NC Medical Board Dr. Rashid A. Buttar Transcript - Page 8 of 16
WITNESS: Yes.
DR. McCULLOCH: Same thing for clinical metal toxicology?
WITNESS: Yes.
DR. McCULLOCH: And the same thing for neural therapy. These are just things I'm not familiar with and I wanted to clear that up a little bit.
Why do you not use hydrogen peroxide therapy? You mentioned the political climate.
WITNESS: Well, that is ‑- that is the reason why because I think it is ‑- it is a therapy that does have a lot of promise and it can be beneficial. Many years ago when I did use it or when I did use it, to some limited extent, I was quite impressed by the effectiveness that it had for instance treating acute influenza. It could very, very rapidly improve that patient's influenza status and for acute viral infections.
DR. McCULLOCH: But it's, I guess, not worth it as far as you're concerned given the risks in your traditional practice?
WITNESS: Right.
DR. McCULLOCH: Do you have an opinion as to why that's a target?
WITNESS: I think it's a target because it's ‑- I mean, there are different things that are selected as targets from ‑- from medical boards across the country and that just happens to be one that has risen to a level of awareness among a number of different staffs for medical boards.
DR. McCULLOCH: So you basically don't ‑-
WITNESS: I think ‑- I personally think it's based on bias, is what I think it's based on. I think bias exists in all human endeavors including legislators and including physicians ‑-
DR. McCULLOCH: Medical boards.
WITNESS: ‑- including boards, of course, you know. It's part of being human.
DR. McCULLOCH: All right.
WITNESS: And I'd like to also say that I'm sympathetic to the plight of people who serve on medical boards. I think it's a very difficult thing and whenever you're standing in judgment of others, it's just ‑- it's a tough thing because you know you're trying to balance reasonable fairness against protecting the public's interest and I appreciate that.
DR. McCULLOCH: Thank you. You mentioned studies and you mentioned some studies that are ongoing about EDTA, the treatment for coronary artery disease. It seems to me that you're willing to put the cart before the horse. We're using lots of therapies and there are not studies to support those therapies, these ‑-
WITNESS: Well, I think there are a lot of studies. I know that ‑- you know, that there have been over 45,000 studies that have been published. You're looking at the utility of EDTA chelation therapy for ‑- for doing ‑- for treating cardiovascular disease, but there are studies from foreign journals, there's studies from other places that many of them are not of the United States that have shown the efficacy of that therapy.
And I think ‑- you know, if you think of a study ultimately as treating a patient and ‑- and what is a study, but you know it's doctors from seeing the effects on large masses of people.
You know, I've had a lot of experience watching EDTA chelation therapy with patients and you know, my experience with it is that it's extremely safe and patients have benefited tremendously from it. You know, not everybody benefits, but not everybody benefits from any conventional therapy either.
DR. McCULLOCH: True. Would it be unfair for me to characterize the practice of integrative medicine as a willingness to use therapies that seem to have an effect, but have not been proven in scientific endeavors?
WITNESS: I think I would add a caveat to that which says that it would say that would have to be very huge safety profile.
DR. McCULLOCH: So you agree with what I said, but adding ‑-
WITNESS: I think that ‑- with that many integrative therapies are ‑- that are being explored today, the practices are going to be the therapies of the future. I really do believe that, but I think that that is ‑- that not everything is ‑- you know, it has ‑- you know, I think that when you're dealing with pharmaceutical agents, you know, the potential for harm is far greater than when you're talking about treating people with nutrients, for instance. The forgiveness factors in the body are tremendously more. And so I think that, you know, to say that I would soften the conclusion that ‑- that you're presenting in that regard because I think that the safety factor is number one with patients.
DR. McCULLOCH: Okay.
WITNESS: And in the case of all four of these patients, you know, none of them were harmed either, that I could determine.
DR. McCULLOCH: Last question. Would you feel that it would be inappropriate to tell a patient that you can treat their cancer successfully?
WITNESS: I would think it inappropriate to tell a patient that.
DR. McCULLOCH: Thank you.
WITNESS: I have never said anything like that to any patient. As a matter of fact, I make no promises to anybody. I always approach my patients with the same sense of cautious optimism, you know, we can try these things if you're interested and I can tell you what the -- what I see are the pros and the cons and I think that, you know, any physician would want to be honest with patients, as a matter of fact.
DR. McCULLOCH: I'm sorry, I do have another question. Are you familiar with the integrative medicine program at Duke?
WITNESS: I have some familiarity with it.
DR. McCULLOCH: Do you consider that a ‑-
WITNESS: Well, I'm aware that ‑-
DR. McCULLOCH: -- a --
WITNESS: I'm aware that it ‑- that it exists. I don't have ‑- that's my extent of knowledge with it.
DR. McCULLOCH: Do you ‑-
WITNESS: I heard some ‑- I heard some of the presenters speak at the state meetings.
DR. McCULLOCH: National Centers for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, are you familiar with that?
WITNESS: I'm familiar with that, yes.
DR. McCULLOCH: Is that a legitimate organization?
WITNESS: Yes.
DR. McCULLOCH: How about Mark Micozzi, Executive Director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia?
WITNESS: I have ‑- I've read some of his articles and ‑- that I've seen in journals and I've heard his name.
DR. McCULLOCH: In a textbook perhaps, Fundamentals of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine?
WITNESS: I've heard of him.
