14 mai 2010
Blocus CDC / Medicaid américain
contre la thérapie hyperbare pour la paralysie cérébrale
et l'autisme
Le Medicaid (assurance-maladie aux États-Unis)
et un neurologue haut dirigeant du Centre pour le Contrôle
et la Prévemtion des Maladies (CDC) à Atlanta en
Georgie impliqués dans le camouflage des bienfaits de
la thérapie hyperbare pour les enfants blessés
au cerveau.
David Freels est le pere de Jimmy Freels,
un enfant qui fut blessé par les vaccins et qui reçu
des traitements de thérapie hyperbare en 1999-2000. Il
entreprit un combat pour obtenir le remboursement des frais liés
aux traitements mais il gagna sa cause après avoir été
débouté, mais il n'a toujours pas été
remboursé par le gouvernement qui fait toujours blocus...
Il lanca un groupe de discussion qui demande la couverture par
le Medicaid (système d'assurance-maladie aux États-Unis)
et les compagnies d'assurance (banques) de la thérapie
hyperbare pour les enfants blessés au cerveau.
Le 14 mai 2010, il publia son témoignage
de ce qui lui est arrivé il y a un an suite à une
communication avec le Dr Edwin Trevathan au bureau chef des CDC
à Atlanta en Georgie. . Il fut mis au silence par ordre
de cour suite à sa découverte de la position occupée
par ce médecin qui avait témoigné contre
lui en 1999-2000.
Ce récit de 15 pages contient
de nombreux détails très importants qui seront
traduits. Une émission y sera consacré sur Réveil Santé.net
en juin 2010.
Les échanges de courriels entre
David Freels et Dr Edwin Trevathan et autres documents liés
sont accessibles au bas de ce texte, suivi de mes commentaires.
Daniel Pagé
Association de Thérapie Hyperbare du Québec
et HyperSanté
Some weeks or months ago, I mentioned
here that I had been served with a restraining order. That order
was in effect for a year and ended a few weeks ago, which means
I can now disclose the details without fear of retribution.
When I first mentioned this circumstance,
I placed it within the context that a principal is not a principal
until it costs you something. I've been standing on the principal
that our brain-injured children and loved ones have a legal right
to hyperbaric oxygen and in that quest, I believe I have remained
vigilant. This includes informing others about HBOT, particularly
those in positions of influence and/or power.
I'll start from the beginning.
The email below was posted in February,
2000 on the old hbo-list discussion group.
Subject: hbo-list: HBOT and SPECT scan
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 14:22:55 -0600
Sender: hbo-list-errors@...
Reply-To: hbo-list@...
To: hbo-list@...
Dear List:
Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when
it comes to HBOT. A doctor in St.Louis Mo told
me that the scan changes from day to day. The
seizures make it change and he said that the changes
we saw and Dr. Uszler reported on were really not
improvements just I guess mistakes. If you take another
scan the next day it would be different. What is the
truth about this. This doctor was used by Georgia STate
to determine if a child would get the treatements paid for.
Of course he denied that it helped in anyway. He said the
spects did not prove that a real change occured. Can anyone
explain? This doctor was a Neurologist.Rhonda
hbo-list@... is a public discussion forum for the field of
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. For more information about this list,
please see http://www.hyperbaric.com/list.htm .
This post was made by a lady named Rhonda,
who lives in southern Illinois. She has a cp daughter (I think).
Our son Jimmy first underwent HBOT in
May, 1999 through July, 1999. He underwent SPECT-scan imaging
before HBOT and after his 21st treatment. The second scan showed
an increased cerebral blood flow of 25.4%.
A few weeks later, in August, 1999,
one of my neighbors who lives on my street contacted a pediatric
neurologist who used to live in Atlanta and was then living in
St Louis and on staff at Washington U. My neighbor used to attend
church with this guy. After witnessing Jimmy's daily improvements
from HBOT throughout his initial 40-treatment regimen, she asked
her friend if a cerebral palsy child could improve via HBOT.
In a phone conversation, he said it was impossible, and in a
follow-up, 2-page letter, he said it was "scientifically
silly."
Next, the hbo-list post from Rhonda
showed up. She's a Jehovah's Witness, which means she can't be
a witness, i.e., testify against another person in a legal action.
You see, I suspected the doctor Rhonda
was referencing could have been the same friend of my neighbor's.
The same guy who had already rendered a decision about Jimmy's
likelihood of improvement from HBOT even before he'd seen the
evidence, which were Jimmy's before/after SPECT scans. (The tipping
point for Harch to testify for Jimmy in 2000 was when I faxed
him Rhonda's post. What that doctor told her was a lie. He lied
to her, which also meant he lied to Georgia Medicaid about Jimmy.
It ticked off Harch, and he decided to testify. That St Louis
doctor was essentially calling Harch a liar, and because Paul
Harch is a man of great principal, he wanted to set the record
straight.)
What the St Louis MD didn't know was
that my neighbor already saw with her own eyes the improvements
Jimmy made. She was asking her friend the pediatric neurologist
because her husband experienced complications in a 1993 surgery
to remove a tumor on his brain stem that sent him into coma.
When he emerged four months later he was 70% incapacitated. My
neighbor really wanted to know if HBOT would help her husband.
When her friend the pediatric neurologist told her it was impossible
for HBOT to help, that's when she decided to take her husband
to Dr. Perlmutter in Naples, FL. He got 80 treatments, and his
gains were documented with before/after SPECT scans. He emerged
about 20% incapacitated
instead of 70% incapacitated. This was seven/eight years after
the initial
injury, an improvement the pediatric neurologist said was not
only impossible but "scientifically silly."
(My neighbor's improvements were so dramatic, he became over
confident. In mid-2000, he lost his balance and hit his head,
which induced a stroke. He already had a couple of shunts in
his head from the 1993 surgery. In hospital, his wife requested
an Rx for HBOT. Because of his success from the previous HBOT--as
documented by his before/after SPECT-scan imaging--Kaiser agreed
to pay for 80 more tx of HBOT. He made almost a total recovery,
to where he was with Perlmutter and still holds the record for
quickest recovery at Emory Rehab.)
