Re: Baja clinic known for unorthodox care closed


"The Lying Harassing fifthy mouth<Andrew_Kingoff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 15, 5:32 pm, "t" <tool...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter Bowditch" <myfirstn...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message




> "Jan Drew" <jdrew1...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>"Coleah" <col...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>news:1189743360.560355.108860@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>Official: Unauthorized services were provided

>>By Anna Cearley
>>and Penni Crabtree

>>the Quackers feed Penny Crabtree her info ... her bias is
>> so obvious ... she is a bu$ine$$ reporter and Dr. Clark & others do >> harm
>>to her hubby's bu$ine$$

http://www.orgonelab.org/fda.htm


Anti-Constitutional Activities and Abuse of Police Power by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other Federal Agencies
by James DeMeo, Ph.D.
Director of Research
Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory
PO Box 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA
de...@xxxxxxxx
Reprinted from On Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy, Pulse of the Planet #4, 1993


Copyright © 1993, All Rights Reserved by James DeMeo


In recent years, there has been an upsurge of police activities in the USA,
the nature of which most Americans would more readily associate with
repressive dictatorships. We Americans have been educated to believe that
democracy, due process, assumed innocence-until-proven-guilt, and
Constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure are the laws
of the land. On paper, these protections are there; but in reality, these
basic Constitutional rights and freedoms have been gradually and steadily
eroded away by new laws, judicial rulings, and bureaucratic decrees. One of
the lesser-known but more significant leaders of this assault on American
freedom has been the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).


Background to FDA Police-State Activities


As early as the 1950s, the FDA was engaged in aggressively spying on
health-care providers who employed medications and approaches which were not
considered "acceptable" by mainstream orthodox medicine. Notably, it was and
has been the American Medical Association (AMA) which has dominated ideas
within the medical community, as well as nearly all legislation related to
health care. If the AMA dislikes a particular health care approach, they
work to banish such methods within hospitals, and to suspend the medical
licenses of any doctor who employs them. They have often been able to rely
upon state licensing boards and legislatures, and even the US Congress, to
pass laws outlawing natural healing methods and the non-MD practitioner
(such as midwives, herbalists or acupuncturists). Failing here, the AMA and
friends in the drug industry have relied upon their allies in the FDA to
aggressively assault the advocates of natural treatment methods.


Many new health care discoveries have thereby remained "underground", never
being allowed to flower productively in the light of day. Inexpensive,
non-toxic and unpatentable natural healing methods have never been seriously
or honestly evaluated by the AMA-FDA pharmaceutical-dominated medical
establishment. Instead, policemen have been called in to simply arrest and
jail the offending practitioners, seize their files, mailing lists and other
property, burn their books, and otherwise trample the US Constitution into
the dirt.


* Dr. Royal Raymond Rife was crushed when his new microscopical techniques
demonstrated the pleomorphic nature of viruses and bacterium.(1)


* Harry Hoxsey's successful herbal formulas for the treatment of cancer,
used in dozens of clinics across the USA in the 1950s, were stomped into
oblivion by an enraged FDA, after Hoxsey refused to sell his formula to Dr.
Morris Fishbein, then president of the AMA.(2)


* Max Gerson's dietary immune-boosting treatments for degenerative disease
were criminalized by the FDA at the very time he published scientific
evidence and clinical reports on their effectiveness.(3)


Today, none of these treatments are openly used in the USA, but only in
clinics south of the Mexican-California border. The FDA also attempted to
ban and burn Rodale's Organic Farming and Gardening magazine as "advertising
literature" not covered by the First Amendment; many vitamin companies were
advertising in it, and Rodale claimed -- to the annoyance of the chemical
fertilizer and drug companies -- that the vitamin and nutrient values of
plants were increased by use of natural-organic farming methods, thereby
improving human health. The FDA lost that case, but Rodale was forced to
spend a fortune in legal fees to defend his right of free speech.


Probably the most significant and blatant example of FDA aggression and
anti-Constitutional activity is the case of Dr. Wilhelm Reich. The Reich
Legal Case surpassed the Scopes Monkey Trial in legal and historical
significance, as it clearly marked the willingness of the US courts to
condone the censoring of speech, the burning of books, the unreasonable
seizure of property, and the willful ignoring of written documents presented
to judges. Reich may not have been what one could call a "model legal
client", but the willingness of the US courts to incarcerate him, burn his
books, and in general treat him like a criminal, demonstrated how far legal
technicalities and procedural issues had replaced the original intent and
spirit of the law. Certainly, all the various judges who reviewed Reich's
case and ruled against him, from the local and district court judges to the
US Supreme Court judges, knew they were agreeing to censorship of speech and
to the burning of books.


The judges also demonstrated no interest in any of the technical/procedural
issues which would have weighed in Reich's favor, such as the fact that the
prosecutor was himself Reich's former personal attorney, or that Reich had
submitted documents (his "Response to Ignorance") to the lower courts which
were, essentially, thrown into the trash. Indeed, the deep significance the
courts gave to procedural technicalities in his case was exclusively to
those matters which worked against Reich. Clearly, they were out to "get
Reich", no matter what. On the basis of legal technicalities, his many books
and research journals were burned in incinerators by court order, and both
Reich and a co-worker, Dr. Michael Silvert, were sentenced to over a year in
prison. Reich died in prison, while Silvert committed suicide shortly
afterward. Other FDA violations at the time included the warrantless
invasions and searches of the homes of people peripherally associated with
Reich. In one such case, a home was searched and Reich's books were
confiscated from private bookshelves. School teachers and doctors who worked
with Reich were fired from their jobs, in a manner reminiscent of the more
purely political repressions of that time, the McCarthy period.


The Reich Legal Case has been discussed in detail elsewhere,(4) and so will
not be repeated here, but its importance lies in the fact that the FDA was
able to commit severe anti-Constitutional actions, indeed, murderous
actions, against an internationally-known and respected scientist without so
much as a peep of protest from the various academic "scholarly societies",
"civil liberties" or "free speech" groups, etc. This lack of significant
social protest was an encouragement and green light of approval to nearly
every federal agency wanting to shape public or private behavior to one or
another government policy. While blatant political repression of politicians
has declined over the years, with increasing protections afforded to
political speech, the political repression of unorthodox scientific
discoveries related to health and sickness has not declined at all. In fact,
repression of non-political speech has increased, especially when it is
linked with concrete marketplace activities which conflict with official
government policies or big business monopolies.


