BEMER Group drops
“Institute for Microcirculation”

Shortly after the death of Dr. Rainer Klopp, links to his “Institute of Microcirculation” in Berlin began to vanish from BEMER Group pages, and the institute’s website went offline. Time for a final visit and a reconstruction.

 

I.

Things looked bleak for swiss businessman Peter Gleim in 1995, when german police seized some of the “Clean-Cards” he sold for 179 DM (92 Euro) per piece (750DM/380€ for a 5-pack) and analyzed these. Gleim had promised to clueless homemakers, that the cards would save up to 90% of laundry powder when put in the washing machine. Authorities found out – unsurprisingly – that the cards had no effect. It was a simple scam. Prosecutors investigated Gleim and his company Funworld GmbH for fraud.

This was not the first time Gleim had to do with law enforcement. 10 years before, the Munich district court had ruled his sales methods were “immoral and illegal”, effectively shutting down his Gem Collection Cosmetics GmbH. Gleim had used a pyramid scheme, also known as snowball selling, to sell overpriced cosmetics through ill-informed franchisees. Gem Collection Cosmetics got finally deleted from registers in February 1995.

When the dust had settled, Gleim set sail with his Innomed AG, which would later become BEMER International AG. In 1998 it began to sell magnet “therapy” devices via a well-known system: The pyramid scheme, now called “multi-level marketing”. It had a striking advantage over the old-school laundry card scam. When managed carefully, the con artist at the top cannot be held responsible for actions of his franchisees. The risk is distributed widely and diluted.

 

BEMER Group would later describe this stage with “our belief exceeded our knowledge by far” – in other words, there was no proof of any kind that the devices had an effect on the human body. Basically, that is still the case up to this day. Only one institution outside of Innomed/BEMER would claim otherwise: The “Institute for Microcirculation” in Berlin, led by Dr. Rainer Klopp.

 

II.

Not much is known about the dealings or whereabouts of the “institute” in the 1990s. It only managed to produce two articles in a full decade (both in cooperation with Schering AG, a pharmaceutical firm in Berlin that has now merged with BAYER). In terms of science it had no standing at all.

From 2000 to the early 2010s, the “institute” had rented an office in Wolfener Str. 32-34 at the outskirts of East Berlin. This is where the widely circulated older videos for BEMER Int. AG were shot.

 

 

Somehow Klopp and Gleim made contact no later than 2004. Other BEMER sources say cooperation began in 2006. Klopp was the much-needed counterpart to Gleim’s rude and often barely legal business methods. Jovial, humble, and – most important – with an academic grade. The doctor would later be upgraded silently to a professor.

During these years, the “institute” produced several papers, all but one apparently sponsored by manufacturers of alternative treatments. There are studies on mistle toe extract, a “homeopathic remedy”, and ginkgo plant extract. Publication of research ceased in 2014. Articles since 2011 were not peer-reviewed and are not trustable.

This decline coincides with the “institute’s” move to full obscurity, a small space adjacent to a leather shop in Berliner Str. 25, Bernau b. Berlin, and finally the desk of Klopp’s friend and wannabe-charlatan, Professor Jörg Schulz in the Negelein Haus at the Berlin-Buch campus.

Schulz had invented his own alternative method, he called it Biokorrektur. With the help of Klopp, Schulz tried to introduce it to a wider public. Schulz’ company ICP Healthcare, shortly renamed to “Noventalis, Institut für Biokorrektur” (!) soon got under a russian management and seems to have relocated to Russia-occupied Crimea.

 

Klopp’s “Institute for Microcirculation” fared better. Decorated twice with the BEMER AG-backed Science Award (to Klopp in 2011 for “Lifetime Achievement”, and to his partner Dr. Wolfgang Niemer in 2014), it finally got own premises in Berlin-Buch.

 

III.

When Rainer Klopp died in May 2019, Peter Gleim promised that “the work will go on … inside and outside the institute”. A month later, the link to the “Institute for Microcirculation” disappeared from BEMER Group’s homepage without further comment.

Then the website of the “institute” was driven down. As it happened, I was in Berlin in early August 2019. I had to follow up what more than 50.000 readers saw to date, and took the time to find out what’s going on. To my amazement, the doors stood wide open and not a soul in sight.

 

The lobby had clearly changed, compared to my previous visit. Inside, it was totally quiet.

There were exactly two rooms with a few microscopes and monitors, just the appliances as shown in all the promotional videos over the last 10 years.

The rest were: a conference room, restrooms, a kitchenette, and empty spaces.

I was consternated. What’s happening here? But then I found a human being.

It was Dr. Niemer, Klopp’s long-time companion and BEMER’s Science Awardee 2014. We talked for a while.

