Questionable medicine Criminal charges focus spotlight on alternative healing

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3208423,00.html

Questionable medicine
Criminal charges focus spotlight on alternative healing

By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News
September 25, 2004

No more.

"God, please, no more," 19-year-old Sean Flanagan gasped, the last words he spoke before he died after a treatment from naturopath Brian O'Connell that went terribly wrong.


Dave and Laura Flanagan had turned to O'Connell in desperation after doctors told them their son would be dead in a year from cancer that ravaged his bones and lungs.

O'Connell promised to save Sean.

But during a Dec. 18 treatment that involved taking blood from Sean's body, his blood oxygen plummeted to 17. A healthy level would be in the high 90s.

"O'Connell did nothing but pace back and forth, take Sean's pulse and look scared," Dave Flanagan said. "I could tell by the blank, scared look in his face that this man didn't know what to do. He didn't have a clue."

Sean Flanagan died the next day.

The Flanagan family believes the last precious months of Sean's life were stolen by O'Connell, who faces criminal charges for allegedly lying to them and other patients about his medical credentials.

O'Connell is charged in Jefferson County with practicing medicine without a license, criminal impersonation, fraud and theft.

For all the charges and accusations mounting against him, however, O'Connell has supporters who say he helped them when traditional medicine failed and that he is being unfairly targeted merely for offering alternative treatments.

Steve Colton, president of the Colorado Naturopathic Medical Association, in which O'Connell holds office, questions the source of the complaints.

"I really don't know him personally and don't know much detail about his actual practice," Colton said. "But these complaints were generated from medical doctors, not patients. It just seems kind of strange that he has been there five years doing this - if he's been doing such a poor job and injuring people, we would have known about him a long time ago."

O'Connell and his attorney have declined comment while the criminal case is pending.

............

O'Connell claims to hold a doctorate in naturopathy, but his training came from a correspondence course from the Herbal Healer Academy run by Marijah McCain from her home in Mountain View, Ark.

McCain offers correspondence courses over the Internet and issues "naturopathic doctor" certificates to students who complete the course and pass a written final examination.

The Arkansas attorney general sued McCain for deceptive trade practices and she was ordered to pay $10,000 in May 2003 for improperly offering degrees and board certification in naturopathy from entities not accredited by the U.S. Department of Education. Arkansas does not license the practice of naturopathy.

The walls of O'Connell's office are filled with various certificates and degrees attesting to his qualifications, but many of them are bogus or questionable, police allege.

Among them is a certificate of naturopathic medicine issued by the nonexistent Colorado University of Naturopathic Medicine.

Questionable credentials

O'Connell is licensed to practice naturopathic medicine in the District of Columbia, but the license was obtained just by paying a fee, according to Wheat Ridge Detective Mark Slavsky.

No examination or verification of credentials was required, he said.

Furthermore, District of Columbia municipal regulations state that it is "unlawful for a naturopathic practitioner to inject any substance into another person by needle," something O'Connell regularly did.

O'Connell is vice president of the Colorado Naturopathic Medical Association, which is affiliated with the American Naturopathic Medical Association. Neither organization requires a degree from four-year naturopathic colleges.

O'Connell said he is board certified by these organizations; however, they are not approved by the U.S. Department of Education.

He had licenses to possess controlled substances issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Colorado Department of Human Services, but both were fraudulently obtained, Slavsky alleges.

The DEA license was issued in connection with O'Connell's work with Heritage Health, which he said was an animal research lab in Fort Collins affiliated with Colorado State University.

Police later learned that Heritage Health is a diet supplement company and has no research affiliation with CSU. O'Connell worked for the company as a sales and public relations specialist, Slavsky said.

O'Connell says on his Web site that he has a degree in microbiology, but won't say where he earned it.

In the past, O'Connell has claimed to hold a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, but university officials told police he attended the school for only three months in 1992 and never received a degree, Slavsky said.

Many patients believe that O'Connell was trained as a pharmacist because he said he worked for 10 years in the field. He did work as a pharmacy technician in a Milwaukee hospital, but was fired after he was accused of stealing medication and prescription pads, Slavsky said.