In the years since Reich's death, Constitutional protections against illegal
seizure of property, assumed innocence-until-proven-guilt, and due process
of law have been flagrantly violated and trampled into the dirt by the FDA
leaders and field agents, who are increasingly teaming up with other arms of
the federal bureaucracy to increase their power. Numerous medical pioneers
have been assaulted and personally destroyed, in a manner so blatant and
aggressive it makes Reich's treatment by the FDA appear almost gentle by
comparison. The FDA's police-state activities are taking place all across
the USA, but little of it is being reported in the mainstream media -- or if
so, generally with biased justifications given for the FDA actions, that
"the FDA is combatting health fraud" or "medical quackery". Here, the reader
will be informed of more recent assaults by the FDA against the natural
health movement.


The AMA-FDA-Pharmaceutical Cartel


Increasingly, health care decisions in the USA are being mandated by small
cadres of "specialists" who decide whether this or that medication will be
made legal and available to the American public. Where scientific evidence
once was the criteria for extended use of a new medication, such decisions
are today being made more on the basis of the profits which can be made from
a particular medication -- too many of the top physician-bureaucrats working
in the FDA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Cancer Society
(ACS), etc. are themselves often drug-company millionaires, with personal
stock holdings or investments in the companies whom they regulate. Drug
companies provide large sums to political campaigns so as to definitively
influence legislation, and to various medical institutes, to "research"
their products. Their full-page color advertisements for new drugs in
medical journals essentially pay for those publications. Pharmaceutical
companies are one of the highest profit margin industries in the U.S. who do
not have to account for the often extreme prices they charge - higher than
anywhere else in the world. Drug company money plays a powerful role in
shaping health policy, the approval process for new patent drugs, and
publishing (or censoring) research findings about the effectiveness or
side-effects of those drugs.


Additionally, nearly every major medical organization and medical society in
the USA, to include many governmental agencies like the FDA, NIH, and ACS,
expend significant sums of money each year to fund unfactual, even
slanderous propaganda against relatively inexpensive natural healing
methods, which might otherwise substitute for the expensive and often toxic
medications and surgical procedures pushed by the medical-pharmaceutical
cartel. "Quack-busting" groups, such as the National Council Against Health
Fraud, team up with various medical societies, licensing boards, and the FDA
to efficiently snoop upon and "police" the medical community, making sure
that only the most orthodox medical treatments will prevail. Word quickly
spreads, through the medical gossip system, if a doctor does not prescribe
the usual drugs or treatments. Any doctor employing vitamins, herbs,
nutrition, energetic medicine (homeopathy, orgone accumulator), chelation
therapy, or any other progressive, innovative or unorthodox treatment can
expect great pressure from these groups, up to and including visits from
aggressive, gun-waving "health-care" policemen.


Similar, or even more aggressive treatment is meted out to midwives,
herbalists or to other health care providers who lack the MD degree, and
employ methods which compete with the entire lucrative doctor-hospital
system. A doctor or midwife who is today labeled a "quack" in the newspapers
can expect as bad and unfair a treatment as did a "witch" in the Middle
Ages. The quite telling consequences of this anti-scientific pogrom against
the new and unorthodox health research findings are that a higher percentage
of people are dying from degenerative illness today than in the 1950s, while
cancer cure and survival rates are essentially unchanged from when the
multi-billion dollar orthodox "war" against cancer was initiated.(5) Like
the "wars" against crime, poverty and drugs, the "war against cancer" has
been a huge, expensive flop, benefiting only the over-bloated cancer
industry -- today more people are engaged in the "treatment" of cancer than
those who die from it in a given year. Obviously, the attitude that "war" is
necessary to solve a social or health-care problem is itself part of the
problem, and not part of the solution.


Increasing Use of SWAT Teams and Seizure Laws


One clear consequence of the widespread "war" approach to social problems
has been the growing use of police Special Weapons and Tactical (SWAT) teams
to enforce bureaucratic decrees by federal agencies, even those agencies one
normally does not associate with "law enforcement". In recent years, the
farm journal Acres, USA (6) has exposed numerous examples where individual
farmers, who were making legal challenges to US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) rulings about crop quotas or loan-security arrangements, had their
homes, land and farm equipment seized at gun-point by the USDA. A few
farmers have been shot dead. Legal and constitutionally-protected citizen
opposition to federal government policies has been met by increasingly
aggressive and militant reactions by policemen, armed with machine guns,
flak jackets, concussion grenades, and even tanks -- the message is, Obey,
Or Else! The USDA, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA), and even the US Forest Service (USFS) have all
developed well-armed "security forces", equiped with Special Weapons and
Assault Tactical (SWAT) teams, armored personnel carriers, military-style
attack aircraft, and other forms of sophisticated weaponry which flagrantly
defy the Constitutional ban against the use of military forces for domestic
law enforcement. Hundreds of millions of dollars in property, to include
homes, automobiles, cash in bank accounts, and other personal and business
property has been seized by these various agencies, who often work in
coordination with the FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), US Customs
Service, and US Postal Service. Surely, some of this military weaponry is
genuinely used against organized crime and illegal drug traffic -- but it
surely does not stop there, and it is precisely the spill over of such
methods against ordinary civilians who break some petty or technical rule of
federal bureaucracy, or civilian dissenters to federal policy, or even only
unorthodox medical practitioners, which makes it all so dangerous.


The various "War on Drugs" seizure laws, for example, have allowed various
government agencies to "seize and impound" (steal!) the property or cash
money of any citizen, based upon mere suspicion that the property or money
was acquired from sales of illegal drugs. A citizen whose property which has
been seized must post a significant cash bond to the courts (a percentage of
the value of the seized goods), and then go to court and "prove their
innocence" to the judge before the property is returned. Failing to do so,
the "law enforcement" agencies which made the seizure are then allowed to
auction off the seized properties and keep a percentage of the money for
"internal use"! For example, there was the case where a large fishing boat
was seized by the DEA during a "routine" US Coast Guard inspection, when one
of the deck hands was found to have marijuana cigarettes in his pocket. The
seizure of the expensive fishing boat destroyed the life's work of the
boat-owner captain, who was held responsible for the concealed actions of
one employee.


Then there was the case of Willie Jones, a hard-working gardener who paid
cash for an airline ticket, not knowing that airline ticket agents often
provide "tips" to policemen about travelers who pay for tickets with cash.
The assumption is that anybody buying an airline ticket with cash is a drug
dealer! The cops confronted Jones, and confiscated $9,600 he was carrying
for purchase of shrubbery for his landscaping business -- he was flying to a
gardening convention to purchase plants for next year's work. Although the
cops "arrested" his cash, Jones was never charged with anything, and he did
not have additional money to go to the courts to "prove his innocence". So
the cops just kept the money. Jones observed "I didn't know it was against
the law for a 42-year old black man to have money in his pocket!"


