Crack doctor

Fertilized chicken eggs are being considered to replace mice as experimental animals in cancer drug research for being ethical, less costly and more efficient, according to a study by scientists from King’s College London (KCL) published in NPJ Imaging in January.

A dozen fertilized eggs can be used to cultivate tumors for imaging in seven days at a cost of only £45 plus zero maintenance costs, a 97 percent saving compared to using mouse models, the study said.

“The eggs provided exquisite tumor images that allowed us to assess the delivery of tumor-targeting drugs and the effects of radiation therapy,” Medical Xpress quoted Dr. Tim Witney, a reader in Molecular Imaging at KCL’s School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, as saying.

If the KCL study showed the potential of eggs in producing cancer-killing drugs, a faith healer from Banga, South Cotabato has another medical use for the breakfast food.

Rodelio “Dok Lotlot” Albarico is visited daily by hundreds of people with various ailments at his house in the hope of being treated. Albarico doesn’t charge patients but welcomes donations and requires them to bring chicken eggs.

The eggs are used by Albarico to diagnose a patient’s disease. He holds the egg and moves it around the patient’s body like a scanner.

After the scan, he cracks the egg, removes the white and reads its yolk, the TV show KMJS reports. He claims the yolk could tell him if the patient has breast cancer, goiter, myoma, haemorrhoid, or kidney malfunction, etc.

The bizarre diagnostic is followed by massage on the affected part and the patient drinking a capful of oil stored in a transparent bottle. Albarico claims the oil is pure and 200 years old.

Patients claim to feel relief after the healing ritual. One patient with a clump of tumors on her neck said she keeps coming back to the egg-cracking doctor after some of the cancers grew smaller.

As to the discarded egg shells, whites and yolks filling up a plastic container after a day’s diagnostics, Albarico buries it underground to prevent animals from eating it and transferring the disease to them.