Re: Caveat Emptor

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/1205/24metdoctor.html?COXnetJSessionIDbuild111=Dt2egMlVFuPEDKStFNZjPCpyK5tv9ema70TAmzvDrGtYogB8ppoo!1167726377&UrAuth=aNcNUOaNXUbTTUWUXUTUZTZU^UWU^U_UZUaUZUcTYWVVZV&urcm=y

copyrighted by the atlanta journal-constitution 2005


Cancer doctor loses his license
He's also charged with insurance fraud

By BILL TORPY, KATHY JEFCOATS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/24/05
A doctor charged with injecting cancer patients with weedkiller and
defrauding insurance companies had his license suspended Friday
morning.

People who say that Dr. Totada R. Shanthaveerappa saved their lives
continued to rally to his defense Friday afternoon, even as two
questionable patient deaths came to light.


(ENLARGE)
Totada Shan-thaveerappa allegedly injected cancer patients with
weedkiller.

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The Georgia Medical Board of Examiners, after an emergency meeting,
voted 9-0 to recommend the suspension of Shanthaveerappa's license. He
was given notification of the suspension at his Stockbridge clinic,
said Dr. Jim McNatt, the board's medical director.

Shanthaveerappa stopped treating patients immediately, but two other
doctors at the clinic will continue their work, said Dan Conaway, a
lawyer for the doctor. Conaway said Shanthaveerappa would plead not
guilty Tuesday during his first appearance hearing in federal court.

An 87-count federal indictment accuses Shanthaveerappa, 70, also known
as T.R. Shantha, of treating patients with drugs not authorized by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, then falsely billing insurance
companies by saying he had used approved drugs. The indictment says
Shanthaveerappa used dinitrophenol, or DNP, a weedkiller and
insecticide, and Ukrain, which is not approved for use in the United
States.

Shanthaveerappa told the medical board that he treated patients three
years ago with DNP and still treats patients with Ukrain.
Shanthaveerappa, a native of India, who has been licensed in Georgia
since 1972, calls himself an alternative healer.

But a lawyer for cancer patient Johnny Pierce, who died last week, says
Shanthaveerappa gave Pierce false hope and contributed to his horrible
death. Pierce filed a malpractice suit last month against
Shanthaveerappa, alleging that the doctor's treatment made him
susceptible to infections that led to the removal of his colon and
allowed the cancer to spread.

Pierce's lawyer, Michael J. Hannan III, said Pierce, a musician and
songwriter from Tennessee who sang and played in Juice Newton's band in
the 1980s, was diagnosed with cancer in his tonsils in February 2004.
The tumor was removed, and Pierce was told by his doctor to get
chemotherapy and radiation treatment. But Pierce chose not to do so,
because it could have ruined his voice.

Pierce sought out alternative therapies on the Internet and found
Shanthaveerappa, who has several Web sites, including Wehealcancer.org.
According to the lawsuit, Pierce went to Stockbridge and gave
Shanthaveerappa a cashier's check for $40,000.

According to the suit, Pierce was placed into a heat chamber where his
blood was to be heated to 106 degrees. "Mr. Pierce was advised that
this would kill the cancer," the suit says. He was also given
intravenous injections.

The suit gives this description of what happened next:

On April 18, 2004, after three weeks of therapy, Pierce had a high
fever, uncontrollable shakes and severe abdominal pain. He called a
nurse from Shanthaveerappa's office, who drove him to the Henry Medical
Center. The nurse told Pierce not to tell hospital officials he was
seeing Shanthaveerappa, because "they don't like him at this hospital."
He was transferred to Emory Medical Center, where he was operated on.

"They found he had a raging infection in his abdomen," Hannan said in
an interview Friday. Pierce also had aplastic anemia. Surgeons removed
his colon, and he later received a colonostomy.

Hannan said Shanthaveerappa treated Pierce with low-dose chemotherapy,
not enough to stop the cancer but enough to weaken his immune system
and allow infection to spread.

"His immune system was completely compromised. Shantha's treatment gave
him false hope. It didn't give him the chance conventional treatment
would have."

The medical board, in the suspension ruling, referred to another
unnamed patient who died in 2001 from high doses of methotrexate, a
chemotherapeutic agent. Pierce, according to his lawsuit, was also
treated with methotrexate and Ukrain.

But at Shanthaveerappa's office Friday, Connie Mahoney of McDonough
proudly displayed a lab test result showing that her ovarian cancer was
in remission. The cancer had spread into her abdomen, she said, and she
underwent multiple surgeries and conventional treatment before finding
Shanthaveerappa on the Internet.

"I am officially in remission after three months of treatment," she
said. "I will defend the doctor to my end."

Mahoney said she was treated intravenously at the clinic three days a
week for four hours a day. She said Shanthaveerappa treated her with
Ukrain, which is made in Austria, as well as vitamin C and
hypertherapy, or heating of the blood.

"Ukrain has been used in Europe for decades," Mahoney said. "I got
comparable treatments in Europe for three weeks at $25,000. To pay Dr.
Shantha $20,000 for unlimited treatments is a bargain, especially now I
know it works. I spent a lot of money on alternative treatments, and I
am in debt. But it is money more than well spent."

After being out of work on disability for six months, Mahoney said, she
will go back to work Jan. 2.

Shanthaveerappa can appeal his suspension, either by asking for an
expedited hearing before a state administrative law judge or by going
to Superior Court to request a restraining order against the
suspension.

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