In another remarkable case, two gardening supply stores, along with
inventories and bank accounts, were seized by DEA agents after an employee
advised undercover agents how grow-lights might be used for indoor
cultivation. Marijuana was implied, but never mentioned explicitly -- but so
what! The DEA felt the selling of grow-lights was contributing to the drug
trade, so they raided the stores. Now, this is, purely legal stealing, where
the activities of the cash-greedy federal agents and judges is not supported
by anything written in the Constitution, nor by any other moral or rational
premise. Indeed, in fully 80% of the cases where assets are seized by the US
government under the forfeiture laws, no one is charged with a crime of any
sort.(7)


Even the US Environmental Protection Agency has gotten into the act, of
creating its own police force SWAT teams; they recently raided an insectary
which was legally challenging the need to obtain "EPA permission" to sell
lady bugs to organic farmers. In another recent disgusting example, when the
National Park Service (NPS) wanted to purchase a large plot of land adjacent
to a National Park in southern California, the elderly owner, Mr. Donald
Scott, refused to sell. Angered, NPS officials, teamed up with the IRS and
DEA, went snooping for dirt on Mr. Scott, "to see" if he was growing pot on
his property. One of the NPS agents then conveniently volunteered that he
had seen "pot plants" when flying overhead many hundreds of feet in a
helicopter (!), and somebody else received an "anonymous tip" that Mrs.
Scott was seen purchasing items in town with hundred-dollar bills. With this
fabricated "evidence", they raided Scott's rural mountain home with SWAT
teams and gunslingers, with the expectation that -- if drugs were found --
they could confiscate his home and land, and whatever money he had in the
bank, which would then become the property of the various "law enforcement"
agencies. As they burst in on Scott's mountain home early in the morning,
Mrs. Scott screamed with alarm at the sight of guns being pointed at her by
strangers. Still dressed in pajamas, Mr. Scott jumped up from his bed with a
pistol in his hand to defend his wife against intruders. With his pistol
pointed to the ceiling, he was shot dead in his own home by the cops, at the
very moment when he was complying with police orders to put the gun down. No
drugs of any kind were found on the property. The entire raid was staged
purely for the purpose of stealing the man's land, and placing it on the
auction block! (7)


These are just a few incredible examples, from hundreds to perhaps thousands
of similar cases, of federal assaults upon ordinary citizens who were never
charged with a crime, as more political powers and guns are accumulated into
the hands of our unelected federal bureaucracy. And, of course, there were
the events in Waco, Texas, where an unruly fundamentalist religious group
was needlessly assaulted by swarms of federal and state police, and Bureau
of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agents armed with automatic weapons
and tanks, leading to nearly 100 deaths (including over 20 children).(8) The
incident at Waco was undertaken for allegations which were no more severe
than what has been routinely certified and documented as occurring within
more established religions (such as child sexual abuse by Catholic Clergy).
By contrast, no Catholic church or school has ever been invaded by BATF or
Health and Human Services (HHS) agents, snooping out "alleged child sexual
abuse" at the point of a gun. A recent Congressional investigation into the
Waco massacre suggested the allegations of "child sexual abuse" had been
concocted, after-the-fact, by Attorney General Janet Reno, to justify her
approval of the shockingly aggressive raid.


These examples are only a few from many, of clear and growing evidence of
the decline of respect for Constitutional principles and due process of law,
not by ordinary citizens, but rather, by out-of-control, power-hungry
government leaders and bureaucrats, stimulating the growth of an American
Police State. Increasingly, these various federal police forces are
coordinated through larger and larger computer data banks on ordinary
citizens. With poverty and homelessness on the rise, with more and more of
the public wealth, lands, resources and means of production owned and
controlled by fewer and fewer people, and with new reforms blocked by both
political barriers and bureaucratic immobility, it is not surprising to see
an increase in social chaos and crime. But the public clamor has
unfortunately not been to address the root causes of crime, or even to hold
the guilty federal leaders accountable for their autocratic, indeed
fascistic, conduct. Rather, with the news media nearly silent about these
various assaults upon democracy and freedom (or with the media uncritically
parroting only the federal "party line"), the cry from Washington, DC is for
even more police "protection". And so, new legislation is making its way
through Congress, supported by both conservative Republicans and liberal
Democrats, to grant even more police powers to the various federal agencies,
and frighteningly, to centralize their activities under a single anti-crime
umbrella.


This is the background against which the AMA-FDA-Pharmacy cartel has turned
up the heat against health care reformers, midwives, physicians employing
natural healing methods, and vitamin and herb companies.


Growth of Natural Healing Methods in the USA


According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine(9) about
a third of all American adults use unconventional medical treatments, such
as chiropractic, therapeutic massage, relaxation techniques, special diets
and megavitamins. Americans are increasingly attracted to non-toxic natural
healing methods, as an alternative to the cut, burn and poison methods of
allopathic medicine. In recent years, there also has been increasing
evidence that vitamins and other items advocated by "health food nuts" do
indeed work to prevent degenerative diseases, and to promote recovery and
remission from severe illness. Health reformers are increasingly advocating
natural healing methods, including natural childbirth, home birth,
breastfeeding of infants, and organic fruits and vegetables Vitamins A, B, C
and E in moderate to high doses are increasingly being found to reduce one's
risk of heart disease, cancers, and other degenerative diseases. Indeed, the
National Institute of Health, in response to growing pressure from the
public, recently opened an "Office of Alternative Medicine", and has started
to fund investigations of natural healing methods.(10)


The percentage of Americans attracted to natural healing methods is growing
and threatens the economic monopoly of Big Medicine, the AMA-FDA-Pharmacy
cartel, which has for many years dictated health care approaches used in the
USA with an iron fist. This appears to be the major reason for the
intensification of the FDA's vicious and murderous war against the natural
health movement. The Director of FDA, under both the Bush and Clinton
Administrations, is Dr. David Kessler, a powerful bureaucrat who epitomizes
what Wilhelm Reich meant by the term HIG (Hooligan In Government). Kessler
has intensified efforts by the FDA to control what is said, published, used
or sold in all aspects of health care in the USA. He has established a
"snitch" telephone hot line whereby "responsible doctors can call in and
report any of their colleagues engaged in unacceptable, unorthodox, or
deviant medical practice".


