scams that can kill

Scams That Can Kill: Goat Glands, Zappers, and

Other Medical Frauds

Harriet Hall, MDThe SkepDoc

Skeptic’s Toolbox, 2010

Overview

• Description of some typical medical scams.

• Why people fall for medical scams.

• Why medical scammers scam.

• Why medical scams are the worst scams of all.

John R. Brinkley

Early Life

• Played a doctor in a snake oil scam• Danced and sang in a travelling snake oil show• Dropped out of an eclectic medical college• Became a bigamist• Electro Medic Doctor

– Used a false name– Injected “electric medicine” (colored water)– Went to jail (forgery, bad checks, practicing medicine

without a license)

1917 - Military Service

• The lie: Did the work of 10 doctors, was the only doctor for 2200 recruits, worked night and day, did surgery, hospitalized patients with diseases like meningitis.

• The truth: served for 2 months and 13 days and spent more than half of that time in sick bay.

Milford, Kansas

• Was a struggling GP

• Impotent patient said “Too bad I don’t have billy-goat nuts.” So Brinkley gave him billy-goat nuts.

• Brush-up surgery course: failed.

• “I have a scheme up my sleeve and the whole world will hear of it.”

The State of Science

• Hormones hadn’t been isolated yet.

• Promise of rejuvenation, longevity.

• Doctors had tried– Injections of gland extracts– Transplantation of monkey testicles– Transplantation of human testicles– Vasectomy

Opened a Clinic

• Goat gland surgery (male and female)– Varying techniques– Called patients “old fools”

• New indications: 27 different ailments, from emphysema to flatulence.

• 95% success rate (worked less well on “stupid types”)

• Advertising (against AMA policy)

Questions Arise

• Stealing goats?• Threatening people with knives and guns?• Fighting?• Demolished a car with an ax• Bit father-in-law on the thumb• Protection order taken out against him• Drinking• AMA sent private detective

California Plans Thwarted

• Medical degrees exposed as fake• Indicted by SF Grand Jury• Kansas governor refused to extradite him.

• Discovered radio; invented radio advertising• Discovered propaganda• Discovered PR

• Got a medical degree in Italy (later personally revoked by Mussolini).

• Cynically used religion– Compared himself to Jesus– Gave sermons lifted from others– Showed no compassion for patients who

couldn’t pay.

Medical Question Box Scam

• Answered questions on radio, telling patients to “take number 61 and stay on it for ten years.”

• Listeners with same sx. bought same product• Only available from a consortium of drug stores

that gave him a $1 kickback on every product.• Refunds to anyone not satisfied • Profits $14,000 a week, $6 ½ million a year in

today’s currency.

• One woman tried to off her husband by sending him for surgery.

• Licenses in other states by reciprocity and in the UK were revoked.

• Radio station most popular one in US. Offered entertainment too.

Newspaper Battle

• The Kansas City Star charged that he had killed some of his patients.

• He denied it: “I will not accept any patient who cannot be cured or who may die under treatment. No patient of mine has ever died here.”

• The Star published the death certificates, signed by Brinkley, of 5 patients who had died at his hospital.

Medical Board

• Injured patients were paid or threatened not to testify.

• Sued Fishbein for defamation; later withdrew suit.

• Radio license cancelled.

• Medical Board watched him operate

• Medical license revoked

Kansas Supreme Court

• Rejected his appeal.• Said “Being an empiric without moral

sense, and having acted according to the ethical standards of an imposter, the licensee has perfected an organized charlatanism… quite beyond the invention of the humble mountebank.”

• Newspaper said “The superquack of Milford is finished.”

So He Ran for Governor

• Invented modern campaigning

• Almost won

• Ran again 2 years later.

Radio Station in Mexico

• Reached every state and at least 15 foreign countries.

• Popularized country music. Gene Autry, the Carter family, Woody Guthrie, Wolfman Jack.

• Battles with Mexican government.

• Vice President involved.

Del Rio, Texas

• Opened a new hospital there• Earned $12 million during the worst years

of the Depression, when the average doctor earned $3000.

• Changed from goat glands to a new technique of vasectomy with Mercurochrome.

• Offered surgery for the prostate.• Made a promotional movie.