DR. McCULLOCH: Okay. Do you consider those reasonable experts and authorities in integrative medicine?
WITNESS: Well, they're people who bring prominence to the field.
DR. McCULLOCH: If none of those organizations recognized hydrogen peroxide therapy, would you be surprised by that?
WITNESS: I'm not familiar with what position on that or what they published on it at all.
DR. McCULLOCH: All right.
WITNESS: I am not familiar.
DR. McCULLOCH: Thank you.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Dr. Walker?
DR. WALKER: Dr. Wilson, of the boards that you are a diplomat of, are any of those recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties?
WITNESS: Not at the current time, but I know that, you know, there are some efforts that that is being looked at to move in that direction.
DR. WALKER: So, no?
WITNESS: Not currently.
DR. WALKER: Do you believe that when you are an expert when you're treating someone for metal toxicity, is there a preferred avenue, a more accurate avenue of determining that person's contamination between urine, blood and say tissue analysis?
WITNESS: Well, I think that blood testing is not accurate for determining body burden. If you look at, you know, the half-life of mercury for instance and the blood is only three and a half days, but the half-life once mercury is partitioned into the nervous system, it can be up to or beyond 30 years.
And I think tissue is ultimately the optimal way to study it, but that's not practical, clinically, to be taking pieces of tissue to assay it.
So in the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology, their opinion is that the most effective way to determine body burden is to challenge the body with a chelating agent and ‑- and recover either the urine or the stool to measure how much has been depurated. Of course, depending on which chelating agent you're using, which ‑- which method of excretion of that agent is involved and which particular heavy metals you're targeting.
DR. WALKER: Thank you. When you reviewed the records of Patients A, B and C, you indicated in your answers to the questions today that you felt that a quality of life was an appropriate measure of how people respond to these therapies. In your review did you find any objective documentation of quality of life issues?
WITNESS: I did ‑- I cannot say that I saw that indicated in the records. I saw that there was laboratory improvements and when you look at the ‑- the life expectancy these people had when they first showed to Dr. Buttar's office in relative to how long they lived, I think they outlived the expectancy that would have been considered by the conventional doctors who basically have exhausted their approach.
DR. WALKER: So ‑-
WITNESS: I think they lived longer. I cannot see anything in the record that tells me about what their quality of life was.
DR. WALKER: Did I mishear you then when you indicated earlier that you didn't believe that laboratory studies were necessarily the best way to follow these patients?
WITNESS: That's one way. I didn't say it's necessarily the best, but there are laboratory parameters, for instance, in the patient who had the dramatic drop in ‑- in CEA levels.
DR. WALKER: Do you have an opinion as an expert, why IRR, if it seems to be so effective in the treatment of asthma, has not been more widely adopted?
WITNESS: It's just not taught. It's not taught in any medical school. I mean, you know, why it's not taught in medical school, it's just not heard of. You know, there are things that fit into that category that have not ‑- you know, the effective therapies that have just never been recognized.
DR. WALKER: As an expert in integrative medicine, would you not think it reasonable to be familiar with the literature in your field if there were studies that were performed in a prospective randomized fashion looking at the very subjects that you ‑- or the very treatments that you use?
WITNESS: Well, I think I do have some familiarity with the studies that I ‑- that I come across in the therapies that I do use. As I mentioned with hydrogen peroxide since I'm not using it, I don't focus really attention on that field.
DR. WALKER: So in the areas ‑- in the treatments that you personally use, are there any randomized prospective studies indicating efficacy of these treatments?
WITNESS: Not that I have seen.
DR. WALKER: Okay. Thank you. Do you refer patients for oxygen therapy?
WITNESS: Oxygen, meaning oxygen therapy?
DR. WALKER: Oxidated hydrogen peroxide, ozone, hyperbaric oxygen, do you refer ‑- since you don't do those things yourself, do you refer your patients to other physicians who do perform those treatments?
WITNESS: I have referred patients for hyperbaric therapy, but -- when their situations are appropriate for that, but I haven't referred patients for other oxidated therapies to my knowledge.
DR. WALKER: Thank you.
WITNESS: But ‑- but there's nobody around me that I'm aware of that really does those therapies and so I would tend to send them elsewhere for that would be imposing ‑- putting a burden upon them from my region.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Did ‑- I just want to clarify for my own information. You had talked just a few minutes ago when you were answering Dr. Walker's question about a CEA level dropping. Were you referring to the CA 125?
WITNESS: I'm sorry, that's right. I'm sorry, the CA 125.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. You told us that you're not an expert in oxidated therapies and you don't contend to be an expert in that. What ‑- what therapies do you see yourself as the expert in?
WITNESS: I think I know a lot about nutritional therapies and I know a lot about heavy metal toxicology.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: All right. So those are the two things that you would think that your expertise is in?
WITNESS: Yes.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: And have you had any ‑- ever had any problems with nutritional therapies, any overdoses of vitamins? Are you aware of vitamin toxicity?
WITNESS: I have, but I've never had problems with them in the many years I've been doing it.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Do ‑- do you have any ‑- just looking at quality of life, do you have any objective measurements for quality of life? How do you measure that someone's life has improved?
WITNESS: I think that patients would make that decision about their quality of life.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: So it's a subjective thing?
WITNESS: Yes.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay.