A blatant double-standard is applied: natural health advocates are assaulted
for legal technicalities or for no reason at all, while big pharmacy and
surgical device companies can literally get away with murder. Nutritional
supplements with proven benefits are banned without evidence of any public
health hazards, while synthetic pharmacological drugs or horrific surgical
devices which have never been proven effective are approved in spite of
demonstrated deadly side effects. Even when evidence is found that the
pharmacy companies completely fabricated their FDA-approval data, out of
thin air, nothing is done; the FDA turns a blind eye in such cases. Some
examples: The FDA has received over 5,500 complaints against Aspartame
(NutraSweet), which was legalized amid controversy regarding the capacity of
this substance to alter brain hormone balances; some 9% of the complaints
today involve serious neurological effects, including seizures. A recent
major study by UCLA researchers of 109 patent-drug advertisements found 81%
to be "inaccurate, misleading and even dangerous."(11) A General Accounting
Office report found that 51.5% of patent drugs approved by the FDA between
1978 and 1986 had "serious post-approval risks" not disclosed on
originally-approved package inserts, including "heart failure, myocardial
infarction, anaphylaxis, respiratory depression, convulsions, seizures,
kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and
blindness".(12)


In spite of these and many other deadly problems associated with costly
"FDA-approved" patent drugs and medical devices, you never read about a
major pharmacy company being raided with SWAT teams, their bank accounts
seized, with offices, laboratories and homes of officers being raided and
ransacked at gun-point, or their drug inventories being confiscated and
impounded. Nor has the FDA taken any actions against the blatant advertising
of drugs within medical journals publishing papers purportedly evaluating
the efficacy and safety of those same drugs. But such repressions and police
actions are being taken against natural healing clinics and smaller
laboratories all across the USA, for doing nothing more than manufacturing,
selling or prescribing vitamins, aloe vera, herbs and other non-toxic food
substances. Witness the following recent examples:


1) 1987; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: Based upon a perjured search warrant, the
Life Extension Foundation, a non-profit organization supplying supplements
to low income individuals, is raided by armed FDA agents and US Marshals.
Breaking down the doors, the agents spent 12 hours seizing every nutrient
product, file, and newsletter they could get their hands on, including many
personal affects of owners and employees. Even telephones and computers were
"ripped from the wall". Four years later, another raid took place, after the
Foundation relocated to Arizona. Employees were intimidated into thinking
they had been "shipping illegal drugs" (vitamins!), but no charges were
filed against anyone. The raid took three days to complete. Requests for the
return of property were consistently refused. Lawsuits against the FDA are
in progress.(13)


2) 1990; Mt. Angel, Oregon: Nine FDA agents, 11 US marshalls, and 8 heavily
armed Oregon state police raid Highland Laboratories, kicking in both front
and back doors. Over an 11 hour period, virtually everything except tables
and chairs is carted off to waiting trucks, including many items not listed
on the search warrant, at a total value of $37,000. Nobody was informed
about the grounds for the raid, the "supporting affidavit" being suppressed
by the court. The seized property was taken to an undisclosed location. Mr.
Kenneth Scott, owner, and other Highland employees were threatened with
violence if they attempted to enter the company premises, and the daughter
of the owner was held "in house arrest" for 12 hours at a location several
miles away. Highland subsequently reopened, and hired a separate outside
mailing service to satisfy FDA requirements. In response, the FDA raided the
mailing service, which was a small business run out of the home of a woman
in another town. Finding nothing there except mailing equipment and business
records, FDA agents threatened to confiscate the woman's checkbooks and
cash, failing to do so only after being begged not to. When she asked them
"Why are you doing this?", the agent replied "Somebody's got to do it!!"
Because of the raids, the owner of the mailing firm subsequently closed her
business, and refuses to file charges out of fear of government
reprisals(!!). No charges were ever filed by the FDA against anyone, nor has
any of the seized property been returned. The FDA still has not given anyone
reasons for their outrageous tactics, which were designed simply to put the
firm out of business.(14)


3) 1990; El Cajon, California: The FDA attempts to railroad Sissy
Harrington-McGill, 57-year old owner of a pet food store, for violation of a
proposed "Health Claims Law" because her literature stated vitamins would
help keep pets healthy. Her store was raided and ransacked without a search
warrant. When her day in court arrived, Harrington-McGill requested a jury
trial -- the judge refused her request, dictating that he alone would judge
the case. She was tried and convicted of violation of the Health Claims Law,
even though it had not yet been passed by the US Congress at the time the
FDA raided her, or at the time of her trial or conviction. Ms.
Harrington-McGill repeatedly informed the federal judge of this fact, but he
ignored her complaint. For this first-time misdemeanor "violation" of a
non-existing law, she was sentenced to 179 days in prison, with a fine of
$10,000. She was led away in chains and served 114 days in prison before
being released after the U.S. Congress refused to pass the "Health Claims
Law". Lawsuits against the FDA have been filed. (15)


4) 1990; Reno, Nevada: The Century Clinic, which employs chelation therapy,
homeopathy, nutritional and natural therapies, is raided twice by FDA and
Postal Service inspectors and other government agents. During the first
raid, a 14 page list of items was confiscated even though the warrant
itemized only three short paragraphs of materials for seizure. Virtually all
equipment, supplies, files, mailing lists, computers and records were taken
during a 16 hour ransacking of facilities. No charges were filed. Century
Clinic then recovered, rebuilt their facility and sued the FDA for return of
the seized property. The FDA responded with a second raid, this time
involving searches of the persons, homes and vehicles of Clinic owners and
employees. Patients in treatment at the time of the raid were treated
rudely, ordered about, and interrogated. Many were not allowed to leave
without giving names and addresses. Cash and checks were also seized, along
with another 14 pages of inventory. Again, no charges were filed against
anybody!! (16)


5) March, 1991; Tijuana, Mexico: Four armed Mexican police, without warrants
or charges, kidnapped Jimmy Keller from his office at the St. Jude Hospital,
and took him to their headquarters. There, six men in blue jeans and work
shirts who refused to identify themselves (later identified as bounty
hunters for the US Justice Department) seized him and forced him to cross
the border to the USA. There, Keller was arrested by the FBI on 12 counts of
wire fraud -- Keller had made telephone calls across interstate lines to
attract people to his Mexican clinic. Following the illegal kidnapping of
Keller from Mexican soil, without extradition, he was jailed in Texas, his
bond set at $5 million. He was later convicted and sent to a North Dakota
prison for two years. Keller ran a very successful cancer treatment clinic,
which he founded after using natural methods to cure himself of "terminal"
cancer. His own cancer had been unsuccessfully "treated" 25 years earlier by
orthodox cancer specialists who amputated his ear and mutilated his face.
Following the horrific surgery, Keller's cancer returned and metastisized.
He investigated natural healing methods, cured himself, and then began
helping others to do so.(17)


