Full Investigation · The Netherlands · 1999–2013

Twenty-Eight Healers and a Verdict: What the Netherlands Did After Sylvia Millecam

One of the best-loved entertainers in the Netherlands had breast cancer that could have been treated. She saw twenty-eight practitioners and institutions; the alternative ones told her it was something else. She died at 45. Her country's health inspectors investigated, a medical tribunal struck off doctors, and its Supreme Court upheld criminal convictions. Canada has never done any of those things in a case like hers.

What happened to her

When a doctor found what looked like breast cancer in 1999, Millecam did not want surgery. Over the next two years she went to twenty-eight different practitioners and institutions. Mainstream care was open to her throughout, and her doctors referred her to a surgeon. She chose instead a physician who practised electro-acupuncture, who reassured her there was nothing wrong. Others on the alternative side told her the lump was not cancer — among them the well-known medium Jomanda, who supported her belief that she had a bacterial infection.

By the time she was admitted to the university hospital in Nijmegen in August 2001, the cancer was beyond treatment. She died two days later.

What the Netherlands did

• February 2004 — the Health Care Inspectorate
  Government health inspectors investigated her death and severely criticized her care. They found that alternative practitioners had contradicted her doctors' diagnosis and offered her the prospect of a cure by unfounded methods, and that several caregivers had acted so irresponsibly that discipline or prosecution was likely. They recommended that the law be changed to bring alternative practitioners under supervision and registration, and to make it illegal for anyone but a trained doctor to make a medical diagnosis.
• 19 June 2007 — the medical disciplinary tribunal
  Three physicians who had advised her to use alternative therapy were barred from practising medicine: two permanently, one for a year.
• 2008 — prosecution
  The public prosecutor charged two of the doctors and Jomanda.
• 12 June 2009 — Amsterdam District Court
  The two doctors were found guilty of harming her health by failing to give her regular cancer treatment or to refer her elsewhere. The court imposed no penalty, citing the publicity and the disciplinary sanction they had already suffered. Jomanda was acquitted: the court said she had fallen short by supporting the infection belief, but that her support was not what kept Millecam from medical treatment. Prosecutors had asked for a 12-month suspended sentence and a two-year ban on her healing meetings. She did not attend; she was reported to be living in Canada.
• Appeal
  On appeal the doctors received suspended prison sentences of three and six weeks. Jomanda's acquittal stood.
• 12 March 2013 — Supreme Court of the Netherlands
  The Hoge Raad upheld both doctors' convictions and sentences. As physicians who knew her diagnosis and knew their own treatments were unproven, they had done too little to make sure she received regular medical care and pain relief — including telling her plainly what her choice would cost and urging her to accept treatment that could have prolonged her life and eased her pain. It also upheld Jomanda's acquittal, holding that even a healer without medical training owes a patient a duty not to cause unnecessary harm, but that Jomanda had told Millecam to see a regular doctor, which she did, so no serious breach had been shown.

Why this is on a Canadian site

Set the Millecam case beside the Canadian ones documented here. Makayla Sault, eleven, died in 2015 after leaving chemotherapy for leukaemia with a 90 per cent cure rate; no one was charged. The Canadian Cancer Research Group in Ottawa told families their relatives' tumours were melting away; the only consequence, years later, was a costs order and a practice restriction for one doctor. Biologie totale practitioners in Quebec told undercover journalists with cancer to delay their biopsies; most answered to no regulator at all.

The Netherlands did three things Canada has not: a government inspectorate investigated a single death and published what it found; a medical tribunal struck off doctors for advising alternative treatment for cancer; and prosecutors took a doctor's failure to steer a patient toward real treatment to the country's highest court, and won. The Ontario courts have upheld a finding of incompetence against a physician over unproven cancer treatment, but no Canadian criminal case on the Millecam model has been located.

Related on QuackeryWatch

Sources

1. Tony Sheldon. “Netherlands to crack down on complementary medicine.” BMJ 2004;328:485 (28 February 2004) — the Inspectorate's findings.
2. “Spiritual healer acquitted in death of Dutch actress.” Associated Press, 12 June 2009.
3. “Hoge Raad laat oordelen in zaak Millecam in stand.” BijzonderStrafrecht.nl, March 2013 (Hoge Raad, 12 March 2013, LJN BY4876, BY4858, BY4859).
4. “Veroordelingen alternatieve artsen en genezers Sylvia Millecam houden stand.” KBS Advocaten, 14 March 2013.
5. “Artsen Millecam uit hun vak gezet.” NRC Handelsblad, June 2007 (disciplinary tribunal).
6. “Sylvia Millecam,” Wikipedia (biography and dates).

The doctors convicted in the Netherlands were not named by the courts and are not named here. Corrections are welcome and are recorded on the page.