NC Medical Board Dr. Rashid A. Buttar Transcript - Page 11 of 16
And it's usually pretty extensive because they've got charts, they've got scans, they've, you know, very thorough paperwork, they've got laboratory results, so it's pretty much mostly listening and collecting information and seeing what's pertinent.
QDo they ask you questions?
AGenerally speaking after we're done collecting the history, they may ask me some question, but most of them have already come seeking me out. They've done whatever research they've done. It's not that I have to convince them of anything.
QWhat kind of questions do they ask you?
AThey ask me questions ‑- I mean, they're varied. They ask me if they're going to feel nausea and vomiting when they're getting treatments. They ask me what are my chances.
QWhat do you tell them when they ask you that?
AI tell them I'm only a man, God is the only one who determines that.
QWould they ask if you ‑- if they ‑- if you can help them?
AIf they ask me if ‑- they ask me if I can help them, yes, I've been asked that.
QAnd what do you tell them?
AI tell them that I'm going to do my best, if I can.
QDo you say that you can help them?
ANo, I don't say I can do anything until I've made a determination after reviewing everything whether or not I can help them.
QAnd ‑- and you said they come with you with ‑- excuse me, with labs and scans and ‑- and all kinds of medical records?
AYes.
QAnd you review that?
AYes.
QAnd ‑-
AI may not review it when I'm with the patient right there, but I review it, you know, later on at the end of the day or whatever.
QAnd I'm trying to understand why you review it because it seems as though despite what the records and scans may say, they're all still going to get the same treatments.
AWell, they're not getting the same treatments. If you look at the treatments you will see that the incidents of the treatments, the frequency of the treatments, the dosage of the treatments, even the ‑- even the constituents of the treatments.
For instance, Ms. ‑- Ms. ‑- well, Patient A received lipoic acid. That's how ‑- lipoic acid with selenium intravenously. That's the reason I was able to get her liver functioning again. That's documented with liver function tests over a week and a half period.
I can give you the exact numbers, but her ‑- but her LFTs ‑- I'm going to find that chart, but I've got ‑- I've got the dates from ‑- from 7/31 to 8/03, in that four-day period that she had drops in her liver functions tests based upon the lipoic acid, selenium intravenous drips that I give her.
But Patient B and Patient C did not receive that because they didn't have an issue with their liver.
Or for instance Patient C received IRRs more frequently because he had an actual perceivable deficit. He was actually experiencing shortness of breath, whereas Patient A and Patient B did not experience that. Patient A started experiencing it more towards the end.
So each one of these patients is getting treatment that's based upon them. We write orders ‑- you have the order sheets there, you can see how often orders are written and what things are different. We have a general protocol and then we adjust it based upon each patient.
QIs there a point where the cancer has spread so much that you will look at the scan and say I just can't do anything?
APatient A is an example of that, yes.
QOkay. And tell me why, what happened there.
AAs I had previously said, the patient was now in organ failure. When she came to me my goal was to up-regulate her liver if I could do that and it was successful for the first four, five, six days.
Her pain medicine levels ‑- excuse me, the level of pain she had was better and she didn't need as much narcotics and she was able to actually stop all of her narcotics for a period of five, six days, whatever it says in the chart.
And she had symptomatic reduction off abdominal distention, she had better energy, but then it started deteriorating again. That was correlated with her liver functions going up again.
So in that patient, it was obvious that she was already in organ failure. And if somebody is in organ failure, now the burden that is upon us as clinicians to try to help stimulate their immune system and to help detoxify their system becomes expedientially more difficult, if not impossible.
QAnd ‑- and with Patient C, the male patient.
APatient C.
QAt some point he came back with you and he went through all these protocols and ‑- and he showed you some scans, correct? He went through a radiation oncologist and brought back with him ‑-
AYes, he did.
Q‑- some scans?
AYes.
QAnd the result of that scan was to show that his cancer still spread?
AThis is ‑- are you talking about when he went to Mexico.
QNo, I'm talking about what he ‑- right before he stopped treatment.
AActually, that scan was done because I wanted the ‑- the doctors in Mexico to have a baseline of where he was. I did not ‑- I did not review those test results with him because he had the CAT scan done and the day ‑- the last day I saw him, I said that the tests were due today or tomorrow. I don't remember. It was like ‑- it was coming up very soon, so I did not have an opportunity to go over those tests with him directly.
QSo let's ‑- well, I guess let's go back to things that we can agree on. Patient C began your protocol with hydrogen, ozone, just like the others?
AYes.
QAnd his cancer, nonetheless, still spread?
AYes.
QPatient A began your protocol and her cancer kept spreading?
APatient A, is that what you said?
QUh-huh (yes).
ANow, Patient A was, as I said, already in ‑- in organ failure.
QAnd she ‑- she would die while she was basically there in Mecklenburg County in treatments from your office?
AYes.
QAnd Patient B, she began your protocols and her cancer still spread and she would later die in several months?
AWell, all ‑- all these patients have been told they were going to die. Each one of these patients outlived their expectancy. Patient A was told that she was a week, two weeks, three weeks, I'm not ‑- I don't remember directly exactly what she told, but she was when she came to me looked ‑- I mean, she was completely cathectic. She was partially obtunded. She was in dire straits. In fact, my recollection is that we gave her nutrients right ‑- right away because she was devoid.