At our first ALJ hearing in 2000, the
Georgia Medical Care Foundation (GMCF) employee who coordinated
the review of our request mentioned Rhonda's doctor's name on
the stand. It was the same friend of our neighbor's: Edwin Trevathan.
That's when I pulled out Trevathan's
follow-up letter to my neighbor and
attempted to enter it into evidence. Though it wasn't admitted,
if you read the transcript, you can see the case coordinator
is horrified: Trevathan should have recused himself from the
case since he'd already made a decision about the very same child
in August, 1999 some three months before Georgia Medicaid asked
his opinion for the same child in November, 1999.
Since he knew this was for the very
same child, i.e., Jimmy Freels, this action alone is highly unethical
and could subject Trevathan to some sort of sanction or even
revocation of his license to practice medicine.
We lost the first ALJ decision in December, 2000. We spent several
months preparing an appeal. The one hole was Trevathan's statement
that SPECT-scan imaging was unreliable. I emailed every expert
I could find, asking when and under what circumstance is SPECT
unreliable. I emailed Maxfield and Neubauer, Harch and Philip
James. I reviewed everything I could find on Medline that hinted
at unreliability. I read every text on SPECT scans at the Emory
Medical Library.
(I did find several papers by Roger Denays of Belgium where he
used SPECT to assess, predict, and diagnose cerebral palsy. My
question was, if you can use SPECT-scan imaging to assess, predict,
and diagnose CP, then why can't you also use SPECT to demonstrate
improvement in CP from HBOT.)
In June, 2001, I emailed Trevathan as
a last resort, asking him to document his claim to Rhonda and
Georgia Medicaid that SPECT-scan imaging is unreliable. He wouldn't
even acknowledge the question. We exchanged three or four emails,
and he told me to not contact him again until a controlled study
was published that proved HBOT efficacy in pediatric brain-injury--at
which time, he said, he would admit his error.
In March, 2009, Dan Rossignol et al
published "Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism:
a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial"
found at
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2431-9-21.pdf .
His treatment group? 1.3 ATA air, the same protocol Collet claimed
was a placebo. The Rossignol paper not only proves HBOT efficacy
in autism, it also proves HBOT beneficial for CP children, whether
100% O2 at 1.75 ATA or 1.3 ATA Air. Because of Rossignol, both
groups of the Collet study are now proven treatment groups.
So I emailed the link to download the
Rossignol paper to Trevathan, only he's no longer in St Louis.
He's not at Washington U anymore. He's back in Atlanta. He's
now the National Director of Birth Defects and Developmental
Disabilities at the United States Center for Disease Control
and Prevention. See http://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/trevathan.htm
He's in a position to pick up the phone and call the President
of the United
States and say, 'Mr President, I think we've discovered something
that might lead to a cure for not only autism but also cerebral
palsy, but we're going to need a billion dollars to research
the full potential.'
After I emailed the link to Rossignol's
paper, at 3 that afternoon two FBI
agents were at my door accusing me of harassing, stalking, and
making physical threats to Trevathan. I explained HBOT and my
history with Trevathan. I told them about Trevathan's request
for no more contact until there was a controlled study.
They advised me to hire an attorney
if I wanted to contact Trevathan again. "I have to hire
a $500 an hour lawyer to send this guy an email?"
"That's what we advise, sir."
"And where's the free speech in that?"
I thought about it for about another
24 hours, then wrote him back, reminding him the Third Reich
went out of business in 1945, and he really had no justification
for sending the FBI to my house.
Instead of the FBI, three days later
a deputy from the Dekalb County Sheriff's office served me with
a restraining order. A few weeks later in magistrate court, where
the judge had 30 wife beaters who genuinely did need restraining
orders otherwise they might genuinely kill somebody, in preliminary
meetings with my attorney and Trevathan's attorney the magistrate
judge let it be known she was not going to "waste"
any time reviewing emails from 2000 or talking about the Medicaid
law for children or letters to neighbors or Medicaid ALJ hearings
or decisions. Nor did she care that he was a public health official,
and there's this document out there called the United States
Constitution that includes a First Amendment right to free speech.
All she cared about was the FBI told
me not to contact him again, and I did. The reasons for the contact
didn't matter.
This meant (a) the judge believed I
was guilty of stalking (b), I couldn't
present my side, (c) which meant I couldn't present evidence,
(d) which also meant without evidence in the record, I would
have no grounds for appeal when I lost. Plus (e) I would have
to pay for Trevathan's attorney fees, which (f) totaled $22,000
at that time.
So I settled. I took the restraining
order. My attorney advised me to not even mention it or discuss
it.
My attorney is a different attorney
than our MedicaidforHBOT attorney, though he did represent me
pro bono. He's a retired metro Atlanta district attorney who's
well-known as he's put away many of this area's most notorious
criminals, particularly murderers. We attend the same Sunday
School class, where he'd always made jokes about paying his annual
law license renewal fees since he never went to court anymore.
So I called him and asked if he'd be
interested in putting that license to work. At first he said
no. So I met with a couple of other attorneys. My friend called
back and said he'd take it. He came over and asked me a ton of
questions. I had the distinct impression that he didn't believe
anything I told him. So I had him watch the Curt Allen video
at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbFs9NN__Mk#GU5U2spHI_4 . Well,
that elicited a raised eyebrow, but he never let me know what
he was thinking.
Next, he spent three or four days reviewing
all the MedicaidforHBOT documents from 1999 through 2009. Finally,
it was his conclusion that Trevathan is an inherently dishonest
person, and I had not only discovered his dishonesty but additionally,
with that dishonesty Trevathan had squarely placed himself in
the crosshairs of eventual self-destruction that would most likely
end his career.