Little Rock

• Poacher in Del Rio

• Thugs kidnapped patients at depot

• Moved to Little Rock, Arkansas

• Fishbein goaded him into a lawsuit

Defamation Lawsuit

• Patients not allowed to testify• Radio contest during trial• Other doctors said he offered nonsense. If he has no

standing, he can’t be damaged.• His own book quoted worse things about him.• If it worked, why did he abandon it?• Technique: admitted that pieces were dumped in, not

grafted, the opposite of what he said for 20 years.• Formula 1020

– Exposed as distilled water.– Do you measure dose by weight or volume?

Downfall

• Lots of other lawsuits

• IRS investigation

• Mexico seized his station

• Aircraft school based on lies. He looted it.

• Bankruptcy

• Illness and death.

Worst Serial Killer Ever?– By midpoint in his career,

Kansas medical board hearing proved that at least 42 people, some of whom weren’t sick to begin with, had entered his clinic vertical and departed horizontal. He continued for 10 years after that.

– Others died at home. John Hornbeck died of tetanus on the way home.

– Medical Question Box victims

License to Kill

• Ambrose Bierce defined quack as “a murderer without a license.”

• Brinkley’s medical license amounted to a license to kill.

• Medical boards are still not effective.

• Reliance on courts.

• Rejuvenation scams continue

Morris Fishbein

• Editor of JAMA,

• Fought quackery

• Evelyn Lyons– Temp 115– Investigation by keyhole – Con artists knew:

offered to heal her and split the take.

AMA Fights Quackery

• Bureau of Investigation.

• Laboratory.

• Testimonials/death certificates.

• First conviction for killing a patient wasn’t until 1960.

• Little progress even today.

Ruth Drown

• Electrodiagnostic device – Completed circuit– Acted like flashlight battery– Patient could be eliminated

• Fined $1000; kept operating• Any patient who is weak and depleted should

never take shower baths and stand in the water over the drain, because the patient's magnetism is washed down with the water through the drain, leaving him depleted.

• Jazz music was a cause of cancer.

Indirect Treatments• Doctors Drown and Chatfield kept dried specimens of each patient's

blood on pieces of blotting paper. If it patient felt ill he could call Drown Laboratories, and the blood sample, instead of the patient, would be hooked up to the diagnostic machine. The blood sample supposedly remained in some kind of continuous communication with the rest of the patient's blood, wherever he might be, and thus reflected any current illness.

• Treatment, like diagnosis, could also be "indirect." For $35 a month, Drown Laboratories would insert the patient's blood specimen into a treatment machine at a specified time each day, set the dials to the indicated healing rate, and broadcast an hour's worth of treatment to the patient, which would supposedly reach him anywhere on the face of the earth.

Albert Abrams

• Diagnoses by measuring frequencies of blood samples on paper, taken from patient facing west.

• Can substitute the autograph of an individual, living or dead, and subject it to his tests and declare whether or not the individual is or was a sufferer from syphilis, etc.  – Samuel Pepys had congenital syphilis.– So did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allen Poe.– Poe had the "reaction of dipsomania." – The autograph (written in 1775) of that stern old moralist Dr.

Samuel Johnson gave the "reaction" for acquired syphilis and tuberculosis...

The Zapper Lady

• Hulda Clark

• Mailorder ND degree from non-accredited correspondence school.

• Cancer is caused by parasites

• All disease is caused by parasites

• Curable with zapper

Parasites and Toxins Cause All Disease

• All cancers are caused by a liver fluke.

• Having propyl alcohol in your body allows the fluke to live outside the intestine.

• Parasite causes a growth factor called ortho-phospho-tyrosine to appear.

Cancer Treatment

• You must – (1) Kill the parasite and all its stages; – (2) stop letting propyl alcohol into your body; and – (3) flush out the metals and common toxins from your

body so you can get well.

• Radiation, or chemotherapy can be canceled because, after Clark's recipe cures the cancer, it cannot come back.

• 100% effective.

Phony Devices

• Syncrometer – could identify diseased organs and toxic substances by noting

whether the device makes various sounds when "test substances" are placed on a plate.

– The device is simply a galvanometer that measures skin resistance to a low-voltage current that passes from the device through a probe touched to the patient's hand.

