and how is Gaz doing?

[caddarik79]

Gaz, if you read me,

1) congratz for your new life as a daddy, I hope you have a wonderful time adapting ;-)

2) how is life with your HASCI hairs? what's next? how much more would you need to be totally OK?

No breaking news from Gho & co?

[Arashi]

I have SOME news ... Or at least something that might interest you: I was discussing HASCI on the dutch forum and how there is so much doubt about hasci and how their ONLY proof is that article in that magazine... So I thought, let's contact that magazine to ask some questions, how they reviewed everything etc. Turned out the magazine is Dutch, so I wrote the guy this email. Translation:

Dear Mr. van de Kerkhof,

In your journal, Journal of Dermatological Treatment, Dr Coen Gho has some time ago published an article in which a technique was described with which 85% of the follicles supposedly would grow back after transplantation: http://www.hasci.com/uploads/files/N..._treatment.pdf ...

Now, there are some serious doubts about this technique:

1) To date, no one could reproduce it. Some doctors have tried, including Dr. Mousseige from France, Dr. Mwamba from Belgium and Dr. Nigam from India. None of them reported success thus far.

2) Analysis of photographs of a patient shows that either no regrowth took place at all or a percentage way below 85%.

3) Dr. Gho refuses to participate in independent tests, like a test in which 50 grafts would be transplanted.

4) There is as yet no known case of a patient who was transformed in a way that wouldnt be possible with ordinary FUE.

In short, the only 'proof' of their technique is that article in your magazine. Therefore, I am very curious if and how this has been reviewed? Could you elaborate a bit on this please ?

He then replied:

The referee process is not public but private. I can not help you.

If you want a discussion about the work you can do so, of course, through a letter to the editor. Where we can ask a reply from the authors. For the publication of letters to the editor, we can ask the advice of a referee.

Best regards and thanks for your interest

Prof. PCM van de Kerkhof

So in short, they didnt even want to tell how they examined HASCI's claims !! This struck me as quite weird. If they had nothing to hide, why not just say something about the way the looked at HASCI ? How they verified the pictures were not fake etc ?

Instead, they say I would have to send them an official letter which would then MAYBE be publicized in their journal and then they would ask HASCI for a response, LOL.

[joachim]

who knows... maybe Gho paid the magazine for the article.
or the journalists have no scientific background at all and have been tricked somehow with before/after pictures or something like that.

it's beyond me how doctors can make such regeneration claims for years and get away with it, making tons of cash. to me this case even counts as fraud. why is it even legal at all?

there were people in the past few years who claimed they have created a perpetuum mobile. after they failed to show proof but still claimed the same facts for years, they were official fraudsters and even put it in jail. that's no joke.

you can't claim some bullshit theories in medicine and science for years in a legal way.

i think we should hire a professional journalist to investigate in this a little bit more. people like Gho shouldn't get attention because of false claims. he's only an FUE surgeon, that's all. probably one of the better ones, but not a VIP hair god.

[Arashi]

So in short, all we have that's supposed to function as proof of their technique is an article they got published in a magazine, with some bold claims and some unclear photo's. The magazine doesn't even want to tell if they did any research into these claims. So for all we know, they didnt even look into it. Or they did look into it quickly but didnt even try to verify if the photo's were real.

So in short, there's no proof at all of hasci's claims. It are just claims. And if we look at Gaz's results, it's obvious that those claims were not correct for him. MAYBE some regrowth did happen, but Gaz also agreed that IF some regrowth did happen, it was nowhere near the 85% hasci still advertises with (somebody on the Dutch forum was just last week told again by hasci that 85% would grow back!)

[Arashi]

who knows... maybe Gho paid the magazine for the article.

Yeah I think that's exactly what's happened.

it's beyond me how doctors can make such regeneration claims for years and get away with it, making tons of cash. to me this case even counts as fraud. why is it even legal at all?

It really pisses me off. I'm really allergic to fraudsters and I'm SURE hasci falls in that category. I wish we had some way to expose them with 100% undeniable proof. But since hasci doesnt agree to 50 graft tests, it's just impossible

[joachim]

Yeah I think that's exactly what's happened.



It really pisses me off. I'm really allergic to fraudsters and I'm SURE hasci falls in that category. I wish we had some way to expose them with 100% undeniable proof. But since hasci doesnt agree to 50 graft tests, it's just impossible

isn't it in our responsibility to initiate some next steps here, in the interest of all hairloss sufferers?
getting the media into this... contact some newspapers to investigate this.
Gho has always the chance to show proof, but if he refuses then there should be some serious consequences.

[Arashi]

isn't it in our responsibility to initiate some next steps here, in the interest of all hairloss sufferers?
getting the media into this... contact some newspapers to investigate this.
Gho has always the chance to show proof, but if he refuses then there should be some serious consequences.

But how? We don't have 100% proof, only circumstantial evidence. Writing a letter to that magazine is pointless too, they will never admit they didn't look good at hasci. Gho doesn't want a test. So I think our only option would be to do it ourselves and get someone to do some minimal amount of grafts like 500 and photograph everything. But that would be a huge amount of work...