Patient B was told that he had ‑- if I remember correctly, Patient B was told that she had less than three months. She eventually succumbed to a cancer more than five months after she finished our treatment -- and she didn't even finish our treatment. She only had maybe three and a half of four weeks of IV treatments. She was the one that was discharged and so she outlived her expectancy with only partial treatment.
And Patient C was ‑- he ‑- that was his second round. He was the one that had the colostomy after the sigmoid resection. He had the nephrectomy, the splenectomy, the adrenalectomy. And when he came to me he had cancer that spread, as I read in the chart, had already metastasized to his liver and to his lungs.
I don't remember offhand what they told him how long he had, but he's the patient that I remember that was under a severe amount of duress. And so I don't remember what his life expectancy was, but he died of a pulmonary emboli from what I understand.
QAnd you said they were all told they were going to die, correct?
AYes.
QDid you tell them that?
AI didn't need to tell them. Why would I reinforce what somebody else had said that they're going to die? We're all going to die, we just don't know how we're going to die.
QWhy would you not tell them that?
ABecause my job is not to play God. My job is to do my best to take care of my patients.
QIf you have a bunch of scans and x-rays and ‑- and other medical information and you look at it and the patient has a very terminal illness, a very bad illness, would it be expected that you tell the patient honestly what you think is going to happen to them?
AI think the best way for me to maybe explain this is by, if you will ‑- if the respective Members of the Board will indulge me, I will try to explain this in a way that may make you understand how I think. Is that all right?
QI mean ‑-
AI'm going to try to answer your question.
Q‑- if you could be responsive to the question ‑-
AYes.
QYou know, if ‑- if it looks very dire from the medical record, the cancer has spread throughout the body, they're in organ failure ‑-
AAbsolutely.
Q‑- why not be honest with them?
AWell, they've already had honestly, that's not what they need at that point. They need reassurance at that point.
But in my third postgraduate year in training and surgery, I was with my chief resident. At Brooke Army Medical Center we had a retired general with pancreatic cancer who had end-stage disease. He was in organ failure. And I sat there with ‑- with my chief resident who was explaining to this gentleman what was going to happen and what we were going to try to do, how we were going to control his nausea.
And this retired general asked my chief resident, how much time do I have.
And my chief resident said, sir, I don't know how much time you have. I don't know how much I have. What we have to remember is that we are not the deciding factors.
That night my chief resident drove home and was hit by a truck and he died. And he had just said that story less than five hours before he died.
So you see, I don't know when I'm going to be taken out, I don't know when you're going to be taken out, I don't know when anybody is going to be taken out, but I am not God and I refuse to tell a patient that they're going to die when every human being on this planet is going to die.
QI understand the ‑- you know, sort of the old saying that as soon as you're born, you start dying.
AThat's correct.
QAnd ‑- but some people have a better idea when they get a serious illness about when that time may come. So you refuse to tell them even though you have a very bad picture when they come in to you, but you are willing to treat them, correct?
AWell, that would not be accurate because when they come to me, they're usually telling me that this is what my doctor told me, I have this much time left to live. I'm not sure why I would, as a physician, reiterate what they're already telling me.
In the case of Patient ‑- in the case of Patient A, when it became obvious that this patient ‑- that even what I was doing was not helping this patient, I had the discussion with the daughter. And ‑- and the patient wouldn't even come into the room because she didn't want to hear possibly what I was going to say.
I don't know if you've ever been in that situation, Mr. Jimison, but I have been in that situation more than once and I can tell you it is not an easy situation. And I can tell you that any person that is put in a situation like that, it is a difficult situation to deal with.
I cannot in good faith know that I have to face my creator one day and tell him that I made your decisions. So I ‑- I've taken an oath to do no harm and I've taken an oath to do my best.
If I'm going to start telling patients that there's nothing that's going to be able to support your system, that you need to go and die, then maybe Dr. Kevorkian is the right person because he, at least, puts them out of their misery.
My point is very simple, I do what I can. Either I do that or I should alleviate their misery. We call it humane when you put a person -- or when we put a dog down, but we don't do that with humans. Why don't we do that with humans? Because we're trying to help them.
QDr. Buttar, if ‑- has there ever been an occasion where one of these end-stage cancer patients come to you and they bring you all their medical records and you review all their scans and you just look at it and you actually agree with their oncologist, there's nothing else to be done ‑-
AWell, the patient that you saw, the Stage IV cancer patient with multiple metastatic sights to her skull, to her liver, her spleen, -- (inaudible), she was told that. She was given six months to live, that was five years ago. She's PET scan negative now.
So how can I make that decision? I ‑- I can't make that decision. I can only do one thing and that is do my best. If my best is not good enough, then at least I know that I did my best, that's all I can do.
QAll I'm asking, again, I'm just trying to get a better response to the question I'm asking.
MS. GODFREY: Well, objection to a better response.
MR. JIMISON: Well, it's not ‑-
MS. GODFREY: I mean ‑-
MR. JIMISON: ‑- a better ‑- an actual response. A response ‑-
Q(By Mr. Jimison) Have you ever agreed ‑-
MS. GODFREY: You might not be hearing what he wants to hear, but that ‑-
QBut the question was, have you ever agreed with a doctor, that's all? I mean, an end-stage cancer patient comes in and presents to you, you look at their charts and you actually agree.
Has there ever been that occasion when you actually agreed with the oncologist that there's nothing that you could do and there's nothing that medicine can do for this patient?
