U.S. Pressures Mexico to Close Donsbach's Medical Clinic

Feb. 3, 2006, 12:02PM
Mexican Clinic Where King Died Is Closed


By TRACI CARL Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican clinic where Coretta Scott King died has
been closed, U.S. Embassy officials said Friday.

Mexican officials weren't immediately available to explain why the
clinic was shut. But Judith Bryan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy
in Mexico City, said the U.S. consulate in Tijuana was helping patients
find new facilities.

The consulate's spokeswoman, Liza Davis, said 20 American patients were
at the clinic when it was closed Thursday. Mexican authorities gave the
Americans three days to leave the country.

"None of them were in serious enough condition that we had to get them
back in an ambulance," Davis said. "Lots of them had family with them
or means to get back on their own. Those that don't, we'll be working
with them, and the hospital will be helping them as well."

King traveled last week to the beachside Santa Monica Health Institute
in the Mexican beach resort of Rosarito, 15 miles south of San Diego.
She was seeking treatment for advanced-stage ovarian cancer and a
stroke she suffered several months ago.

King's children have said she died there Monday night, although a
spokeswoman for the U.S. consulate in Tijuana has said King died early
Tuesday.

The clinic specializes in alternative treatments for patients with
incurable illnesses.

Its founder and director, Kurt W. Donsbach, has a criminal past and a
reputation for offering dubious treatments to desperately ill patients,
according to court records and a watchdog group.

However, the clinic doctors assigned to King's case said she arrived in
poor health and they couldn't even begin to treat her before she died
early this week.

"She came here with half her body paralyzed," Dr. Rafael Cedeno, who
was overseeing her case, told reporters after King's death. "She was in
really bad condition."

King's death raised questions about the safety of alternative medical
clinics across Mexico, many of which aren't closely regulated.

It was unclear if Donsbach's past had anything to do with the closing
of the Santa Monica clinic.

In 1997, Donsbach was sentenced in federal court in San Diego to a year
in prison for smuggling more than $250,000 worth of unapproved drugs
into the United States from Mexico, according to court records.
Donsbach was sentenced on three felony counts, including introducing
unapproved drugs into interstate commerce, smuggling merchandise
contrary to law and income tax evasion.

In 1988, the U.S. Postal Service ordered Donsbach and his nephew to
stop claiming that a solution of hydrogen peroxide that they sell could
prevent cancer and ease arthritis pain.

A woman who answered the phone at the clinic's corporate offices in San
Diego said she had no information on the closure of the Rosarito
clinic. Identifying herself only by her first name, Maria, she said she
did not know where Donsbach was and there was no one else available to
comment.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported the clinic's closure in
Friday's editions.

___

Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to
this report.

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