Full Investigation · Ottawa · 1998–2013
“Dr. Hope”: Bill O'Neill and the Canadian Cancer Research Group
A former computer consultant with no medical training ran an Ottawa cancer business for more than a decade. It sold amino-acid “immunotherapy”, published survival figures nobody could check, and answered its critics with lawsuits that never arrived. The only person any regulator ever disciplined was the doctor who worked for him.
The origin story, and what his son's doctors said
O'Neill said he founded CCRG after his young son Liam was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, and that the boy's recovery came from a treatment plan built on the best of the world's cancer information. The physicians who treated Liam described something else: the tumour was removed surgically, and a later recurrence in the spine was treated with radiation and chemotherapy. Conventional medicine cured the child whose story launched a business built on doubting it.
O'Neill reportedly held a BA from Carleton University, had taken some MBA courses at Western, had taught mathematics at Algonquin College and had worked as a computer systems consultant for the City of Ottawa. None of that is medical or scientific training. The company's website nonetheless described a group staffed by clinical and scientific experts, and in later years ISM said it was directed by doctorate specialists — without naming any of them.
What was being sold
The early offer was information: a family sent pathology reports and paid for a search of what CCRG called the world's largest cancer knowledge base. By about 1998 the company was also offering its own “novel” treatment. Its 2001 price sheet, faxed to a prospective client, read like this:
| Service (2001) | Price (CAD) |
|---|---|
| Assessment and evaluation | $150/hour, typically $750 |
| Development of a therapeutic plan | $1,500 |
| “Orthomolecular diagnostic and assays” | $10,000 — $5,000 up front, then $500/month for 10 months |
| “Immunotherapy” | $4,000 per cycle, up to four cycles a year |
Clients signed a form agreeing not to hold CCRG liable for anything relating to the treatment of their cancer. The intake form invited “specific interest” in a list of more than thirty methods — antineoplastons, 714-X, Hoxsey, hydrazine sulfate, laetrile, Gerson, Essiac, shark cartilage, Di Bella, Revici, chelation, live-cell therapy and others. None of them has been shown to work.
From 2005 the core of the business was the “Aminomics Profile”, a blood amino-acid test. The client's profile was compared with an “Optimal Profile” and a compounded formula was prescribed to correct the difference. The underlying claim — that cancer is “not so much a proliferative disease” as an immune disorder — has no support in oncology.
The products, and Health Canada
Two CCRG products sold under the name OncomatRx received natural product numbers from Health Canada's Natural Health Products Directorate, and other OncomatRx items appeared on its list of products exempted pending review. A brand name built from “onco” on a federally licensed supplement is exactly the kind of thing the NPN system is supposed to catch. An access-to-information request about those licences was filed in the summer of 2006; this site never received an explanation.
On 13 December 2005 O'Neill announced on CFRA radio's business program that his products would be distributed by Purity Professionals, an Acton, Ontario nutraceutical firm, and that clinics would open in major Canadian cities within one to three years. Purity Professionals' own website never mentioned the deal, and no chain of clinics appeared. When this site complained about the interview, CFRA's program director replied that a business show was not the place to examine the credibility of a medical claim. A complaint went to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. The 11-minute recording is in this site's archive.
The numbers
CCRG's website in 2002–2003 claimed an average annual survival rate about one and a half times the national average, and two and a half times for Stage IV cancers. Information faxed to patients put CCRG's “total average survival” for Stage III and IV cancers at 77.3 per cent against 45.5 per cent for Health Canada.
Dr. Stephen Barrett took those tables apart at Quackwatch. The patient numbers were never given. Cancers of every type were pooled. The “average” was produced by averaging percentages without weighting them by the number of patients in each group. The Stage III–IV figure was essentially the same as the all-stages figure, which is not arithmetically possible. And nothing showed that CCRG knew what had happened to clients it dealt with largely by mail and telephone.
When two W-FIVE producers visited the clinic with a hidden camera in the role of a patient with Stage III lung cancer, O'Neill told them CCRG's cure rate was over 80 per cent for lung cancer and 100 per cent for lymphoma, leukemia and prostate cancer.
The patients
Most CCRG clients are known only through relatives who later came forward. The cases below are on the public record.
