State works out a deal with Molalla health center owner
0 Comments Published by Pioneer Staff on Friday, September 28, 2007 at 7:27 PM.
By Abby Sewell
Molalla Pioneer
Greenhouse Health and Wellness Center owner Ralph D. Mitchell won’t be calling himself “Doctor Dan” any more, under the terms of an agreement that the clinic owner and the Oregon Department of Justice signed on Wednesday.
The Molalla clinic owner, who does not hold any medical license or academic degree recognized by the state of Oregon, won’t be allowed to practice naturopathic medicine, diagnose diseases or hand out “prescriptions” for treatments. He won’t be allowed to tell people that he holds a Ph.D., a Doctor of Ministry or even an undergraduate degree.
He won’t be allowed to claim that he has done “pioneering” work in the field known as Bioenergetic psychotherapy until he can prove to the state that he has actually done so.
And he’ll be required to pay restitution to former customers of the clinic who have filed complaints against him with the DOJ, along with $25,000 to the state agencies that participated in the five-month investigation of his practice; including the Oregon Board of Naturopathic Examiners, the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization and the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners.
The agreement reached on Wednesday is similar to a plea bargain, according to DOJ spokesperson Jan Margosian. The agency worked with Mitchell’s attorney to prepare it. By signing it, Mitchell avoided admitting to any violations and forestalled a potential lawsuit.
But that doesn’t mean he is off the hook, she said.
“He’s out of business as far as illegally practicing medicine, and we’re going to monitor everything he does,” Margosian said. “… He can’t diagnose and treat disease, whether he uses an instrument or whatever – he can’t do it.”
But Mitchell said he does not claim to practice medicine and is not out of business as far as operating the Greenhouse is concerned. His attorney Brad Woodworth said the agreement with the DOJ allows Mitchell to continue counseling clients as a pastor and conducting electrodermal skin testing, a method of analysis that measures the electrical response of a subject’s skin.
“I am a pioneer in this field of using this technology to discover the connection between emotional and behavioral issues and physical issues,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell will not be allowed to diagnose medical conditions, to prescribe treatments such as ionic footbaths as he did in the past, or to administer acupressure and massage therapy.
But the fact that he will be allowed to continue operating the business at all is a better outcome than he had expected, Mitchell said.
“This (agreement) is a total victory,” Mitchell said. “… If I was hurting the public, if I was doing something deceitful, if the technology was fraudulent – all those things they charged me with – they wouldn’t have made this settlement to say I can keep doing it.”
But at least one former client still maintains Mitchell is nothing but a fraud.
Former Greenhouse customer Deana Rieden went to the emergency room and narrowly avoided amputation of her feet after going through a series of foot soaks that Mitchell told her would cure her diabetes, according to a complaint filed in Clackamas County last Wednesday.
Now she’s suing for more than $250,000.
Rieden, a diabetic, suffers from a painful nerve disorder called neuropathy and originally approached Mitchell in April 2007 to get an herbal pain remedy.
Mitchell told her to call him “Doctor Mitchell” or “Doctor Dan,” she said.
“He said ‘I can cure neuropathy’ and I was like, ‘You can?’” Rieden said. “The way I understood it, there is no cure for neuropathy.”
Not only that, Mitchell also told her he could cure her diabetes through a series of detoxifying foot baths, she said. Rieden, who had been told by medical doctors not to soak her feet, was wary but eventually agreed.
Even when her feet became swollen and sore after the baths, Mitchell encouraged her to stick with the regime, she said.
“About the third visit, I started feeling really weird about the whole process,” she said. “But he convinced me it was normal and that it was going to get worse before it gets better.”
Beyond telling her to continue with the foot baths, Rieden said, Mitchell told her to pour peroxide and colloidal silver on the sores on her legs to treat the infection.
Eventually, the infection in her legs became so severe that she wound up in the emergency room, where doctors told her she was at risk of losing her feet.
Although medical treatment succeeded in saving her feet, the process left Rieden feeling bitter.
“I’m really afraid that (Mitchell) is going to do something like this to someone else,” she said.
A relative of Rieden’s who asked not to be identified by name said, “You assume someone in his position knows what they’re talking about … but (Mitchell) should never have been treating (Deanna). He should never have been treating anyone with any kind of serious disease.”
Mitchell declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The clinic owner maintains that he’s caught in a “David and Goliath” battle with a state that has an overly restrictive definition of naturopathic medicine and does not allow for other types of alternative therapy.
The solution, he said, is to change the laws in the state of Oregon to allow more freedom to alternative health practitioners.
“We are continuing to address the alternative health issues within the state, now that we’ve won (the agreement with the DOJ), through legislative change,” he said.
Woodworth credited some of the Mitchell’s legal issues to the fact that the technologies he uses are new to the medical field.
“In the initial adoption and early use phases of this technology, there are some turf battles emerging,” he said. “… A lot of the things that are occurring are really things that are in the statutory and regulatory gray areas.”
Margosian said the DOJ received 96 complaints regarding alternative health practitioners between 1989 and 2007, and undertook 12 investigations.