• "Zapper" – a low-voltage device that supposedly kills parasites, bacteria,

and viruses with electrical energy, but does not harm human tissue.

– Based on Clark's notion that all living things broadcast a characteristic range of radio frequencies and that the device can issue counter-frequencies that kill unwanted organisms.

Paraphernalia Purchased by One Family

• Total cost = $30,000

Treatments in Tijuana Clinic

– $4500 plus tax for two weeks– motel room (approximately $210/week)– meals ($250/week)– blood tests ($70 each)– standard diagnostic imaging tests ($40 to $400)– dental x-rays (at least $206)– "individually tailored" supplements ($400 to $1,500

for a month supply)– equipment (about $350)– tooth extractions ($80 each)– partial or full dentures ($450)

Regulatory Actions

• FTC complaint: stipulated judgment, refunds.• Sting operation: Told investigator that she could

cure his HIV in 3 minutes, but that he would "get it back" unless he committed to returning for six more appointments.

• Arrested for practicing medicine without a license; got off on a technicality.

• Mexican authorities closed clinic, fined her.

The Figueroa Case

• Dust from her apartment was responsible for her breast cancer.

• Returning to her apartment would place her at special risk to develop leukemia because of her blood type.

• She had asbestos, lead, and a lot of copper in her system.

• The Syncrometer detected a parasite called "rabbit fluke" inside her breast.

• She also had E. coli, asbestos, and salmonella due to improper food sterilization.

• Several teeth should be removed and "cavitations" in her lower jaw should be scraped out.

Figueroa Lawsuit Charges

• Clark subsequently arranged for all of Mrs. Figueroa's front and molar teeth to be removed, prescribed more than 30 dietary and herbal supplements to be taken during a 12-week period, and badly burned her breast while administering treatment with a "Zapper" device.

• During the 3-month period of treatment, the tumor increased from 1.5 cm to 14 cm (over 6 inches).

• Despite this fact, Mrs. Figueroa was falsely told that she was getting better, that tests for "cancer markers" were negative, and that pain she was experiencing did not reflect persistence of her cancer

Hulda Died of Cancer

• Didn’t use her own machine.

• Supporters still going strong.

Supporter Defends Hulda• If you had a little common cense you hail Hulda Clarke. Because

she is correct disease is caused by virus bacteria etc. the medical profession knows that. They made sure every body gets the cancer virus you have it to, if you had the small pox vaccination. The aids virus was engineered in a USA lab and distributed. HIV you cant be that stupid that you have not heard of HIV it is a virus. Virus die when they are subjected to a stronger frequency matching there own range. All living things have there own particular frequency. Dr Rife the founder of the microscope in 1920 was the first human to see a virus, and identified the cancer virus. For this he was murdered. The medical industry would be out of business, but they soon will be anyway, and so will you. You will probably die of cancer so that you pay them all that you have and experience the agony of chemo ( mustard gas ) radiation surgery a terrible way to die. But you would deserve it because of you, thousand's of people who would have gone to Hulda Clark could have been saved the agony. You will pay for it here on earth.

Koch’s Cancer Cure

• Developed in the 1940s by William Koch, M.D., Ph.D.

• Remedy was claimed to be 1.32 parts glyoxylide per trillion parts water.

• More than 3000 assorted practitioners paid $25 per ampule.

• Charged patients up to $300 per injection.• A product analysis found only distilled

water.

Hoxsey Cancer Cure• His patients fell into 3 categories;

– (1) those who never had cancer, – (2) those who had been cured before going to his office, – (3) those who still had their disease or died under the Hoxsey treatment.

• Court case: Hoxsey won based on testimonials from 22 patients. • FDA appealed

– Suspected that the judge had once been a Hoxsey patient,– Decision reversed on appeal.

• Appeal to the Supreme Court failed• Moved his clinic to Tijuana. • Died in 1973, but the clinic was operated for many more years by a

nurse who had worked with him.

Immunoaugmentative Therapy (IAT)

• Featured on 60 Minutes – Patient reported to be miraculously cured died

2 weeks later; 60 Minutes never reported that

• Wally Sampson reviewed reports – Most patients had also had standard

treatment.

• Blood was used to make product– Infected with AIDS virus.