…will the Institute for Microcirculation continue to exist, now that Dr. Klopp has departed?

– no…

– it won’t exist anymore?

…nope.

unfortunately, our plans are shattered…now that the sponsor [is gone] …[BEMER] did it somehow together with him … it all was through him [Dr. Klopp], all of the contract…

– the rental contract (for the institute)?

no, the sponsoring.

 

Of course the “institute” could not and would not exist without BEMER AG, although Klopp maintained for years on their homepage, that it’d be “completely independent”. Now, in hindsight it was confirmed how the axis Gleim – Klopp handled those things.

Then there were some words about Finland and the visit of a finnish “delegation” earlier this year. The finnish athletes have been of certain importance and the “community” here is “diligent”. Niemer did not recall if he saw me then or not (article in finnish at BEMER Nordic, with the usual pictures of the equipment, written free from any competence).

I left with a sad feeling, Dr. Niemer was contagiously resignated and depressed. Gleim had broken the promise he gave upon the death of his “dear friend” and kicked the short-lived facility out. There is hardly any other conclusion: For representation, he needed Klopp, not any institute. Fortunately, it’s not a big loss for science.

R.I.P. “Institute for Microcirculation”, Berlin-Buch, 2018 – 2019.

10 thoughts on “BEMER Group drops
“Institute for Microcirculation”

  1. BEMER USA is a scam. BEMER EUROPE is trying hard to stay in the shadows of the larger sales force umbrella of Northamerica (USA & CANADA) which is regulated by a corrupt , deceptive system. The sponsors are aware of the deceit, yet are protecting their monies, forcing unrest in their ranks, not allowing team-members to communicate with one another. Immediate termination for anyone standing to speak up or ask questions. CEO’s and Managers are forced to leave (there are 11 of them within a short period of 4 years). Strict Policy Changes are updated almost daily. New NDA’s after meetings are being signed and hush money bonuses doled out. Why does BEMER GROUP have to go this far? What are they fearing? What are they hiding?

  2. Thanks for your enlightening work! However, there seems to be a mistake about the rebranding of ICP HealthCare, or maybe just the screenshot from that publication, where Noventalis is the reference for O. Marksteder(3) and N. Abdulkerimova(3).
    I have to admit though, I haven’t looked into the company’s history.

  3. I’m from cologne – germany. My wife bought the hore set. When I heard it works with weak magnets I became suspicious and started researching. I was close driving to Berlin to find out if there is an instutitute when I came accross your website – you saved me 2 days!!

    For me there is no dought, Peter Gleim did it 2 times already (!!!!!) – Bemer is a scam. Anyway there is one thing I could not find out. Sadly I had to return the horse set – I didn’t want to loose 4000 Euro. I can’t do some experimenting any more. My wife and many riders report that most horses start to relax after a coupe of minutes. In other words, there is a visual sign that somethings happens. If this is an effect of the magnets – we would have a fantastic scientific discovery: Horses can sense magnatic fields. Very unlikely. But what is it. The only thing I could think of beneeth the placebo on the rider was an audio signal on a high frequency. Please let me know if you have any valuable ideas. I will do some testing as soon as I can borrow a horse set.

    1. As you said, it would be a sensational finding, if horses did respond to magnetic fields. So, why didn’t we hear anything about it, and there’s nothing in the scientific literature (I looked it up 30sec ago)?

      Because it’s complete BS, of course. The explanation can be found from here on:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans (Kluger Hans in German).

      It’s a shame people simply ignore the basic psychological mechanisms known for decades – and non-verbal communication, which is BTW the most important way to communicate with all higher developed mammals we domesticated (dogs, cats, sheep, etc). The cat reacts more to your movements than to speech.

      And in German, because I had to say this too often in english:
      Wenn angeblich wissenschaftlich begruendete Methoden mittels Anekdoten propagiert werden, ist es meist Betrug. Das betrifft in höchstem Grade MLM-Produkte, deren Verkauf nur auf Hörensagen und Ueberzeugung beruht. “Wenn der Bauer was mit Mikrozirkulation erklärt…”

      Persönliches Testen kann prinzipiell keine Funktion bestätigen (sog. unkontrollierter Test).

      Sorry if my German is a bit rusty…

  4. Very interesting example, but I wasn’t really satisfied. So on the next occasion I tried to get another look on the Bemer Horse Set. I asked my son to see if he can hear any audio from the control unit – he is younger and can hear more in high ranges. I could hardly belive that it is that simple. The mysterious Bemer signal is an audio signal. Even I could easily here it by putting my ear on the device. I was able to record it with my cellphone!

    1. that sounds like a broken unit. I had an OMI mat which made similar chirping sounds because one of the coils had fractured. I’ve been on a Bemer recently and it was completely silent – no audible sounds.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *