Questionable medicine (article) Questionable medicine (article)
Questionable medicine (article) 
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) Steven R. Nickerson © News David and Laura Flanagan talk about their son, Sean, who died while undergoing treatments by naturopath Brian O'Connell. The Flanagans turned to O'Connell after traditional doctors told them there was nothing more they could do to stem Sean's cancer. ) Sean Flanagan's senior high school photo. The 19-year-old cancer victim died in December. ) Ken Papaleo © News Naturopath Brian O'Connell has been charged in Jefferson County with practicing medicine without a license, criminal impersonation, fraud and theft. ) Steven R. Nickerson © News Sean Flanagan, who died in December while undergoing treatment for cancer from naturopath Brian O'Connell, was surprised with a kayak for the outdoor activity he loved while he was at Children's Hospital in March 2003. RELATED
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This article is about photoluminescence therapy and hydrogen peroxide IV.
Question for those who know more about photoluminescence therapy and hydrogen peroxide IV: If H2O2 IV is safe, can you explain why does it happens that some poeple die?
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Questionable medicine
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3208423,00.html
Criminal charges focus spotlight on alternative healing
By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News
September 25, 2004
No more.
"God, please, no more," 19-year-old Sean Flanagan gasped, the last words he spoke before he died after a treatment from naturopath Brian O'Connell that went terribly wrong.
Dave and Laura Flanagan had turned to O'Connell in desperation after doctors told them their son would be dead in a year from cancer that ravaged his bones and lungs.
O'Connell promised to save Sean.
But during a Dec. 18 treatment that involved taking blood from Sean's body, his blood oxygen plummeted to 17. A healthy level would be in the high 90s.
"O'Connell did nothing but pace back and forth, take Sean's pulse and look scared," Dave Flanagan said. "I could tell by the blank, scared look in his face that this man didn't know what to do. He didn't have a clue."
Sean Flanagan died the next day.
The Flanagan family believes the last precious months of Sean's life were stolen by O'Connell, who faces criminal charges for allegedly lying to them and other patients about his medical credentials.
O'Connell is charged in Jefferson County with practicing medicine without a license, criminal impersonation, fraud and theft.
For all the charges and accusations mounting against him, however, O'Connell has supporters who say he helped them when traditional medicine failed and that he is being unfairly targeted merely for offering alternative treatments.
Steve Colton, president of the Colorado Naturopathic Medical Association, in which O'Connell holds office, questions the source of the complaints.
"I really don't know him personally and don't know much detail about his actual practice," Colton said. "But these complaints were generated from medical doctors, not patients. It just seems kind of strange that he has been there five years doing this - if he's been doing such a poor job and injuring people, we would have known about him a long time ago."
O'Connell and his attorney have declined comment while the criminal case is pending.
But in a letter soliciting defense funds from members of the naturopathic association, O'Connell said, "The case goes far beyond just me as an individual being arrested and charged. Our right to practice naturopathy is being challenged.
"In short, we are being used to set a precedent that naturopaths are dangerous and it is my feeling that the MDs are trying to use my case to shut down naturopathy in Colorado altogether."
Naturopathy, the practice of healing through herbal medicines, diet supplements, sunlight, acupuncture and other natural treatments is not regulated in Colorado.
Some say O'Connell's case shows why it should be.
Diplomas and certificates
The Flanagans say O'Connell misrepresented his qualifications.
"He told us he was a pharmacist for 10 years and we thought he was a physician," Laura Flanagan said. "He was wearing surgical scrubs and a white coat with 'Dr. O'Connell' on them. We thought he had all these degrees."
O'Connell's office was filled with diplomas and certificates that seemed to verify his training.
"We were so desperate, we didn't take time to research his background," Laura Flanagan said. "We were praying for a miracle and felt he was an answer to prayer."
The family turned to O'Connell in December after Sean's doctors told them there was nothing more they could do.
His cancer had returned after two surgeries, a bone marrow transplant and courses of radiation and chemotherapy.
While Sean's physicians offered a bleak outlook, O'Connell was optimistic.
"He told us, 'I can save him,' " Laura Flanagan said. "He said, 'I'm not having an Irish kid die on my watch.' "
O'Connell recommended "photoluminescence" treatments in which small amounts of Sean's blood was removed, exposed to ultraviolet light and then returned to his body. A small amount of hydrogen peroxide solution also was injected into the bloodstream.