Gregory Earl Caplinger (1953-2009)

• “Medical degree” and many of his other “credentials” came from diploma mills or sources he himself invented.

• Operated a clinic in the Dominican Republic • Claimed that ImmuStim was effective against

cancer, AIDS, allergies, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and several other conditions.

• Prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license and frauds X 6.

One of His Victims

• In 1999 he victimized a 60-year-old woman who had undergone surgical treatment for colon cancer.– Follow-up tests had found no evidence of cancer,– She thought that a nonstandard treatment might boost her

immune system to reduce the odds of recurrence. – Caplinger told her that a small nabothian cyst (plugged gland on

uterine cervix, totally harmless) mentioned in an ultrasound report could become cancerous and required immediate treatment.

– The estimated cost was $80,000 to $90,000, with a $40,000 advance deposit.

– She mortgaged her home, wired the deposit, and went for treatment.

– Husband read an article on the Quackwatch Web site exposing Caplinger as a fraud.

– She demanded a refund but got back only $20,000.

Caplinger’s Punishment

• Indicted on charges of wire fraud and money laundering related to investments in his bogus remedy.

• Convicted in July 2000 but did not show up to hear the verdict.

• Became a fugitive wanted by the FBI. • In 2001 he was apprehended, sentenced to 14

years in prison, and ordered to repay more than $1 million to his victims.

• Died in prison.

Gary Null

• “One of the leading promoters of dubious treatment for serious disease.” (Quackwatch)

• AIDS denialist, anti-vaccine.

Some of His Products

• Red Stuff Powder

• Gary Null’s Heavenly Hair Cleaner

• Gary’s Green Stuff

• Ultimate Power Meal

Gary Got Sick

• “Excruciating fatigue along with bodily pain." • “Extreme cracks and bleeding from within his

feet. • Peed blood. Nearly died from kidney damage.• “Had to be in bed with his feet elevated because

it was so painful he did not have the strength to walk"

• Kept eating Gary Null's Ultimate Power Meal, "thinking that it would help him and relieve his condition."

Oops!

• Power Meal: thousandfold manufacturing error. – Label said 2000 IU of vitamin D per dose.– It actually contained 2 million IU.– He sued the company for poisoning him.– 6 customers hospitalized with kidney damage.

Hoist By His Own Petard

Stem Cell Fraud

• Lawrence Stowe – 6o Minutes Exposé

Stowe’s Scam

• Recruits patients in San Diego.• Treatment in Mexico by mail order MD.• Injects blood-forming stem cells into spine

and alleges they form nerve tissue; they can’t.

• The Mexican hospital says it didn't know Morales was using stem cells and wouldn't have allowed it.

Lies

• Not a doctor. Lied about credentials.

• “You can't find a surgeon in the world who doesn't support our approach," Stowe explained.

• Tells patients he can cure ALS, then denies telling them, says he only claims MS cures. ALS claims caught on tape.

Selling False Hope

• Larry Stowe never gave up, even after his lies were exposed. When we left the room, he turned to ALS patient Michael Martin and tried to close the sale.

• Cost $125,000• Patients have sold homes, paid life savings, gone home

worse.

• "I'm thinking that they came to the right place if they want any hope at all," Stowe replied.

International Society for Stem Cell Research Issued Warnings

• Identified 200 clinics worldwide.

• Spectrum from “badly designed uncontrolled human medical experiments for profit” to “thieves who are preying on the sick and their families."

• At best ineffective, at worst dangerous– Patients return from China with meningitis.

Kimkins Lawsuit

• Charges founder Heidi "Kimmer" Diaz with false advertising, fraud, unjust enrichment, and negligent misrepresentation.

• Diaz falsely claimed to have lost 198 pounds in one year, but in fact remained morbidly obese.

• Members' lifetime memberships were unjustly terminated. • Diaz made unjustified claims that the diet is safe. • Members using the diet plan suffered medical

complications that included hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability, and menstrual irregularities.

• Diaz's Web site displayed phony "success" stories that used photographs she obtained from Russian and Ukrainian sites with ads from women who wanted to meet prospective husbands.

Before and After

MMS

• FDA Warning July 30, 2010.

• Contains industrial strength bleach.

• Nausea, vomiting, life-threatening dehydration.

• Throw it away!