[joachim]

But how? We don't have 100% proof, only circumstantial evidence. Writing a letter to that magazine is pointless too, they will never admit they didn't look good at hasci. Gho doesn't want a test. So I think our only option would be to do it ourselves and get someone to do some minimal amount of grafts like 500 and photograph everything. But that would be a huge amount of work...

maybe contact other newspapers or tv stations to make a story out of it. they would be glad to reveal such a fraud. maybe creating a blog with alle the recent summarized facts about Gho to show the people at least what's up so they are able to make their own decision.

but if we do nothing, Gho will continue doing the same stuff for the next 20 years, which isn't right and fair.
many people choose his clinic because of the regeneration claims but if he's cheating people and sell overprized FUEs based on that regeneration theory then something is wrong.

i don't know. it's difficult to make some follow up actions here, but that's exactly the reason why such people always get away with fraud and cheating.

[Arashi]

A few years ago some competitors of HASCI sued HASCI, cause they, like us, were sure HASCI were frauds. HASCI won the case. For the dutch, you can read it here:

http://www.hasci.com/uploads/files/beslissing_reclame_code_commissie_totaal_2010_08_12_nederlands.pdf

The reasons why hasci won the case, according to the commission:

A) Scientific basis:
1) The publication in that magazine.
2) They said Prof Dr Neumann who supposedly is really somebody, allegedly helped Gho develop the method
3) Gho presented his method on the ISHRS congress 2008

B) ISO and supervision
1) HASCI follows ISO 9001:2000
2) HASCI is supervised by some commission in the Netherlands and they have to fill in some forms now and then.

C) practice
1) HASCI supposedly applied the method to 1200 patients and supposedly they follow up on each and every patient and document each case thoroughly and they saw huge regrowth in all cases

D) They have a patent

So the points above were reason why HASCI won. It's quite ridiculous if you ask me. Interestingly they say something about the magazine and their procedure:

The publication is peer reviewed, which means that the article is sent to 4 experts. The article is sent completely anonymous and also the publisher doesnt know who will review it. Partly based on feedback of the experts the publisher of the magazine decides if the article has enough scientific basis to be published

So that's also extremely interesting !!! They just send out the article to 4 guys who read if and if they think it's a good read, they will publish it. So those 4 guys just saw the same photo's as we saw in the article !! And these photo's are shitty as hell, no way at all to verify if they're real !

So this is the core of hasci. All the other reasons above are a bunch of shit of course. Like the point that hasci thorougly reviews all of their patients results, what a joke, they just sent me some questions after a year and that was it ! And who cares that hasci follows some ISO rules ? Who cares that they every now and then fill in some checklists ? Who cares if some professor was somewhat involved in the method, for all we know he just claimed that stem cells can regenerate hair, just like we know now ! That doesnt mean shit. And the speach at a ISHRS congress ? Haha really ? Man those idiots should go there and see what an ISHRS congress really is, those idiots there still talk about FUT like it's THE best thing out there And really, who cares about a patent ?

All in all, what a joke. But at least we now KNOW how that magazine worked: those 4 guys never saw the original photo's, they never could verify the photo's were real. They just got to read that same article and concluded it was scientific enough to be published.

If you ask me, the key is this: all those researchers agreed that the stem cells could repair the split follicle and that one follicle can become 2 follicles. What they however never checked was: does a follicle with 2 hairs grow back as 2x2 hairs or not ? ANd that's the key !! Like jjjjr's mentioned so many times, hasci's method seems to be based on splitting follicles and a 2 hair follicle unit becomes 2x1 hair. And that's exactly what we saw in gaz's case and the reason why regrowth was nowhere near the 85% hasci claims it is. And possibly even 0.

[Arashi]

So anyway how to continue from here ? Maybe it's an idea to contact those clinics that original sued hasci and see if they want to follow up now ? Maybe contact a dutch tv program and see if they're interested in a scoop ? Maybe they're willing to fund some people to go there and have everything photographed to expose hasci ?

The key is this: the only way to expose hasci is to send some undercover guys there, have EVERY graft photographed and have hasci do a small procedure and document everything. It's going to be a hell of a job and also cost quite a bit of money. So we'd need some parties motivated enough to input both. Maybe a tv program, maybe the original clinics who sued hasci. But either way, it's the only way in my opinion to expose them.

The article Gho published was based on only 5 test persons. So that's also exactly what we'd need: document 5 test persons.

[joachim]

A few years ago some competitors of HASCI sued HASCI, cause they, like us, were sure HASCI were frauds. HASCI won the case. For the dutch, you can read it here:

http://www.hasci.com/uploads/files/beslissing_reclame_code_commissie_totaal_2010_08_12_nederlands.pdf

The reasons why hasci won the case, according to the commission:

A) Scientific basis:
1) The publication in that magazine.
2) They said Prof Dr Neumann who supposedly is really somebody, allegedly helped Gho develop the method
3) Gho presented his method on the ISHRS congress 2008

B) ISO and supervision
1) HASCI follows ISO 9001:2000
2) HASCI is supervised by some commission in the Netherlands and they have to fill in some forms now and then.

