CFRB 1010 Toronto — "The Health Show": Carolyn Dean, May 2, 2002

On May 2, 2002, Toronto station CFRB 1010 devoted an hour of its call-in program "The Health Show" to Carolyn Dean, promoted on air as a medical doctor and naturopathic doctor and author of Natural Prescriptions for Common Ailments. Dean's Ontario medical licence had in fact been revoked by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 1995; she went on to train as a naturopath at the Ontario College of Naturopathic Medicine. None of this history was disclosed to listeners, who called in over the course of the program with symptoms ranging from arthritic shoulder pain to Crohn's disease, chronic hives, and facial numbness, and received on-air diagnostic suggestions and supplement recommendations in response.

The full broadcast is transcribed below (full clean transcript linked at the bottom of this page), including the call segments, sponsor reads, and the CFRB legal disclaimer that aired twice during the hour disclaiming the station's responsibility for medical opinions expressed on the show.

What happened on air

• A caller ("Rachel") described sudden one-sided facial paralysis consistent with Bell's palsy. Dean diagnosed the likely cause live on air ("It's like Bell's Palsy") before advising the caller to see a doctor — after already offering a differential diagnosis over the phone.
• A caller with a Crohn's disease diagnosis was advised to avoid wheat, dairy, and sugar and to see a naturopath, without any caveat about the limits of a call-in radio diagnosis.
• A caller in Batavia, NY described swollen parotid glands under investigation for autoimmune disease; Dean characterized autoimmune conditions in general terms and recommended a "cleansing program" and elimination of sugar, wheat, and dairy.
• A caller with chronic hives (functioning as her described "675 days" self-tracked) was told to stop diet soda (blaming aspartame) and referred to homeopathic remedies including apis mellificum and histaminum.
• Dean recommended glucosamine sulfate for joint pain and degenerative disc disease, and echinacea as a child immune booster, framing supplement use in confident, prescriptive terms throughout.
• The station's standard disclaimer — that opinions expressed are the commentator's alone, not Standard Broadcasting's or CFRB's — aired twice during the hour, positioned as a liability shield around live, on-air medical advice-giving.

Selected passages

[00:09:52] Carolyn Dean: On a caller describing sudden facial paralysis — "It's like Bell's Palsy, yeah it does. How old are you, Rachel?"

[00:11:42] Carolyn Dean: On being one of the only doctors combining both credentials — "As far as I know, I'm the only one... I went into medicine because I wanted to do natural medicine, so I did the extra training."

[00:06:31] Station disclaimer: "The medical opinions and recommendations expressed in this program are solely those of the commentator and not those of Standard Broadcasting Incorporated or CFRB."

Context

Carolyn Dean's Ontario medical licence was revoked by the CPSO in 1995. She went on to co-author Death by Modern Medicine: Seeking Safe Solutions (2005, Matrix Verite-Media) with Trueman Tuck, and testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health in Ottawa on May 12, 2005 on "The Safety of Dietary Supplements." None of this background was disclosed to CFRB's listeners in 2002, who heard her presented simply as "Dr. Carolyn Dean," a medical doctor and naturopathic doctor, fielding live medical questions from callers with genuine, sometimes serious, undiagnosed symptoms.

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