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David
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We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 20/11/2007 15:14
Unlicensed pair fined for administering fatal fast
Posted by: "Steve" beforewisdom@ yahoo.com
"Unlicensed Practitioners Cited after Death of Diabetic Patient"
Stephen Barrett, M.D.
The Maryland Board of Physicians has issued cease-and-desist orders against
Loren Eric Lockman and Timothy Scott Trader for practicing medicine without
a license and representing to the public that they
were authorized to practice medicine. Loren was fined $320,000 for seven
violations, each of which reflected what had happened to one client. Trader
was fined $70,000 for two violations related to two of the clients.
Documents in the case indicates that Lockman founded the Tanglewood Wellness
Center, which operated first in Bethesda and then in Thurmont, Maryland. In
2005, he fled to Panama and relocated his facility. Lockman employed Trader
in 2003 and 2004. The pair advocated a raw food diet and administered
water-only fasting for lengthy periods for people whose health conditions
were worsened or could have been worsened by such fasting. They also
discouraged the use of prescribed medications.
Both conducted themselves in a manner that suggested that they were trained
health professionals, even though they were not [1].
Documents in the case further indicate that Trader referred to himself as a
"retired" naturopath. In the fatal case, he advised a 22-year-old woman with
insulin-dependent diabetes to stop taking her insulin and undergo a
water-only fast. After she became acutely ill with diabetic ketoacidosis, he
administered huge amounts of insulin, but she lost consciousness and died
soon afterwards. (Insulin alone is not
sufficient treatment for diabetic ketoacidosis. ) Three other clients
appeared to have suffered impairment of their memory as a result of
prolonged fasting. Another patient became emaciated and developed
beriberi (a severe B-vitamin deficiency) as a result of severe fasting. Two
other clients were dissatisfied with their experience and left within a
week. One was a man with severe heart disease who could have
been heading for disaster as a result of stopping his medications [2].
Lockman still operates the Tanglewood Wellness Center in Panama, which
offers treatment for $900 for the first week and $500 to $700 for subsequent
weeks, depending on the length of stay. His Web site claims that his methods
can enable people to lose weight, never be sick again, have abundant energy
and mental clarity, and look younger -" all with no side effects, safely,
easily, naturally."
Trader has relocated to California. Recent autobiographical sketches states
that he obtained a naturopathy degree from Clayton College and in 1991 got a
"Ph.D." from the Life Science Institute. Clayton College is a nonaccredited
correspondence school [3]. The Life Science Institute was a correspondence
school that was never accredited or legally authorized to grant degrees. In
the mid-1980s, a Texas Court prohibited it from marketing itself as a
"college" and from granting academic credits or degrees [4].
References
1. Final decision and order. In the matter of Loren Eric Lockman. Before
the Maryland State Board of Physicians, Case No. 2005-0028. August 31, 2007.
2. Final decision and order. In the matter of Timothy Scott Trader.
Before the Maryland State Board of Physicians, Case No. 2005-0027. August
31, 2007.
3. Barrett S. Clayton College of Natural Health: Be wary of the school
and its graduates. March 20, 2007.
4. Kenney JJ. Fit For Life: Some notes on the book and its roots.
Quackwatch, Nov 12, 1999.
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The Fast Doctor
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 21/11/2007 14:17
Fasting can be used in diabetes and can acutally be quite effective in lowering the resistance to Insulin. Very often, however, we find that there is a short "honeymoon" period at the start of the fast, with aften a few days of total insulin independence, but after the 3rd to 4th day many patients need a bit of insulin support.
The bottom line: Every diabetic patient is a unique "case" and should be managed "hands-on" when fasting. Close monitoring should include laboratory facilities for measuring blood sugar accurately, as well as electrolytes (Na, Ka, Cl, Ca, Mg, etc.) and, most importantly, arterial blood pH.
With all this and a qualified or knowledgeable supervisor, fasting can be about the best thing a diabetic can do. Without the appropriate supervision it can be fatal.
André
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David
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 10/12/2007 13:29
Loren Lockman kindly submitted this statement in response to the article entitled: "Unlicensed Practitioners Cited after Death of Diabetic Patient"
The Tanglewood Wellness Center was established to teach people how to create and maintain the highest levels of health through cleansing the body via water-only fasting and subsequently meeting all of the body’s needs as well (i.e., as naturally) as possible, and to create a place where people could fast in comfort and nature, with experienced, non-medical supervision.
Unlike many centers that refuse to take clients who are very ill (and could die) Tanglewood’s philosophy has always been to provide a place for people who really need it to be able to come and heal themselves in a clean, beautiful, and supportive environment.
Our guests are educated about the fasting process and what to expect, understand the potential dangers, and take responsibility for their own processes and their decisions to undertake a fast at Tanglewood, their conduct while fasting, and their decision to continue fasting or not.
The truth about the unfortunate death of a young diabetic client bear little resemblance to the way they were presented by the Maryland Medical Board, whose activities surrounding these events are strikingly reminiscent of the witch hunts in late 15th century New England.