Further, my attorney believed the Georgia
stalking law is unconstitutional. If I have a restraining order
against me, the restraining party can contact the police with
a claim of violation of the order, and I would be immediately
arrested and jailed. It was then up to me to prove myself innocent
before I
could be released from jail. He believed Trevathan's goal was
to put me in jail so I could not talk about what I knew.
So I've been silent until the restraining
order ended, which it did a few weeks ago.
But here's the thing about Trevathan
that I believe is truly evil. If you read
the transcript from the 2000 hearing, he claimed the SPECT scans
were not only unreliable, he also advised Georgia Medicaid to
not cover HBOT because cerebral palsy is a motor disability and
Jimmy's "unreliable" SPECT scans didn't show improvement
in the area of brain that controls motor function. Instead Jimmy's
second scan shows primary improvement in the temporal lobe--which
just controls speech, language, and cognitive function.
Whoa. Let's think about that one a minute.
Most children suffering from spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy
also suffer from cognitive impairment (like 90%), and here's
something that improves cognitive abilities, and this Nazi named
Trevathan says, "No!"
And now we also have a national epidemic
where more than 1 in 100 children are suffering disfunction brought
about by their nonfunctioning or poorly functioning temporal
lobes (called Autism), and because the CDC's National Director
of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities said no to HBOT
11 years ago, declaring it "scientifically silly",
his ego will not allow him to admit error (even though he said
he would to me in his email), and so here we all sit.
Well, I've had a year to think about
this, and I've got some ideas.
While this event was difficult for me
personally, in the end, this may be a good thing for the entire
off-label HBOT community. While the medical traditionalists keep
saying we have to have more studies, the history of HBOT does
not have studies when new indications are added. They're added
when evidence is accumulated that HBOT works for certain situations,
such as Decompression Sickness--which, by the way, is an hypoxic-ischemic
brain-injury--just like cerebral palsy and autism and stroke.
So if the evidence exists that people suffering from hypoxic-ischemic
brain-injury improve from HBOT, then historically, HBOT for these
brain-injuries should be added.
But what happens if there's a sneaking
suspicion that the decision-makers in charge of making policy
decisions have a prejudice, a bigotry against HBOT. What if there's
an active discrimination against the use of HBOT for our most
chronic conditions--despite the documentation of efficacy.
Well, that situation now exists. The
big cheese at the CDC has known for 11 years that there is an
FDA-approved intervention that improves function in the frontal
lobe of brain-injured children suffering from cognitive disorders.
In fact, if and when a controlled study is published to move
that knowledge from anecdotal to proven according to the standards
of evidence-based medicine, and you make him aware of it, the
record indicates he'll take legal action against you to shut
you up so as to keep it swept under the rug.
Well, here's the deal. Here's what I'm
thinking. First and foremost, no matter what you do--do not--under
any circumstance contact him directly and quiz him on it. If
you do that, we lose our advantage.
Instead, I'm thinking, we still have
this thing called a United States
Constitution. We still have a First Amendment right to free speech.
And each one of us still has two United States Senators and a
member of the United States House of Representatives. Plus, we
also have a President of the United States who just twisted the
arms of enough members of the House and enough members of the
Senate to get a 1-vote majority in each house so as to reform
the way that healthcare is administered in the United States.
That means, there's an inherent commitment
to doing business a different way.
My idea is for each one of us to sit
down and write a letter to our senators and representative and
president and (a) document HBOT efficacy for brain-injury (b)
include an explanation of the Medicaid law for children and how
it mandates HBOT coverage for brain-injury (c) as evidenced by
coverage now in 20-something states, (d) next detail Trevathan's
history of denying HBOT efficacy at the detriment of hundreds
of thousands if not millions of children--not through honest
difference of scientific opinion but instead through deceit and
dishonesty. Therefore (e) a full review of policy governing access
to and use of HBOT for brain-injury is in order, and (f) specifically
somebody needs to be in charge who will fully explore and implement
the use of HBOT for brain-injury--not only at the CDC but also
at all other government agencies.
At one time, I had the 2000 transcript
and copy of the letter from Trevathan to my neighbor on the files
page at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/medicaidforhbot/files/ . I just
went through there and couldn't find them. In the next few days
I'll put that back up there, along with Trevathan's 2009 complaint.
I'll also include our email correspondence from 2000. All these
will include a list of his dishonest statements and assertions.
I would really like to coordinate this
so that all our letters hit the desks of
our senators and representatives at the same time. I think that
would create more impact and generate more leverage. This group
has over 2000 members. Let's take advantage of our size.
Let's discuss this some more as a group.
Maybe there's a way to refine the idea even more.
David Freels
2948 Windfield Circle
Tucker, GA 30084-6714
770-491-6776 (phone)
404-725-4520 (cell)
815-366-7962 (fax)
http://www.davidfreels.com
Voir aussi cet ajout suite à
des réponses reçues par David Freels :
Re: Utilizing the First Amendment.
I've received a number of off-list emails
and have seen some reply posts here of folks gladly offering
to participate in a letter-writing campaign to our members of
congress.
I need to clarify something. This shouldn't
just be a letter-writing campaign
about HBOT. This is different, and I guess I should have made
this clearer. I guess I was hoping more people could read between
the lines in my previous email on this.
If you go here http://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/trevathan.htm
you'll see that Trevathan has an extensive history with Georgia
Medicaid going back long before our first request for HBOT coverage
in 1999.
"Dr. Trevathan worked at CDC from 1987 to 1989 as an Epidemic
Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in birth defects and developmental
disabilities."
"From 1989 to 1995, Trevathan was a partner in a child neurology
private
practice in Atlanta based at Scottish Rite Children's Hospital,
while he also
was on the clinical faculty at Emory. While there, he consulted
with state
health departments and with private industry, and designed and
directed clinical trials of anti-epileptic drugs."
