Full Investigation · Orange County, San Diego & Rosarito Beach · 1970–2011

Kurt Donsbach: Fifty Years of Health Fraud, from a Health-Food Store to the Clinic Where Coretta Scott King Died

A chiropractor with no medical degree spent half a century selling cures for cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis: from an Orange County health-food store, through his own diploma mill, to a seaside clinic in Baja California. He was convicted again and again. Mexico shut his clinic after Coretta Scott King died there; it reopened. A Toronto newspaper sent a famous Canadian there. He was still taking cancer patients' money when San Diego prosecutors arrested him in 2009.

The early record

Donsbach graduated from Western States Chiropractic College in 1957. By the late 1960s he was running a health-food store in Orange County, selling nutritional products he claimed could treat cancer, ulcers and heart disease. After a five-month undercover investigation, California charged him in 1970 with practising medicine without a licence; he pleaded guilty the following year and was put on probation. He was convicted again in 1973 and fined for violating probation in 1974.

He then went into credentials. He became "Dean of Nutrition" at an unaccredited school, then founded his own correspondence school, Donsbach University, in 1979. A professional body he created, the International Academy of Nutritional Consultants, issued a membership certificate to a cat in 1983, as The Washington Post reported. New York sued him over his products; the FDA ordered him to stop marketing an unapproved drug called "orachel." In 1988 the U.S. Postal Service ordered him to stop claiming that a hydrogen-peroxide solution could prevent cancer and ease arthritis. He declared bankruptcy in 1987. Oregon revoked his naturopathic licence in 1990.

Hospital Santa Monica

Under pressure in the United States, Donsbach opened a clinic across the border. His web site dated it to 1983; The New York Times reported he had run it since 1987 "without any interference from the Baja California state authorities." It sat on a hill at the end of a gravel road at the north end of Rosarito Beach, near a Pemex refinery, with about 30 beds. Its web site rejected "the toxic so-called cancer-killing treatments of radiation, chemotherapy and surgery." What it offered instead, according to the clinic and to reporters who visited, included intravenous hydrogen peroxide and vitamins, ozone, "ultraviolet blood purification," microwaves to "heat" tumours, hyperbaric oxygen, magnets, colonics, and "microchemotherapy": insulin to drive down the blood sugar followed by chemotherapy at a fraction of the usual dose.

The 1996 federal case

In 1996 federal prosecutors in San Diego alleged that Donsbach had smuggled at least $250,000 worth of drugs from Mexico that "were either new and unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration or were adulterated or misbranded." He pleaded guilty to the drug charge and to tax evasion. Accounts of the outcome differ. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported a sentence of a year and a day in prison that records showed he never served; Cox News reported he agreed to pay more than $150,000 in back taxes; the Toronto Star later reported, from Donsbach himself, that he forfeited $372,000 seized by the government and received three years' probation.

On hidden camera: ABC Primetime, January 2002

In December 2001 ABC correspondent Chris Wallace took a breast-cancer patient, with hidden cameras, to several clinics around Tijuana. At Donsbach's, staff showed her a "bio ray" and an "ozonator," which they said could be used "aurally or rectally," and recommended a seven-month programme for $29,000. Donsbach told her he could cure rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis, and that "there has been no appreciable, demonstrable help from chemotherapy since its inception." Dr. Steven Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, reviewed the tapes: "When patients turn down treatments of known effectiveness to receive treatments that have very little chance of being of benefit, I see that as a major public health problem." Donsbach refused an interview. A Minnesota alternative-health newsletter later published a defence of Donsbach against the broadcast.

