Life Vessel Gains Popularity, Some Question Healing Claims

DENVER (CBS4) – A device offering claims of amazing results is spreading in popularity across the country and is now here in Colorado. But is it giving false hope to the hopeless with serious illnesses?

Some people say the wood box has saved their lives. It's simply called the Life Vessel. It may look like a tanning bed, but it's really quite different. It operates with sound, light, frequency and vibration. Its operators claim it puts the brain in a state so the body can heal itself.

CBS4 On Your Side Investigator Rick Sallinger asked Gail Lynn, the owner of Life Vessel of the Rockies in Westminster if she has told people the Life Vessel can cure serious diseases like cancer or diabetes.

Lynn replied, "No, we don't make any claims or guarantees for a cure."

But that's not what CBS4 News had heard, so we sent a producer in with a hidden camera and Lynn provided us with a number of testimonials of miraculous recoveries.

Lynn: "I had a lady, who was 80-years-old and given a week and half to live. She flew up to our Arizona Life Vessel center. This was six-years-ago and she's still dancing and carrying on with no cancer problems."

CBS4: "Do you think it cured her cancer?"

Lynn: "Yeah, she knows it does."

And not just cancer, but apparently cures diabetes, too.

CBS4: "So you've been pretty successful at helping to lower people's diabetes?"

Lynn: "Yup we had.. I've got blood work from different clients that show their glucose is coming down after using the life vessel."

That's not all, testimonials on the Life Vessel website claim to help people with migraine headaches, back pain, sleep problems, hepatitis and even autism.

Sallinger asked Lynn about these claims.

Lynn: "Do you want to get me in trouble?"

Sallinger: "I just want to know if this can do what you claim it does. What about Autism?"

Lynn: "The body doesn't know disease by name so we have had success with Autism."

Also, on the Life Vessel website a video of a disabled boy getting into the device, his mother claims great improvement.

(Watch Part 2 of Sallinger's report in the video below):

"I finally have the little boy I wanted, I finally have my hope back that we are going to be able to talk and the doctors really don't know what to say."

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says such marketing could be a violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.

Suthers said, "In the case you describe it would not take a rational human being to understand the device doesn't cure cancer, doesn't cure migraine headaches, that sort of thing."

But we met a group of people who insist the Life Vessel has helped them. Kitty Roxanna Connell had a glandular problem and couldn't eat.

"I wouldn't say that the life vessel 'cured' me," says Connell. "I would say the life vessel helped the body heal itself."

Dr. Terry Grossman, a medical doctor added his experience, "I went to the Life Vessel with no expectations that it would do anything for back pain and now I have no back pain for the first time in eight years."

There is also a Life Vessel location in Boulder at Sound Health and again our undercover producer was told similar testimonials about patients beating great odds.

"She had 4th stage liver cancer with two months to live and tried the life vessel in Santa Fe." CBS4 was told, "She went 18 months and was completely cancer free after 18 months."

There are 16 of these $100,000 machines around the country. A session costs $125 an hour. Sallinger was offered a free trial and spent 53 minutes inside. He described it as one of the most relaxing experiences he can remember.

"There were colored lights above me and soft music around me," said Sallinger.

But does it cure disease?

The FDA has cleared the Life Vessel as an infrared lamp, for muscle relaxation, blood circulation, and arthritis stiffness, not as a treatment for cancer or any other disease. A point not lost on the Life Vessel practitioner in Boulder who told our undercover producer, "I mean, this is FDA approved but if you put it on your website 'we have cured cancer'. They will shut you down."

At both Life Vessel locations we visited, the operators insisted they do not make medical claims. At Sound Health one manager told CBS4 they have seen, "truly amazing transformations" and they believe in miracles.