WITNESS: I think it is. Again, SF36 form has been one method that has been endorsed by the NCCA for instance to ‑- to try to evaluate that, but you know it's ‑- it is basically a subjective evaluation and trying to track that through changes through time to see that, I think it difficult to really put your finger on the quality of life on how you define it.
I'm sure there are doctors who looked at these things and studied them and come up with conclusions. I just ‑- I think for me as a practitioner, it's one on one and patients making those decisions themselves.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Who administers the boards that you were talking about because we had asked if they were affiliated with ABMS and you said no. Who is ‑- what's the actual organization that administers them?
WITNESS: Well, they're their own organization just like the ABFP is an independent organization, but they do have some affiliation with AAFP.
You know, the International Board of Environmental Medicine has an affiliation with the American Academy of Environmental Medicine only in the fact that they ‑- they ‑- they exchange information about what's taught so ‑- so they know so they can meet certain -- and evaluate candidates and what kind of questions to ask with evaluating candidates for ‑- for board status, but I ‑- but they're independently operated.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Now, I was pondering the statement that you had made that there were over 200 toxic metabolites in the cord blood of newborns or of infants and so it just made me wonder a little if ‑- if indeed that's true, you know, it's a little ‑- it's a wonder that any ‑- any children ever make it out of infancy. And do you have any theories or explanations for ‑-
WITNESS: I think it's just reflection of the toxic burden of our times. And, you know, we all have a biology that was designed to be able to handle certain toxic loads and it's -- you know, you're familiar but I'm sure with the concept of the LD 50 in toxicology. You know, there's a lethal dose of the substance at which 50 percent of the population is death and the remaining 50 percent, some are severely affected and some are moderately affected and some are minimally affected and some are not affected at all by ‑- by the exposure of that toxin.
And the spectrum of tolerance fits in that same scope, you know, that the levels were not necessarily high in these individuals, but there are some individuals for whom that coming into life with that kind of a toxic burden is going to have its effect on them downstream because if that's what they accrued in their bodies in nine months exposure in the womb as they come into the world, they start getting exposed to things, it's going to affect their biology. Ultimately, it's not reasonable to think it can't.
Conventional toxicology has been for years very much interested in the concept of acute toxicologic exposure and adverse affects from that. You know, there's ‑- there's only in recent years has there been an increasing awareness of the slow gradual, you know, insidious bio accumulation of things through time and how they affect our biology.
And conventionally in medicine, we have not looked at that, you know. Like cancer for instance, you know, 90 ‑- the American Cancer Society admits that and they have for years -- that 90 percent of cancers are carcinogenic induced and environmental factors that impact our biology. It's where our genes collide with our ‑- with our environment. And we ‑- we don't look at that in medicine, you know.
In conventional medicine we basically identify, you know that you have this cancer and we treat it the same way. You know, that if you have this kind of cancer and it evolved this way, this is the formula for it.
Integrative medicine is recognizing biochemical individuality and we're realizing that no two patients with the same disease are necessarily going to get the same treatment.
And I think that, you know, hopefully medicine will evolve to the point where we can be more knowledgeable about how to apply things individually to patients and understanding individual susceptibilities.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: So you're saying cancer treatments are pretty standard for the different types of cancers?
WITNESS: Well, that's my understanding from what I've seen of the patients who have cancer, you know, that they are this kind of formula driven.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Well, that's a little different from what Dr. Peterson told us yesterday ‑-
WITNESS: Well, I didn't hear his testimony.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. All right. I have no further questions. Thank you very much for testifying.
DR. WALKER: Dr. Rhyne, could I ask a question of Ms. Godfrey?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Uh-huh (yes).
MS. GODFREY: Certainly.
DR. WALKER: Would you mind we've ‑- we've heard both you and Mr. Jimison read the statute relating to integrative medicine.
MS. GODFREY: Yes, Doctor.
DR. WALKER: Would you bear with me, please, and read the entire paragraph relating to integrative medicine that you started reading?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: We would like a copy of that. We want a copy ‑-
MS. GODFREY: Okay. And I will be more than happy to ‑- I would love to hand up, before I close today, a copy of the current version of Chapter 90. Because when I talked to you today at the end of the day, I'm going to highlight some portions of it and because I'm not ‑- I'm not in my office, I can't ‑- I don't have a copy machine, but I would love to make a copy of this or have Lynne make a copy ‑-
MR. JIMISON: We can make copies. We can make copies.
MS. GODFREY: ‑- and hand it up to you.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. That would be great.
MS. GODFREY: Because I think you really do need ‑-
DR. WALKER: Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: We would like to have that.
MS. GODFREY: Well, this is just a printout from the ‑-
(DISCUSSION OFF RECORD)
MR. KNOX: May I proceed?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Please do go ahead.
MR. KNOX: This is a deposition taken of Erlene Thomas with all the parties present.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Can we go ahead and see that video deposition?
----------------------------------------------------------
(WHEREUPON, THE VIDEOTAPE DEPOSITION
OF ERLENE THOMAS TAKEN ON APRIL 10, 2008,
WAS PLAYED AND IS ATTACHED
IN ITS ENTIRETY AS EXHIBIT 43)
----------------------------------------------------------
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Are you ready?
MS. GODFREY: I will hand up ‑- Mr. Mansfield was nice enough to copy this for us and for you, so these ‑- this is a copy of the statute that I'm talking about and we will be talking about further.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Thank you. We'll come back to that. Thank you.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Ms. Godfrey, ready to proceed?