The treatments are promoted as fighting disease and cancer by killing toxins and mutated cells in the blood and by stimulating the body's immune system to fight disease.
O'Connell assured the Flanagans the treatment was sterile because "the ultraviolet light kills everything," Dave Flanagan said.
Fighting for licensing
After the first treatment, though, Sean wound up in the hospital with an infection in his IV tube that led to pneumonia in his weakened lungs.
After he was discharged, he had three more blood treatments from O'Connell. Each time, the meter Sean wore showed his blood oxygen content plummeting and then gradually coming back up, Dave Flanagan said.
"The treatments were supposed to oxygenate the blood, so I asked (O'Connell) why Sean's oxygen levels were dropping after every treatment," Dave Flanagan said.
O'Connell went to the Flanagan's home on Dec. 18, assuring them he could fix the problem by adding more hydrogen peroxide solution to the treatment, Dave Flanagan said.
Instead, this time Sean's blood oxygen dropped to 17 and his mother said he turned gray.
"God, please, no more," Sean said.
When O'Connell asked what he said, Sean repeated loudly, "No more."
"That was the last thing he said," Laura Flanagan said.
"He never really recovered from that," said his father.
Sean died the next day.
The Flanagans blame O'Connell's treatments for hastening their son's death. They now are fighting for state licensing of naturopaths to ensure they are properly trained.
"More hydrogen peroxide - that was his fix and that's when Sean crashed," Dave Flanagan said. "Maybe these treatments help some people, but the man needs to have the medical background to know when what he's doing is causing more harm than good. That's what happened to Sean. What he did speeded the process of his death."
Sean Flanagan isn't the only patient to react badly to O'Connell's therapies.
O'Connell was arrested in May after two patients wound up in the emergency room after receiving treatments at his clinic, Mountain Area Naturopathic Associates in Wheat Ridge.
A 55-year-old cancer patient was rushed to the hospital from his home March 23 after a treatment in O'Connell's office earlier that day. Terminally ill with colon cancer that had spread to his liver, Roy Gallegos later died.
Two days after Gallegos was taken to Lutheran Medical Center, a 17-year-old girl suffered a heart attack after undergoing photoluminescence therapy at O'Connell's clinic.
But the parents of the girl stand behind O'Connell and say he's been wrongly accused.
"I don't believe he brought any harm to my daughter," said Catherine Bresina. "Whatever they're accusing him of they're falsely accusing him. It breaks my heart. He did everything he could possibly do to help my daughter."
Bresina, who lives in Wisconsin, took her family to see O'Connell to be evaluated while they were in Colorado in March.
"I don't believe she had a heart attack," Bresina said. "She had an allergic reaction to a B12 shot."
While at the hospital, Bresina said she felt her family was in a tug of war between conventional and alternative medicine.
"They're after him," she said. "They wanted him stopped. What they're doing with this man is not justice. It's not right."
Bresina said she sought care for her daughter from O'Connell because he offered the treatments she wanted. "I'll go to Europe or Mexico to get it, if I have to," she said.
Bresina said it's unfair to accuse O'Connell of causing harm to patients, many of whom turned to him for help after therapies offered by traditional medicine failed.
"A lot of people who come to him are very, very ill and on their end," she said. "I believe he did more to help them than regular medicine."
Treatment backfires
But other patients don't share her view.
Donna Taylor took her 88- year-old mother to O'Connell for treatment of skin cancer on her nose.
Taylor said O'Connell boasted of his success rate treating various cancers and said he had treated more than 100 cancer patients.
"I asked how many were successful and he said, 'Oh, every single one,' " Taylor said.
O'Connell recommended that Taylor's mother use Black Salve, an ointment he said would remove tumors, even internal tumors such as those caused by liver cancer, Taylor said.
"He said you could take it orally or apply it topically to the skin area next to the tumor. It might pass in the bowels or pop out of your skin," she said.
Taylor's husband, Robert Arnold, said he found O'Connell's claims to be preposterous.
"He told her it would pull the cancer right out," he said. "He said it was like an octopus that reaches its tentacles down in there and pulls it right out. My experience was that he was a quack from day one."
Arnold said they decided against using the salve after he did some research on the Internet.
"I told my wife, 'We don't want to use that stuff on her. It's like battery acid and it's going to burn her nose off,' " he said.
