The Hindu : International : Experts sceptical of girl's x-ray eyes

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Sunday, Sep 26, 2004

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International

Experts sceptical of girl's x-ray eyes

By Ian Sample

LONDON, SEPT. 25. Natasha Demkina has a lot of explaining to do. Sitting with her mother and younger sister in a bright London office, the 17-year-old from Saransk, a rundown town 600 km east of Moscow, seems the typical teenager. But less typically, Natasha claims she possesses an unusual gift. She can, she says, look deep inside people's bodies, watch their organs at work and spot when things are going wrong.

That the finest medical minds in the country are not queuing up to examine Natasha is no surprise. To all but a vanishingly small number of the medical community, her claims are too ludicrous even to warrant discussion. Others suspect it is nothing more than a trick, a medical variant of a fortune teller.

Media hype

But such concerns rarely carry much weight in the media. In January, the London Sun newspaper brought Natasha to Britain, prompting a flurry of credulous stories about the ``girl with the x-ray eyes''. During her visit, she went on daytime TV and impressed presenter Fern Britton by spotting her sore ankle. She also managed to unnerve the show's resident doctor, Chris Steele, who when told he might have something wrong with his stomach, pancreas, liver and kidneys, nipped off for a scan at a clinic. He was later given the all-clear.

While the media happily courted Ms Demkina, the dismissive attitude of the sceptics seems to have vexed her. As word of Ms Demkina's claims spread throughout Saransk and across Russia, people started turning up at her door, mostly those whom local doctors were at a loss to diagnose. Ms Demkina is in London for a publicity tour, courtesy of the Discovery Channel, which filmed the experiment for a programme.

Experiment

The experiment was designed by scientists working for Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal an organisation of professional sceptics. For the first part of the test, Ms Demkina was asked to try and diagnose the conditions of people who had described specific ailments to the scientists. At the end of the consultation period, most were impressed, feeling that she had pinpointed their conditions.

In the second part of the test, she was sat in front of seven persons and given a list of medical conditions ranging from an artificial hip to a metal plate that had been implanted in one of their heads after the removal of a tumour. The scientists decided that if Ms Demkina could correctly identify who had which operation five times out of seven, she would pass.

After four hours, Ms Demkina had made her judgment.Though she identified four of the patients, she misdiagnosed three, including one who had a missing appendix.

She had failed, the scientists declared. She now says she was unhappy with how the test was carried out. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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