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Kurt Donsbach has no medical degree, was convicted in 1996 of federal tax evasion and smuggling illegal medicines across the border, and was arrested again in 2009 on 11 felony counts including practicing medicine without a license and falsely representing a cure for cancer. His Tijuana clinic, Hospital Santa Monica, was shut down twice by Baja California health authorities for unauthorized services — once after being linked to the death of Coretta Scott King.
Finally, after years of following this snake-oil salesman, he was was arrested and charged for practicing medicine without a license and supplying patients with supplements containing non-FDA-approved drugs. An investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and District Attorney’s Office led to the arrest. Kurt Walter Donsbach, 73, of Bonita, is charged with 11 felony counts including treating patients without a license, misbranding drugs for sale, grand theft, unlawfully dispensing drugs as a cure for cancer and falsely representing a cure for cancer. If convicted, he faces up to six years in state prison.Donsbach was arrested during his internet radio broadcast and booked into the San Diego County jail on $1,500,000 bail.
By Anna Cearley and Penni Crabtree
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
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.
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.
“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.”
"We believe the charges are politically motivated," Negrete said, adding that Steenblock had filed a discrimination lawsuit against state medical regulators."- Comments from Dr. Stephen Barrett - He links to two previous actions against Steenblock. These are a must read.
"Carlos Negrete who has forgotten so much of the law he learned in school that he felt compelled to refer to me as a "bottom feeding parasite" when discussing a law suit against me. PB"
In reversing the lower court decision (see below), the Appeals Court used these words to describe their reasons why the original court should go to trial:"..the scurrilous nature of the defendants' allegations of wrongdoing and their efforts to publicize them widely on the Internet, when coupled with their utter failure to offer any proof of their charges"
"As to my representation of Dr. Clark, that too is something I am extremely proud of and will be until the day we have a trial against bottom dwelling parasites such as yourself."
Penni Crabtree has been tracking the Tijuana scammers for years. This article that appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune on September 9, 2007 must have triggered a major wakeup call down in Mexico. It only took a few days before the hombres in charge of things closed him down again. Here it is:
By Penni Crabtree and Anna CearleySeptember 9, 2007
An alternative health clinic that was shut down last year by Baja state health officials after it was linked to the death of Coretta Scott King has quietly reopened and may be operating illegally. Many of the patients at the Mexican clinic are being treated for serious ailments, including advanced cancer, according to patients and patients' family members.
[It is deeply disturbing to me to see that Donsbach's interests are being represented by none other than Carlos Negrete. He's the lawyer who has defended others who run clinics in Tijuana, such as Hulda Clark. Those of you who have knowledge about the operations of the clinic can contact the author. Links are on the web site.]
A two-page article splashes the image of Green Peace founder Bob Hunter with this headline
The problem with the author is that she failed miserably to check her facts about anything questionable. There are so many errors in the piece that a high school newspaper editor would have been able to point them out to a blind person.