When our neighbor contacted Trevathan
in August, 1999, she told him we were seeking Medicaid coverage
of HBOT. Because Trevathan had already consulted with Georgia
Medicaid in the past, I think he in turn contacted Georgia Medicaid
and asked them if he could "help" with the decision-making
process in our request for HBOT coverage. I think he knew how
to get his foot in the door with Georgia Medicaid to thwart our
reimbursement efforts.
And that's just the first unethical
thing he did.
Here's #2:
Though prior to the enactment of the HIPPA medical privacy laws,
nonetheless, when he told Rhonda that he made the decision for
a Georgia Medicaid recipient, most likely it wouldn't be that
hard to identify who that child was, and this was evident because
as soon as Rhonda made the post, I knew exactly who Trevathan
was referring to.
From:
Subject: hbo-list: HBOT and SPECT scan
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 14:22:55 -0600
Sender: hbo-list-errors@...
Reply-To: hbo-list@...
To: hbo-list@...
Dear List:
Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when
it comes to HBOT. A doctor in St.Louis Mo told
me that the scan changes from day to day. The
seizures make it change and he said that the changes
we saw and Dr. Uszler reported on were really not
improvements just I guess mistakes. If you take another
scan the next day it would be different. What is the
truth about this. This doctor was used by Georgia STate
to determine if a child would get the treatements paid for.
Of course he denied that it helped in anyway. He said the
spects did not prove that a real change occured. Can anyone
explain? This doctor was a Neurologist.Rhonda
hbo-list@... is a public discussion forum for the field of
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. For more information about this list,
please see http://www.hyperbaric.com/list.htm .
Unethical event #3:
"Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when it
comes to HBOT."
Let's think about this for a minute. Rhonda just got home from
a visit with
Trevathan. She doubts what he's saying and is instead going to
ask the panel of experts who reside on the hbo-list rather than
just swallow whatever Trevathan's giving her. That also means
the first thing she says about that visit has a very high degree
of accuracy in terms of repeating what Trevathan told her. So
look again at what she says:
"Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when it
comes to HBOT."
Trevathan told her SPECT-scan imaging is unreliable--specifically
when assessing changes before/after Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy,
and the implication here then is that SPECT scans are accurate--except
with HBOT. This is not true. This is untrue. This is a lie. Pediatric
Neurologist Edwin Trevathan lied to Rhonda, the mother of his
patient.
And she knew it. She drove home Friday
afternoon, and the next day she was in church. She's Jehovah's
Witness, which I'm fairly sure they worship on Saturdays, but
maybe not. The bigger point is, Rhonda has thought about this
for a couple of days, and gets the idea to ask the hbo-list for
confirmation.
Here's the response to her post:
From ???@??? Mon Feb 14 21:26:41 2000
Return-Path: <hbo-list-errors@...>
Received: from lists1.best.com ([206.86.8.15])
by mx9.mindspring.com (Mindspring Mail Service) with ESMTP id
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Mon, 14 Feb 2000 07:53:44 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <200002141553.HAA04915@...>
From: "Philip James" <p.b.james@...>
Subject: hbo-list: HBOT and SPECT scan
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2000 15:55:30 +0
BestServHost: lists.best.com
In-Reply-To: <200002132013.MAA06212@...>
Sender: hbo-list-errors@...
Errors-To: hbo-list-errors@...
Reply-To: hbo-list@...
To: hbo-list@...
Rhonda wrote :-
Dear List:
Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when
it comes to HBOT. A doctor in St.Louis Mo told
me that the scan changes from day to day. The
seizures make it change and he said that the changes
we saw and Dr. Uszler reported on were really not
improvements just I guess mistakes. If you take another
scan the next day it would be different. What is the
truth about this. This doctor was used by Georgia STate
to determine if a child would get the treatements paid for.
Of course he denied that it helped in anyway. He said the
spects did not prove that a real change occured. Can anyone
explain? This doctor was a Neurologist.Rhonda
Dear Rhonda
If the neurologist has data on the day to day variation of SPECT
then
please obtain the reference tot he publication from him/her.
Unfortunately I suspect there is none and this is a typical "brush
off" that is encountered whenever oxygen therapy is mentioned.
SPECT changes are valuable when correlated with improvements
in the patient.
Best wishes
Philip James
Wolfson Hyperbaric Medicine Unit
University of Dundee
hbo-list@... is a public discussion forum for the field of
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. For more information about this list,
please see http://www.hyperbaric.com/list.htm .
Philip James saw right away what was
going on: "this is a typical "brush off" that
is encountered whenever oxygen therapy is mentioned."
Of course, all of this occurred 11 years ago and the big question
is: does this have any relevance to our children today?
Yes, it does. Again, let's go back to the very beginning of this
saga, when my neighbor contacted Trevathan and asked him the
likelihood that a CP child can improve from HBOT--and this is
after she's already seen him improve.
"The notion that it [HBOT] could 'wake up' damaged areas
of brain is frankly scientifically silly." --Pediatric Neurologist
Edwin Trevathan, August 14, 1999.
Let's define Trevathan's phrase "wake
up." He's referring to metabolism. If
"damaged areas of brain" are merely under metabolizing,
i.e., asleep (to use Trevathan's analogy), according to Trevathan,
it's "scientifically silly" for those damaged areas
to wake up via HBOT.
(Trevathan is also on the record at
the CDC as stating autistic children have no mitochondrial or
metabolism issues. See
http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2008/t080307.htm However,
they must be having mitochondrial and/or metabolism issues or
they wouldn't be improving with HBOT.)
Back to our timeline, Trevathan next
contacts Georgia Medicaid and says let me help you evaluate the
request for Medicaid coverage of HBOT from the family living
on Windfield Circle in Tucker, Georgia.
Our evidence of HBOT efficacy: Before/after SPECT-scan imaging.
He tells Georgia Medicaid SPECT scans are unreliable when it
comes to use with HBOT--without any shred of evidence.
