Hokeyopathy

From today's Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO USA):


http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...208423,00.html

Questionable medicine

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

or 303-892-5181

Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

"Vaccine-Man" wrote in message
om...

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.

...and if you are thinking of trying this at home - Don't.....

http://www.h2o2.com/intro/safety.html

"Under no circumstances should hydrogen peroxide be taken internally."

"Contact of the eyes with hydrogen peroxide is particularly dangerous
because corneal burns can occur very rapidly"

A dilute solution is sometimes used as an EXTERNAL antiseptic but apparently
it's not a very good one...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question115.htm

medical hoaxes http://www.whale.to/b/hoax.html

"CWatters" wrote in message
-


"Under no circumstances should hydrogen peroxide be taken internally."


LOL. Wouldn't want anyone to twig onto oxygen therapy, which is why they
stopped the one person selling drinkable peroxide
http://www.whale.to/c/oxygen.html

"I interviewed 15 people who stated they were cured of cancer by using one
of the oxygen therapies.amazingly enough, one of them had pancreatic cancer
A man had prostate cancer. Someone else had colon cancer. Dr Otto Warburg
won the nobel prize twice for stating that the cause of cancer is a normal
cell denied 60% of its oxygen requirements..I asked a big cancer
specialist .if he had ever heard of Dr Warburg, and he said no. And this
specialist's title was 'Head of Fermentation Process
Laboratories."---McCabe.

"CWatters" wrote in message
...

"Vaccine-Man" wrote in message
om...

Naturopathic medicine focuses on the underlying causes of disease

Oh don't you just love that expression. It makes it sound like every other
kind of treatment is based on last nights footbal results - anything but
the actual cause.



Touchy, which is why you can't cure most diseases. Cleansing isn't
something in orthodox meds vocab http://www.whale.to/m/cleanse1.html

the main cause of disease, toxemia, and junk food, apart from poisons like
drugs and metals

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 08:46:36 GMT, "CWatters"
wrote:

"Vaccine-Man" wrote in message
. com...

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.

..and if you are thinking of trying this at home - Don't.....

http://www.h2o2.com/intro/safety.html

"Under no circumstances should hydrogen peroxide be taken internally."

"Contact of the eyes with hydrogen peroxide is particularly dangerous
because corneal burns can occur very rapidly"

A dilute solution is sometimes used as an EXTERNAL antiseptic but apparently
it's not a very good one...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question115.htm

And, of course, if a vaccine had 0.0000001% hydrogen peroxide, the
anti-vaccine assholes would list this as a "toxic" component of
vaccines and cite the above as proof. Yet it's fine for a con-artist
to inject it into someone as long as he claims to be a "naturopath."

PF

"john" wrote in message
...

"CWatters" wrote in message
-


"Under no circumstances should hydrogen peroxide be taken internally."


LOL. Wouldn't want anyone to twig onto oxygen therapy, which is why they
stopped the one person selling drinkable peroxide


So which is it John? For long life do we need to take oxidisers like
Hydrogen Peroxide of anti-oxidants like some vitamins?

Hydrogen peroxide causes cancer in animals - but I admit it seems there is
insufficient evidence to show if causes cancer in humans - so thats alright
then :-(

http://www.gasdetection.com/TECH/h2o2.html

HYDROGEN PEROXIDE
CASRN: 7722-84-1

See Occupational Exposure Standards

Human Health Effects:

Evidence for Carcinogenicity:


Evaluation: There is inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity
of hydrogen peroxide. There is limited evidence in experimental animals for
the carcinogenicity of hydrogen peroxide. Overall evaluation: Hydrogen
peroxide is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans (Group 3).

[IARC. Monographs on the Evaluation of the Carcinogenic Risk of Chemicals to
Man. Geneva: World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on
Cancer,1972-PRESENT. (Multivolume work).,p. 71 683 (1999)]**PEER REVIEWED**

A3. Confirmed animal carcinogen with unknown relevance to humans.
[American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. TLVs and BEIs.
Threshold Limit Values for Chemical Substances and Physical Agents and
Biological Exposure Indices. Cincinnati, OH. 2000. 42]**QC REVIEWED**

http://www.gasdetection.com/TECH/h2o2.html

DNA strand breaks and chromosomal aberrations were studied in human cells
treated with hydrogen peroxide or with ionizing radiation. DNA strand breaks
could be produced at dose levels of hydrogen peroxide much lower than those
which induced chromosomal aberrations. Doses as low as 0.5 mM of hydrogen
peroxide produced about as many DNA strand breaks as 2 Gy of (60)Co
gamma-radiation. On the other hand, as much as 20 mM hydrogen peroxide
produced only half as many chromosomal aberrations as 1 Gy of (60)Co
gamma-radiation.
[Rueff J et al; Mutat Res 289 (2): 197-204 (1993)]**PEER REVIEWED**

Hydrogen Peroxide is a pesticide....

http://www.gasdetection.com/TECH/h2o2.html
Environmental Standards & Regulations:



FIFRA Requirements:

As the federal pesticide law FIFRA directs, EPA is conducting a
comprehensive review of older pesticides to consider their health and
environmental effects and make decisions about their future use. Under this
pesticide reregistration program, EPA examines health and safety data for
pesticide active ingredients initially registered before November 1, 1984,
and determines whether they are eligible for reregistration. In addition,
all pesticides must meet the new safety standard of the Food Quality
Protection Act of 1996. Pesticides for which EPA had not issued Registration
Standards prior to the effective date of FIFRA, as amended in 1988, were
divided into three lists based upon their potential for human exposure and
other factors, with List B containing pesticides of greater concern and List
D pesticides of less concern. *** Hydrogen peroxide is found on List D. Case
No: 4072; Pesticide type: Fungicide, Herbicide, Rodenticide, and
Antimicrobial; **** Case Status: RED Approved 12/93; OPP has made a decision
that some/all uses of the pesticide are eligible for reregistration, as
reflected in a Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) document.; Active
ingredient (AI): Hydrogen peroxide; AI Status: OPP has completed a
Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) document for the case/AI.
[USEPA/OPP; Status of Pesticides in Registration, Reregistration and Special
Review p.330 (Spring, 1998) EPA 738-R-98-002]**PEER REVIEWED**