AI think I've answered that, that I would be throwing that person out and they're not coming to me any more because they think that I'm going to do chemo or radiation or surgery on them.
They're coming to see if I can help them. I've had ‑- I've had a patient that was brought to me with soft tissue sarcoma who had lost over 100 pounds when he came to me and he was there because his family brought him to me. His family believed that I could help them.
And while I was doing his physical, he was alone with me and he said ‑- he asked me a simple question. He said, can you help me?
And I said, sir, I don't know.
And he said, well, I know that it's important to my family because I'm ready to go, but whatever they want to do, let them do it.
So what am I supposed to do, tell this man that no ‑- I mean, the family needed that ‑- that sense. I mean, it wasn't even by the patient, the patient himself had already resolved the fact. He told me, he said, I'm at peace with my maker, I'm welcoming my ‑- I don't ‑- I think his belief system was ‑- I think he's a Christian or I don't remember, but he was ready to go.
But he asked me to do whatever the family wanted to do because he wanted them to feel that they had done everything in their power to save their father. So how am I to sit there and tell them that, no, I'm not going to do everything.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Mr. Jimison, I think ‑- well, he's answered that question.
QLet's go to page 60 of your deposition. You said that you were on the cutting edge of medicine, correct?
AWell, I would like to think that.
QAnd why do you say that you are on the cutting edge?
ABecause more and more doctors are realizing that there's something wrong with the way that we've been taught. We've been taught ‑- we've been taught something that we thought was the right way, but after the Genome Project, it's become very clear and Dr. Peterson even testified to this, that there's more and more heterogenicity that they're finding and there's something that's wrong.
Because we usually think that the Genome Project that ‑- that was portrayed to be the cure for all and that would give us all the information we needed for chronic disease -- would give us the information that we needed to find out which genes to turn on and which genes to turn off.
However, we know that there's over 100,000 identified ‑- identifiable proteins and yet there's only 21,000 genes in the Genome. In fact, the difference between the Genome and between a human and the -- (inaudible) -- is less than 600 genes, so there must be something else that's going on.
And Bruce Lipton in his work clearly show and he's extensively well published, he was in fact involved with the Genome Project and his own educational series now about the biology belief, talk about the fact that there is something that is a signal that causes the gene to create a protein one way or the other way. That is a toxic substance. Something that is -- causes a configuration change within the actual gene to elicit a different protein. So the same gene can actually define multiple proteins.
QWhy do you think you personally are on that cutting edge?
ABecause he verified and justified my entire 17 years ‑- or actually 11 years of clinical practice by his work in didactics that it is the signal. It is something that causes a disruption within our system. Each cell in the human body has over 100,000 reactions per second and there's over 50 trillion cells in the human body. This is the mechanism that's going on within our system. There's something that is introduced.
Why do you not have cancer, thank God you don't, and why does a person have cancer. What is the difference? And what makes one person have it and the other person not?
My goal is to find out what turned that on and try to reinstate the state of the body back to the state before that cancer became obvious. We all have cancer in our bodies. Cancer cells are there constantly, but the apoptotic mechanisms are there to prevent the cancer from becoming fulminant and becoming rampant in our system.
So what keeps my cancer cells in control and my cancer patient's cell, let them become out of control. That is what I'm trying to define. That is what I'm trying to identify. That is what I'm trying to resolve.
QLet me see if you still agree with this. When I asked you about why you call yourself on the cutting edge you said ‑- and this is on line 24, page 60: That's why it's called advanced medicine.
And I asked you what do you mean by that? And this is on top of page 61.
That's why I named my clinic it's the Center for Advanced Medicine because we believe we're practicing medicine 15 to 20 years ahead of it's time.
AThat is absolutely correct.
QAnd I keep going, I said ‑- now, if you go down to line 7, I'm basically trying to ask ‑-
AIn the same ‑- in the same box?
QThe same box on page 61. I'm asking you: Do you know something that others don't. And I ask you and you say: That's exactly what I'm saying.
And then I ask you: How do you come to this conclusion that you know more and others don't.
So I'm asking you for the Board Members, why do you know things that others don't?
AWell, it's not that I know things that others don't, but I have become ‑- I've started seeing and observing certain things. The purest form of science is observation according to Hippocrates ‑- excuse me, according to Socrates, and that is what I do, I observe.
The people that have come through our training program, people such as pediatric, a cardiologist, Dr. Philbert in California or the orthopaedic cancer surgeon from Harvard, or any of these doctors that have come through my course, they're coming not because I'm going to teach them something different about orthopaedics or cardiovascular disease because they know way more than I do. I've had four oncologists that have come through my training program. They know more about cancer than I'll ever know in my life.
But they're coming because they understand that what we're doing is causing a fundamental change in the physiology to start to allow the system to start operation again. All I'm doing ‑- I'm nothing more than a glorified garbage man. I'm pulling out things that are garbage inside the body, that's all I'm doing.
It is not rocket science. It is a simple thing. The key is, how effective are people at pulling out things that shouldn't be in the body, that's it.
QHow does hydrogen peroxide pull things out of the body?
AHydrogen peroxide is actually a secondary mechanism, not pulling stuff out of the body, but more stimulating the immune system.
QAnd ozone therapy, how is that --
AOzone is actually both. Actually, that's a great question. Ozone has been shown in multiple studies ‑- I mean, some of those have been provided, and are phenomenal at pulling out persistent organic pollutants, the fluorinated hydrocarbons, the benzines, the -- (inaudible) -- the organophosphates.