"This guy is very disarming and preying on these older people who are desperate, just desperate to get a cure," Arnold added. "They're ripe for the picking."
"He's very smooth," Flanagan agreed. "He could sell a bucket of sand to a man in the desert."
Correspondence courses
Prosecutors contend O'Connell was using medical procedures he had no license to perform and presented patients with misleading or fraudulent credentials.
"There is a huge amount of benefit to be gained by alternative medicine," said naturopath Jacob Schor, "but when I see someone using credentials that are not true, I ask myself, when does he draw the line and start telling the truth?
"It's for the courts to figure out if what he did was right or wrong. I can only question the deception. It give me the creeps."
O'Connell claims to hold a doctorate in naturopathy, but his training came from a correspondence course from the Herbal Healer Academy run by Marijah McCain from her home in Mountain View, Ark.
McCain offers correspondence courses over the Internet and issues "naturopathic doctor" certificates to students who complete the course and pass a written final examination.
The Arkansas attorney general sued McCain for deceptive trade practices and she was ordered to pay $10,000 in May 2003 for improperly offering degrees and board certification in naturopathy from entities not accredited by the U.S. Department of Education. Arkansas does not license the practice of naturopathy.
The walls of O'Connell's office are filled with various certificates and degrees attesting to his qualifications, but many of them are bogus or questionable, police allege.
Among them is a certificate of naturopathic medicine issued by the nonexistent Colorado University of Naturopathic Medicine.
Questionable credentials
O'Connell is licensed to practice naturopathic medicine in the District of Columbia, but the license was obtained just by paying a fee, according to Wheat Ridge Detective Mark Slavsky.
No examination or verification of credentials was required, he said.
Furthermore, District of Columbia municipal regulations state that it is "unlawful for a naturopathic practitioner to inject any substance into another person by needle," something O'Connell regularly did.
O'Connell is vice president of the Colorado Naturopathic Medical Association, which is affiliated with the American Naturopathic Medical Association. Neither organization requires a degree from four-year naturopathic colleges.
O'Connell said he is board certified by these organizations; however, they are not approved by the U.S. Department of Education.
He had licenses to possess controlled substances issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Colorado Department of Human Services, but both were fraudulently obtained, Slavsky alleges.
The DEA license was issued in connection with O'Connell's work with Heritage Health, which he said was an animal research lab in Fort Collins affiliated with Colorado State University.
Police later learned that Heritage Health is a diet supplement company and has no research affiliation with CSU. O'Connell worked for the company as a sales and public relations specialist, Slavsky said.
O'Connell says on his Web site that he has a degree in microbiology, but won't say where he earned it.
In the past, O'Connell has claimed to hold a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, but university officials told police he attended the school for only three months in 1992 and never received a degree, Slavsky said.
Many patients believe that O'Connell was trained as a pharmacist because he said he worked for 10 years in the field. He did work as a pharmacy technician in a Milwaukee hospital, but was fired after he was accused of stealing medication and prescription pads, Slavsky said.
Despite such discrepancies, many patients remain fiercely loyal.
Penny Wheeler of Federal Heights said her asthma and her husband's blood pressure resisted traditional therapies and were brought under control only after they went to O'Connell.
"I don't where we'd be without him," she said.
Alternative therapy
Naturopathic medicine focuses on the underlying causes of disease and uses natural methods to promote the body's ability to heal itself. Naturopaths might use any of the following treatments:
• Homeopathy: Treating a disease with substances that would cause symptoms of that disease in a healthy person. Based on the assumption of "like cures like."
• Herbal medicines: Whole herbs or extracts prescribed as alternatives to traditional medicine.
• Dietary supplements: Vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other food substances.
• Dietary restrictions: Eliminating certain foods to relieve sensitivity and to clear the body of toxins.
• Physicial medicine: Using water, heat, cold, ultrasound and exercise to manipulate muscles, bones and the spine.
• Stress reduction: Using counseling, hypnotherapy, biofeedback and other methods.
• Detoxifying regimens: Purifying the body using methods such as fasting or enemas.
Source: Www.Yahoo.Com/Health
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3208423,00.html
Quest for cure ends in Minnesotan's ... LCD
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http://www.startribune.com/stories/1556/4995641.html
Bibeau, of Cottage Grove, boarded a plane for South Carolina last March, excited that an unorthodox treatment by a physician might slow or even reverse the progressive and debilitating symptoms of her multiple sclerosis.