MS. GODFREY: I am.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay. Mr. Knox, do you have any more evidence that you wish to present?
MR. KNOX: Yes. We would call Ned Jarrett through video.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Thank you.
----------------------------------------------------------
(WHEREUPON, THE VIDEOTAPE DEPOSITION
OF NED M. JARRETT TAKEN ON APRIL 9, 2008,
WAS PLAYED AND IS HEREBY ATTACHED
IN ITS ENTIRETY AS EXHIBIT 45)
----------------------------------------------------------
(DISCUSSION OFF RECORD)
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Mr. Knox or Ms. Godfrey, you can proceed.
MS. GODFREY: Thank you, Dr. Rhyne. We would like to call Dr. Buttar.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Is he the last witness or --
Ms. Godfrey: No, we have more witnesses after that, but what we wanted to do is to --
MR. JIMISON: Can I have five minutes to consult for just ‑- can we just take a five minute break?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Sure.
MR. JIMISON: Until ‑-
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Until quarter of 10?
MR. JIMISON: Until quarter of 10.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay.
(9:35 A.M. - 9:50 A.M. RECESS)
PRESIDENT RHYNE: We're back in session.
WHEREUPON,
RASHID ALI BUTTAR, D.O.,
being first duly sworn,
was examined and testified
as follows:
MS. GODFREY: And just for the Boards' benefit, I'm going to be using quite a number of exhibits that are in our exhibit notebook and I'll refer to them by number, so ‑-
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Okay.
MS. GODFREY: Just to get you keyed up there.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. GODFREY:
QCould you state your name for the record, please?
ARashid Buttar.
QAnd, Dr. Buttar, are you licensed by the North Carolina Medical Board to practice medicine in the state of North Carolina?
AYes, ma'am, I am.
QAnd how long have you been practicing medicine?
AI graduated from medical school in 1991, so that would be 17 years.
QOkay. Now, tell ‑- is Exhibit 1 that's before you, is that your curriculum vitae?
AIt's an outdated one, but, yes, it is mine.
QOkay. What year was that current for?
AI believe it was current for '92 ‑- I'm sorry to 2005.
QOkay.
AI would have to go back and look at the schedule to verify that.
QOkay. But ‑- and I've got to stop saying okay or else we're going to be here all day.
(DISCUSSION OFF RECORD)
AActually, I could tell you this was last updated in 2006.
QOkay. And so it would be ‑- it would be current and correct for your training and your activities through 2006; is that correct?
AYes, ma'am.
QCould you tell the Board what medical training you ‑- you received?
AI did three years of postgraduate training in general surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center.
QI'm talking about for medical school.
AOh, I'm sorry, excuse me, ma'am. I went to medical school at the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences School of Medicine and Surgery in Des Moines, Iowa.
QAnd did you receive a degree there?
AYes, ma'am, I did.
QAnd following that training, did you do an internship?
AYes, ma'am, I did.
QAnd where was that internship done?
AIt was done at Doctor's Hospital, Airline part of the University of Texas Health Care System as a transitional cell ‑- a transitional year internship at University of Texas.
QAnd then you started a general surgery residency?
AYes, ma'am. But I was pulled for military. I spent a year in the Republic of South Korea and then I came back to residency as well.
QAnd did you complete that residency?
ANo, ma'am, I did not.
QTell ‑- tell the Medical Board why you ‑- you discontinued that residency?
AThere were a number of reasons. Brooke Army Medical Center general surgery program that year was rated in the top three programs in the country. It was a great program. I loved everything there.
I was trying to save a marriage that was failing and there were also other professional issues for me personally that I was going through because I wasn't sure if medicine was really the right profession for me because from what I had seen while being in medical school and being in full student rotations, internship and then a couple of years of postgraduate training, it didn't seem like we were really helping people who were -- it was palliative and I was actually thinking about possibly getting out of medicine. But I still owed an obligation to the U.S. military, so.
QAnd so ‑- so after leaving that ‑- that residency, did you continue on with your military service?
AYes, ma'am. I was ‑- I took a leave of absence for one year to decide what I was going to do. My program chairman at the department of surgery was kind enough to tell me that he would hold my position open as long as I needed and I took a one year leave of absence.
QAnd what did you do during that leave of absence?
AUnfortunately, the military is not so kind, so they don't let you take a leave of absence. So I was ‑- since I had already done a hardship tour, they gave me my choice of duty station and I went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina and started working in the emergency medicine department there.
QAnd how long did you ‑- did you stay in emergency medicine?
AWell, I continued ‑- I served out the next three years of my obligation from my ‑- from my military scholarship obligation and became the chief of emergency medicine at Moncrief Army Community Hospital until I got out in 1996.
QAfter you got out of military, did you become licensed to practice in North Carolina?
AI was licensed to practice in North Carolina while I was still in the military, ma'am.
QOkay. And ‑- and you became licensed to practice in North Carolina when?
AI believe it was in 1995 because I was moonlighting.
QAnd did you ‑- once you got out of the military -- decide to move to North Carolina?
AWell, my ‑- as I said, I was trying to save a failed marriage, that's the reason I took a leave of absence. My family is spread out all over the United States, but my now ex-wife's family was actually from the Charlotte and the West Jefferson area and so her whole family was concentrated in this area.