6) 1991; Texas: The alternative medical clinic of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski,
an emigre from communist Poland, is raided by FDA and Texas Department of
Health agents, following public announcement that Burzynski's successful,
unorthodox methods will be evaluated by the National Cancer Institute. Until
then, Burzynski had worked quietly for 15 years without any complaints or
trouble with the law.(18)


7) 1991; San Leandro, California: NutriCology, a nutrition supplement
company operated by Stephen Levine, Ph.D., a molecular geneticist from the
University of California at Berkeley, is raided by 12 FDA agents. Levine
spends $500,000 over the next year to fight three different FDA injunctions,
all of which are thrown out of court. No complaints were ever made about the
firm.(19)


8) 1992; Kent Washington: The unlocked door of Dr. Jonathan Wright's natural
medical clinic was kicked in, while FDA agents wearing bullet-proof vests
with drawn guns, pushed into the room, shouting at everyone to "Freeze! Put
up your hands!" The raid was in reaction to a recent FDA ban on a
contaminated batch of B-vitamins in another state. Wright was not connected
to that particular incident, and did not ever use contaminated vitamins. No
matter. Workers were held at gun-point and his office searched, while
computers, mailing lists, books and files were hauled away in a large truck.
Patients were generally treated like criminals. The FDA Gestapo agents spent
14 hours at the clinic, searching through everything. Dr. Wright is
internationally known for his work on nutritional medicine and preventative
health approaches. At the same time, down the street, the For Your Health
pharmacy was being raided in a similar manner. This pharmacy serves
preventative health doctors in the Kent area. As of mid-1993, none of the
impounded equipment, computers or files have been returned, and no charges
have been filed against anyone. (20)


9) 1992: San Diego: David Halpern and several of his family members, as well
as the Presidents of three British and one German vitamin companies, are
charged with 198 counts of "conspiracy", "smuggling" and "violation of the
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act" for importing banned nutritional supplements
which are freely available, over the counter, in Britain and Germany. The
indictments carry a potential prison term of 990 years in prison.(21)


10) 1992: Texas: The FDA, working behind the scenes, prompted the Texas
Department of Health (TDH) and Texas Department of Food and Drug to
undertake raids upon over a dozen large health food stores. Over 250
different products, an arbitrary list some 88 pages long, was forcibly
seized from shelves. The list includes flaxseed oil, effervescent vitamin C,
various herbs, Sleepytime Tea, aloe vera, and zinc products. Following a
public outcry, and restraining reactions from Texas politicians, the TDH
Gestapo officers threatened one of the ravaged health food store owners in
the manner of a Mafia extortionist: "Don't talk to the press, or we'll come
down on you twice as hard". No justifications were given for the inclusion
of any of the products on the seizure list, no charges were filed, and none
of the products were ever returned to the stores. (22)


11) 1993: USA: Nearly 40 different natural healing clinics, health food
stores, and vitamin manufacturers were raided in May and September, in armed
commando-style assaults by combined agents of the FDA, DEA, IRS, US Customs
and US Postal services. Details on these more recent raids are difficult to
come by, but it is reported that, besides seizing various stocks of
vitamins, herbs and other nutritional supplements and compounds (such as
shark cartilage), IRS officials seized both personal and company bank
accounts, along with automobiles, computers, office equipment, and other
valuables. Mailing lists of customers and patients were of particular
interest in the seizures. The homes of the company owners and employees were
also raided, without search warrants. SWAT teams, armed with machine guns
and flak jackets, participated in some of the raids. The Post Office, in
turn, acted to illegally block the mail of some of the companies,
effectively shutting them off from communication with the public and leaving
them without funds, mailing lists, or other resources necessary to mount a
proper legal defense.


As before, no charges were filed. Some shocking examples of Gestapo tactics
occurred. At the home of one employee, dark-dressed men with guns demanded
entry, but the scared individual refused to let them in; instead, she went
to the bedroom to dial 911 for the local police. The door was smashed down
and she was shoved to the floor with a gun put to her head. In another case,
a breast-feeding mother employed at a raided firm was roughed-up and
handcuffed for 11 hours while FDA agents ransacked her home. These latter
raids included the clinic and offices of Dr. Kurt Donsbach, author of many
self-help nutrition-oriented books widely sold in health food stores.
Donsbach's home was also reportedly raided, and his personal bank accounts
seized. Also raided were the USA distributors of German-made Neiper
Products, formulated by the internationally-known and respected Dr. Hans
Neiper, who operates a successful clinic in Germany, and sponsors the
popular health-science magazine Raum & Zeit. Many ordinary citizens were
manhandled and threatened with death by gun-pointing government agents
during these raids, all for the "crime" of manufacturing, distributing,
selling or prescribing vitamins, nutritional supplements, and related
natural health products or methods.(23)


The above are only representative examples from a very long list of similar
FDA abuses of power in recent years. The FDA clearly has become the
attack-dog tool of the AMA and pharmacy industry, and many FDA field agents
are on record as stating that the agency is out to "destroy the health food
and nutritional supplements industries". And that is precisely what they are
trying to do. FDA Director Kessler wants to control not only the marketing
of products, but also what is said in speech or print about health matters.
He has vowed to "crack down" even on scientific meetings and conferences
which present findings "unacceptable" to FDA policies, and this is no idle
threat. Kessler and the FDA are the closest thing to a domestic Gestapo-type
police force in the USA, and their power is growing; new alliances are being
cemented between the FDA, IRS, DEA, FTC, Customs and Postal Services, HHS
and other government agencies, to "combat the growing menace of health
fraud".


The FDA alliance has destroyed the lives and work of numerous medical
pioneers, as outlined above, usually without any charges being filed. They
simply arrive at the offending clinic and home of the pioneer, break down
the doors, shove guns into the faces of everyone present, seize and impound
office and laboratory equipment, mailing lists, computers, files, bank
accounts, etc., carting everything off to a warehouse where it is dumped.
Even personal funds in a bank account are "impounded" (stolen!) by these
government thugs, whom we may assume are, like DEA agents raiding a crack
house, using drug-seizure laws to keep a percentage of whatever they steal!
Amazingly, none of the major political parties have displayed alarm or
interest in these FDA assaults. It has all been done with the full knowledge
and approval of top politicians (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Gore) and Justice
Department officials (Janet Reno). Virtually all of these politicians have
consistently been sent letters of protest by the lawyers, friends, patients
and co-workers of the various clinicians or small businesses who have been
raided -- to my knowledge, nobody who has been raided by the FDA has ever
received a friendly note or a helpful response from any of our political
Royal Family. These power elites either agree with the FDA, don't care about
natural health matters, or are completely isolated from what is going on in
the real world by layers of bureaucracy and "helpers", who censor the the
pleas for help from their mail and telephone calls.