A Canadian at the clinic: Bob Hunter, 2005

On 21 January 2005 the Toronto Star ran a long feature by columnist Judy Steed about Bob Hunter, a co-founder of Greenpeace and CITY-TV's ecology reporter, who had just returned from three and a half weeks at Hospital Santa Monica. His prostate cancer had spread to his ribs, spine and pelvis. He had been referred by a Toronto physician, Dr. Fred Hui, who described himself as "the doctor of last resort." The article described Donsbach as "an American naturopathic doctor and chiropractor who has a Ph.D. in nutrition," set out his treatments in his own words, and reported Hunter's falling test numbers. It said nothing about Donsbach's convictions.

The next morning the author of this page wrote to the Star:

A week later, on 28 January, Steed wrote a follow-up. It reported that Hunter had paid $20,000 for his three and a half weeks, that "we've also learned that Donsbach has had his own battles with U.S. authorities," including his guilty pleas to tax evasion and conspiracy to smuggle unapproved medicine, and that the first story "was not an investigative piece on the clinic itself." It closed: "So: buyer beware." The same day the author wrote again, to the Star's ombudsperson:

Bob Hunter died on 2 May 2005, a little over three months after the first article appeared. He was 63.

Coretta Scott King, January 2006

Coretta Scott King, 78, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., had advanced ovarian cancer and had been partly paralysed by a stroke. On Thursday 26 January 2006 her daughter and a private nurse admitted her to Hospital Santa Monica under an assumed name. Clinic doctors said they did not know who she was until her records arrived the next day, that she arrived in respiratory failure with an obstructed bowel, that they considered moving her but the family declined, and that she died late on Monday 30 January before any treatment began. The civil registry listed the causes as cardio-respiratory insufficiency, cerebral vascular illness and ovarian cancer; there was no autopsy, and the doctor who signed the certificate was on the clinic's staff. The clinic's medical director said Donsbach, listed as its staff chiropractor, came in about once a week and had not been there while she was a patient.

Earlier that week Baja California's health commissioner, Dr. Francisco Vera, said inspectors had found the clinic in order the previous June. After a flood of calls from reporters, inspectors went back on Thursday 2 February. They found that it was registered under a different name, Clínica Santo Tomás, with someone other than Donsbach listed as director; that it was licensed for little more than walk-in care but was performing surgery, X-rays and laboratory work and running its own pharmacy; that it lacked sanitary permits; that some staff were not accredited for the work they did; and that it was using "several unknown drugs or nutritional substances" bearing Donsbach's name. The state closed it that night. Its 20 patients, all Americans, were given three days to leave the country.

Reopened, 2007

By the summer of 2007 the clinic was back in the same building, registered as Centro de Atención Integral under a new owner but marketed online as Hospital Santa Monica, its web site saying all therapies were "selected and are coordinated by Dr. Donsbach." Baja's director of sanitary regulation said it was licensed only for general medicine, consultations and diagnostics. Penni Crabtree and Anna Cearley of the San Diego Union-Tribune found it selling a 12-month "neuropeptide" vaccine for multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease and lupus at up to $6,650, attributed to an "Oxford Immunological Research Center." A spokesman for the British Society for Immunology said the society had never heard of it and called the claims "palpable nonsense … heading over the border into La La Land." Donsbach's own brochure promised: "I stake my reputation on this protocol."

A Michigan nurse practitioner told the paper that Donsbach had personally returned her 77-year-old father's call about his advanced prostate cancer, said he was "90 percent sure" he could be cured or greatly helped, and told him to bring $23,000 in cash or a cashier's check. She described exposed pipes, missing ceiling tiles and a dog with bloody sores wandering into a treatment room. When she challenged him, Donsbach said that if she did not believe, "it isn't going to work." Her father went home with a foot infection and was later diagnosed with heart failure, kidney failure and pneumonia. That August Donsbach and the clinic settled, confidentially and without admitting the allegations, a fraud suit by a Connecticut kidney-cancer patient who said he paid $12,500 for "Donsbach's 12-Day Intensive Cancer Treatment Program" in 2005, picked up a near-fatal staph infection from a chest catheter that the clinic failed to diagnose, and needed open-heart surgery.

