It’s been a long 5 days since I started this project. The response from the community has largely been great… As I suspected, people appreciate getting information. Also, predictively, some people in the community have now attacked me for trying to provide it. Oh well.
In this last (at least for now) chapter of my contribution to the Oral IV Controversy, Dr. Beck sits down and speaks with an emergency medicine professional who works at high altitude and deals with hydration issues as a constant part of his job, Phil McFall. Phil and I have known each other for several years, he is an EMT working with an ambulance crew in central Colorado, a member of a multi-jurisdictional SWAT Team and he runs a defensive firearms training company (High Caliber Consulting). His resume includes 12 years as an EMT, 8 years an an EMT Instructor and over a decade as a wildland firefighter/EMT. After speaking with Dr. Beck and I about Oral IV over breakfast and watching Dr. Beck’s presentation on what Oral IV is and how Oral IV works, Phil wrote down the questions that he had and presented them to Dr. Beck during a Q&A session which was taped in its entirety and is shared in the 4th (and final) video in the series I’ve put on YouTube. This session actually took place before the Q&A session that I had with Dr. Beck, which was shared in the 3rd Video (I wanted to share that session first, as the critics were continuing to press their issues and the responses that Dr. Beck shared were important to get into the conversation). Phil also tried Oral IV for the first time (on camera) and participated in a Live Blood Analysis (LBA), which is also shared in the 4th video.
If nothing else, one of the things that has come out of this week is that I no longer put any stock in the LBA. Now, I am not saying that I haven’t seen positive results (including my own test back in 2011), but I’ve also seen less impressive changes and I am aware that there are examples of no perceptible change being shown through LBA after the administration of Oral IV. Here’s a moment of integrity for the critics: Many have been sharing information over the last week about how the LBA means nothing, is not a valid form of testing and shouldn’t be trusted. Hopefully, they will be happy to find out that I now agree with them in principal. I think the LBA test itself has obviously been so misused by charlatans in the past that its value, especially in this controversy, is so suspect that Dr. Beck would be better off throwing his microscope in the lake than ever trying to use it to “prove” the efficacy of Oral IV. At this point, positive results will only be called “illusion” and negative results can only serve to undermine his credibility. I am anxious for an independent lab to get some real tests of efficacy done on human test subjects… until then, I say that the jury is still out.
I will continue to use and sell Oral IV. The former because I get positive results with it, the latter because I want to support the company until I have a good reason not to. Of course, as I announced yesterday, I will be donating any profit from Oral IV to charity, so as to avoid the red herring critique of my efforts to help Oral IV share information as being motivated by profit.
I don’t understand the science behind Oral IV, but I do believe that Dr. Beck and those involved in its sale are sincere. I trust the hundreds of examples of positive feedback from the use of the product, including myself and many in the firearms/training/military community. Oral IV may still turn out to be nothing more than a good try… or, it may be disruptive technology that no currently established expert in the field of hydration understands. I think it is intellectually naive for someone who hasn’t been exposed to the actual process involved in the preparation (toured the factory/lab, shown the process, etc., etc….) to simply say that it is “impossible” because it may be something completely new that they don’t understand. How many established experts have criticized challenges to the status quo in the past only to eventually be embarrassed by innovation? Please watch this last video, including the current summary of my thoughts at the end of it:
Dr. Beck speaks with an EMT & conducts a Live Blood Analysis and Rob Pincus’ summary.
Ultimately, I hope that the efforts this week are appreciated by the community. Until there are some further independent tests/studies or other new objective information comes out about Oral IV, this will probably be my last formal comment on the matter.
-RJP
As a general comment:
If Oral IV facilitates water movement into the body, wouldn’t it exacerbate hyponatremia? So… shouldn’t hyponatremia be a contraindication?
It should be noted that when putting blood samples under a cover slip on a slide, different parts of the sample will behavior different, regardless of “charge” – some will be clumped together (generally the middle), others will not (particularly the edges where capillary action is pulling fluid away). Thus keeping the sample zoomed in only one area may not be a representative of the entire slide.
Mr Pincus,
Thank you for taking the time with doing the video series and for keeping an open mind. At this time I remained unconvinced by the claims of Oral IV, but I am glad that the claims by Dr. Beck (whom, believe or not, I do respect for being very well read and articulate) are in the open for all to judge for by themselves.
Hope to see you on the range sometime.
Thanks, Jim.
That was the point of the project: Get the information out there. As for the LBA, I (now) agree, I don’t think it really helps anyone understand what is going on.