My ‑- my last meeting with the Center for Disease Control, their number one ‑- the number one issue that I thought would be their number one concern, it ended up being mercury, but it was based on alphabetical order and it was -- (inaudible) -- hydrocarbons.
The only thing that has been ‑- the reason they call them POPS or persistent organic pollutants is because once they enter the body they can't be excreted.
If you look at the liver and you look at COT polymorphisms, Phase I, Phase II, the conjugation of the pupil, -- (inaudible) -- system into the liver, these chemicals cannot be processed through the liver. So what we do is, we try to, one, up-regulate the liver; and, two, we try to give the body something that can breakdown this persistent organic -- (inaudible) --so that they are no longer persistent.
Ozone happens to be one of those therapies and this is well documented in the journal literature as well as ‑- the journal literature is the most extensive. There's a couple of other pieces of literature.
In fact, Baylor Oncology of Medicine in the 1960s and we provided those documents to my counsel. There are five different publications in ‑- in the Journal of Thoracic Surgery that was done by surgeons where they used ozone to show the change within the system. This was done in the 1960s. This was ‑- this was all stuff done at Baylor.
QFor the benefit of the Board Members and perhaps to benefit everybody in the room, I want to try to go as fast as possible. So ‑- and I want to use some of the exhibits and just want you to verify things and hopefully we can get done fairly quickly, but hopefully the exhibits won't be too bad.
Can you turn to Exhibit 8?
AIn the same book?
MS. GODFREY: In whose book?
MR. JIMISON: My book.
AEight in the thin book.
QEight.
AI'm there.
QOkay. Patient C, he was treated ‑-
ASir, Patient ‑- Exhibit 8 is my CV.
QI know, but I just wanted to get you to ‑-
AOh, I'm sorry, excuse me.
Q‑- the exhibit when I ask the questions.
AI'm sorry.
QTo your knowledge or memory, you have the medical records in front of you, was Patient C treated essentially from April 26th to June 11th of '04?
MS. GODFREY: The patient, which one?
WITNESS: Patient C.
MR. JIMISON: Patient C.
AThe gentleman.
QFrom the end of April to sort of early, mid June?
AI believe so. I believe that's correct.
QIn 2004?
AUh-huh (yes).
QOkay. And Patient B was essentially around the same time, correct?
APatient B was ‑- yeah, essentially, yeah. Patient ‑- Patient C actually came earlier, though.
QOkay. But sort of around April to June ‑-
AYes.
Q‑- 2004?
AYes.
QAnd they were getting treatments five days a week, 40 hours a week in your office during that time?
AYou know, I would have to go back. I think it was four days a week because Fridays -- we were only open certain days when we had cancer patients that were scheduled. But it wasn't a regular thing on Fridays, it all depended.
QAnd ‑-
ABut generally speaking, yes.
Q‑- if you go to the part on Exhibit 8 ‑-
AExhibit 8?
Q‑- to your lecture schedule.
AExhibit 8, you said?
QUh-huh (yes). Which is page 4 of the exhibit, the first page of your lecture schedule. Turn to page 3, starting at number 29 you talked about this Congressional testimony.
AYes.
QYou were out of the office on May 6, 2004?
AThat's correct.
QAnd then you were out of the office on May 21st ‑- May 23rd, 2004.
AThat's correct. This is ‑- either May 6th wasn't a weekend, but the May 21st, 23rd, that was over a weekend.
QAnd that was in Brazil?
AThat was in Brazil.
QAnd ‑- and then you were out of the office from May 28th to May 30th?
AThat's correct. That was also a weekend.
QAnd June 4th to June 6th?
AThat was also a weekend, that's correct.
QAnd June 18th, June 19th?
AI have a lecture almost every weekend.
QAre you out of the office during weekdays?
AI'm occasionally out of the office during the weekdays, yes. Generally speaking, it's only when it's something of urgency, otherwise my ‑- my lecture ‑- doctors don't come to conferences during weekdays, so it's usually on the weekends.
I have flown from here to Veronia and been back in less than 60 hours. I've done this numerous times. And I have done this numerous times on my trip to Brazil. I was only on the ground in Brazil for maybe nine hours just to give my lecture. I give two lectures and then I left.
That's ‑- that is ‑- that is accurate.
QAnd June ‑- number 35, June 24th through June 28th?
AYes.
QAnd that was in Spain?
AYes.
QAnd let's look at some of the things you're actually lecturing on. Go to ‑-
ASame page?
QLet's go to number 4 ‑- page 4 which will be page 7.
AOkay.
QNumber 46, The Treatment of Cancer --
AUh-huh (yes).
QOkay.
A-- Using Immune Modulating Peptid Analogs, okay.
QThen the next page, on Page 49.
APage 49. You mean Number 49.
QI'm sorry, yes. Course Chairman, Innovative Protocol for Treating Chronic Disease, Cancer --
ACancer, Cardiovascular and Neurodegenerative Disease, all three of them.
QUh-huh (yes). And Number 52, the same course?
AYes. As I've said, it's debulking the toxic load and it's stimulating the immune system in all chronic diseases.
QAnd Number 59, same course?
AYes.
QAnd Number 67, the same course?
AYes.
QAnd Number 72, the same course?
ANumber what?
QNumber 72.
AYeah, that's why they're all highlighted. You'll notice they'll all bold for a specific reasons.
QAnd Number 62, if you go to Number 62.