The FDA raids demonstrate a serious erosion in the principles of government
by law, due process, liberty and justice. For health matters, at least, we
now have government by iron-fisted bureaucratic decree, with only the facade
and illusion of law. Originally, the FDA was formed under the mandate of the
Pure Food and Drug Act which simply required that products be accurately
labeled as to what their contents are and to actually contain those
ingredients, which is a necessary regulation in order for consumers to make
informed decisions. However, this simple mandate has grown into a
bureaucratic monster which has decreed itself the sole judge, jury, and
prosecutor (with its own hit squads) on matters of medical efficacy. Since
Reich's time, and through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the FDA has consumed
millions of taxpayer dollars to wage its war against natural approaches to
health care. The result is that our health care system is one big gigantic
expensive mess, rife with official fraud, and a holocaust of victims due to
the toxic and deadly side effects from ineffective "approved" drugs and
horrific surgical mutilations. Nature, science, and compassion have been
thrown out of the house of modern medicine, and the doors and windows have
been barred shut, with armed guards posted outside.


The Congressional Battle


In spite of the damage done to many individuals, clinics and small
businesses, the natural health movement continues to fight back, through
legal means and by pressuring their elected representatives to restrain the
FDA. But the FDA has its own supporters in Congress, and wants even more
power and authority, so that it can go out and even more thoroughly "search
and destroy" the natural health movement. New legislation has been offered
into the US Congress which would grant the FDA the more complete and
sweeping police powers it wants. In 1993, several new Congressional bills
were proposed: the Regulatory Enforcement Amendments for the existing
Nutritional Labeling and Education Act (H1662, H2597, H3642, S1982, S2135).
Their sponsors are long-time FDA supporters and recipients of pharmaceutical
PAC "donations" Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), Rep. John Dingell
(D-Michigan), Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), and Sen Howard
Metzenbaum (D-Ohio). The proposed legislation would grant to the FDA:


* power to set arbitrarily low potency levels for vitamins and foodstuffs,
and to forbid the sale of any vitamin or foodstuff which contained levels
higher than the FDA mandates.


* power to forcibly censor advertising of health claims in magazines and
books.


* power to embargo and destroy any imported product without proving its
threat to the public health


* power to issue its own subpoenas and to undertake warrantless searches,
seizures, and electronic surveillance, based upon mere suspicion, without
the need for court approval.


* power to set its own punitive fines against anyone who fails to obey their
demands -- up to $250,000 for individuals, and $2 million for businesses.


* power to dictate to the Federal Trade Commission new regulations for
censoring health claims in television and radio programs and advertisements.


* power to pay informants a reward, up to $250,000, for reporting on
suspected violators of FDA regulations.


Other related legislation was also proposed (SS732, S733, H940, Sen. Edward
Kennedy sponsoring on behalf of the Clinton Administration), which would
establish a "national registry and tracking system" for the vaccination of
all infants and children, a prelude to the notorious "Smart Card" or "Health
Identity Card", with total control over health care decisions by a
centralized medical Big Brother. These bills, which are offered up in one
version or another, year after year, mandate "social workers" to essentially
become the new "health care police", calling upon every home in America,
door to door, to "investigate" whether or not every child in residence would
have all "mandatory vaccines". If not, the child might be blocked from
enrollment in school, or the parents charged with "child abuse", and the
child forcibly taken away by the state for adoption. Already, legal attacks
for "child neglect and abuse" have been mounted by social workers and
medical authorities against parents opting for home-birth, and against
parents refusing to inoculate their children with potentially dangerous
experimental vaccines.(24) Even breast-feeding mothers have had infants
ripped from their arms, being charged with "child sexual abuse", by
power-drunk "social workers", who did not approve of breast-feeding beyond
two years.(25)


Coupled with the new, national health insurance initiatives, we rapidly
approach the creation of a politically-directed, centralized network of
"health spys" and "health police", whose ultimate goal would be to root out
any and all forms of natural health care, self-responsible health care, or
anyone who would exhibit signs of independent-mindedness or "disobedience to
authority" regarding basic matters of child-rearing, sexuality, education or
health. This is reminiscent of the KGB-neighborhood-spy systems of the
communist nations, and the religious police of the fundamentalist Muslim
nations. It is a clear and present danger to our democracy, given the fact
that Americans today are prone to grant to white-coated "doctors" the same
uncritical, unquestioning obedience as once was given to black-robed priests
during the witch-burning period of history, or to communist-party
functionaries during the Stalinist purges. Science, particularly medical
science, is today the New Religion of Homo Normalis, and the witch hunt
against heretic disobedient unbelievers is gathering steam.


Opposing the above FDA-AMA-Gestapo legislation was the Health Freedom Act
(S784 and H1709) sponsored by Sen.Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Bill
Richardson (D-New Mexico). This bill, which was passed in modified form,
restricted the FDA on some of the above matters, preserving the rights of
Americans to make their own essential health decisions -- regarding
vitamins, herbs and food supplements, at least. There additionally are a few
states, such as Alaska and Washington, which have passed specific
legislation to protect natural health-care methods, though it is not clear
that these laws do anything to restrain the FDA, which is governed by
federal legislation. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) has also sponsored the
Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 1993 to restrain the "long arm of the
law", and place the burden of proof on the government in asset seizure
cases, where it belongs.


These latter laws to restrain government power are a start in the right
direction, but in fact do not go far enough to curb the persisting abuses.
Wilhelm Reich's suggestion, that judges, prosecutors, and government
officials who plot to throw innocent people into prison should themselves be
imprisoned, is the kind of strong medicine necessary to prevent our social
situation from spiraling into even more despotic conditions. Clearly, a
Congressional Investigation with public hearings and testimony should be
initiated in Washington, DC, to allow hundreds of ordinary citizens the
right to come forward and tell their stories about US government
hooliganism, in full light of day, and where the "mainstream" news media
could not so easily ignore it. A Special Prosecutor should also appointed by
the President, to investigate the blatant Police State activities of the FDA
and other governmental agencies. FDA Commissioner Kessler should immediately
be fired and investigated for his role in these abuses. All FDA leaders,
field agents and lawyers, AMA officials, and prosecutors and judges who
plotted, approved, or directed the invasions of clinics, laboratories and
homes of medical pioneers, carrying out the massive seizures of property
where nobody was ever charged with a crime -- those individuals should
receive stiff fines and jail terms, with compensation paid to those whose
lives and work was destroyed by power-drunk bureaucrats. Even those
now-elderly FDA officials, prosecutors and judges who presided over the
burning of Reich's books should be held fully accountable for their past
abuses of power. These and other concrete steps must be undertaken if we are
serious about our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and if the words "Land of
the Free" are to have meaning beyond that of a mere slogan, recited
mindlessly at political rallies.


