Carmody denies offering cancer cure

FORMER CLARE GP Paschal Carmody told a jury yesterday he never promised 15-year-old Conor O’Sullivan a cure for his cancer.

Dr Carmody told Ennis Circuit Court he had 150 cancer patients under his care, but he never set himself out to be a cancer expert.

“It wasn’t a commercial venture to make money from cancer patients. I never did. I never wanted to.”

Dr Carmody (63), Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, is denying defrauding family relatives of two terminally ill cancer patients of €16,554 at the East Clinic, Killaloe, concerning the photodynamic therapy (PDT) given to the two.

Seven of the nine charges relate to the late Co Wexford teenager Conor O’Sullivan, who died from an aggressive form of bone cancer in November 2002. The remaining two relate to John Sheridan (58), Kells, Co Kilkenny, who died from liver cancer in November 2002.

In court yesterday, Dr Carmody said: “I never promised Conor O’Sullivan a cure for his cancer. I did declare to the O’Sullivans that photodynamic therapy treatment and adjunctive treatments had value and we had a certain degree of success with the kind of tumour that Conor O’Sullivan suffered from. There was no mention of a cure or of promises made.”

He added: “I said that we had some success prolonging life with sarcomas and I thought he might get some years from the treatment.”

Conor died in November 2002, four months after undergoing PDT at Dr Carmody’s clinic.

Dr Carmody said the percentage success rates of his cancer patients was not high unfortunately and the clinic turned away hundreds more patients where nothing could be done for them. It was “incorrect” to say he told relatives of Mr Sheridan he would be cured of cancer.

Pat Marrinan SC, for Dr Carmody, said the companies providing PDT at the clinic – operated by Dr Bill Porter and his wife, Maggie – received €5.5 million in payments between 2001 and 2004. Dr Porter – who had concealed from Dr Carmody that he had been struck-off in the US – is out of the jurisdiction.

Mr Marrinan said Dr Carmody and the clinic received payments totalling €447,000 from the PDT companies, accounting for 8.5 per cent of the total. Dr Carmody said he was not aware of the existence of PDT Treatment Ltd at the time.

Mr Marrinan said the costs of PDT to patients increased from €6,400 in 2001 to €8,500 by August 2002 and climbed further to €20,000 in November 2002.

Dr Carmody said a substantial portion of the €20,000 related to travel expenses, hotel accommodation and many other costs in the US for patients based there.

Mr Marrinan said the Medical Council secured a High Court injunction in December 2002 preventing Dr Carmody from providing further PDT, prompting a number of Dr Carmody’s patients to take High Court action in order to receive the treatment.

Dr Carmody admitted to being “shocked” when struck off as a medical doctor by the Medical Council in July 2004.

“I felt that I had wronged no human being and for reasons I still don’t understand my licence was taken from me and my ability to make a living was taken.”

Dr Carmody said his practice was overwhelmed for a number of years after a Late Late Showspecial item in the late 1980s on his 85 per cent success rate for people suffering from ME. He said he did not appear on the programme, but patients who had been treated at his clinic did appear.

The trial continues today.