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Achmad Ibrahim / AP
Villagers lie on a railway track and wait for a train to rattle by for electricity therapy in Rawa Buaya, Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 26. People have been participating in the practise believing that the the electricity current from the track could cure various diseases.
The AP reports:
Ignoring the red-and-white danger sign, Sri Mulyati walks slowly to the train tracks outside Indonesia's bustling capital, lies down and stretches her body across the rails.
Like the nearly dozen others lined up along the track, the 50-year-old diabetes patient has all but given up on doctors and can't afford the expensive medicines they prescribe.
In her mind, she has only one option left: electric therapy.
Achmad Ibrahim / AP
"I'll keep doing this until I'm completely cured," said Mulyati, twitching visibly as an oncoming passenger train sends an extra rush of current racing through her body.
She leaps from tracks as it approaches and then, after the last carriage rattles slowly by, climbs back into position.
Pseudo-medical treatments are wildly popular in many parts of Asia — where rumors about those miraculously cured after touching a magic stone or eating dung from sacred cows can attract hundreds, sometimes thousands.
That may be especially true in Indonesia, where chronic funding shortages and chaotic decentralization efforts since the 1998 ouster of longtime dictator Suharto have left many disillusioned with the state-sponsored health system, said Marius Widjajarta, chairman of the Indonesian Health Consumers Empowerment Foundation.
Achmad Ibrahim / AP
Medical experts say there is no evidence lying on the rails does any good.
But Mulyati insists it provides more relief for her symptoms — high-blood pressure, sleeplessness and high cholesterol — than any doctor has since she was first diagnosed with diabetes 13 years ago.
Desperate and ailing people lie on train tracks in Indonesia hoping the electric currents produced by passing trains will help cure them. TODAY.com's Dara Brown reports.
Leave a Comment:
don't catch a cold while lying on the train tracks -- ah choo choo, ah choo choo ... hardee hah hah!!
Comment # 1 deleted for death wishing.
William Dobni, you are suspended for a day for violating rule # 5 of the Code of Honor.
After the cuts in healthcare, we we see a lot of these on our tracks in US.
Atleast we have health care, clinics, doctors who care about our health and our children and atleast some of us have a bank account or a credit card to buy medicine , but these people probably dont even have a home.
Instead of making comments and worrying about what you are being cut out of, why dont you send a prayer for these helpless people and maybe then you be blessed with health and wont need to use so much your heath coverage. Peace on! AMERICA!
Hey, maybe we finally found a use for Obama's High Speed Rail system!
Hey, Maybe once the Conservatives get their way and The insurance industry takes over they will actually cover this procedure. Probably not.
It is more like what we will see after OBUMO care starts!!!
Uh, Randy? Once Obamacare kicks in, people will be able to afford to see the doctor, and won't have to lie down on railroad tracks...
Uh, Toasty... did you read....? "have left many disillusioned with the state-sponsored health system..." Get it? Obamacare will send people to the tracks.....
Where is Dudley DoRight of the RCMP when he is most needed? He rescued Sweet Nell from the railroad tracks every Saturday morning.
See people, this is what the US needs! We need to continue to cut back on education to the point that there are enough idiots in the mix to believe that all this witch-doctor and voodoo remedies will work! It'll do wonders for our nation's rapidly growing medical costs, reducing the payouts to a greying population on SSI, AND it will help with the turnover of getting younger workers in to businesses that are currently fully staffed as older people cut WAAAAAY back on their potential life-expectancy.
Who needs death panels when you can get your subjects to voluntarily adopt methods that have no chance of working?! We will have cheaper health insurance in a decade and the waiting lists for cancer treatments and organ donors will shorten exponentially!
The solution from the looney Left? Holistic medicine and naturopaths are working feverishly to save our country from our budget and deficit woes! Won't we finally listen to them? HEHEHE
The solution from the ridiculous Right? Cut back on education and let God be the sole decision maker on who lives and who dies (unless you can afford a private education that can teach you otherwise). We don't have enough people dying of the flu and whooping cough! What worked for the Church in the Dark Ages can work again dan gummit!
♫ You put the lime in the coconut, you drink them both together ♫
♫ You put the lime in the coconut, then you'll feel better ♫
♫ Put the lime in the coconut, and drink them both up ♫
♫ Put the lime in the coconut, and call me in the morning ♫
Uh, captcrash? Can you read? "chaotic decentralization efforts" have led to disillusionment. The people want their strong centralized health care back.
While for some people, these are nothing but ideological discussions, for many in the US, the healthcare debate is a life-and-death situation.
The question to ask yourself is, does everyone deserve healthcare, and if your employer is unwilling to give you one, how do you get one? Free market? I don't think it has worked anywhere in the world. Government healthcare should charge everyone 20% co-pay if you get treatment is done in USA. Provide option to get it done overseas with 5% co-pay.
What tracks? None around here; torn-up decades ago after business declined and autos ruled! Sad epitaph for a once thriving (and badly needed now) industry.
Sorry Crash, but the grownups known as experts disagree.
YEA! Railroad-Track Medicare!
COMING TO THE US SOON!
At least it's free over there to lie down on train track, DOT in US might needs to charge people to do the same thing to pay for taxes.
Wow-I wonder how much of a rush you get from a electro magnetic train that runs above the track? Wonder who cleans up the mess when they fall asleep?
This is the Tea Party cure for every illness listed in .......