Clearly, unless our social reformers and health-care pioneers are allowed to
move from the present suppressed "underground" situation, and practice their
arts openly in the social marketplace, free from constant FDA-police
harassment, there will be no real health reforms or pioneering health
breakthroughs to reach the general public. The battle lines are drawn, but
the outcome is not clear or certain at all. Hanging in the balance is
nothing less than the future of our remaining democratic and social
freedoms.


Postscript, 1995 - 2001


Since the time when this article was written, the following events have
taken place:


- Congressman Henry Hyde has introduced new legislation to dramatically
scale back seizure laws, putting the burden of proof back on the government,
where it belongs. To date, however, his reform measure is not part of the
new "Republican Agenda", and no meaningful reform has in fact yet taken
place.


- Mrs. Scott, widow of the murdered Donald Scott, mentioned above, sued the
government for shooting her husband in his home, without cause. She lost her
case, which is on appeal.


- Congressional hearings on the Waco, Texas massacre of the Branch
Dravidians has revealed that the FBI and BATF lied and fabricated documents
later presented to the US military and Justice Department, falsely claiming
a "meth-amphetamine laboratory" was in the Dravidian's compound. This lie
allowed the military to provide helicopters and tanks to the FBI, for use in
the subsequent "final assault" on the compound, which resulted in the deaths
of nearly all inhabitants. (Federal law prohibits the use of military
weaponry and resources in civilian law enforcement, except in drug-related
cases.) The hearings also revealed a sharp split between the FBI/BATF
"troops" on the ground surrounding the compound, and the FBI negotiation
team, who were in telephone communications with Koresh and the Dravidians
inside the compound. The "troops" were literally "chomping at the bit",
wishing to invade the compound with poison gas, concussion grenades, tanks,
machine-guns, etc., (in spite of the fact there were women and children
inside). A deal which had been arranged by FBI negotiators for complete
surrender of the inhabitants, was sabotoged by the "troop" leaders who
pushed for the gas-attack (flame attack?), and whose contempt for the
negotiation team was well-documented. To my knowledge, the issue of the
flame-throwing tank, documented in videotapes (8), was never openly
discussed at those hearings. FBI top brass were reprimanded, but nobody has
been charged with any crimes, and nobody has spent a day in jail for the
nearly 100 civilian deaths, or the subsequent cover-up.


- New "anti-crime" and "anti-terrorism" legislation, some of which was
rammed through Congress after the Oklahoma City bombing, provides even more
sweeping powers to the FBI, and for both CIA and miliatry resources to be
used against US Citizens for anti-drug or anti-terrorism activities. The
problem here is the very wide and broad definitions of what constitutes such
activities: even before the new laws were passed, anti-drug legislation had
been abused to attack physicians engaged in natural healing methods. (Note
2001: More leeway is given to the FBI and CIA in new anti-terror laws
following the disastrous WTC-Pentagon-airline terror-attacks. While it is
the opinion of this writer that these laws are justified and necessary in
this time of national emergency, it is also a legitimate fear that they will
be misapplied against unorthodox physicians and healers by the FDA.)


- Dr. Jonathan Wright, with help from citizen's organizations such as
National Health Federation, Cancer Control Society, and Citizen's for
Health, organized a public relations assault upon the FDA and fought back
with lawsuits. He won a victory, of sorts, when the FDA recently announced
they were not going to file charges against Wright, even though for 3 years
they have illegally held on to his property, patient records, computers,
files, etc. The Congressional legislation which would have given the FDA
increased power and authority was passed, though in watered-down form; new
legislation, by both pro-FDA and anti-FDA forces have been organized. The
battle is not yet won.


- Newt Gingrich and other Republicans announced in 1995 that they would
"take on the FDA" and "restrain its powers"; this led, in my opinion, to a
highly premature celebration on the part of many health-reform activists,
that the new "Republican Revolution" would bring about more freedoms in
health care. Unfortunately, in various televised and published interviews,
it is unmistakably clear that the new Republican Congress only wishes to
prevent the FDA from restraining the drug companies and medical device
industry. I personally overheard, on one of the televised news programs, a
debate between leading Republican and Democrat lawmakers, wherein they both
emphatically stated that they were opposed to "medical quackery" (meaning:
natural healing methods) and both supported the FDA in its efforts to "clamp
down" on healing methods not approved by "general medical practice". In
short, there is no evidence that natural healing methods will get more
support from the Republicans than from the Democrats.


- In the face of evidence of demonstrated health risks, and strong protests
by citizen's health groups, the FDA has approved the public marketing of
dangerous new drugs and vaccines with proven toxic side-effects, irradiated
foods (for food preservation), genetically-engineered bovine hormones (for
stimulation of milk production in cows), and artificial fat. In coordination
with the push to provide BGH to all American milk cows, "protein by-pass"
feeding methods have been initiated, wherein the carcasses of sheep and
cattle (even those which have died of unknown causes) are ground-up and
mixed with cattle feed, and then fed back to the dairy cattle for "protein
enrichment". Such foul and unclean feeding methods were part of the reason
why "Mad Cow Disease" spread in England. A similar syndrome exists in the
USA, under the name "Downer Cow Syndrome". Because of such health risks from
American beef, the European Economic Community has a ban on the importation
of American beef products. The FDA says it is OK for Americans to eat what
Europeans feel is unclean and unsafe.


- In late 1996, the FDA announced plans to try and "regulate" (read:
suppress) the free flow of information on "unapproved" healing methods on
the internet. As always, they want to control what is said, and by whom, on
health matters.


- As of 1996, Dr. David Kessler is still in charge of the FDA. (But not much
long after. Kessler left the FDA, and at least some of the rather draconian
police-state aspects of FDA attacks against wholistic medicine have declined
in frequency ever since. This does not mean the FDA has "reformed" however,
as seen in their enthusiastic embracing of genetically-modified foods, and
their push to introduce food-irradiation, and to undermine all efforts to
have genetically-modified foods fully labeled.)