ANumber 62?
QYou lectured on a topic called The Treatment of Cancer, a Five Step Non-Traditional Medical Approach in the Treatment of Cancer.
AYes, that's what the lecture says.
QAnd you ‑- I mean, you were speaking during that time frame?
AYes.
QAnd that's the title you gave your lecture, correct?
AThat is correct, I did.
QAnd number ‑- the next Page 75, again, a course on Innovative Protocol for Treating Chronic Disease Cancer, Cardiovascular and Neurodegenerative?
AYes.
QAnd when people ‑- do doctors pay a fee to come to these courses?
ADo doctors -- I'm sorry?
QDo doctors pay a fee to come to these courses?
AAbsolutely.
QAnd how much is that fee?
A$20,000.
QAnd where does that fee go to?
ATo the AMESPA Group.
QWho is the AMESPA Group?
AAMESPA is an organization that is ‑- it stands for the Advanced Medical Education and Services Physician Association.
QAnd what's your connection with that?
AI founded it, I organized it and I've been paid $4.35 for that organization since I accepted it in 2005 and the balance sheet shows it.
We also opened up a foundation ‑- a children's foundation for AMESPA where contributions are now being made for the treatment of children that have succumbed to chronic diseases such as cancer, autism, these type of chronic diseases.
And I resent any implication that you have of those funds ‑-
QJust answer the question.
AI'm just answering the question, but I ‑-
QI didn't ask a question.
A‑- I've gotten $4.35 from that organization because I forgot my credit card one day for lunch.
QSo your 20,000 ‑- $20,000 that doctors pay that doesn't go to you?
AThat does not go to me. You're welcome to inspect those ‑- those documents and those ‑- where that money exists.
QLet's now go to ‑-
AIn fact, I'll be happy to tell the Board where that money goes and for what purpose it is set aside, if Mr. Jimison would like to know.
QSure.
AThat money is set aside and has a balance of about $300,000 in that account and it is set aside to protect the interest and the rights of doctors to practice medicine freely.
And it is ‑- has doctors from three different countries ‑- I'm sorry, excuse me, four different countries. We have over 50 doctors that are part of that organization. And those funds have been set aside to help defend those doctors if they are brought up on charges of unethical conduct for practicing integrative medicine.
QWell, that's kind of interesting. Are the funds from that organization being used to help defend you in these proceedings?
AI haven't used it yet because I have enough funds myself, but I may.
QI'll withdraw the question. If you go to Exhibit ‑- it's for Patient C, I believe it's ‑-
AI'm sorry, what?
Q‑- Tab 2 in the Board's big notebook.
MS. GODFREY: Tab 2 in the Board's notebook.
AI'm sorry, you said Patient what?
QPatient C.
AAnd Tab 2? Is this the book? Like this one?
QOh, no.
AThis one? Tab 2?
QYes. If you can look from page 153 all the way to, I think, it's 206.
APage 153 to 206?
QUh-huh (yes).
AOkay.
QWhat is that? Is that the biofeedback?
AYes, it is. Yes, it is.
QAnd essentially there are ‑- I guess if you do the math, 153 subtracted by 206, about 53 entries?
AIf that is what it is, I'm ‑- if you want to count them, but ‑-
QWell, that does sound about right?
AThat's probably right, yes.
QAnd each of those are biofeedbacks that you administered to Patient C was $150, correct?
AI think that's what is on the chart, but that's not what's collected.
QDoes insurance pay for that?
ASometimes they have in the past, but we don't deal with insurance companies any more, but they have in the past.
QWhy don't you collect the $150?
AVery simply because with cancer patients, they have a tremendous financial burden and we try to extend to them every courtesy we can. These treatments are only recommended for the three times to see if the patient feels a difference. If the patient feels a difference, then they usually request it.
So our standing order is ‑- I think it's either three treatments or ‑- yeah, it's three treatments or four treatments. We basically do one week of treatments and then it's up to the patient to decide if they want to continue.
And I don't ‑- I cannot recollect a single patient that has not requested to continue with that because it makes them feel that much better.
QOkay. And go to page 265.
A265.
MR. KNOX: 265 or 255?
MR. JIMISON: 265.
WITNESS: 265.
AOkay, I'm there.
QYou're seeing a lot of bills for ‑- for IV infusions?
AYes, I am.
QTherapeutic or diagnostic injections?
AYes.
QBiofeedback?
AYes.
QAnd coffee enemas?
AThat's a kit that the patient gets.
QOkay. Chocolate protein powder?
AYes.
QAnd the total charges after adjustments, are what?
AI'm not ‑- it's my ‑- my one is one straight sheet down, it has dates of service of 5/27, 5/28, 6/01, 6/2, so I'm not sure which ‑- where's the total you're talking about.
QOn this ‑- the check payment on 6/11 or 6/02. The check payment
AFor $1,409; is that right?
QUh-huh (yes).
AYeah.
QWould it be fair to say that most days Patient C paid close to over $1,000 for his treatments?
AIt would be probably a safe assessment to ‑- probably that that would be accurate. I'm not sure whether that's exactly right, but my financial ‑- I have a financial person that deals with those issues, so I don't usually deal with them, but I would think that's probably fair.
QHow many patients on average do you see a day?
ANow, I don't quite understand the question because there's different types ‑- there's different things that we see, so I may not have ‑- if you ‑- you need to clarify that.
QHow many patients does your clinic usually see a day?