Because Fort Jackson was so close, that's the reason we picked Fort Jackson. It was either at Fayetteville at Fort Bragg or at Fort Jackson and I chose Fort Jackson because actually the driving distance, it was easier to get to Charlotte. And that was the reason I went ahead and got my license here was because I knew that I would eventually end up moving somewhere where my daughter, who was my only child at the time, would have family and so that's why I chose North Carolina and worked the emergency rooms.
QFollowing that or during that period, did you have any particular training in integrative medicine?
AActually, not in integrative medicine. My training had been mostly conventional. It was all conventional surgical training. I did spend two months at M.D. Anderson as ‑- in one of my postgraduate years and I can't remember which one it was. It was three years and also my ‑- my fourth year into medical school, I also spent ‑- did a one month rotation there. I did surgical oncology rotation at ‑- at Baylor.
There were a number of others, all the various types of surgical even though it was for surgical residences, for instance there was time we spent on the urological and medical. There was some ‑- in my course of training, it was not just like, you know, one year at a time or anything like that.
QDid you do a fellowship at the Institute of Preventive Medicine?
AYes, ma'am, I did.
QExplain to the ‑- the Board Members what that was.
AThe training at ‑- in Denville that I received, it was a ‑- it was actually about 14 months. Two months of it was ‑- actually, I spent two months before the program actually started. It was not a full-time program. I spent from Fridays to Sundays at the Institute of Preventative Medicine in Denville, New Jersey. This was part of the Capital University program that was in Washington, D.C. which was the only program that had a national recognition in complimentary and alternative medicine. It has no ‑- it's no longer viable, but it was at that time and the ‑- the fellowship in alternative medicine was actually just starting then. I think I was in the second class.
QNow, after you got out of the military, you went into private practice; is that correct? Or after you finished with emergency medicine.
AWell ‑-
QWhen did you go into private practice?
AI left the military in 1996 at the age of 29 and I wasn't sure if I was going to continue with medicine or not. But I had over 10,000 documented hours in emergency medicine and I was eligible for the American ‑- through the American Association of Physician Specialists for board certification in emergency medicine and I had to make a decision to tell the board I was going to sit for the exam or if I was going to leave medicine and go into law.
My brother, my sister and my father are all attorneys. I come from six generations of attorneys, so I'm considered the black sheep in my family since I'm a doctor. So I had to decide which way I was going to go.
But I was quite disenchanted with even emergency medicine people coming in at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, same problem, how do you continue to contribute to their ‑- to their misery.
Asking the patient at 2:00 in the morning, have you talked to you regular doctor about this? Yes, I've been talking to my doctor about it for ten years and I still have ischemic neuropathy, I still have pain in my legs, I can't sleep.
And I was beginning to not be able to look in the mirror and I was not proud of what I was doing. That was not why I became a physician. That was not what I signed on for.
The reason I wanted to do surgery was because I wanted to be able to see the problem, and look at it, spit on it, throw it on the ground and stomp on it and be done with it, but I kept on seeing, six months later, a year later it would pop back up, so obviously that was not the answer. I knew very early on I wasn't going to do internal medicine, that's for sure.
QSo ‑- so what direction did you decide to go in your medical practice?
AWell, I didn't really have much of a choice because the only thing I really knew, I was 29 and I had a family that I had to support and I'd been moonlighting in the emergency rooms. I was making very good money, exceptional money, and so I just continued doing emergency medicine.
In the back of my mind, I thought maybe one day I'll save up enough money and maybe I'll open a practice where I can try to do something different.
I used to competitively body-build, natural bodybuilding and had a lot of nutrition and exercise components obviously and so I had an interest in that area.
I had given lectures on how people could do certain exercises for their health and their biomechanics and being an osteopathic physician I had some training in that anyway. And so I thought maybe one day I can do that and I don't have to do only conventional medicine.
QAnd did you open a private practice then? Yes or no.
AYes, ma'am, I did.
QOkay. And what ‑- what are ‑- what are the goals of the private practice that you ‑- when you opened it? What did you see yourself doing in medicine?
AWell, our motto is "making the change the world is waiting for" and that is -- at that time it wasn't formulated in those words, but I wanted to do something that I would be able to look at myself in the mirror and be proud of who I was.
QAnd are you proud of yourself today?
AI'm very proud of myself now.
QAnd over the last eight or nine years since you've opened the private practice, have you become associated with any organizations that relate to alternative or integrative medicine?
AExtensive, yes, ma'am.
QOkay. Could you name some of those organizations?
AI'm the chairman of the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology that was founded in 1973. I'm the president of the North Carolina Integrative Medical Society that was founded in 2002, I believe. I have sat on various boards from the International College of Integrative Medicine.
I have presented at various conferences. I've sat in the CME committees for four different organizations. I have ‑- I'm on the currently on the board of the American Association for Health Freedom. I was one of the twelve member task force appointed by the U.S. Congress for the heavy metals in the United States. I can keep on going, but it ‑-
QHave you been nominated for any awards for your practice of medicine?
AI was nominated for the National Institute of Health Directors Pioneer Award. As I understand it, it was the only bipartisan nomination.
QHave you testified before Congress on medical subjects?
AI have testified in front of the U.S. Congress and I've also testified in front of the North Carolina Legislature.
QAre you an oncologist?
AAbsolutely not, ma'am.
QDo you treat cancer patients with surgery, chemo or radiation?
