Guilty of peddling fear, hope
This week, an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader was brought to my attention. The article shows how much of an influence the peddlers of false hope can have an an individual's life and the tragic consequences that can have.The situation is the same method of operation that is used frequently in the health fraud industry. Victims are falsely diagnosed with a variety of illnesses using tests that are not recognised as legitimate. Once the illness is diagnosed, the victims are then sold a treatment that are just as fake as the original diagnosis.
John Curran diagnosed 23 year old Amanda Doumato as having thyroid problems, parasites in her blood and cancer. She stopped payment of $15,000 to John Curran after her family doctor advised her thyroid was fine, there were no parasites and she did not have cancer. What she had was cealiac's disease, which is a digestive condition.
Over 300 people paid John Curran an estimated $1.4 Million for treatments. Many had been told they had parasites in their blood. This is a commonly diagnosed condition that many people hear, yet the only common parasitic blood infection is malaria. Others such as
babesiosis and trypanosomiasis are very rare and only occur in certain areas of the world.
Many people with potentially terminal conditions who follow the poor advice end up dying. What is most disheartening is that they often die still believing that the person who has given them false hope.
This was brought out in alarming clarity by a young cancer sufferer in the linked article by Valarie Honeycutt Spears, part of which is as follows:
Gary Alves, a chiropractor, and his wife, Rhonda, took their daughter Taylor to the top treatment centers in the Northeast when they found that she had a rare form of ovarian cancer. But after surgeries, chemotherapy and a stem-cell transplant, physicians told Taylor there was nothing more they could do.
One of Gary Alves' colleagues told them that his father had had good luck with Curran.
As a chiropractor, Gary Alves said, he knew that combining traditional medicine and alternative therapies might boost Taylor's immune system so that she would suffer less.
Curran surprised the Alveses by telling them that he could make Taylor healthy again.
He prescribed a dietary supplement, a green drink that he claimed to have formulated himself. (It was actually commercially available and he bought it from a distributor, prosecutors later learned.) He suggested that Taylor consume only the drink and numerous supplements.
The Alveses gave him $2,400.
"He told her that if she followed the regimen to the letter," Rhonda Alves said, "he could restore her health."
Taylor "had everything to live for," her mother said. "She soaked this up."
A talented and driven young woman, Taylor was an actress, model and filmmaker. HBO had purchased her documentary, The Art of Kissing, when she was 17.
She weighed 95 pounds when she went to Curran and, under his treatment, she lost another 15 pounds. She was losing a pound a day, her mother said.
On May 19, 2002, she ate one bite of a chicken sandwich because her aunt asked her to do it as a birthday present.
Immediately, Taylor blamed herself for breaking the regimen. "I've ruined it," she said.
From that moment until she died two weeks later at age 19, Taylor "blamed herself for her worsening condition," said Rhonda Alves. "I will never forgive John Curran for planting that seed in Taylor."
Alves said that she and Gary didn't initially file a complaint with the board of health because they aren't the kind of people who seek revenge. But she cooperated with authorities when they came across Taylor's case.
"I can still hear my daughter say, 'I ruined it,'" she said. "I can still hear my daughter's voice."
Curran's lengthy sentence was appropriate, said Alves.
"I feel like my daughter's voice has been heard."
Cases like this are what keeps this blog going. If just one person stumbles across this web-site and decides to visit a doctor rather than a naturopath, herbalist, chiropractor or other alternative medicine practirioner and gets the help they need for a serious medical condition, then the hours of work that go into this blog are worth it.
"There is only one truth. How we interpret that truth is called belief."
"The existence of belief does not indicate the presence of truth."