AFor everything?
QUh-huh (yes).
AOh, goodness. Well, basically we ‑- we don't see any more than two new patients in a day. So on a busy day we may see ‑- now, are you talking about IVs for this type or the charge of $1,000 a day?
QNo, just ‑- just the number of patients your clinic sees a day?
AIt can vary. I mean, some days we've only had four patients and some days we've had 40, so I really couldn't ‑-
QHow many cancer patients do you see ‑- are you presently treating?
APresently I'm treating two cancer patients ‑- well, I'm ‑- in the first ‑- the number of patients that I'm seeing right now in their first phase of their detoxification? Two that have cancer, but I have numerous patients that have already gone through all that process and they're ‑- some of them are here today and some of them you saw, but they're not in my clinic every day.
They may ‑- I may see them once every six months, I may see them once every year. Some of them I haven't seen in a year and a half. I've got two ‑- two doctors that are patients of mine with cancer. I haven't seen ‑- I've got an appointment with one of them coming up, but I haven't seen him for a year and a half.
QThe ‑- you testified in direct testimony when Ms. Godfrey asked you about the 100 percent success rate that was spoken about by Patient C's wife. And you said that ‑- and correct me if I'm paraphrasing this wrong, that ‑- that you would never tell the patient about a success rate for treatments.
ANo. I said that I can't tell them what a success rate is because it's going to be irrelevant to them. I have said to ‑- I've said to patients that I've got patients that have failed everything else and they're still alive today after they've gone through our type of therapy, but I've never quoted any type of percentage that I can remember.
QHave you ever quoted a percentage for any therapy?
AI've probably ‑- yeah, but I'd say for like IRRs, I'd say 95 percent effective or maybe even ‑- I would probably say that's about the closest that you can get to an always-and-never thing because IRRs, if done ‑- administered appropriately, they're absolutely phenomenal. I think it's ‑- I think it's a great, great therapy.
And the question one of the Board Members had asked, why do you think that ‑- that ‑- I think, Dr. Walker, you asked that question -- why hasn't that been more prevalent and I ‑- I can honestly say I believe it's because of the influence of pharmaceutical company. Dr. Philbert did an extensive writeup and published this in a journal of family practice.
It is absolutely the most phenomenal therapy that I've ever seen. It is inexpensive, it is quick, it is a rapid response onset of efficacy, yet it's not done. And every doctor that has come to my course has learned how to do it.
In fact, the North Carolina Medical Board, that is the reason that I talked with Mr. Mansfield about being able to get that permission to teach doctors how to do that treatment. And was very happy to have that response from Mr. Mansfield and I also got permission for South Carolina because that's literally the two states that we teach the course in. That's just because it's convenient for us to teach in those two states, but doctors come in from all over the world. And so I've been able to teach doctors that particular treatment.
That treatment I would say is 95 percent or more efficacy, if done ‑- if done correctly.
QAnything else you said had a percent success rate?
AI know I've said that according to ‑- a 42 percent efficacy of antibodies before they release ‑- before the FDA releases it. I'm sure I've quoted some kind of percentages. I know that pancreatic cancer has a 2 percent survival, one year ‑- well, one year of survival is 2 percent and two years survival is zero percent, so I may have said things like that. I honestly can't remember all the different things I may have said in the past.
QOkay. Going back to your pamphlet which we passed out, could you turn to page 3?
AI don't have a copy of that.
QAll right.
MS. GODFREY: Page 3. We still don't have a copy, right?
QLet me just hand to you my copy. Look at the one, two ‑- the third paragraph. Could you read the third bullet point on that page?
AEffective, yes. There's a 95 percent success rate with efficacy of allergies ‑- effectively resolve all allergies in patients easily without difficulty with 95 percent success rate of treatment.
But this isn't ‑- this isn't for patients, this is for doctors.
QAll right. At some point and I'll try to do this within five minutes, the ‑- you sent out an e-mail, correct, to your patients after the Medical Board charges?
AI did.
QAnd that e-mail basically made reference to ‑- why did you send out that e-mail?
ABecause based upon what the Medical Board already knows about my practice and based upon nine visits and numerous chart reviews and everything else, I wanted my patients to be ‑- my patients are very open with me and I'm very open to my patients, so I wanted them to know the false allegations against me by the North Carolina Medical Board and so I notified them.
I know that those egregious allegations against me were designed to undermine my character, a character assassination, and I wanted my patients to know the truth.
In fact, my patients were calling me asking me what is this kind of garbage, what is happening, why are they doing this. And so I sent out the e-mail to make it easier for me to respond rather than an individual response to each person that was calling and talking.
QLet me hand you a copy of that e-mail and a copy to your counsel. You said in that e-mail, second paragraph: I have seen the comments by two experts the North Carolina Medical Board retained to review our patient records. Their assessments have been invalidated point by point and we are looking forward to proving this case to be not only without merit at the upcoming hearing, but an example of how the various state medical boards are singling out doctors who don't prescribe one drug after another. Already one of the two experts is now refusing to testify against us.
Is that correct?
AThat's what you notified us about. I only know what I was told by my counsel that you told them.
QOkay. And one of those two experts was an integrative medicine doctor?
MS. GODFREY: Objection.
MR. KNOX: Objection.
QIf you know.
AI don't know.
QOkay. And you talked about ‑- and if we can get the Medical Practice Act and I think we passed this all out.
