What do you think of this news? What bothers me is the "bone exposed" bit, can this stuff really be safe if it does this?
ATLANTA (AP) -- A south Georgia physician has surrendered her medical license, following allegations that she aided a man who sells a flesh-eating paste that disfigured patients seeking a cancer cure.
Dr. Lois March of Cordele surrendered her license last week. She must stop practicing no later than Dec. 1, an official with Georgia's board of medical examiners said Monday.
She's accused of providing pain medication to patients who received treatments with the paste, which contains a medicinal herb called bloodroot. One patient's flesh was eaten so badly from his
shoulder that the bone was exposed.
March aided the paste peddler by not reporting him to the authorities, even after patients who used the paste came to her in pain, state officials said.
March -- an ear, nose and throat specialist -- referred questions to her attorney, Hunter Allen.
March doesn't endorse the use of bloodroot and she urged some patients to instead seek conventional cancer treatment, Allen said. But some patients who insisted on using it were in pain, and she agreed to prescribe medication for them, he said.
"In retrospect, this not good judgment on her part, but Dr. March never knowingly engaged in any wrongdoing," Allen said, in a prepared statement.
Board officials say that since 2003, March has been treating patients who got the paste from Dan Raber, a pastor-turned-healer in nearby Rochelle. Raber says the paste causes cancers to self-destruct.
Raber is not licensed to practice medicine, but board officials declined to answer questions about whether Raber is being investigated.
Raber's farm was raided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year. U.S. prosecutors said they would not confirm or deny an investigation into Raber's business.
Raber could not immediately be reached for comment, but a woman who answered the phone said his product -- called TumorX Paste -- is still being sold.
Investigators reviewed at least 16 patient cases in which March knew or should have known that some of her patients had used Raber's paste, according to state officials.
March should have reported Raber to the authorities, and because she did not she aided and abetted his illegal practice, they said.
March failed to obtain pathology or biopsy
reports when patients told her they had cancer, and she failed to provide wound care, according to a document prepared by a Georgia assistant attorney general that summarizes the allegations against the doctor.
But March prescribed narcotic pain medicine to paste-treated patients. Such prescribing was outside the scope of her specialty, according to the attorney.
In one case, March prescribed more than 200 narcotic pain pills in a period of ten days for a patient with an undocumented history of
Breast Cancer who was in pain from the bloodroot treatment, the attorney wrote.