The Tea party would be more aptly named the Retro party. Retrofitting brains to the politically insane and the brainwashed passengers on the Obama train.
such as Paul Revere riding to warn the British? Or maybe that the Founding Fathers fought tirelessly to end slavery? Those kind of brains?
FC - no I think its the "keep govt out of my medicare" kind of brains.
but jokes aside, wonder if that lady has cut out eating high sugar, high carb foods?
probably not...just like most americans who are fat and lazy and would rather push the easy button and get expensive meds to treat (read, mask) problems they could cure through exercise and diet.
Such as NOT spending money we don't have. Have you ever thought that with the USA borrowing money from the rest of the world there is less money for the really needy of the world??????
Or do you just not care that they live in poverty??
Jessica-
I think it'd be pretty difficult to "keep govt out of my medicare" as Medicare is a government run program.
Do you think if they were educated enough to know about dietary issues to combat diabetes, they would be seeking this type of 'therapy'? And the one with diabetes was the only one that said what her actual health concern was; who knows what the others think they're treating... We cannot assume doctors in other countries have access to the same information as those in the US, and even doctors in the US often struggle to properly treat diseases that are brought on by improper nutrition, as the patients refuse to take their advice. Who are we to say we know what they should do, given the prevalence of nutritionally related healthcare woes we have in the US?
Lame, Vegains..lame.
"But Mulyati insists it provides more relief for her symptoms — high-blood pressure, sleeplessness and high cholesterol"
High cholesterol? Electricity cures high cholesterol? Yes, let's throw out any hint of dieting or proper nutrition when voodoo medicine clearly is the correct answer.
Well I've heard of all sorts of different ways to treat things, this is a new one on me.
However I am fortunate enough to have VA healthcare and don't have to resort to these type of healthcare procedures, but I know right here in United States there's a lot of people in a lot of pain and it's sad.
As If the Drug Business couldn't afford to give out three month supply free medication to every person on earth that's how much money they have... I wish these people well and may they get better quick as I know what pain is
All of their claims are true. After a train runs them over they no longer have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol.
That's right Marshall, and, maybe their great god Oooombah the Great will put all the pieces back together again and they will be healthy. Some say they are sick and in pain, and since they can't sweet talk or force the government, us, into making them well again and delaying the inevitable; death, well, to the tracks and I'll be happy to help lay them all down on the healing tracks.
Who are these idiots who show up in every comment section hurling infantile, racist insults at Obama? "Oooombah the Great?" Seriously? Shouldn't you be burning a cross somewhere?
How is what Mellowfello said racist. So he hates Obama..so what. That's his opinion, not racist. Those who hate Bush aren't being racist.
Giantslor, to answer your question about MFBunchnumbers?: Time shares... likely had to wait on someone first...
Sounds like a great health care plan to me! Other people should jump on the train! (tracks)
its the Apocolypes tracks in Indiana-nesia? Begley makes no angelic quotes for the tracks about to turn red. no news here, next
"Apocolypes"...
lol
At least they get some exercise trekking to the tracks
........ couldnt you get the same benifit by sticking your tongue into a wall outlet ? just sayin .......
yes, it's sure cured the stupidity!!!!!!
If they lay there long enough, everything that ails them will be cured.....Just sayin'
What's Indonesian for "facepalm"?
Natural Selection at work....
Eating cow dung? Holy cow. I thought my dog was sick for eating his own poop and poop from our other dog as it is freshly laid. Just think ,no more hunger in that part of the world if this catches on. We can collect all the dung from our cow pastures and ship it over there.
Looks like the Dudley Doo-Right healthcare plan
Haha... You said "mud ham head" instead of Mohammed! That's very clever. You must be right about everything.
All you fools can laugh-------I personally think that it is tragic that humans have to resort to myths like that in order to improve their health--------with the denial of health care in this country maybe one day we will be reduced to doing similar things----------"what goes around, comes around!"
A totally uneducated statement. (For liberals, that means it's not true.)
"Denial" applies to the bureaucrats that think more bureaucracy will cure anything.
That and a good dose of bear bile and she'll be all set. Wow.
Given the state of the cost of health insurance in the United States - perhaps the Far Right will offer this up to poor people as a potential practice for their health problems.
That would be much easier and a heck of a lot cheaper that adhering to Christian Values and actually practicing what Jesus preached.
I thought they were trying to train their bodies to fight off some cancer! Hopefully they didn't get railroaded into doing this!
What is happening is the mind will get scared from the approaching train. Then their antibody will go hunt the culprit that cause their disease. Make sense?
Historically speaking, it's not been so long since electro-shock therapy was considered a cure for many ills. On one hand, these people are obviously not well-educated with regard to medicine, and are extremely foolhardy to be taking the risks associated with their 'treatment' which should not be condoned by any stretch of the imagination, but on the other hand, their innovation and self-sufficiency may be admired - instead of continuing with 'trained' medical care that is not helping, they're seeking relief by taking action, however misguided. They're not the ones sitting around waiting for their government to fix what's wrong with their healthcare system for them.
@ JM-1928381
This is why we have an FDA. Because the private sector left to its own devices will happily sell dying people snake oil and hope at a premium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery
Quackery exists in government much more than in the private sector.
@ Dr Larry
So should we get rid of even more regulation and oversight? When has that worked well in the past?
Seems that this latest recession and the recent oil crises goes to show that Glass-Steagall shouldn't have been repealed
Now, if they send a train down the track they are lying on....it will for sure cure them of their problems....
There IS no current between the tracks from an overhead powered electric train. This has about as much basis in fact as religion.