Besides unethical, Trevathan's actions
also make him guilty of medical
malpractice. He's a member of the Child Neurology Society (CNS),
and the CNS subscribes to the ethics requirements of the American
Academy of Neurology (AAN). AAN's directive on providing expert
witness testimony mandates two requirements (1) Education on
the subject matter in question, i.e., to testify on SPECT-scan
imaging Trevathan needs board certification in radiology. He
had none. And (2) besides Education, Trevathan is also required
to have Experience with the specific subject, i.e., he should
have had experience in the treatment of cerebral palsy children
with HBOT.
(This means, according to AAN ethics requirements, the person
qualified to render an opinion on the value of SPECT-scan imaging
before/after HBOT would be somebody like radiologist Dr. J. Michael
Uszler, and as for an expert opinion on the value of HBOT for
CP kids, that would be somebody like a Richard Neubauer or a
Paul Harch.)
(Also, according to AAN Ethics, of which the CNS fully subscribes
to (agrees with), if and when a neurologist does provide expert
witness testimony when s/he has neither the Education or the
Experience requirement, that neurologist is guilty of medical
malpractice, and this is what occurred with Trevathan's opinion
in 1999 in Freels v Georgia DCH.)
At trial, the coordinator's testimony of Trevathan's statements
was essentially the same as what Trevathan told Rhonda. Again,
Trevathan lied. So that's two lies. Beyond that, Trevathan also
stated Jimmy's SPECT scans didn't show improvement in the motor
areas and so HBOT should be denied for that reason, while acknowledging
the "unreliable" SPECT did show improvement in the
temporal lobe--which controls speech, language, and cognition--but
these weren't the motor areas of the brain and so reimbursement
should be denied.
Here, I find Trevathan's opinion to
be sinister. This is evil. It's cruel.
Here's an intervention that can bring a disabled child into the
realm of active intellectual engagement with the world around
him, and this guy says no because he still can't walk?
(Keep in mind, it's people like Trevathan who will be making
medical decisions for all of us once the government has full
control of our healthcare system.)
When I finally contacted Trevathan personally
in 2001, I asked him for
documentation of his assertion that SPECT-scan imaging was unreliable
for HBOT.
He never acknowledged the request. Instead,
he threatened me with legal recourse if I contacted him again--then
later stated not to contact him again until there was a controlled
study.
As it turns out, the controlled study is finally published when
Trevathan is now the National Director of Birth Defects and Developmental
Disabilities at the CDC. It's now his official job to be looking
at anything and everything that has efficacy--regardless of where
that efficacy is coming from.
His response was to threaten me with
an FBI visit and eventually a restraining order.
I believe our letter-writing campaign
to Congress is for members of Congress themselves to remove Trevathan
from his position (because of his dishonesty and unethical actions)
and replace him with someone who--at the very least--will be
open to employing HBOT to treat CP and autistic children.
This would be a huge, huge immeasurable
benefit to our children.
Right now, at best, the CDC director of DD and BDefects is someone
who has an extensive history of personally suppressing the use
of HBOT for CP and autism, often engaging in deceitful, dishonest,
and unethical means by which to suppress HBOT. Why? Who knows.
Maybe it's his ego. Maybe he has a loyalty to the pharmaceutical
companies. If you go back and look at his CDC bio, most of his
career is in testing anti-epileptic meds, and as most HBOT docs
will tell you, most brain-injured children experience dramatically
reduced seizure activity with HBOT.
Now, I want to make something clear.
I'm not motivated by revenge here. Instead, I think we (as parents)
now have a distinct and documented advantage because we have
a guy in charge who has a very real and clear bias. He is dishonest
and unethical, and these two characteristics are also well-documented.
Most significant, the scientific documentation now exists for
HBOT efficacy for brain-injury. This is further underlined by
Medicaid reimbursement changes in 20-something states.
So this is a big deal. We've made inroads,
and now we have an opportunity to put somebody in place who embraces
HBOT. I think we should take advantage of it. One last comment.
Nothing would make me happier than for Trevathan to get on board
with HBOT. That's why I sent him the link to Rossignol's paper
just over a year ago. However, at this point, I don't trust him,
and I don't think anyone else can trust him either. Even if he
were to now say he'll "look at" HBOT, I doubt an honest
assessment, given his history.
Thoughts?
I'll post the documentation tomorrow.
David Freels
2948 Windfield Circle
Tucker, GA 30084-6714
770-491-6776 (phone)
404-725-4520 (cell)
815-366-7962 (fax)
mailto:david@...
http://www.MedicaidforHBOT.com
http://www.davidfreels.com
Voici un commentaire additionnel de
David Freels suite à des courriels qu'il a reçu.
16 mai 2010
Re: Utilizing the First Amendment.
I've received a number of off-list emails
and have seen some reply posts here of folks gladly offering
to participate in a letter-writing campaign to our members of
congress.
I need to clarify something. This shouldn't just be a letter-writing
campaign
about HBOT. This is different, and I guess I should have made
this clearer. I guess I was hoping more people could read between
the lines in my previous email on this.
If you go here http://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/trevathan.htm
you'll see that Trevathan has an extensive history with Georgia
Medicaid going back long before our first request for HBOT coverage
in 1999.
"Dr. Trevathan worked at CDC from 1987 to 1989 as an Epidemic
Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in birth defects and developmental
disabilities."
"From 1989 to 1995, Trevathan was a partner in a child neurology
private
practice in Atlanta based at Scottish Rite Children's Hospital,
while he also
was on the clinical faculty at Emory. While there, he consulted
with state
health departments and with private industry, and designed and
directed clinical trials of anti-epileptic drugs."
When our neighbor contacted Trevathan
in August, 1999, she told him we were seeking Medicaid coverage
of HBOT. Because Trevathan had already consulted with Georgia
Medicaid in the past, I think he in turn contacted Georgia Medicaid
and asked them if he could "help" with the decision-making
process in our request for HBOT coverage. I think he knew how
to get his foot in the door with Georgia Medicaid to thwart our
reimbursement efforts.