Instead, a pathologist determined days later, the first of three planned injections of hydrogen peroxide killed Bibeau, 53, a medical technologist.
Officials have begun a criminal investigation, and on Wednesday, her family filed suit in a federal court in Columbia, S.C., accusing Dr. James Michael Shortt of causing her death.
Shortt refused Wednesday to comment before conferring with his attorney. He was reached while more than a dozen law enforcement officials searched his office.
They removed medical records and copied computer files.
Met on blind date
Bibeau was an identical twin who grew up and graduated from college in Nebraska, where her mother still lives. Her father was a teacher and school principal. She met David Bibeau in 1976 on a blind date in North Carolina while he was in the Air Force.
They were married in Minnesota in 1978 and lived in St. Paul. She began working as a medical technologist at Bethesda Hospital, then moved to the Veterans Administration Medical Center in 1984. In her work, she took blood, urine and other body samples from patients and tested them. The couple moved to Cottage Grove several years later. Their sons, ages 19 and 21, live at home.
"She loved to do stuff," her husband said. "She liked her garden, liked to cook and loved to bake. She did all sorts of crafts.
"And she was always having me fix things. When something broke, I'd be ready to buy a new one, but she'd read up on it -- maybe take a class if she couldn't find the right book -- and tell me how to fix it," he said.
When her MS was diagnosed in October 2001, she took about six months off work and learned about the disease, reading books, magazines and Internet articles. She returned to work two days a week.
MS is an inflammatory disease that attacks the insulation surrounding nerve fibers. It generally is considered incurable and progressive. A wide range of symptoms can include numbness, incontinence, memory loss and difficulties with speech, walking, grasping and other movement.
"We believed in the medical doctors and neurologists, but she didn't want to stop there," David Bibeau said. They altered their diet to include less processed food, added vitamins and took medication to treat tremors in her hand.
"We really concentrated on the present, on how to make the best of things now," he said. "In the back of our minds, I'm sure we thought about how the disease might progress, but we really concentrated on how to have the best quality of life right now."
Search for help
David Bibeau said he's not sure how his wife found Dr. Shortt or learned about what practitioners call oxidation therapy. On advice of his lawyers, Richard Gergel in Columbia and Warren Bigelow in Wayzata, he would not say specifically what the family expected from Shortt's treatments.
A biography of Shortt on the Cancer Control Society Web site says he majored in emergency medicine at Madonna University, Livonia, Mich., and received his medical degree from the University of the Caribbean in Montserrat. For a time he practiced at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa. He moved to South Carolina in 1996 and is listed as medical director of Health Dimensions Clinic in West Columbia.
Those who use hydrogen peroxide argue that taken orally or injected, it has been effective in fighting or preventing numerous diseases.
They say that the diseases develop or thrive in bodies lacking sufficient oxygen, and that hydrogen peroxide -- a molecule with two atoms of oxygen and two of hydrogen -- can increase the body's oxygen, fighting off disease.
Although hydrogen peroxide must be labeled "for external use only," the unorthodox treatment has been credited by some practitioners with helping treat more than two dozen diseases, including cancer, asthma, emphysema, AIDS, arthritis, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease.
Start of treatment
Katherine Bibeau stayed with her twin sister in South Carolina when she first saw Shortt in October 2003.
He conducted blood and hair tests, looking for traces of heavy metal, viruses or bacteria that he said might cause the disease, the lawsuit says.
Shortt "was unable to identify any such virus or bacteria from his laboratory studies [but] nevertheless recommended intravenous hydrogen peroxide therapy," the lawsuit says, telling her the therapy "would be very good at killing this unknown bacteria or virus allegedly causing her multiple sclerosis."
Bibeau returned March 9 for the first of what were to be three weekly injections of hydrogen peroxide.
On March 11 she received an injection of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), which practitioners say stimulates the immune system and helps flush out metals in the blood.
But at that second visit, she complained to Shortt of bruises on her hand and arm, abdominal pains and heavy menstruation. The lawsuit says Shortt did not conduct any tests or offer treatment of the symptoms.
The next day she was confused and in severe pain and was taken to the hospital, where she died two days later, on March 14.
The injection caused intense pain, massive bleeding and air bubbles in her bloodstream, the autopsy found.