Jim Humble – Not So Humble

• A metallurgist, gold prospector and chemist. Jim Humble discovered a simple health drink for malaria in South America during a prospecting project.

• Left the US to live in Mexico as a safety measure.

Claims

• Separate tests conducted by the Malawi government produced identical 99% cure results.

• Over 60% of the AIDS victims that were treated in Uganda were well in 3 days, with 98% well within one month.

• More than 90% of the malaria victims were well in 4 to 8 hours.

• Dozens of other diseases were successfully treated and can be controlled with this new mineral supplement.

• It also works with colds, flu, pneumonia, sore throats, warts, mouth sores, and even abscessed teeth (it’s the only thing that controls and cures abscessed teeth).

Alleged Mechanism of Action

• MMS kills pathogens. All of them. Nothing else.

• Unlike antibiotics, The Miracle Mineral Supplement does not allow pathogens to mutate.

• Dead bacterial products cause nausea, diarrhea, etc. This is good. Increase dose until you feel sick.

Real Mechanism

• The product instructs consumers to mix the 28 percent sodium chlorite solution with an acid such as citrus juice. This mixture produces chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment.

Should I Stop HIV Drugs?Should I Inject MMS IV?

• MMS IV is much more effective than taking by mouth. Stop the drugs immediately. HIV is not dangerous. It does not cause AIDS. What causes AIDS is the drugs that you are taking, each one is extremely poisonous. That causes AIDS. The vomiting was a good sign. It means you body is getting rid of bad stuff. It takes a certain amount of courage to stop the drugs, but you really know that they are bad, and that they will not help you live longer.

More Stupid Advice

• Fortunately, I’m not a doctor, so I can tell you that if you are having problems with infection, MMS may be a better choice than antibiotics which is almost certainly what you would be given for this problem.

Fraud in Medical Research• Sir Cyril Burt

– Studying heritability of intelligence– Identical twins separated at birth– Invented 33 pairs of twins and 2 assistants

• William Summerlin– Black skin grafts on white mice– Helped nature out with a black

felt-tipped pen.

Motives of Research Fraud

• Career pressure

• Knew what the answer would be

• Worked in a field where individual experiments are not likely to be exactly reproducible

FDA Definition of Fraud• The deceptive promotion, advertisement,

distribution or sale of articles, intended for human or animal use, that are represented as being effective to diagnose, prevent, cure, treat or mitigate disease (or other conditions), or provide a beneficial effect on health, but which have not been scientifically proven safe and effective for such purposes. Such practices may be deliberate, or done without adequate knowledge or understanding of the article.

FDA, 1989 – Top Ten Health Frauds

• Fraudulent arthritis products.• Bogus AIDS cures. • Instant weight-loss schemes.• Fraudulent sexual aids. • Spurious cancer clinics.• Quack baldness remedies and other appearance

modifiers.• False nutritional schemes. • Unproven use of muscle stimulators. • Chelation therapy (to clean out clogged arteries). • Treatment for nonexistent yeast infections.

ACSH’s report advised that no mail-order product can:

(a) cause effortless weight loss; (b) erase scars,wrinkles, or “cellulite”; (c) selectively reduce one part of the body; (d) increase bust or penis size; (e) prevent or cure hair loss; (f) increase stamina, endurance, strength, or muscle mass; (g) prevent aging; (h) prolong life; (i) prevent senility; (j) increase memory; or (k) increase sexual stimulation or pleasure.

“The first doctors in the world were frauds.” – Druin Burch

It wasn’t until 1900 that patients stood more than a 50/50 chance of benefiting from an encounter with a doctor.

Are They Lying?

• Are they deliberately lying to get your money?• True believers in a useless treatment?• It can be hard to tell.

Scammers May Scam Themselves

      “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

-Richard Feynman

THE BLUE DOT CURE

The Best Liars Believe Their Lies

• The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man

only tells them with all his might.

-mark twain

The Psychology of Health Gurus

• Narcissistic personality, antisocial personality, sociopaths.

• Grandiose thinking (“I’m a god.”)• View people as objects to be used for

one’s own ego or monetary needs.• Lack of empathy, guilt, shame.• Tendency to blame the victim.• Tend to be very charming (need to be

liked).