In a 2006 deposition Donsbach said he had sold the clinic in 2002 to its medical director and retired, and now went there only to "visit the sick" and pray with them, unpaid. His office manager of 13 years testified that he received a percentage of the revenue from American patients. Baja authorities closed the clinic again in September 2007.

Arrested, convicted, jailed: 2009–2011

On 9 April 2009 Donsbach, 73, was arrested in the middle of his internet radio health show after an investigation by the FBI, the FDA and the San Diego County District Attorney, and charged with 11 felonies, including practising medicine without a licence, selling misbranded drugs and falsely representing a cancer cure. Bail was set at $1.5 million. "He shouldn't be preying on these types of people," said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. "He was also giving out steroids, which is what really hurt one of the victims." On 13 December 2010 he pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts, including practising medicine without a licence and selling misbranded drugs. In April 2011 he was sentenced to a year in jail and 10 years' probation. He died on 29 August 2021, aged 85.

His lawyer: Carlos Negrete

In 2007 Donsbach's lawyer, Carlos Negrete, described him as a "nutritional consultant" who did not operate the clinic or practise medicine. Negrete also represented Hulda Clark; a California appeals court upheld a malicious-prosecution suit by Dr. Stephen Barrett against Clark and Negrete (complaint; background). His other clients included Cavitat Medical Technologies, which filed for bankruptcy in 2007 after its suit against Aetna (Tim Bolen deposition), and a California doctor scrutinised over stem-cell treatment (Barrett's comments). See also Consumer Justice Center v. Trimedica (2003) and the author's GroBust complaint.

Related

Sources

1. Alan Judd, M.A.J. McKenna and Bob Keefe. "Holistic health practitioner has criminal record, dubious résumé." Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1 February 2006.
2. Cox News Service. "King 'was going down fast,' doctors at Mexican hospital say." 1 February 2006.
3. Elliott Spagat. "Late-stage cancer patients flock to Mexico for treatment." Associated Press, 3 February 2006.
4. James C. McKinley Jr. "Mexico Closes Alternative Care Clinic Where Mrs. King Died." The New York Times, 4 February 2006.
5. CNN transcript, 8 February 2006.
6. Penni Crabtree and Anna Cearley. "Baja clinic shut down for unorthodox care reopens." San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 September 2007; "Donsbach's cancer hospital shut again," 13 September 2007.
7. "Borderline medicine: Tijuana alternative clinics frustrate regulators." San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 February 2002.
8. ABC News, Primetime. "False Promises? Alternative Clinics Say They Help Treat Cancer; Other Doctors are Skeptical." 24 January 2002.
9. Judy Steed. "Not without a fight." Toronto Star, 21 January 2005; "Mixed reaction to Hunter's search for cure," 28 January 2005.
10. Terry Polevoy. Letters to the Toronto Star editor, 22 January 2005, and ombudsperson, 28 January 2005. Author's files.
11. Robert Hunter (journalist): death on 2 May 2005. Wikipedia.
12. FBI San Diego, press release, 9 April 2009; Casewatch, arrest warrant declaration; NBC San Diego, "Dangerous Broken Promises to Cancer Patients," 10 April 2009.
13. "Bonita man pleads guilty to posing as doctor," San Diego 10 News, 13 December 2010; "Phony doctor gets a year in jail, 10 years probation," San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 April 2011 (as cited in Kurt Donsbach, Wikipedia).
14. Stephen Barrett. Quackwatch: The shady activities of Kurt Donsbach; Donsbach University; "Unhealthy Alliance," American Council on Science and Health, 1999.
15. Margaret Engel. "The Confusing Pursuit of Good Nutrition." The Washington Post, 17 July 1983.

Patients and their relatives are described rather than named, except people who were public figures or chose to speak publicly. Settlements without admission of liability are reported as settlements. Some older links above point to news sites that have since been reorganised and may no longer work. Corrections are welcome and are recorded on the page.