By Robert Jay Rowen, MD
President, International Oxidative Medicine Association

You may have heard about Dr. Jim Shortt in South Carolina. He's accused of murdering one his patients, Mrs. Katherine Bibeau, by giving her intravenous hydrogen peroxide. Maybe you read the story in your local paper or saw the hatchet job CBS did on 60 Minutes.

In charging Dr. Shortt with murder, the coroner and pathologist claim this woman died as a result of bubbles in her bloodstream. They allege these bubbles were caused by the hydrogen peroxide infusion Dr. Shortt gave his patient. But this is absolutely impossible. Let me tell you why.

Why Peroxide Therapy Is Safe

Hydrogen peroxide therapy uses the same stuff you pour on your cuts, but at much lower concentrations. The doctor takes a half-teaspoon of peroxide and dilutes it in 81/2 ounces of Sugar water. That means, the peroxide Mrs. Bibeau received was just 1/100th as strong as the stuff you put on cuts.

When you put hydrogen peroxide on a cut, you get bubbles. Those bubbles are simply the hydrogen peroxide releasing oxygen.

When the peroxide enters the bloodstream, it releases oxygen there too. The roughly half-teaspoon of peroxide the doctor uses will release about 25 cc of oxygen. And since it is administered through an IV, it doesn't go in all at once but over the course of two hours.

Is that enough to have killed this woman? Look at what the mainstream medical literature says. According to one physiology textbook, it takes 50 cc of air to cause damage to the body. That damage can include a sudden drop in blood pressure or changes to the heartbeat. But that 50 cc of air would have to be administered instantly in order to cause this kind of damage. In order to kill someone, however, the medical literature says it takes 300 cc of air administered instantly. (J Vasc Interv Radiol, 2001; 12:1291-1295)

At most, Mrs. Bibeau received only 25 cc of oxygen. So even if Dr. Shortt had administered it instantly, it still would have been less than 10 percent of the amount needed to kill her.

And even if she had been given 10 times as much peroxide, it still wouldn't have killed her. Why? Because there's a huge difference between oxygen and air. Air is composed mostly of nitrogen, which remains in the blood for long periods of time and can do great harm (think of the bends in scuba divers.) Oxygen, on the other hand, is rapidly consumed, easy to absorb, and vital for good health.

Your Body Burns Oxygen Instantly

The pathologist claims that he found bubbles in Mrs. Bibeau's bloodstream. Yet she died four days after her hydrogen peroxide treatment. Could those bubbles possibly come from the hydrogen peroxide therapy? Of course not! Any pre-med student will tell you oxygen is consumed so quickly, it's impossible any bubbles would have lasted all that time. Even if she were given gallons of oxygen fast enough to kill her instantly, her body would have continued absorbing it, even after death. You see, cells remain active and continue using oxygen long after the heart stops.

But only 25 cc of oxygen, four days before and given during a two-hour IV? Your body burns that much oxygen in mere seconds! Oxygen in these amounts simply can't kill someone. And doctors who administer hydrogen peroxide therapy have known this for decades.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

Hydrogen peroxide is not the monster therapy the so-called authorities are making it out to be. The medical examiner is wrong. The coroner is wrong. 60 Minutes is wrong.

There are no medical reports anywhere that indicate properly administered hydrogen peroxide could cause any of the skin markings, lab abnormalities and/or clotting in Mrs. Bibeau when she arrived at the ER. On the contrary, hundreds of reputable doctors (including me) have given millions of peroxide treatments over many, many years. And thousands of grateful patients credit this amazing therapy with saving their lives!

Hydrogen peroxide has been reported as effective for many treatments, including the following:

* Asthma
* Yeast infections
* Lupus and autoimmune diseases
* Chronic lung diseases
* Legionnaire's disease
* Crohn's disease

Peer review medical journals have reported absolutely stunning effects in human heart and circulation disease including arterial plaque removal, wound healing, pneumonia increased oxygenation and as an adjunctive treatment for cancer. And I've personally witnessed dramatic improvements in people with cardiovascular disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis and certain types of arthritis.

And in all of those cases and patient histories, there has never been any proof that properly administered hydrogen peroxide causes any harm.

So What Killed Mrs. Bibeau?

Well, here's something interesting. The coroner's report said she was taking the drugs Tegretol and Copaxone. Look these drugs up in the Physician's Desk Reference. You'll find that they cause a variety of side affects including echymosis (bruising), infection, bleeding, metorrhagia, thrombosis, clotting problems, liver damage and infections. These are the exact symptoms found in Mrs. Bibeau when she arrived at the hospital.

Peroxide has caused no significant harm in the millions of infusions worldwide given by doctors over a span of decades. Contrast that to a minimum of 140,000 deaths caused by drugs prescribed by doctors every year. That fact alone should force the pathologist to look first at the drugs as a primary cause of this woman's death, not peroxide.

So why is the system putting a spin on this death and covering up the real cause? Well, it wouldn't be the first time that an effective alternative therapy and doctor was railroaded. It's too easy for the pathologist, the coroner, and the mainstream media to attack what they don't understand.

Drugs are good, so peroxide must be bad, right? I hope you now know better!

Interesting thoughts and comments by Dr. Joseph Mercola:

The mass media focus on Dr. Shortt has sparked a lot of controversy, confusion and debate. A friend of mine and respected colleague, Robert Jay Rowen, MD, who is president of the International Oxidation Medicine Association, asked me if I would therefore publish his insights below to help clear the air, which I urge everyone to read.

The press is concerned about one death that, upon further examination, as you will note below, might not even be related to the treatment. I certainly don't want to minimize anyone's death, but more than 55,000 people died from taking Vioxx and we are not seeing in excess of 50,000 times the press on this issue.

In fact, we are not seeing much coverage of the Vioxx horror at all from the mass media relative to that drug disaster. Shouldn't a situation responsible for so many deaths be dominating our national headlines still, as the tsunami disaster has been?

Shouldn't responsible journalists like those at 60 Minutes and all the other major TV news programs be relentlessly probing Merck and the FDA to find out all the responsible parties for the Vioxx disaster and ensure justice is served?

Why would they possibly run a "scare" story on a single physician who may or may not have been responsible for a single person's tragic death when more than 55,000 deaths have occurred due to some very serious issues with the drug companies and the FDA? Shouldn't the network news magazines, with the amount of people they reach, be diligently focused on making sure people are very wary of taking pharmaceuticals, even if they are "FDA approved," since the single FDA-approved drug Vioxx has killed more than 55,000?

FULL ARTICLE HERE