C) practice
1) HASCI supposedly applied the method to 1200 patients and supposedly they follow up on each and every patient and document each case thoroughly and they saw huge regrowth in all cases

D) They have a patent

So the points above were reason why HASCI won. It's quite ridiculous if you ask me. Interestingly they say something about the magazine and their procedure:



So that's also extremely interesting !!! They just send out the article to 4 guys who read if and if they think it's a good read, they will publish it. So those 4 guys just saw the same photo's as we saw in the article !! And these photo's are shitty as hell, no way at all to verify if they're real !

So this is the core of hasci. All the other reasons above are a bunch of shit of course. Like the point that hasci thorougly reviews all of their patients results, what a joke, they just sent me some questions after a year and that was it ! And who cares that hasci follows some ISO rules ? Who cares that they every now and then fill in some checklists ? Who cares if some professor was somewhat involved in the method, for all we know he just claimed that stem cells can regenerate hair, just like we know now ! That doesnt mean shit. And the speach at a ISHRS congress ? Haha really ? Man those idiots should go there and see what an ISHRS congress really is, those idiots there still talk about FUT like it's THE best thing out there And really, who cares about a patent ?

All in all, what a joke. But at least we now KNOW how that magazine worked. Those 4 guys never saw the original photo's, they never could verify the photo's were real. They just got to read that same article and concluded it was scientific enough to be published.

o man, i so totally agree to all that. what a bullshit altogether. the peer reviewed article by use of this method means absolutely nothing in this case. the other points of course, are useless, too.
i can't believe how easy it is, even in the 21st century, to cheat people for such a long time. Gho is worse than Uri Geller, who also cheated for 3 decades and still does.

we really should create a huge shitstorm, and a big public scandal out of it, and get in touch with some newspapers or tv stations.
this case has to be revealed to the public. everybody has the right to know about it. i could imagine that Gho's patients even have the right to sue him in a big way. or create a big group lawsuit.

by the way, i'm always surprised about your investigative skills. you're like columbo, psych, and adrian monk in one person =)

[Arashi]

o man, i so totally agree to all that. what a bullshit altogether. the peer reviewed article by use of this method means absolutely nothing in this case. the other points of course, are useless, too.
i can't believe how easy it is, even in the 21st century, to cheat people for such a long time. Gho is worse than Uri Geller, who also cheated for 3 decades and still does.

we really should create a huge shitstorm, and a big public scandal out of it, and get in touch with some newspapers or tv stations.
this case has to be revealed to the public. everybody has the right to know about it. i could imagine that Gho's patients even have the right to sue him in a big way. or create a big group lawsuit.

by the way, i'm always surprised about your investigative skills. you're like columbo, psych, and adrian monk in one person =)

LOL thanks But yeah that would be the ultimate goal, have Gho pay for cheating on his patients. Although most probably the clinic would just burst and there won't be nearly enough money left in it to pay damages.

Anyway I'm going to think about it and probably will contact a few of those clinics who sued Gho back then to hear what they think and if they're interested in doing an undercover operation to expose Gho

[joachim]

So anyway how to continue from here ? Maybe it's an idea to contact those clinics that original sued hasci and see if they want to follow up now ? Maybe contact a dutch tv program and see if they're interested in a scoop ? Maybe they're willing to fund some people to go there and have everything photographed to expose hasci ?

The key is this: the only way to expose hasci is to send some undercover guys there, have EVERY graft photographed and have hasci do a small procedure and document everything. It's going to be a hell of a job and also cost quite a bit of money. So we'd need some parties motivated enough to input both. Maybe a tv program, maybe the original clinics who sued hasci. But either way, it's the only way in my opinion to expose them.

The article Gho published was based on only 5 test persons. So that's also exactly what we'd need: document 5 test persons.

i'm not sure if we really need undercover patients to document their cases.
we could create a lot of pressure towards Gho if we summarize all the facts, create a website (Gho exposed), get someone from the media involved who is interested in a big story, helping many many people by that. i also like the idea to contact the company which lost the lawsuit, for a possible follow up. the will definitely be in. if they see all the new facts from you and other members.

we can create so much pressure that Gho is forced to react on it. he has the chance to show proof, than everything is ok, or he has the option to admit that all the regeneration is bullshit.

anyway, even if we don't have a documented case (from an undercover patient), all the recent facts speak for themselves. and if they get published, then like mentioned, Gho has to react on it, otherwise he will lose many customers, once the story is out.

[Arashi]

i i also like the idea to contact the company which lost the lawsuit, for a possible follow up. the will definitely be in. if they see all the new facts from you and other members.

Agreed, ok will contact them and find out where they currently stand and what they think. They were motivated enough back then to both throw some time and money at it, so I'm expecting they're even more angry at hasci now than they were back then and might be willing to throw some more money and time at it to succeed where they failed last time.

[Arashi]

Ok, contacted the 1st clinic. I'm not sure if I can update you guys on what comes out of this and will surely treat the clinic's responses with respect, so probably wont publish it here. Anyway just wanted to let you guys know that I'm working on this

HASCI must pay for what they've done and are still doing !