AI just know that we have nine experts and you limited us to three and you had these cases since 2006 and all you could find was the one person.
QI'm going to read to you ‑- you said you were involved with the law ‑- do you have another copy?
AMr. Jimison, I think you've already changed the law since we ‑- since we changed it. The eternal price of freedom is constant vigilance and we failed or dropped the ball because we weren't constantly vigilant, so we know you've already changed it again.
QI want to read to you 90-14(a)(g).
AI don't have that document.
QI'll hand you that. You now have 90-14(a)(g), subparagraph (g).
ASubparagraph (g), I'm there.
QIt says: Prior to taking action against a licensee to practice integrative medicine for providing care not equivalent to his practice for the procedures or treatments administered, the Board shall consult the licensee to practice integrative medicine. Correct?
AThat's what it says, yes.
QAnd the expert that you referred to in the e-mail was the expert that practices integrative medicine that the Board consulted with, correct?
MR. KNOX: Well, objection. He said he didn't know. And the second thing is that person is not labeled a witness or in the procedure. At some point we must be involved --
MR. JIMISON: I'm just saying ‑- I just want to establish through Dr. Buttar that the Board made the consultation prior to charges ‑-
MS. GODFREY: Well, I don't think Dr. Buttar has any personal knowledge of what the Board did ‑-
MR. JIMISON: Well, the Board ‑-
MS. GODFREY: ‑- in investigating his own case.
MR. JIMISON: The personal knowledge is reflected from his e-mail.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Well, we don't have a copy of the e-mail, so we don't ‑-
MR. JIMISON: Okay. I understand.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: What we heard you say, it wasn't clear.
MR. JIMISON: Yeah. If I could just have a minute while Ms. Carpenter goes to copy those. I think it will take her a few seconds. If we could have a minute. And then this will be sort of the last few questions and then I'll be done.
MR. KNOX: Well, I know I'm being -- we are running behind, and I know you've done all you can, but this was supposed to take 20 minutes and it's hour.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: That's all right, we'll give you your time.
MR. KNOX: I know.
WITNESS: Ma'am, is it appropriate for me to stand up and stretch my legs?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Please do.
WITNESS: I appreciate that, thank you.
DR. McCULLOCH: Mr. Knox?
MR. KNOX: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: Are you claiming that running over is a one-sided event here today?
MR. KNOX: Well, I'm not sure who said what, but I haven't said anything today so I can be critical, do you understand? I wasn't in either one of those.
Q(By Mr. Jimison) So you write in the first ‑- you actually write in the very first sentence of that second paragraph that you have seen the comments by the two experts the North Carolina Medical Board retained to review the patient records.
AYes.
QAnd so you actually saw the worksheets, the comments that they wrote?
AI was given those to respond to them.
QOkay. And one was from a UNC neurologist?
AYes. There's a ‑- yes, that's correct.
QA Dr. Mann?
AI believe that's ‑- that's correct. I'm not sure if it's the same Dr. Mann that I know, but I was told it was not, but ‑-
QOkay. And the ‑- and that review was not favorable to you, was it not?
MR. KNOX: Well, objection.
MS. GODFREY: Well, objection.
AI think that's the reason you didn't bring it in because it was.
QIt was favorable to you?
AWell, obviously that's why one ‑- I mean, it said that ‑-
MR. KNOX: Wait a minute. I'm sorry, Doctor. I mean, the reason we objected is that person has been discarded by the Board as a potential witness, so we never did a deposition and now to say that doctor was not favorable or was favorable to you is grossly unfair.
MR. JIMISON: Okay. Well, let me just ‑- let me ‑- let me withdraw that ‑-
MR. KNOX: May I ask ‑-
MR. JIMISON: I'll just withdraw the question. I'll just withdraw the question.
MR. KNOX: Thank you.
Q(By Mr. Jimison) The ‑- the law that we're talking about 90-14(a)(g) that you said you were part of, it just says, the Board shall consult ‑-
MR. KNOX: Well, object to what the law says. That's not a question. He's examined this witness and he does not ‑-
MS. GODFREY: That's a --
MR. KNOX: I mean, what he's trying to do is prove indirectly what he failed to show on direct and it's too late.
MR. JIMISON: That'll be all.
MR. KNOX: Thank you, sir. You can step down.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Well, wait a minute.
MR. KNOX: I'm sorry, I thought ‑- he said that was all.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: That's all on his part.
MR. KNOX: Okay.
WITNESS: This is all of his part right here.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Yeah. did you want to redirect anything?
MS. GODFREY: No. I think the Board is the best redirect.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Did Mr. Jimison recross? Okay. Now, we'll go to the Board Members.
Dr. McCulloch?
DR. McCULLOCH: Oh, sure.
EXAMINATION BY THE PANEL MEMBERS:
DR. McCULLOCH: Not surprising through a lengthy testimony you might say some things are -- are perhaps contradictory, but -- and I don't want to pick -- pick on necessarily, but there is one point that bothers me. You said that -- you said, I treat cancer by treating the cause.
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: And then you said, we don't know the cause of cancer.
WITNESS: We don't know the full cause of cancer, sir, but we know that there's a --
DR. McCULLOCH: We should be able to find the cause of cancer.
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: And this gets to my problem that I have that we've been alluding to all along, is this total lack, apparently to me, of studies of scientific knowledge that isn't -- that there's no basis for what you're doing, in my opinion. And -- and perhaps that's my shortcoming. One of the things that we are concerned about and we know talking about the law, we -- we are aware that the law recognizes in traditional medicines, a lack of full understanding of what you do.
