are signs of healing. Two universities rejected his thesis for lack of any scientific method. A German court revoked his medical licence in 1986.
The theory came with an ideology. Hamer claimed that mainstream cancer medicine was a Jewish conspiracy to kill non-Jews, that Jewish patients in Germany were never given chemotherapy, that chemotherapy and morphine were being used for the mass murder of Western civilization, and that injection needles implanted microchips. He denied that HIV exists. In 2008 he circulated a document from a convicted Holocaust denier alleging a Jewish oncologists' plot. This is the strand that runs into the antisemitism documented elsewhere on this site.
The record in Europe
- 1986 — Germany
Medical licence revoked for malpractice. A 2003 court ruling confirmed it. - 1995 — Austria
Olivia Pilhar, six, had a Wilms' tumour — a kidney cancer with a high cure rate. Her parents, following Hamer, refused treatment and took her to Spain. Austria removed their custody; after negotiations that reached the Austrian president, they came home, a court ordered surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and Olivia recovered. Her parents received an eight-month suspended sentence. - 1997–1998 — Germany
Hamer arrested and jailed. - 2004–2006 — France
Imprisoned at Fleury-Mérogis for fraud and illegal practice of medicine. - 2007 — Spain
He left Spain, where he had lived in self-imposed exile, after Spanish medical authorities held him responsible for dozens of preventable deaths. - 2017 — Norway
Died of a stroke, aged 82. Cases of patients following his system continued to be reported in Italy and elsewhere.
Aribert Deckers, a German researcher who collected trial records, press reports and accounts from former associates, listed 148 people at the start of 2008 whom he documented as victims of the method. His list was the source this site used in 2008.
Biologie Totale
In France the system was repackaged as biologie totale by Claude Sabbah, a physician who added his own layers about the “biological meaning” of disease and charged about $1,500 for his training workshops. By 2008 he was banned from practising medicine in France. The French-language version reached Quebec through his workshops and those of his students, under several names.
What Enquête found in Quebec
In the winter of 2008 Radio-Canada journalists Guy Gendron and Chantal Cauchy spent months with a hidden camera, Gendron posing as a man with prostate cancer and Cauchy as a woman with breast cancer. The two-part report, Biologie totale : menace fatale, aired on 2 and 9 October 2008. It found the practice offered in about thirty Quebec towns, and its proponents claiming to cure everything up to advanced cancer and AIDS.
What the undercover “patients” were told
Chantal Cauchy was told her breast cancer had been caused by her son's coming departure for a CEGEP far from home. Guy Gendron was told his prostate cancer came from a conflict between his parents while he was in the womb.
A naturopath advised him to put off his biopsy. Another told a patient her cancer would have gone away by itself without treatment. A nurse in Sherbrooke prescribed a prayer to be recited fifteen times morning and evening. Most of the practitioners they consulted urged them to stop medical treatment and not to tell their doctors.
Sabbah himself threatened to smash the camera. Dr. Danielle Perreault, who attended one of his workshops with Gendron, walked out early and called it a public danger.
In Europe the program interviewed Gilbert Jacubczyk, whose partner had died of breast cancer at 40, in great pain, after refusing treatment — and who said he had been told to leave her because of her “bad vibrations”. The oncologist Jean Latreille told viewers the advice was dangerous and inhumane, since an untreated cancer can double in a matter of weeks.
The second part examined where it was being taught: in private institutes with government recognition, and in continuing-education settings attached to CEGEPs and universities.
What the regulators did
The day after the first broadcast, the Collège des médecins du Québec sent its members a warning reminding them of their ethical obligations. Its president, Dr. Yves Lamontagne, asked the Maison de la santé, a Quebec City clinic shown in the program, to remove biologie totale from its services; the clinic's medical director said none of its three physicians practised it. The case of the clinic's naturopath co-founder was referred onward, and Lamontagne filed a complaint against a chiropractor for using the title “médecin”. The naturopaths' association said it would review her practice.
The College was also plain about its limits: its jurisdiction covers physicians. Naturopathy is not a regulated profession in Quebec, and most of the people Enquête filmed answered to no regulator at all. Lamontagne's advice to the public was to complain to whatever professional order a practitioner belonged to — which, for most of them, was none.
No prosecution in Canada for practising biologie totale or German New Medicine has been located. CBC/Radio-Canada's ombudsman later reviewed the reports following a complaint; that review is listed as a source below but was not retrieved for this page.
Still here
German New Medicine is taught today in English-language online courses and seminars, including from Canada, and promoted on podcasts and social media under its own name, usually without mention of Hamer's convictions or his antisemitism. In French it circulates as décodage biologique and related terms. A survey of who offers it in Canada now has not been done for this page.
Related on QuackeryWatch
Sources
- Radio-Canada, Enquête. “Biologie totale : menace fatale,” 2 October 2008, and “Biologie totale, menace fatale 2,” 9 October 2008 (episode listings).
- Richard Therrien. “Biologie totale : histoire d'horreur à Enquête.” Le Soleil, 2 October 2008 (as reposted by the Centre contre les manipulations mentales).
- Claudette Samson. “Biologie totale : la Maison de la santé interpellée.” Le Soleil, 9 October 2008.
- CBC/Radio-Canada Office of the Ombudsman. Review of the Enquête reports on biologie totale (not retrieved).
- “Ryke Geerd Hamer”, Wikipedia, and the court, press and medical sources it cites (Cologne prosecution files; The Lancet, 1997; The Independent and Die Presse on the Pilhar case; Searchlight, 2007; ARD, 2010; Vice, 2017).
- Aribert Deckers. “Victims of New Medicine,” list as of early 2008.
- Der Standard, “Wunderheiler Ryke Geerd Hamer ist tot,” July 2017.
Practitioners filmed by Enquête are described by role and town, not named, except where they spoke publicly in their own name; this page relies on the broadcast and press reports and makes no finding about any individual. Corrections are welcome and are recorded on the page.