ANo, ma'am, I do not.
QHave you been invited to lecture in conferences dealing with cancer or dealing with alternative therapies for cancer patients?
AI have lectured at ‑- I've been invited and I have talked with the NIH a number of times. I have been invited by the Central Disease Control and I met with them twice. I've presented at the American Cancer Society Conference, the 8th Annual Breast Cancer Conference in Puerto Rico. At that time, I was the ‑- I was the only person that was in private practice. Since then I've received a university appointment.
I've lectured at the Frontiers ‑- Frontiers in Age Management and Cancer. I believe that's one that you have ‑- I've lectured in numerous conferences on dealing with patients that have compromised immune system and that are toxic and that are incapable of -- having an inadequate response in chronic disease and cancer happens to be one of them, yes.
QAnd we'll get to that in a minute about your philosophy of medicine ‑-
AYes, ma'am.
Q‑- and how you practice, but I want to get to some more of your credentials. Have you lectured at a conference given by the AC ‑- ACS?
AYes, ma'am, that's the American Cancer Society.
QYes. Okay, you mentioned that. In your 17 years of practice have you been the defendant in any malpractice cases?
ANever, ma'am.
QBefore this case, have you ever had a complaint before a medical board where you've been licensed to practice?
ABefore this, I've never ‑- if I have, I've never been aware of it, but ‑-
QOkay. And have you been before this Medical Board before? Have you been called before the Medical Board before?
AYes, ma'am, I have.
MR. JIMISON: Well, objection, irrelevance. I don't think his prior history with the Medical Board is relevant to the present charges.
MS. GODFREY: Well, it ‑-
MR. JIMISON: I mean, he's not charged with anything from any prior involvement with the Medical Board.
MS. GODFREY: Well, the relevance is, is that Dr. Buttar has been examined by this Medical Board before and ‑- and -- he is fully ‑- what this line of questioning is to show is that he has cooperated with the Medical Board and he has tried to work within the system and I think ‑-
MR. JIMISON: She can ask that. I mean, without getting into confidential matters that ‑-
MS. GODFREY: Well, it's not confidential if he's ‑-
MR. JIMISON: -- are in violation --
MS. GODFREY: ‑- if he's testifying to it, it's his ‑- it's his case.
MR. JIMISON: Dr. Rhyne, the ‑- as you know, as all the Board Members know, the doctor is not even entitled to his own confidential file until public charges goes out. So the doctor cannot waive the confidentiality of his past public file ‑- or his past file, his confidential file. If there's anything that's public in the past file, then you know that's public.
But, you know, for instance, doctors come in all the time and want to get a copy of their medical file for like a divorce proceeding or ‑- or a medical malpractice case and what we've always held consistently to every judge in the state is that the Board's past file, unless made public, is confidential and even the doctor cannot waive that confidentiality to his own file.
MS. GODFREY: We're not bringing the medical file into evidence. We're having Dr. Buttar testify about his experiences with the Board.
MR. JIMISON: But ‑-
PRESIDENT RHYNE: You can testify about anything that's public.
MR. KNOX: Thank you.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Anything that's not public has to be --
MS. GODFREY: Anything that's public?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Uh-huh (yes).
Q(By Ms. Godfrey) Well, did you come here in ‑- were you called to the Board previously in 2003?
MR. JIMISON: Objection, that's not public. That's not public information.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Only public information.
MS. GODFREY: Okay.
WITNESS: It was public, ma'am.
Q(By Ms. Godfrey) Well, let me show you Buttar Exhibit 3. Would you turn to that please?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: I'm sorry, will you say that again?
MS. GODFREY: Exhibit 3.
MR. JIMISON: That is a non-public letter.
MS. GODFREY: It was ‑-
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Yeah.
MS. GODFREY: -- it was a letter written to Dr. Buttar by ‑- by David Henderson.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: That's ‑- that's ‑- that's a confidential letter.
MS. GODFREY: Well ‑-
WITNESS: It's public.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: It's not ‑- if it's not on our web site, it's a not a public document.
MS. GODFREY: It was released to Dr. Buttar and Dr. Buttar has released it to us. I mean, Dr. Buttar made it public.
MR. JIMISON: He can make it public; however, it's not a public record for purposes of this Medical Board and he's not being charged with anything that happened in the past. The present charges don't deal with anything in the past.
MS. GODFREY: We're not talking about charges in the past. We're talking about his ability ‑- his cooperation with the Medical Board in the past.
MR. JIMISON: You can ask him that. I don't think you can ‑-
MR. KNOX: Well, thank you.
MR. JIMISON: You can ask him if he's cooperated with the Medical Board in the past, but I don't think we can get into the substance of what the Medical Board did in the past.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: I agree.
Q(By Ms. Godfrey) Have you cooperated with the Medical Board in the past?
AYes, ma'am, I have fully cooperated with the Medical Board in the past.
QAnd did ‑- Buttar Exhibit 3, is that a letter that was written to you by David Henderson who's the executive director of the Medical Board?
MR. JIMISON: Objection.
AYes, ma'am, and the ‑-
MR. JIMISON: This was a non-public letter. We're getting into ‑-
WITNESS: Mr. Henderson had told me that my record is not available to me, but if the Board sends me anything it is no longer confidential. I specifically asked before I made this document public.
MR. JIMISON: I think we've dealt with this issue enough.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: Yeah.