When the client expressed an interest in fasting, I had already been coaching her for months around her diet and other lifestyle choices. She told us that she had been following a raw vegan diet,something we only learned later was not the case. I had her read Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Fasting and Eating for Health and she professed to understand clearly the conventional wisdom about notfasting with type 1 diabetes. I agreed to accept her as a client because her situation was atypical for a type 1 diabeticin that her pancreas had only ceased to produce adequate amounts of insulin as a result of teenage drug and alcohol abuse a few years earlier.
Having been clean for a few years and believing that she was following a sane and healthy diet, she seemeda good candidate for a fast, similar to the other type 1 diabetics I’d fasted before (and since) with no problems and excellent results.
When on about the third day of her fast her blood sugar started to climb, the client chose to take insulin, which she administered to herself as she had been doing for several years. When her sugar continued climbing, she chose to take additional insulin an hour or so later, and did so again, (all of her own volition and by her own hand,) once more. One last time she chose to take her insulin but was too shaky to self-administer it, at which point Tanglewood staff member Tim Trader, N.D., who had been by her side most of the morning, agreed to assist her as, I would hope, anyone would have. A short time later, she went into cardiac arrest, and after being resuscitated by Trader, was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where she died two days later.
According to the coroner’s report, this lovely young woman died, not as a result of fasting, but as a result of an overdose of insulin. It seemed that she also had taken her prescription incorrectly, using one form of insulin without the other. As we explained to her when she made the decision to fast, the choice to use insulin was hers, and we did not pretend any expertise with her prescriptions.
I do take full responsibility for having accepted this client, though not for her death.
According to the Medical Board, I’m guilty of having practiced medicine without a license because I ¨prescribed¨ fasting (in this case and with every other client).
I pointed out to the health experts on the medical board (an almost uniformly fat, bespectacled, and most unhealthy-looking group of doctors,) that fasting is a natural process undertaken by every single species to allow the body to cleanse and heal itself and is not a medical process. I pointed out that cleansing the body is requisite to enjoy a high level of health and that if fasting is “medicine”, than health clubs, restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels/motels are also guilty of practicing medicine as they are also helping people meet their bodies requisite physiological needs (for exercise, food, and sleep respectively.)
According to the medical board, I’m also guilty of practicing medicine because I “took people off their medications”. In fact, I simply tell my clients that they cannot be on medications while fasting, and that the decision to stop is up to them. I tell people right up-front that I am not a doctor and I cannot give them advice as to whether to use these drugs or not.
When they tell you at Disneyworld that you must be “this tall” to ride a particular attraction, they are not insisting that you grow, simply disqualifying people who don’t meet the standard. What I do with my guests is the same thing. Whether or not someone chooses to discontinue their prescription is entirely up to them, however,they are disqualified from fasting here if they do not discontinue their drugs. Fasting is safe, but not while using medications (which are always dangerous and toxic by their very nature.)
Ultimately, the Medical Board said that it didn’t really matter whether I was diagnosing, prescribing, or treating anything (the conventional standards for practicing medicine,) because it was their opinion that if someone came to Tanglewood and got well, I had practiced medicine.
The court failed to properly serve me and ignored a notarized statement by the woman who accepted service without my authorization that she had neverbeen authorized as my agent. I consulted with a family friend who has a very successful liability law practice and was advised based on the history to-date not to bother spending a fortune defending myself as it was clear that the medical board had no interest in the truth and was going to find me guilty no matter what.
The Board issued its Cease and Desist order, and I ignored it, continuing to operate for another year until I was ready to move. As I was neither practicing nor pretending to practice medicine, the Medical Board had no jurisdiction over me or Tanglewood.
The largest fasting center in North America for many years, Tanglewood moved to Panama in July 2005 after more than 8 years of planning, in order to provide a more optimal climate for our guests and ourselves, to be in a place where we can grow all of our own food year round, and to create an intentional community for people who choose to live in harmony with nature and each other. That Panama is a far less litigious society (where isn’t?) and that we can operate here with far less government intervention was certainly a plus.
Tanglewood continues to fast people with a wide-range of conditions, from those who are “fine” andsimply want to optimize their health to those who have life-threatening conditions and understand the folly of the conventional medical path. We haveshepherded many people through this process over the years and will continue to do so. Working with very sick people sometimes means that there arerisks. We are here to provide an alternative for people who are willing to take responsibility for themselves and theirhealth. We have conducted over two thousand fasts with one fatality, and though that’s one death too many, it pales compared to the roughly 195,000 people who die each year in US Hospitals due to preventable medical errors alone.
We’re not perfect, but work very hard to provide the highest quality service and experience to our clients, the vast majority of whom seem quite happy. At near full capacity this session, 35% of our guests are returning to us after one or more previous fasts, 45% were referred by another guest, and only 20% found us on their own.
The Medical Board noted that some guests “were actually dissatisfied, and left before completing their fasts” as if this was an indictment of the Center and I. Fasting can be a very difficult process, both physically and emotionally and those people who are not willing or able to deal with those difficulties sometimes bail out, regardless of what my staff and I do or do not do to support them. This is the nature of the process and likely to be the same anywhere.