- 1998 — Annette Pypops
A 36-year-old Ottawa activist with breast cancer, told that immediate surgery offered about an 80 per cent chance of survival. With O'Neill's help she chose shark cartilage, coffee enemas, carrot juice, Essiac and a “cancer vaccine” from Georgia instead. She died about six months after the Ottawa Citizen profiled her. Her upbeat testimonial stayed on CCRG's website until May 2001. - 1998 — the 359-page binder
The husband of a 32-year-old with breast cancer wrote to the Citizen that the “research” CCRG sent was a binder of internet printouts, much of it the same article repeated under new page numbers, available free from the Canadian Cancer Society. A journal paper they specifically requested never came. - 1999 — Tyrell Dueck
CCRG was involved with the family of the 13-year-old Saskatchewan boy whose parents fought in court to refuse chemotherapy and amputation for osteosarcoma. On CBC's Cross Country Checkup of 21 March 1999 O'Neill spoke for about ten minutes, unchallenged, as an international cancer “professional”. Tyrell died on 30 June 1999. The full Dueck record → - 2000 — Sandra Schmirler
The Olympic gold-medal curler had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for esophageal cancer, then went to CCRG for what she called a “scientific” orthomolecular program. Days before her death she held a news conference announcing a trust fund with CCRG. She died on 2 March 2000. Her CCRG treatment cost between $3,000 and $4,000, according to Eye magazine. - 2001 — “a grieving sister”
A woman with Stage IV breast cancer was enrolled for $5,000 up front plus $500 a month. What arrived were capsules of amino acids, enzymes and vitamins she could not swallow; her family sprinkled them on her food. She died on 5 April 2001, aged 39. Her sister's requests for a partial refund went unanswered. - 2001–2003 — Kathy McDougall
Treated at CCRG while Dr. Eoghan O'Shea was its medical director, she died of her cancer in 2003. Her father, Pat McDougall, spent the next seven years asking police, politicians and regulators to look at the clinic. His complaint is the one that reached the CPSO's Discipline Committee. - 2003 — Frank Bagyan
A Newburgh, Ontario man with a brain tumour carrying a very poor prognosis. His wife Teresa told W-FIVE that O'Neill looked him in the eye and said, “I've never lost a patient yet.” Shown an MRI, O'Neill told the family the immune system was breaking the tumour up. Frank died a week later. A radiologist who reviewed the same scan for W-FIVE found clear tumour and no sign of healing.
“Dr. Hope” on W-FIVE, 2006
CTV's W-FIVE broadcast Dr. Hope in 2006, after months of investigation. Its four segments moved from a California cancer convention and the Tijuana clinics — including archive footage of Hulda Clark being removed from her clinic by Mexican authorities — to the Bagyans, the McDougalls, and a woman, an Ontario Provincial Police officer, who refused standard treatment for sarcoidosis on CCRG's advice and died six months later.
The hidden-camera footage carried the cure-rate claims above, and one more line put to O'Neill afterwards: that it would be more therapeutic for you to drink cold beer than to pursue surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. In the sit-down interview he refused to discuss the Bagyans, refused to watch the hidden-camera tape, said the documents were forgeries, and ended the interview.
CCRG posted a notice to its clients saying it would sue CTV. In January 2010 O'Neill's lawyer told reporters that suit was “still in the works”. No judgment against CTV has been found. CTV took the program offline; this site later obtained the transcript.
The warrant: 10 May 2007
At 10 a.m. on Thursday, 10 May 2007, Ottawa Police assisted investigators from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in executing a warrant under the Regulated Health Professions Act at a business on Fifth Avenue — 99 Fifth Avenue, Suite 22, according to sources. The police news release the next day was brief: no arrests were made and no charges were laid, and the investigation was the College's. Neither the police nor the CPSO would release the warrant.
The CPSO has no jurisdiction over a layperson. A college warrant at a clinic run by one points to the College's interest in someone it does regulate, and posts on CTV's forum in April 2007 had suggested a physician was involved there. What the College found has never been published. The only public outcome is the O'Shea case below.
The doctor: Eoghan O'Shea and the CPSO, January 2010
Dr. Eoghan O'Shea, a family physician registered in Ontario since 1990, worked for O'Neill's companies between 2000 and 2006, for part of that time as medical director. He saw patients the College described as terminally ill, measured their amino-acid levels and compounded supplements to correct the “deficiencies”. In 2005 and 2006 he and a CCRG colleague, Ken Lin, presented amino-acid “research” at IN-CAM and Natural Health Products Research Society meetings; one abstract was titled for colorectal cancer patients and concluded about prostate cancer.
On 26 January 2010 the Discipline Committee accepted an agreed outcome. On the review of six charts, O'Shea had failed to examine the patients, failed to communicate with their own physicians, and failed to obtain informed consent. He was found to have committed professional misconduct and ordered:
- not to provide or associate himself with “complementary” treatment for terminal disease;
- not to prescribe or compound products to treat terminal disease in a complementary-medicine practice;
- never again to work for or associate with CCRG or its related organizations;
- to complete the College's medical ethics and informed-consent course within a year; and
- to pay $3,650 in costs.
There was no reprimand, no suspension and no supervision of his ongoing family practice. No witness was called and no family was heard.
I attended the hearing on 26 January 2010 with Pat McDougall and his daughter Christine. It started forty-five minutes late, in a nearly empty chamber. Before the decision was read, the committee allowed Tim Danson, the Toronto counsel O'Neill had hired, to address it, although O'Neill was not a party. His message was that he was there to defend his client's reputation and that unfair statements could have consequences. The College's counsel told him plainly he had no right to be heard.
Dr. O'Shea did not speak during the proceeding and offered no apology. Afterwards Mr. Danson told reporters in the hallway that his client had friends in high places in Ottawa. Pat McDougall handed out a press kit with that week's Ottawa Sun, which had put his photograph on the front page. Thirteen years of complaints about CCRG had ended in a costs order against one employee. The man who ran the business was never before any tribunal at all.
