The unregistered American doctor who has been treating cancer patients with an alternative light therapy in the mid-west now claims the €20,000 therapy is also of benefit to HIV and AIDS patients.
Dr William Porter, an eye surgeon who was struck off for gross negligence in the US, has acknowledged in an interview with The Irish Times that no scientific studies have been done on the efficacy of the treatment about which he is making significant claims.
The treatment is called cytoluminescent therapy or CLT. Patients undergoing the therapy are first given a liquid to drink and then placed under lights.
A review of the outcome for 48 patients treated by Dr Porter with CLT in Killaloe, Co Clare, in late 2002 and early 2003 found 17 were dead within six months of the treatment and many suffered after effects.
The liquid patients are given has never been tested on animals or in clinical trials, Dr Porter concedes. He is treating patients from all over the world out of a bungalow in Ballina, next to Killaloe, on the Clare/Tipperary border and an Irish registered doctor Dr Tom Cleary is the "attending physician"
when the treatment is administered.
Serious concern was expressed this week about the treatment and the fact that it was recommended to a wide range of patients by Killaloe-based
GP Dr Paschal Carmody, who has now been struck off the medical register. Many patients said they felt duped after spending thousands on a treatment that did nothing for them.
Yesterday the Mid Western Health Board confirmed it received a number of “communications” about Dr Carmody in the past year and it referred “the complainants” to the Medical Council, which it said was the appropriate authority.
“There is no registration or licensing system in place in Ireland for alternative therapies. Accordingly, the health board has no authority in respect of alternative therapies,” it added.
Meanwhile North Tipperary County Council has served an enforcement notice on Dr Porter ordering him to stop using a private house for commercial purposes - treating patients.
The president of the Medical Council, Dr John Hillery, said any patient with a complaint should contact the Medical Council. He said specialised treatments need to be supervised by trained medical specialists in an appropriate setting.
“And they should only be treated by a relevant specialist . . . You shouldn’t have an A&E consultant doing plastic surgery,” he said.