We continue to look for ways to improve the Center and the fasting experience here and feel very fortunate to be able to provide this amazing service to so many people.
The water-only fasting process and especially Tanglewood are not for those people who refuse to take responsibility and continue to believe that there are benefits to be found in conventional medicine.
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Andrew
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 10/12/2007 16:02
It's a relief to have the whole story to make a decision from instead of relying on the press and what the board of medical professionals had to say. Let's face it if they were truly culpable they would have been facing a homicide charge not sitting in front of a few doctors berating them for practicing medicine without a license.
Nevertheless the damage is so easily done, and even to me reading the first post found it too easy to be disappointed in the Fasting Supervisors in this case. For those who have no knowledge of fasting or only the typical starvation nonsense would just take the story word for word.
One wonders what it would take to change such people's minds about fasting if anything could. Or if humankind is doomed to continue on this disastrous course of ignorant scientific 'nutrition' indefinitely.
Andrew.
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The Fast Doctor
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 11/12/2007 02:53
When reading the good doctor's side of the story, I tend to agree with him that it was unlikely the fast that caused the damage, but that several factors played a role. As mentioned before, I still believe long fasting is the only treatment with even a remote chance of healing Diabetes. All medical treatment are only managing it.
I have seen a few cases of keto-acidosis and was able to get them all back to normal without any permanent side effects. Now, knowing how to look for the early signs, we haven't had any for several years.
This young patient was given hope. That was something my (Medical) profession could not do. We can argue forever as to whether the tragedy was the result, or happened in spite of, the fast or insulin injections. But please remember the human carbohydrate metabolism is relatively complex and one always needs to consider several factors and have a "hands-on" approach, preferably with monitoring facilities.
If I just think of the number of death certificates I had to sign in hospitals, and, looking back, how many of those were the result of medical intervention, it is actually tragic to see "the powers that be" zoom in on the one time healthy alternatives appeared to have failed.
I wish Tanglewood the best of luck and hope they will be pursuing their ideal for a long time to come.
André
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The Fast Doctor
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 11/12/2007 03:02
Yes we can all learn. The first thing to learn however is that the fatality was unlikely from the fast, but likely from a combination of several factors.. one could even argue that it occurred in spite of the fast.
Diabetic keto-acidosis results in a hyper-osmolar state in the blood, which leads to cellular dehydration. The hyper-osmolar state is the result of too much ketones AND too much blood sugar at the same time.
When you fast you do not put sugar(s) into your body, so the fasting did NOT contribute to the "too much blood sugar" part at all.
Your body makes just as much ketones as it needs for energy supply.. that is why a non-diabetic cannot produce "too much". In the case of a diabetic it is only "too much" because there is a high level of sugar in the blood also. But this was not the result of the fast, it happened IN SPITE of fasting, as the result of an insulin deficiency.
With good monitoring we can identify this condition early and take the necessary steps. My experience is that many Type I diabetics, this happens around the third day of a fast, when the body starts making a lot of sugar from the fats also.. so very often we need to "bridge" this period with a bit of insulin.. under good supervision.
Physical activity, which helps burn the excess sugar, is often adequate and then we don't need insulin. But we don't hesitate to use it if needed.
Best wishes
André
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johnfielder
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 17/02/2008 15:45
I do agree that there is much that can be learnt from this article. And in spite of the negative experience listed here with the person suffering from diabetes, do believe, from my experience, that most people will benefit from the fast who are diabetic.
For a safe, and overall beneficial out-come though, I do believe it must be carried out as a part of a wholistic approach to health, as should all approaches to fasting. As a part of a whole lifestyle regime to promote health and well-being, and not in isolation.
It has been my experience if carried out in this way, under the supervision of a capable person, one well versed in such a procedure, the out-come can, and will be eminently successful.
John
John L Fielder,DO,DC,ND(Adel)
Osteopath & Lifestyle Consultant
Academy of Natural Living
www.johnfielder.com.au
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The Fast Doctor
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Re:We can all learn from this Fatal Fast - 17/02/2008 22:25
John you are so absolutely correct.. orthodoxy tends to compartemenatlize health. We are actually currently forced to give "the diagnosis" when we see a patient, and we have to choose this singular condition from a list of diseases called the ICD-10. The entire notion of a whole person is lost. You are either a pneumonia, a fracture, a depression or something else, not a whole person suffering inter alia from several of these conditions in various degrees.
I was myself prosecuted - fortunately unsuccesfully - by a Medical board because my "practice profile" did not fit with what they are used to and try to impose on patients.
Apparently, if your patient die but you did follow protocol, that's fine and you will not be held responsible. But if you try desperately to save someone and bring them back to good health in any other way, even if the "protocol" failed, that does open you up to prosecution.
The dominant force - and money-spinner - in "health" care today is the pharmaceutical giants. They do contribute to our knowledge greatly with research, but the practical implication of all such research needs to be selling more drugs (including their lucrative new market, "supplements") so a lot of knowledge gained from research ends up in the waste basket when it does not promote more sales.
Let's persist and put our patients first- after all, a good conscience is better than a stiff bank account.
André
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