And that's just the first unethical
thing he did.
Here's #2:
Though prior to the enactment of the HIPPA medical privacy laws,
nonetheless, when he told Rhonda that he made the decision for
a Georgia Medicaid recipient, most likely it wouldn't be that
hard to identify who that child was, and this was evident because
as soon as Rhonda made the post, I knew exactly who Trevathan
was referring to.
From:
Subject: hbo-list: HBOT and SPECT scan
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 14:22:55 -0600
BestServHost: lists.best.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: hbo-list-errors@...
Reply-To: hbo-list@...
To: hbo-list@...
Dear List:
Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when
it comes to HBOT. A doctor in St.Louis Mo told
me that the scan changes from day to day. The
seizures make it change and he said that the changes
we saw and Dr. Uszler reported on were really not
improvements just I guess mistakes. If you take another
scan the next day it would be different. What is the
truth about this. This doctor was used by Georgia STate
to determine if a child would get the treatements paid for.
Of course he denied that it helped in anyway. He said the
spects did not prove that a real change occured. Can anyone
explain? This doctor was a Neurologist.Rhonda
hbo-list@... is a public discussion forum for the field of
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. For more information about this list,
please see http://www.hyperbaric.com/list.htm .
Unethical event #3:
"Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when it
comes to HBOT."
Let's think about this for a minute. Rhonda just got home from
a visit with
Trevathan. She doubts what he's saying and is instead going to
ask the panel of experts who reside on the hbo-list rather than
just swallow whatever Trevathan's giving her. That also means
the first thing she says about that visit has a very high degree
of accuracy in terms of repeating what Trevathan told her. So
look again at what she says:
"Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when it
comes to HBOT."
Trevathan told her SPECT-scan imaging is unreliable--specifically
when assessing changes before/after Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy,
and the implication here then is that SPECT scans are accurate--except
with HBOT. This is not true. This is untrue. This is a lie. Pediatric
Neurologist Edwin Trevathan lied to Rhonda, the mother of his
patient.
And she knew it. She drove home Friday
afternoon, and the next day she was in church. She's Jehovah's
Witness, which I'm fairly sure they worship on Saturdays, but
maybe not. The bigger point is, Rhonda has thought about this
for a couple of days, and gets the idea to ask the hbo-list for
confirmation.
Here's the response to her post:
From ???@??? Mon Feb 14 21:26:41 2000
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From: "Philip James" <p.b.james@...>
Subject: hbo-list: HBOT and SPECT scan
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2000 15:55:30 +0
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Rhonda wrote :-
Dear List:
Is it true that Spect scan can not be reliable when
it comes to HBOT. A doctor in St.Louis Mo told
me that the scan changes from day to day. The
seizures make it change and he said that the changes
we saw and Dr. Uszler reported on were really not
improvements just I guess mistakes. If you take another
scan the next day it would be different. What is the
truth about this. This doctor was used by Georgia STate
to determine if a child would get the treatements paid for.
Of course he denied that it helped in anyway. He said the
spects did not prove that a real change occured. Can anyone
explain? This doctor was a Neurologist.Rhonda
Dear Rhonda
If the neurologist has data on the day to day variation of SPECT
then
please obtain the reference tot he publication from him/her.
Unfortunately I suspect there is none and this is a typical "brush
off" that is encountered whenever oxygen therapy is mentioned.
SPECT changes are valuable when correlated with improvements
in the patient.
Best wishes
Philip James
Wolfson Hyperbaric Medicine Unit
University of Dundee
hbo-list@... is a public discussion forum for the field of
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. For more information about this list,
please see http://www.hyperbaric.com/list.htm .
Philip James saw right away what was
going on: "this is a typical "brush off" that
is encountered whenever oxygen therapy is mentioned."
Of course, all of this occurred 11 years ago and the big question
is: does this have any relevance to our children today?
Yes, it does. Again, let's go back to the very beginning of this
saga, when my neighbor contacted Trevathan and asked him the
likelihood that a CP child can improve from HBOT--and this is
after she's already seen him improve.
"The notion that it [HBOT] could 'wake up' damaged areas
of brain is frankly scientifically silly." --Pediatric Neurologist
Edwin Trevathan, August 14, 1999.
Let's define Trevathan's phrase "wake
up." He's referring to metabolism. If
"damaged areas of brain" are merely under metabolizing,
i.e., asleep (to use Trevathan's analogy), according to Trevathan,
it's "scientifically silly" for those damaged areas
to wake up via HBOT.
(Trevathan is also on the record at the CDC as stating autistic
children have no mitochondrial or metabolism issues. See
http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2008/t080307.htm However,
they must be having mitochondrial and/or metabolism issues or
they wouldn't be improving with HBOT.)
Back to our timeline, Trevathan next
contacts Georgia Medicaid and says let me help you evaluate the
request for Medicaid coverage of HBOT from the family living
on Windfield Circle in Tucker, Georgia.
Our evidence of HBOT efficacy: Before/after
SPECT-scan imaging. He tells Georgia Medicaid SPECT scans are
unreliable when it comes to use with HBOT--without any shred
of evidence.
Besides unethical, Trevathan's actions
also make him guilty of medical
malpractice. He's a member of the Child Neurology Society (CNS),
and the CNS subscribes to the ethics requirements of the American
Academy of Neurology (AAN). AAN's directive on providing expert
witness testimony mandates two requirements (1) Education on
the subject matter in question, i.e., to testify on SPECT-scan
imaging Trevathan needs board certification in radiology. He
had none. And (2) besides Education, Trevathan is also required
to have Experience with the specific subject, i.e., he should
have had experience in the treatment of cerebral palsy children
with HBOT.