"I have known since 1999 that I had prostate cancer. From the start I rejected my Urologist's blunt -- I would say primitive -- instruction: operate immediately. Side effects? I asked. Oh, a 70 per cent chance of incontenence and/or impotence. I decided to look around for alternatives. I contacted another Urologist, he indicated I had time to investigate other options. I tried everything from acupuncture, PC SPES, naturopathic diet, Essiac, Vitamin C drip and hormonal blockers and eventually settled on 3-Dimensional Conformal Radiation, which used laser beams to guide a precision hit of high-dose radiation to the tumourous part of the prostate. It was a six-week daily treatment. For a while, it seemed to work. The tumour shrank. But a lttle over a year later, a test revealed my PSA numbers had soared way past the safe limit of 7. I was up around 20. I had been told there were two fall-back positions if the 3-D radiation didn't work, but when I eventually got appointments with the specialists involved I was to be told I didn't qualify for either treatment. Much frustration. My Radiologist sent me to a new Oncologist who gave me two years to live. I tried another Oncologist at another major hospital. He offered a new low-doseage kind of chemotherapy that didn't produce the usual symptoms -- nausea and hair-loss. There was a catch. The deal with the phramacutical company involved in pedalling this new wonder drug hadn't been settled yet. Wait for it . I did -- only to be told: Forget it, the drug doesn't work. Go back to the original hospital to see if there was any new treatment available with the first Oncologist. In September 2003, during a trip to Vancouver, I was hit by my first bone pain attack. The only solution was a morphine injection. And another. And another. I ended up taking morphine pills every three to four hours to fend it off. I lost 30 pounds. I was too nauseous to eat, too psychological agitated to think straight. I became supremely indifferent emotionally to my loved ones, to anyone. My wife finally took me to the emergency ward and demanded that they get me off the morphine, which they finally did, putting me on a milder derivative of morphine, which worked for a couple of months, until I suddenly developed a tolerance for it. The only solution now was to up the dosage. Declared my oncologist in November, 2003 : You're down to six months. By Dec 2003, my numbers had reached 620 -- that's right. And anything above 10 is deadly. Worse, the cancer had metastasized to the ribs, spine and pelvis. It was everywhere, so much so there was no one place to attack it with spot radiation. My Oncologist states "all I can do is give you morphine based pain medicine and the latest prostrate cancer chemo drug, taxotere. You'll gain 2.3 extra months." I was about to go for it -- the first chemotherapy appointment was set for noon on Monday, Dec 6th . I settled my affairs went on a trip with my wife and best friends for a week . The night before leaving for St Lucia on our last vacation, at 11 p.m. that night, I got a phone call from Dr. Fred Hui, who warned me that once I started on the chemo, my condition would be irreversible. What I should do, instead, is go down to Dr. Kurt Donsbach's clinic near Tijuana, and try his potent mix of "alternative" anti-cancer therapies. Why in Mexico? Because Canada, following the American lead, screens out a whole class of therapies in favour of products flogged by the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry. So down to Mexico I flew. By this time I was back to munching morphine pills like candy to hold back the agony. My PSA numbers had reached 720 as I entered the Mexican hospital. After three and a half weeks' treatment at Donsbach's hospital, my PSA was down to 480, and the measure of the cancer in my bones was down from 1100 to 62, well within normal. The symptom of the cancer's advance -- pain -- was gone completely. I was off the morphine, with no pain-killing substitutes. The battle wouldn't be won until my PSA reached near-zero, and even then, I would still have the cancer. It would just be held down. For how long? Maybe five years, maybe 10, was the answer. That looked a lot better to me than mere months to live. Back home, I am on a strict diet and supplement regime, and I am to be monitored monthly to see if the PSA continues to drop. Awaiting results. Fingers, toes and ears crossed."~ Bob Hunter, Citytv
"As we were preparing to ship off this edition of our newsletter, ABC's Prime Time Thursday did an exposé of "Alternative Cancer Therapies," a new low point in journalism. We know modern American medicine is running scared to lower the bar—this low. Prime Time focused in on a lot of the scams occurring across the border in Mexico. Yes, there are quacks who offer false hope. The show was laughable.They attacked one of the pioneers of this alternative movement Dr Donsbach, a chiropractor. Yes, he is a character, blows his own horn, and is a bit off center, but his heart in the right place. He refused to chat with Prime Time. I personally interviewed one who had reversed her MS while there at his clinic, and another who got over her lupus. For all I know Dr Donsbach might be utterly insane and mentally incompetent. They attacked Donsbach for telling the truth: "There has been no appreciable, demonstrable help from chemotherapy since its inception."
Donsbach has no medical degree and that Baja California health officials say he doesn't have a license to practice medicine in their state. The former Bonita chiropractor has a long history of involvement with health-care schemes in the United States, and was convicted in 1996 for federal tax evasion and smuggling illegal medicines across the border.
One of the most complete descriptions of Donsbach ever produced. This is a must read for every reporter. To have missed this essay is unbelievable.
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