Citations
1. Barry Lynes, The Cancer Cure that Worked: Fifty Years of Suppression,
Marcus Books, Ontario, 1987.
2. Ken Ausubel, Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime, Mystic Fire Video,
Malibu, California, 1987.
3. Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases, Gerson Institute,
Bonita, California 1990.
4. Jerome Greenfield, Wilhelm Reich Versus the USA, W.W. Norton, NY 1979;
Lois Wyvell, "The Jailing of a Great Scientist in the USA", Pulse of the
Planet #4, 1993; James DeMeo, "Author's Preface", The Orgone Accumulator
Handbook, Natural Energy Works, El Cerrito, CA 1989
5. J. C. Bailar & E.M. Smith: "Progress Against Cancer?", New England
Journal of Medicine, 314:1226-1232, 8 May 1986.
6. Acres USA, PO Box 9547, Kansas City, MO 64133.
7. SF Chronicle, 25 June 93; Contra Costa Times, 5 June 93; Bay Guardian, 2
June 93; Pacific Sun, 12 March 93.
8. A videotape "Waco, The Big Lie" (American Justice Fed., 3850 S. Emerson
Ave., #E, Indianapolis, IN 46203) shows flame-throwing equipment on the
front of the tanks which assaulted the Waco compound, casting serious doubt
upon the "official" version of events.
9. Eisenberg, et al; New England Journal of Medicine, 328:246-52, 1993.
10. Health Federation News, March 1993; SF Chronicle 16 Feb.93, 18 May 93,
13 Sept. 93)
11. Health Federation News, March 1993; SF Chronicle 16 Feb.93, 18 May 93,
13 Sept. 93.
12. GAO/PEMD 90-15 FDA Drug Review: Post Approval Risks 1976-85, p.3, 28
April 1990.
13. FDA Versus The People of the United States, Jonathan Wright Legal
Defense Fund, Citizens For Health, PO Box 368, Tacoma, WA 98401 206/
922-2457, FAX 206/922-7583.
14. FDA Versus The People... ibid
15. Body & Soul, 8(4):6, June 1992; FDA Versus The People... ibid.
16. FDA Versus The People... ibid
17. FDA Versus The People... ibid.
18. FDA Versus The People... ibid.
19. FDA Versus The People... ibid.
20. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 May 92, 11 May 92; FDA Versus The
People...ibid.
21. FDA Versus The People... ibid.
22. FDA Versus The People... ibid.
23. Sarasota Eco Report, July 1993; Am. Preventative Medical Assn., PO Box
2111, Tacoma, WA 98401, 206/ 926-0551, FAX 206/ 922-7583.
24. Regarding the vaccine issue, see: Neil Z. Miller, Vaccines: Are They
Really Safe and Effective?, New Atlantean Press, NM, 1993; Editors of
Mothering: Vaccinations, The Rest of the Story, Mothering Magazine, PO Box
1690, Santa Fe, NM 87504.
25. The average age of weaning, world-wide, is around 3.5 years. See the
case of Denise Perrigo in New York, discussed in Birth Gazette, Spring 92,
p.11-12; also discussed in Sex-Economic Notes, Pulse of the Planet #4, 1993.


The Constitution of the United States Bill of Rights, 15 December 1791
Amendment I: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press...


Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not
be violated...


Amendment V: No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law...


UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20070913-9999-1m13c...


September 13, 2007


TIJUANA - For the second time in two years, Baja California health
authorities Tuesday shut down an alternative health clinic that
provided unorthodox treatments to mostly gravely ill U.S. patients.


The clinic, promoted over the Internet by its San Diego-based
marketing arm as Hospital Santa Monica, originally was closed in early
2006 after civil rights activist Coretta Scott King died there.
It had since quietly reopened without a permit under the name Centro
de Atención Integral, Baja California health officials said. But the
clinic was still peddling the unproven treatments of its founder,
Bonita businessman Kurt Donsbach, under the Hospital Santa Monica
moniker.


This time, the Rosarito Beach clinic was providing unauthorized
services, said Jose Guadalupe Bustamante Moreno, the state's secretary
of health. Health authorities also documented 11 irregularities such
as incomplete medical records, improper storage of medications and
propaganda of unorthodox treatments.


The unorthodox treatments, promoted on the Hospital Santa Monica Web
site, included treating cancer with insulin and unproven, experimental
vaccines.


Similar irregularities were documented last year at the clinic. The 78-
year-old widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. died there in
January 2006, though the hospital said at the time that her treatment
hadn't begun. It was closed a month later.


Bustamante said the new clinic had obtained a "notice of operation,"
which is the first step toward obtaining a permit.


It presented itself to Mexican health authorities as a provider of
regular clinic services and was never authorized to provide
alternative medicine, he said. Donsbach's name never appeared in
documents.


"They aren't doing what they told me they would do," Bustamante said.


Several patients or patient family members treated at the clinic in
recent weeks have said Donsbach was regularly there and presented
himself as the person in charge.


The Web site for Hospital Santa Monica last week said all therapies at
the clinic are "selected and are coordinated by Dr. Donsbach."


Donsbach, who has a 1996 felony conviction for tax evasion and
smuggling illegal medicines across the border, has no medical degree
and isn't licensed to practice medicine in Mexico or the United
States.


Carlos Negrete, Donsbach's attorney, said his client is a "nutritional
consultant" and doesn't treat patients. He acknowledged that Mexican
officials have "temporarily interrupted" clinic operations and said
the clinic is challenging the closure in the Mexican court system.


Yesterday, the Hospital Santa Monica Web site wasn't operational.
Negrete said the Web site is "undergoing routine maintenance and
updating."


The clinic closure follows a story in The San Diego Union-Tribune on
Sunday about the clinic's latest incarnation and its continued
marketing as Donsbach's Hospital Santa Monica.


The clinic is one of numerous alternative health care facilities that
have opened in the Tijuana area over the past few decades. Many are
controlled by U.S. citizens who register the facilities through
Mexican operatives to avoid detection by local health authorities.


The alternative clinics lure mostly U.S. patients with promises of
potential cures. Many medical experts dismiss the treatments offered
by such clinics as dubious at best and potentially dangerous at
worst.


"Cross-border clinics have been problematical for years, and they seem
to keep rising from the dead," said Dr. Robert Baratz, acting
president of the Massachusetts-based National Council Against Health
Fraud. "Every time you think they've been stopped from doing these
shenanigans, they reincarnate with a new name and new front people,
but usually the same people behind them."


Bustamante said health officials failed in previous visits to the
clinic to detect that it was operating because patients apparently
were being kept at nearby hotels. No patients were at the clinic
Tuesday, but health authorities said they found documentation on
nine.


Bustamante said Baja California is trying to build its reputation as
an option for U.S. citizens to obtain affordable, quality health care
with the opening of modern, private facilities.


Clinics such as the one closed Tuesday have no place there, he said.


"We don't want them because it affects our other doctors and clinics
and we lose credibility," Bustamante said.


snip lies from Peter Bowditch.

.

Loading