(This means, according to AAN ethics
requirements, the person qualified to render an opinion on the
value of SPECT-scan imaging before/after HBOT would be somebody
like radiologist Dr. J. Michael Uszler, and as for an expert
opinion on the value of HBOT for CP kids, that would be somebody
like a Richard Neubauer or a Paul Harch.)
(Also, according to AAN Ethics, of which the CNS fully subscribes
to (agrees with), if and when a neurologist does provide expert
witness testimony when s/he has neither the Education or the
Experience requirement, that neurologist is guilty of medical
malpractice, and this is what occurred with Trevathan's opinion
in 1999 in Freels v Georgia DCH.)
At trial, the coordinator's testimony of Trevathan's statements
was essentially the same as what Trevathan told Rhonda. Again,
Trevathan lied. So that's two lies. Beyond that, Trevathan also
stated Jimmy's SPECT scans didn't show improvement in the motor
areas and so HBOT should be denied for that reason, while acknowledging
the "unreliable" SPECT did show improvement in the
temporal lobe--which controls speech, language, and cognition--but
these weren't the motor areas of the brain and so reimbursement
should be denied.
Here, I find Trevathan's opinion to
be sinister. This is evil. It's cruel.
Here's an intervention that can bring a disabled child into the
realm of active intellectual engagement with the world around
him, and this guy says no because he still can't walk?
(Keep in mind, it's people like Trevathan who will be making
medical decisions for all of us once the government has full
control of our healthcare system.)
When I finally contacted Trevathan personally
in 2001, I asked him for
documentation of his assertion that SPECT-scan imaging was unreliable
for HBOT.
He never acknowledged the request. Instead,
he threatened me with legal recourse if I contacted him again--then
later stated not to contact him again until there was a controlled
study.
As it turns out, the controlled study is finally published when
Trevathan is now the National Director of Birth Defects and Developmental
Disabilities at the CDC. It's now his official job to be looking
at anything and everything that has efficacy--regardless of where
that efficacy is coming from.
His response was to threaten me with
an FBI visit and eventually a restraining order.
I believe our letter-writing campaign to Congress is for members
of Congress themselves to remove Trevathan from his position
(because of his dishonesty and unethical actions) and replace
him with someone who--at the very least--will be open to employing
HBOT to treat CP and autistic children.
This would be a huge, huge immeasurable
benefit to our children.
Right now, at best, the CDC director of DD and BDefects is someone
who has an extensive history of personally suppressing the use
of HBOT for CP and autism, often engaging in deceitful, dishonest,
and unethical means by which to suppress HBOT. Why? Who knows.
Maybe it's his ego. Maybe he has a loyalty to the pharmaceutical
companies. If you go back and look at his CDC bio, most of his
career is in testing anti-epileptic meds, and as most HBOT docs
will tell you, most brain-injured children experience dramatically
reduced seizure activity with HBOT.
Now, I want to make something clear.
I'm not motivated by revenge here. Instead, I think we (as parents)
now have a distinct and documented advantage because we have
a guy in charge who has a very real and clear bias. He is dishonest
and unethical, and these two characteristics are also well-documented.
Most significant, the scientific documentation now exists for
HBOT efficacy for brain-injury. This is further underlined by
Medicaid reimbursement changes in 20-something states.
So this is a big deal. We've made inroads,
and now we have an opportunity to put somebody in place who embraces
HBOT. I think we should take advantage of it.
One last comment. Nothing would make
me happier than for Trevathan to get on board with HBOT. That's
why I sent him the link to Rossignol's paper just over a year
ago. However, at this point, I don't trust him, and I don't think
anyone else can trust him either. Even if he were to now say
he'll "look at" HBOT, I doubt an honest assessment,
given his history.
Thoughts?
I'll post the documentation tomorrow.
David Freels
2948 Windfield Circle
Tucker, GA 30084-6714
770-491-6776 (phone)
404-725-4520 (cell)
815-366-7962 (fax)
mailto:david@...
http://www.MedicaidforHBOT.com
http://www.davidfreels.com
16 mai 2010
Un autre commentaire de David Freels
:
Dr Trevathan is now the National Director
of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the United
States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC. The
CDC is an agency of the United States Dept of Health and Human
Services (HHS). Other (but not all) HHS agencies include the
FDA and CMS--the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
These are public health agencies and
not private companies. As public health agencies, they answer
to the citizens of the United States--and that would be you and
me.
HHS is part of the Executive branch
of government, but each agency controlled by the Executive branch
must answer to the Legislative branch of government. For example,
in May, 2004, the Government Affairs Committee of the US House
of Representatives held hearings on the use of HBOT in the treatment
of autism.
Testimony was heard from four members
of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association (IHMA): Dr.
Paul Harch, Dr. Ken Stoller, Dr. Rashid Buttar, and Julie Gordon
of MUMS.
Dr. William Duncan, then a senior Staff
member for Ernest Istook of Oklahoma is probably the person most
responsible for ensuring these hearings took place. His boss,
Ernest Istook, was then the Chairman of the House Appropriations
Committee, arguably one of the most powerful committees in the
US Congress. They decide the budget of the CDC.
In August of 2004, Dr Duncan met with each individual director
of the CDC. He invited me to attend, and I intended to publish
an article about those meetings in *Hyperbaric Medicine Today*
(HMT) magazine. Unfortunately, the magazine stopped publishing
about the same time.
The use of HBOT to treat autism as presented
in the May, 2004 congressional hearings was discussed with each
director throughout the day. Each director in turn requested
further information about the use of HBOT for autism as that
information became available. That's why I sent the email in
March, 2009 containing a link to download the Rossignol paper.
There are many knowledgeable people
who believe the CDC is itself ultimately responsible for the
autism epidemic, as the predominant theory on the cause of autism
is vaccine injury and the CDC is charged with ensuring vaccine
safety.
There is also perpetual theory and rumor
that senior CDC officials have been engaged in a sophisticated
cover-up of the CDC's participation in the
proliferation of autism.
Verification of CDC corruption at such
a senior level has been difficult if not impossible to substantiate.