She could not give an exact count of how many people lost their naturopathic license or were found to be practicing without a license during that time period.
Molalla Pioneer
Greenhouse Health and Wellness Center owner Ralph D. Mitchell won’t be calling himself “Doctor Dan” any more, under the terms of an agreement that the clinic owner and the Oregon Department of Justice signed on Wednesday.
The Molalla clinic owner, who does not hold any medical license or academic degree recognized by the state of Oregon, won’t be allowed to practice naturopathic medicine, diagnose diseases or hand out “prescriptions” for treatments. He won’t be allowed to tell people that he holds a Ph.D., a Doctor of Ministry or even an undergraduate degree.
He won’t be allowed to claim that he has done “pioneering” work in the field known as Bioenergetic psychotherapy until he can prove to the state that he has actually done so.
And he’ll be required to pay restitution to former customers of the clinic who have filed complaints against him with the DOJ, along with $25,000 to the state agencies that participated in the five-month investigation of his practice; including the Oregon Board of Naturopathic Examiners, the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization and the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners.
The agreement reached on Wednesday is similar to a plea bargain, according to DOJ spokesperson Jan Margosian. The agency worked with Mitchell’s attorney to prepare it. By signing it, Mitchell avoided admitting to any violations and forestalled a potential lawsuit.
But that doesn’t mean he is off the hook, she said.
“He’s out of business as far as illegally practicing medicine, and we’re going to monitor everything he does,” Margosian said. “… He can’t diagnose and treat disease, whether he uses an instrument or whatever – he can’t do it.”
But Mitchell said he does not claim to practice medicine and is not out of business as far as operating the Greenhouse is concerned. His attorney Brad Woodworth said the agreement with the DOJ allows Mitchell to continue counseling clients as a pastor and conducting electrodermal skin testing, a method of analysis that measures the electrical response of a subject’s skin.
“I am a pioneer in this field of using this technology to discover the connection between emotional and behavioral issues and physical issues,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell will not be allowed to diagnose medical conditions, to prescribe treatments such as ionic footbaths as he did in the past, or to administer acupressure and massage therapy.
But the fact that he will be allowed to continue operating the business at all is a better outcome than he had expected, Mitchell said.
“This (agreement) is a total victory,” Mitchell said. “… If I was hurting the public, if I was doing something deceitful, if the technology was fraudulent – all those things they charged me with – they wouldn’t have made this settlement to say I can keep doing it.”
But at least one former client still maintains Mitchell is nothing but a fraud.
Former Greenhouse customer Deana Rieden went to the emergency room and narrowly avoided amputation of her feet after going through a series of foot soaks that Mitchell told her would cure her diabetes, according to a complaint filed in Clackamas County last Wednesday.
Now she’s suing for more than $250,000.
Rieden, a diabetic, suffers from a painful nerve disorder called neuropathy and originally approached Mitchell in April 2007 to get an herbal pain remedy.
Mitchell told her to call him “Doctor Mitchell” or “Doctor Dan,” she said.
“He said ‘I can cure neuropathy’ and I was like, ‘You can?’” Rieden said. “The way I understood it, there is no cure for neuropathy.”
Not only that, Mitchell also told her he could cure her diabetes through a series of detoxifying foot baths, she said. Rieden, who had been told by medical doctors not to soak her feet, was wary but eventually agreed.
Even when her feet became swollen and sore after the baths, Mitchell encouraged her to stick with the regime, she said.
“About the third visit, I started feeling really weird about the whole process,” she said. “But he convinced me it was normal and that it was going to get worse before it gets better.”
Beyond telling her to continue with the foot baths, Rieden said, Mitchell told her to pour peroxide and colloidal silver on the sores on her legs to treat the infection.
Eventually, the infection in her legs became so severe that she wound up in the emergency room, where doctors told her she was at risk of losing her feet.
Although medical treatment succeeded in saving her feet, the process left Rieden feeling bitter.
“I’m really afraid that (Mitchell) is going to do something like this to someone else,” she said.
A relative of Rieden’s who asked not to be identified by name said, “You assume someone in his position knows what they’re talking about … but (Mitchell) should never have been treating (Deanna). He should never have been treating anyone with any kind of serious disease.”
Mitchell declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The clinic owner maintains that he’s caught in a “David and Goliath” battle with a state that has an overly restrictive definition of naturopathic medicine and does not allow for other types of alternative therapy.
The solution, he said, is to change the laws in the state of Oregon to allow more freedom to alternative health practitioners.
“We are continuing to address the alternative health issues within the state, now that we’ve won (the agreement with the DOJ), through legislative change,” he said.
Woodworth credited some of the Mitchell’s legal issues to the fact that the technologies he uses are new to the medical field.
“In the initial adoption and early use phases of this technology, there are some turf battles emerging,” he said. “… A lot of the things that are occurring are really things that are in the statutory and regulatory gray areas.”
Margosian said the DOJ received 96 complaints regarding alternative health practitioners between 1989 and 2007, and undertook 12 investigations.
She could not give an exact count of how many people lost their naturopathic license or were found to be practicing without a license during that time period.
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