Dr. Smith’s story in Snake Oil Science

• Frustrated, unable to help arthritis patients• Took acupuncture course• Designed one of the most biased, completely

uncontrolled clinical trials of all time.• Treated Mrs. Jones

– When her pain was at its worst– He couldn’t think of anything else to try– She trusted him– Monitored closely, improved compliance– Indebted to authority figure

Positive Reinforcement

• Mrs. Jones told him she was better and he was wonderful

• Acupuncture didn’t work on every patient, but then nothing does.

• Eventually Mrs. Jones’ improvement wore off– Natural pain history– Hawthorne effect– Natural politeness– Placebo

• But by then, he’d had – Lots of other clinical successes– Unnoticed, forgotten, rationalized failures– Hope springs eternal

• “When we see night approaching, nearly all of us are rubes.” - Pope Brock, in Charlatan

What Desperation Leads To

• There is nothing men will not do . . . to recover their health and save their lives. They have submitted to being half-drowned in water, and half-choked with gases, to being buried up to their chins in earth, to being scarred with hot irons like galley slaves, to being crimped with knives like codfish, to having needles thrust into their flesh, and bonfires kindled in their skins, to swallowing all sorts of abominations, and to pay for all this, as if to be singed and scalded were a costly privilege, as if blistering were a blessing and leeches a luxury.

- oliver wendell holmes

Skepticism Can Be Selective

Who Is Susceptible to Quackery?• No one is immune to quackery, regardless of education level.

People who purchase fraudulent products often have similar characteristics:

• They tend to be isolated, lacking the emotional support of families and friends.

• An illness may lead to a sense of "losing control" over their lives.

• Persons with chronic or incurable diseases.• They may have problems that also can cause emotional

distress, such as impotence, baldness, excess weight.• May suffer from chronic depression or anxiety or have

problems with interpersonal relationships and are unable or unwilling to seek conventional psychologic treatment.

• They may have a fear of established medicine and government health agencies.

Why Don’t They Seek Professional Help?

• Lack of financial resources, • Fear of being labelled with "an emotional

problem" • Not being aware of treatment options or not

being willing to acknowledge an emotional problem exists.

• May be looking for a quick or "magic" solution. Unfortunately, as any honest magician will tell you, "Magic is just an illusion."

Six Harms1. Lost time

Some cancers respond well to treatment, especially with early detection. This is true of other problems as well. But if you rely on useless remedies, the time you lose could seriously harm your chance of recovery.

2. Lost moneyThe National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) estimates that Americans spend billions on bogus treatments. And often those who purchase quack products are least able to afford them.

3. Dangerous treatmentsNot only does quackery fail to help, it also may cause harm. Quack drugs are not produced under the quality control standards required for prescription and over-the-counter medications. They may contain substances that do not mix safely with one another, with other drugs you take, or with what you eat and drink.

Six Harms, cont.4. Lost hope

People who realize they have been manipulated by quackery have reason to be bitter. Many become angry toward the medical profession as a whole. This could lead them to shun proper treatment. Other persons with incurable diseases, such as certain cancers, may turn to quackery after conventional treatment has failed them.Although this may seem harmless and at least worth trying there are several reasons not to including the false hope it may give others who have not yet tried conventional therapies and that it reinforces the predatory practices of the quack. Money spent on quack cures for terminal conditions might be better donated to a worthy cause.

Six Harms, cont.

5. False fearSome victims of quackery are not even ill. Unscrupulous promoters try to cause doubt or anxiety in these people.

6. GuiltMany quack theories promote an idea that "natural harmony" within your body can fully protect you from disease or provide a cure if you become ill. When disease strikes, patients can feel "shame" at being "responsible" for their illness or failure to recover. Guilt also can affect a patient's loved ones: The parents who take their diabetic child off insulin, the spouse who takes a mate out of the country for worthless therapy.

Can’t Be Stopped

• “The problem of health fraud is so vast that government agencies cannot stop most violations they detect.”– Stephen Barrett, Consumer Health

Colloidal Silver Causes Argyria

The Worst Scams of All

• Most scams target greed• Medical scams target fear of death and

craving for miracles.

• Most scams target people who could resist.• Medical scams target suffering people at their

most vulnerable.

• Most scams take your money.• Medical scams take your money and your life.

The End