How O'Neill dealt with critics
For more than a decade the response to criticism was the same: threats of lawsuits that did not arrive, abuse that was hard to attribute, and complaints designed to cost the critic time.
- March 2000
By fax and e-mail on 10 March, O'Neill told this site it was being charged with libel and that he was reporting it to Waterloo Regional Police. The same month he threatened Dr. Stephen Barrett with a suit unless Quackwatch removed every mention of CCRG. Barrett replied with five questions — about the database, who interpreted it, the network of “specialists”, whether records were reviewed, and whether outcomes were followed. Quackwatch reports that they were never answered. - 29 June 2000 and 14 September 2004
Two telephone messages left for me, threatening lawyers and police. Both are in this site's archive: June 2000 (mp3) · September 2004 (mp3). - 2002 onward
In Australia, Peter Bowditch's Millenium Project logged dozens of e-mail aliases used to send him abuse, including a message about his newborn grandson. He published the correspondence in full. - February 2005
A defamatory post about me was sent to a health discussion site from the address quackbusters@hotmail.com, which this site traced to O'Neill. The site's operator removed it and banned the sender. - August 2006
O'Neill and Dr. O'Shea each filed a complaint about me with the CPSO. The Complaints Committee disposed of both on 30 August 2006 without action (decisions: O'Neill · O'Shea). The same month an anonymous remailer message signed by a self-described “high profile patient” promised a lawsuit to end my career. None was filed. - March 2007
Graduate students running the Ottawa science blog BayBlab traced abusive anonymous comments on their site to the same source and blocked it. - 29 May 2009
A copyright takedown notice under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act led my American host, Bluehost, to suspend every site I ran — including the website for my medical practice — late on a Friday. Service came back the following Monday after a counter-notice. The notice did not need to prove anything to take the sites down.
The Bramwell estate
Peter Frederick Bramwell died at 88. A 2002 change to his will left part of his estate to an entity the will called the “Canadian Cancer Foundation”. CCRG went to the Ontario Superior Court in 2003 claiming the gift; the Canadian Cancer Society contested it. The court's reasons and a 2004 ruling on costs are published on CanLII. The case is a reminder of how close CCRG's name sat to those of the real cancer charities — and that donors and estate lawyers sometimes could not tell them apart.
After 2010
On or about 28 January 2011 the ccrg.com website went offline, and its archived copies disappeared with it. ISM announced a move to 80 Aberdeen in downtown Ottawa. Quackwatch reports that O'Neill died on 31 March 2013, having never answered its questions. Whether any successor business still operates under another name has not been checked for this revision.
What the case shows
The pattern has not changed. The same structure — an unregulated operator, a licensed professional lending cover, and a regulator that can reach only the professional — runs through the breast thermography network, the DCA case and the self-regulation record across Canada.
Related on QuackeryWatch
Sources
- Stephen Barrett, MD. A Critical Look at William P. O'Neill, CCRG, and Immune System Management. Quackwatch (prices, survival-table analysis, client letters, W-FIVE summary, O'Shea order, date of death).
- Mike Shahin. “Doctor Hope” and “Defying the cancer creed.” Ottawa Citizen, 4 July 1998.
- S. J. Birrell. “Group never lived up to its claims.” Letter, Ottawa Citizen, 11 July 1998.
- Barbara Sibbald. “Private company offers hope to cancer patients for a price.” CMAJ, 1999.
- CBC Radio, Cross Country Checkup, 21 March 1999 (O'Neill segment at about 37:14–47:26), and listener letters.
- Nate Hendley. “Cures of last resort.” Eye magazine, Toronto, 20 April 2000.
- CTV W-FIVE. Dr. Hope, 2006. Transcript in this site's archive.
- Ottawa Police Service. News release, 11 May 2007: Ottawa Police assisted CPSO investigators executing a warrant on Fifth Ave.
- Janice Kennedy. “Shutting down the hucksters of false hope.” Ottawa Citizen, 24 August 2008.
- “Doc gets ‘slap on wrist’ at misconduct hearing.” Ottawa Sun, January 2010.
- “Father's long crusade for answers.” Ottawa Sun, 22 January 2010.
- “Ottawa MD pleads guilty to professional misconduct.” Ottawa Citizen, 26 January 2010.
- College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Discipline Committee decision, Dr. Eoghan O'Shea, January 2010; public register entry.
- CPSO Complaints Committee decisions of 30 August 2006 on complaints by W. P. O'Neill and Dr. E. O'Shea (1, 2).
- Peter Bowditch. CCRG correspondence file, The Millenium Project (ratbags.com).
- Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Bramwell estate: reasons (2003) and costs ruling (2004), CanLII.
- Author's own records: telephone recordings of 29 June 2000 and 14 September 2004; CFRA broadcast of 13 December 2005; notes from the CPSO hearing of 26 January 2010; Bluehost correspondence, May–June 2009.
This page consolidates material first published on QuackeryWatch and HealthWatcher.net between 2000 and 2011, now at the original CCRG page. Statements about patients rest on their families' public accounts and on published reporting. No finding of any court or regulator against Mr. O'Neill personally has been located, and this page does not suggest one exists. Corrections are welcome and are recorded on the page.