MS. GODFREY: Okay.
PRESIDENT RHYNE: We've heard the objection.
MS. GODFREY: Okay. And are you sustaining the objection?
PRESIDENT RHYNE: I think the Board's position has always been that any ‑- our records that are sent to a physician that are not public, are not on the web site, are not public, they are private and they're not to be shared.
MS. GODFREY: All right.
Q(By Ms. Godfrey) Let me turn to Buttar Exhibit 4. And that's a letter written by you, Dr. Buttar, to Tom Mansfield.
AYes, ma'am.
QAnd it's dated March 11th, 2004.
AYes, ma'am.
QCan you tell the Board the occasion you had to write that letter?
AMr. Mansfield and I had exchanged some e-mails after our testimony in front of the Legislature and one of the questions that I had was that one of the courses that we were teaching required physicians to be able to ‑- in order to become proficient in a procedure, they would need to be able to do that procedure just by watching it or being ‑- having it demonstrated would not be sufficient and so I needed an opinion from Mr. Mansfield whether or not I could actually have these doctors do this procedure.
And Mr. Mansfield and I discussed this and he asked me to write him a letter explaining what exactly it was that we wanted. And his opinion was that since doctors are not considered ‑- as long as a doctor is doing it on ‑- on each other and they had a medical license to practice in some state, as long as they were at my conference under my license, they could inject each other. They could not inject a patient or a staff member.
QAnd that was ‑- that was ‑- and why did you call Mr. Mansfield with that ‑- with that question?
ABecause at that time we were discussing the ‑- there were two reasons. One was because I had talked to Mr. Mansfield and Mr. Henderson about having a qualified integrative physician to review charts of integrative physicians because there seemed to be a preponderance of integrative doctors being questioned by the Board compared to conventional doctors. And so I wanted to make sure that, one, the Medical Board was completely aware of what I was doing.
And, two, that the Medical Board had either given me an approval or the green light to allow me to teach these doctors adequately.
And I also did the same thing with the Board in South Carolina and they also approved it.
QNow, Dr. Buttar, what is your definition of integrative medicine?
AMy definition of integrative medicine is probably as varied as the types of therapies that could be construed as integrative. But to me integrative medicine is taking the best of what I have learned in conventional medicine and what I can possibly learn that may not be widely accepted in order to get the best patient result possible.
QAnd what is your philosophy of patient care?
AIt is a very serious obligation that I've taken on. I don't like taking an obligation unless I'm willing to be able to put 110 percent behind it.
And I know that when a patient comes to me, they've already gone on the average to 15 doctors before they come to me and so I know that God is the only healer and I know that he's blessed me, that through his hand that I've been able to help some patients get better and I am very grateful for having to have that opportunity.
QExplain your approach to the treatment of patients who present to you with end-stage cancer.
AMy approach is very simple, ma'am. My approach is to find what caused the cancer in the first place and to alleviate that burden in the body. My belief system is that if you eliminate all toxicity, and that is the key, all toxicity effectively, unfortunately that is strange to us as humans that we haven't identified how to effectively remove all toxicity. But if you can remove all toxicities, then you have a much better chance of actually achieving a positive outcome. You may be able to then move on to somebody's immune system in optimizing the physiology, but the key is detoxification.
QAnd explain to the Board, in general, why you use chelation with end-stage cancer patients?
AWell, I don't use chelation for end-stage cancer patients any more than I use chelation for any other type of patient. I use it to remove a burden and it just happens that most of these patients with end-stage cancer have a tremendous burden.
In fact, the physiology of cancer patients seems to be very similar to that physiology of an autistic patient which is the reason that I was asked by them to come and testify on that issue.
QAnd ‑-
AAnd if I can add something that may make it clearer, it's an inability to get rid of the burden.
QAnd, again, when you're addressing end-stage cancer patients, what do you feel the role of nutritional therapies are?
AIt's vital. If you look at the cancer research, when you look at the epidemiological studies, it is quite evident that cancer or war against cancer that was declared by President Nixon in the late 1960s that we have miserably failed. We actually have a higher incidence of cancer and now cancer has become the new false death in the industrialized world.
And with all the modern technology, if you can go to the moon, it would seem logical that we should be able to figure out what's causing cancer.
It appears that on the cellular level that there is an extreme deficit of nutrients. When I say nutrients, I'm not talking about nutrient health, but cellular level nutrients, things such as -- (inaudible) -- super oxide -- (inaudible) -- etcetera, etcetera. It seems to be the bottom co-factors that are necessary for these enzymatic reactions to act in a catalase form as they're supposed to be in a normal physiology. There seems to be a completed deficit on some of these patients. In fact, all cancer patients almost pathognomonically seem to have this micronutrient deficiency.
And what has been postulated which is something that I came with at the same time that a Greek physician had come up with, that I love trees and I noticed that the last thing that a tree does before it does, it goes into a rapid state of reparation, it pollinates.
And it seems like that's what happens in cancer that at the last part, right before that area of the body gets so nutriently devoid, it goes into a self-preservation mode and starts to self-replicate the suppression of apoptosis which is characteristic of cancer, it becomes rampant, the under controlled cellular reparation, the obvious glucose metabolism, the anaerobic -- the anaerobic metabolism, there are many different common characteristics of cancer.