The pathologist, Dr. Clay Nichols, concluded that "this unfortunate woman died as a direct result of iatrogenic [doctor-induced] infusion of hydrogen peroxide. There is no legitimate use for the infusion of hydrogen peroxide in the current medical literature. In fact, many articles caution against its use."
Doctors disciplined
Officials at the MS Society of Minnesota said they had not heard of using hydrogen peroxide or oxidation therapy to treat multiple sclerosis, although suggestions for its use can be found on the Internet.
Several doctors have been disciplined for administering it in Tennessee, North Carolina and Kansas, and there have been a number of deaths and injuries reported to patients given the injections.
However, practitioners who use the therapy contend it has been used often to good effect.
"Look, I've used this with hundreds of patients, including patients with MS, and none of them has ever had a problem with hydrogen peroxide," said Dr. Robert Rowen, of Santa Rosa, Calif. He is president of the International Oxidation Medication Association, representing more than 100 physicians.
"Anything can cause a problem in anybody, no matter how benign. That's the most important thing that everyone should have in their heads when they see a doctor," he said. "Did the doctor make a mistake? I don't know, but I do know many people who are living better today because of hydrogen peroxide treatments."
State and local authorities in South Carolina have begun a criminal investigation of Shortt and the pharmacy that supplied the hydrogen peroxide, said officials who seized records from both on Wednesday.
"This is not just medical misadventure, like forgetting to take a sponge out during an operations," said coroner Gary Watts in Richland County, where Shortt treats his patients.
"What Dr. Shortt did, essentially, is turn Mrs. Bibeau into a hemophiliac."
"I've ruled it a homicide, which does not necessarily mean murder," he said. "But in my opinion, this was criminal, a death that shouldn't have happened."
'It's awfully quiet'
"It's been very hard for us," said David Bibeau. "We were hoping that she might live a better life, maybe ease the tremors in Katherine's left hand, improve her walking."
The family had been talking about moving to South Carolina in a year or so, closer to his wife's sisters and to Shortt, where additional therapy might have been proposed.
Some time ago, Katherine had applied for a disability retirement from the VA. It was approved three days before she died.
"I don't know what to do now. I guess not make any decisions for a while," Bibeau said.
"I've got the boys, and my friends, and my pastor. That helps. But I don't have Katherine. It's awfully quiet without her."
Warren Wolfe is at [email protected].
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1556/4995641.html
O'Connell turned man into believer
Treatments result in 'the first good news in five years'
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3208421,00.html
By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News
September 25, 2004
Derek Cox figures he'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for the treatments offered by naturopath Brian O'Connell.
Cox, 30, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer five years ago.
"The kind of cancer I have is quite deadly," he said.
Surgeons removed a golf-ball-sized tumor from his left frontal lobe and Cox underwent radiation and chemotherapy.
But the tumor came back.
He had another surgery to remove another golf-ball-sized tumor in 2003.
Cox refused further radiation and chemotherapy that time, however, opting instead to try alternative therapies.
He traveled to Mexico and underwent two courses of "photoluminescence" therapy in March and October of last year. During the procedure, blood was removed from his body, passed under ultraviolet light and then injected back into his body.
He also put himself on laetrile, a controversial cancer therapy derived from apricot pits that is not approved for use in the U.S.
In January, though, an MRI showed the tumor was still growing.
So in February, he began going to O'Connell for treatments, planning a course of 40 that were going to cost about $18,000.
He had completed about 18 of the treatments when O'Connell was arrested in May.
"After the thing blew up with the police, I had another MRI to see where I was at," Cox said. That MRI showed the tumor had shrunk.
"It was the first good news I've had in five years," he said. "I think my neurologist was more excited than I was. It's hard to continually get bad news for five years."
Cox said his physician supports the treatments.
"He told me: Keep up the quack treatments," Cox said.
Cox said he understands the charges against O'Connell need to be investigated, but he said no one can argue with the results in his case.
"The medical records speak for themselves that I was helped by him," he said.
Cox also credits his survival to diet, nutritional supplements, conventional medicine and his view that cancer is a battle he can win.
"I should have been dead numerous times in all of this," he said. "I can't attribute my survival to just O'Connell, Mexico or just my surgeon. It's a number of things."
Cox said police were at O'Connell's office when he went for his last treatment.
"They were everywhere. I felt that I was a criminal, too," he said. "They really don't take into mind while they are doing this that there are people fighting for their lives.
"I am continuing my fight."
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3208421,00.html
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