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: But the law also says that we want to make sure that you don't cause harm.
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: And in reading what appears to be reasonable literature from, for instance, Sloan- Kettering, talking about hydrogen peroxide therapy --
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: -- it's dangerous stuff.
WITNESS: Sir, it was also considered inappropriate and dangerous -- well, I don't want to get to -- or, you know, washing your hands is considered to be ridiculous, but I won't get into that. If I -- if I may answer your question about the -- about the causes because these documents have been provided and these are -- these are journal -- these are well repudiated.
DR. McCULLOCH: I'd rather just -- I'd rather not go into that. I just wanted to point out what I consider a --
WITNESS: I may not --
DR. McCULLOCH: And the reason why I don't want to go into that is because I know what you're going to say.
WITNESS: Well, it's just basically --
DR. McCULLOCH: It will be a long litany --
WITNESS: No, sir, it'll --
DR. McCULLOCH: -- of stuff that I don't understand.
WITNESS: No, it'll be 30 seconds, sir, actually.
DR. McCULLOCH: All right, go ahead.
WITNESS: If you'll allow me to be to -- there's a cancer statistics 1998 that was put out by the National Cancer Institute. I believe we have the reference here and it's a 35 page document.
And in that document, sir it talks about the causes of cancer and we have the slides that I've used actually in presentations to show this and it was concurred by -- with the head of the -- Dr. -- (inaudible) Vega -- the head of radiation oncology that 75 to 95 percent of all cancers according to the National -- National Cancer Institute are directly related to some form of a toxicity.
So my question was -- I apologize if I didn't get this across, my goal is to try to address that toxicity that is with the cause. I don't know what all the causes are, but that's what I'm trying to address.
DR. McCULLOCH: I understand that and you're addressing that with a blanket treatment without any study, without any controls, without any knowledge of really what your results are.
WITNESS: I'm using the same method that was used to evaluate the coronary artery bypass graph, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: In an EDTA treatment or what?
WITNESS: No, sir. To assess the efficacy of coronary artery bypass graph. There was no double-blind placebo-controlled randomized cross-over studies.
DR. McCULLOCH: Oh, okay, so it's all right.
WITNESS: Well, no, I'm not saying it's all right, sir. I'm just saying that I'm using the same thing based upon empiric evidence.
DR. McCULLOCH: All right. Just a technical point, you were talking about the overhead and you listed the overhead in your costs.
WITNESS: Yes, sir. Well, my -- my accountant and my financial manager did, yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: How did you determine the overhead? That was the biggest part of your cost and the IV.
WITNESS: Yes, sir. It was -- it was based upon everything from payroll --
DR. McCULLOCH: Payroll, light bill, benefits, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah --
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
DR. McCULLOCH: -- which is for -- for that period of time as it is --
WITNESS: Yes, sir, as it went -- I'm sorry, say again.
DR. McCULLOCH: For that period of time that the IVs were --
WITNESS: No, sir, it's based upon total dollars coming in. In other words, our cost of overhead when you take the cost of goods sold and then you take total expenses and you take total gross revenue that's coming in, when you subtract it out, that's what the percentage came out to be and that was --
DR. McCULLOCH: How did you come up with $75 for an overhead for starting an IV?
WITNESS: Sir, I did not do that. As I said, it was my accountant and my chief financial officer. I just -- because I don't deal with the number aspect, but that's how they come up with it based upon what our rents are and, you know, our overhead costs.
DR. McCULLOCH: Well, my guess is they probably looked at the -- it's a two-hour infusion, they're probably looking at your two-hour overhead. And my problem with that is, that it's counting --
WITNESS: I don't believe that's correct, sir, because my revenue --
DR. McCULLOCH: I mean, that's assuming that your overhead is not taking care of anything else during that two-hour period of time. Your payroll for instance, you're taking care of other patients at the same time.
WITNESS: Yes, sir, that is how it is reflected, that's right. It's not -- it was extrapolated out to be based upon -- as I understand it at least, it's based upon the total amount of revenue that's coming in, total amount of cost of goods subtracted and then what was left over and that amount from expenses versus what was profit and they -- it came out to be something like 78 percent was expenses and 22 percent was profit and then they calculated it out based on that. I don't know exactly, but I believe that's how they did it.
DR. McCULLOCH: How do you determine how many days a week to treat somebody with hydrogen peroxide?
WITNESS: Well, sir, the hydrogen peroxide has gotten a lot of attention --
DR. McCULLOCH: Well, okay, EDTA or whatever.
WITNESS: Well, hydrogen -- yeah, I was just going to say, hydrogen peroxide is maybe done six times in that six-week period, but EDTA I generally only give a chelator once a week.
And the reason is, is because I don't want to deplete the essential minerals. In fact, that is the bigger concern, so I don't do it more than once a week.
I may on rare occasion -- I have had patients with very high levels who are tolerant of the treatments and I have gone more aggressively given two treatments in a week, but usually in between they get a mineral drip. I've maybe done that half a dozen times in -- in 11 years of doing this treatment, but generally speaking it's only once a week.
Dr. Buttar Truth Quotes
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
—- Albert Einstein
“Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.”
—- Abraham Lincoln
"All truth passes through 3 phases: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed, and Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
—- Arthur Schopenhauer
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."
—- Machiavelli, The Prince