There's very -- there many different types of cancer, but there's ‑- there are common characteristics and they all seem to be a response, a compensatory response to a deficiency on some micronutrient level, some microcellular level.
QCould you explain to the Board what role you see for oxidative therapies with end-stage cancer patients?
AThere are many postulates and hypothesis for how these various types of oxidated therapies work. Unfortunately, there's no profit for the pharmaceutical companies to do research to further postulate and elaborate as to what the actual mechanisms are, but there are a number of things.
Dr. Ripoll mentioned and I can further that, not only is it a catalyst, but it's a ferocity. There are various enzymes within the cells that in healthy cells that allow the body to deal with any type of oxidated stress.
However, fungi, yeast, various types of candidiases I guess would be the proper medical term to use, virus, some bacteria, heterogenic cells basically cells that have already had suppression of apoptosis that have uncontrolled cell reparation. They're various types of cells that actually do not have that compensatory mechanism intact.
So when you introduce an oxidated agent, what happens is you can think of it as a burst of fire that comes to the scene, healthy cells can protect themselves, they pull the fire retardant over their cell membranes, if you will, for a lack of a better explanation, but these other cells that are the yeast, the viral, the bacterial cells, these abnormal cells that are mutagenic cells, they don't have that compensatory reaction, so they actually get hit with this burst of oxidation.
And we have seen sometimes, even within an hour of a person with say acute influenza what is a rapid change in their physical appearance and their ability to be functional. It is completely done by this oxidated burst and the healthy cells are able to compensate and the unhealthy or un-normal cells that shouldn't be there for them not to be able to -- (inaudible).
QAnd I guess the last class of therapies that I want you to discuss with the Medical Board is the therapies that would somehow influence or boost the immune system.
AThere are various ways of doing that. There have actually been studies through using prayer to show that even prayer has actually increased the level of active killer cells, active killer cell activity -- (inaudible).
But everything from oxidative therapy, we do whatever it takes. We use oxidative therapies, we use various peptide analogs that's nutritional, whether it's oral, whether it's intravenous. We have used biofeedback. We have used meditation. We have used anything that I can possibly put my hands on to save my patient's life.
QAnd have you had empirical success with patients with cancer?
AAlmost all cancer ‑- almost all the patients that have come to me with cancer have failed conventional therapies and I would say that of all those patients that were all considered terminal, I probably have about 40 percent of them still alive today.
QAnd now is that a statistic that you advertise to patients?
AMa'am, I have not advertised in 11 years of practicing medicine. I started advertising last summer because we were moving to a new location and my recurrent complaint by my patients is that I didn't know you were here, Dr. Buttar. Why won't you tell the world. I've had patients that lived a quarter of a mile down the street from me that drove by my office for ten years that were referred to me by a doctor in California.
QAnd ‑- and I guess when I said advertising, you took it as advertising to the ‑- in the media. What I was wondering is, do you tell your patients ‑- do you give them any kind of statistics of success?
ANo, ma'am. I tell them that ‑- you know, to me it's anecdotal. Sometimes doctors will say, well, this is some anecdotal response and to me, you know, it's a little strange that we say that because to that patient it's 100 percent of their experience is not anecdotal.
But I also know that I can't rely upon what happened to one person to be indicative of what happens with another person. So when my patients ask me what is your success rate, I tell them that my success rate whether it's 1 out of 1,000 or 10 out of 1,000 or 100 out of 1,000 is really irrelevant to their situation because I cannot predict what's going to happen. All I can tell them is that I will do my best, but I can't predict anything.
QNow, you heard Ms. Kenny testify yesterday, did you not?
AYes, ma'am, I did.
QYou heard her say that she was in a meeting with you the first time that her husband went to see you; is that ‑-
AYes, ma'am.
Q‑- correct?
AYes, ma'am.
QAnd you recall that she said that she heard you say that you have a 100 percent success rate with cancer patients?
AYes, ma'am, I did hear ‑-
QDid you ever say that to Jeff Kenny or any other patient?
AI've never said that to any human being in my life.
QAnd, in fact, you believe that you've never met Stephanie Kenny before?
AI have never seen that lady. In fact, I didn't know who she was until she walked ‑- until she was asked to walk up here.
QAnd we'll get to more about that later with your ‑- when we go through Patient C.
AMa'am, may I make one comment?
QYes.
AIn medicine, what I was taught that any time anybody said 100 percent, there's no such thing as always or never in medicine.
And I have told my patients and I've lectured on this and this has been publicly documented that I've told patients that if doctors say they've got 100 percent or even 90 percent or even 80 percent, they are a liar, you need to move away from them.
QAnd is that just with regard to cancer or with regard to any kind of treatment for any kind of malady?
AWell, especially in the type of medicine I practice, I only get treatment failures ‑- I only get patients that have failed everything.
I don't have patients that walk in and say, hey, I was thinking about doing this or that. I get patients that are coming there from all over the place. I have patients from other countries, 27 different countries.
We don't advertise it. They come because they've heard from word of mouth and they come because they've failed everything else.
So I can't tell them anything. If they've already failed, my chances are already less than 1 percent. But the fact that they get better, the only ‑- the only thing I contribute it to is that God has blessed me.
QNow, let's talk specifically about these patients that are the subject of the complaints ‑-
AYes, ma'am.
Q‑- Patient A.
AYes, ma'am.
QCould you just in general summarize for the Board your ‑- your analysis of Patient A's case?
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