Well, now a situation does exist where a very senior CDC Director
has not only misrepresented medical science, but has even gone
so far as to threaten and intimidate a private citizen so as
to prevent public disclosure of this fact.
The sitting President of the United
States campaigned on a promise of bringing Hope and Change to
US citizens regarding the manner in which the Federal government
interacts with them. Since that time, he also pushed through
a highly controversial health care bill that promises change
in the manner in which healthcare is administered.
At the same time, members of this group
and members of other HBOT groups have diligently fought to access
off-label HBOT for their brain-injured loved ones.
There are now thousands of brain-injured
people who've improved from
HBOT--despite the scientifically silly possibility that HBOT
works.
Should all of this dishonest and unethical behavior of Trevathan's
become public knowledge--and there's no change within the CDC
(and thus HHS), all that does is throw gas on a fire and substantiate
speculation that the CDC really is covering stuff up about autism
and does not have the best interests of disabled children at
heart. I believe they would remove Trevathan and place someone
who is interested, maybe even dedicated to utilizing HBOT--and
that makes this a win for our kids.
The CDC does not want its reputation
damaged further. In light of the highly damaging nature of the
Trevathan documentation, I think this disclosure via complaints
to members of congress will make this happen.
Again, I believe these complaints must go through our members
of Congress. I believe it would be highly counter-productive
to address the CDC directly. Most likely, immediate retribution
would come my way, perhaps with another charge of harassment.
Or worse. On the other hand, if members of this group choose
to file a complaint and go through your members of Congress,
then the complaints would only be US citizens exercising their
Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly (this MedicaidforHBOT
group) and freedom of speech (the formal complaint regarding
the documented bias and deceit of Trevathan.
To George Kincaid--I hope this makes
sense. I don't want anybody to do my dirty work. Besides, this
is not dirty work. I'm not out to get Trevathan; I'm out to help
my son. We are all here to help our children. The CDC's National
Director of BD and DD has clearly demonstrated he is highly,
highly opposed to HBOT--regardless of the scientific evidence.
Yet HBOT has helped my son more than anything. Therefore, I oppose
the CDC's placement of this person in the position he holds.
They can put him somewhere else. I think the CDC can find someone
else more qualified and dedicated to helping our children.
David Freels
2948 Windfield Circle
Tucker, GA 30084-6714
770-491-6776 (phone)
404-725-4520 (cell)
815-366-7962 (fax)
http://www.davidfreels.com
Échanges de courriels entre David
Freels et Dr Edwin Trevathan et documents liés
1st Email To Trevathan.pdf
First email to Edwin Trevathan by David Freels, sent June 22,
2001 at 12:59 am. Notice the time and date because it becomes
highly relevant for a claim Trevathan later makes. Freels states
two things are required to become a pediatric neurologist, "you
should have a brain and a spine."
2nd Email To Trevathan.pdf
Sent at 10:34 am June 22, 2001. Trevathan states, "the purpose
of my rendering opinions is to do the very best I can to be honest
and accurate." Freels asks, "...can you cite any peer-reviewed
article that supports your opinion...that SPECT-scans are inaccurate."
3rd Email To Trevathan.pdf
Sent 6/24/01 in reply to Trevathan's 3rd email to Freels, which
was 350% longer than Trevathan's 1st email to Freels. Here, Trevathan
states, "When the [HBOT] trial is completed, if it is found
to work, then I'll be happy to say I was wrong. Will you do the
same if the trial proves it doesn't work? Until such a trial
is completed, this will end our discussion." After Freels
informed Trevathan of the Rossignol controlled trial, Trevathan
sent the FBI.
Nicholson On Trevathan.pdf
February 13, 2000 post by Rhonda on the old hbo-list, asking
if it's true that SPECT-scan imaging is unreliable when used
before/after HBOT. Her pediatric neurologist, Edwin Trevathan,
stated SPECT is unreliable for HBOT.
Trevathan 2001 Police Report.pdf
This police report filed 6/22/2001 at 11:10am Central Time-12pm
EST, documents Trevathan lying. His 3rd email to Freels, some
700+ words, was sent AFTER this police report. Knowing it was
untrue in 2001, Trevathan lied again in 2009 when he had it faxed
to him to include in his 2009 request for a restraining order
against Freels.
Trevathans
2nd Email To Freels.pdf
This reply email from Freels to Trevathan contains Trevathan's
2nd email to Freels. Notice the time and date of Trevathan's
2nd email to Freels: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 15:55:17, i.e., Friday
June 22nd at 3:55 pm.
Trevathan Testimony.pdf
Transcript of the testimony of Vangie McKenzie of the Georgia
Medical Care Foundation (GMCF) at the 2000 ALJ hearing in Freels
v Georgia DCH. The testimony documents Trevathan's unsubstantiated
position on HBOT and SPECT-scan imaging.
Commentaires de Daniel Pagé :
Ce texte expose un complot médical très grave et
la grossière imposture que représente cette organisation
maléfique qui gère la production et la mise en
marché des vaccins aux USA et qui influence également
les pourris de la santé publique du Québec et du
Canada.
Le CDC est l'agence de santé
américaine la plus diabolique qui soit en Amérique
du Nord. C'est eux qui approuvent les vaccins et sont directement
responsables de l'épidémie des cas d'autisme et
de maladies infantiles causées par les vaccins. Ils camouflent
la vérité comprenez-vous? Mais c'est quand même
la référence aux USA ? Le monde à l'envers.
L'imposture du Cartel Phamaceutique qui pousse sur ces maudits
vaccins empoisonnés! Le rideau tombe et les vraies intentions
des agences de santé publique deviennent clairement visible.
La santé ne les intéresse pas. Ils génèrent
la maladie. Vous trouverez au bas de cette page les échanges
de courriel entre David Freels et le Dr Edwin Trevathan.
Le CDC est impliqué dans le camouflage
du lien vaccins autisme !