The Medical Tourism Movement in Nevada: Dollar Signs, Duplicity, and Disease*

Most Americans associate medical tourism with travel to other countries.  But if an odd alliance of Nevada state legislators, anti-aging specialists, and alternative doctors succeeds, sick, dying, and desperate people from around the world will be arriving in cities such as Reno and Las Vegas to pay for treatments that defy accepted medical standards and won't be available elsewhere in the United States.  Nevada's freewheeling approach to healthcare regulation, which mirrors its approach to gambling and prostitution, is nothing new.  Recently, however, state legislators and other officials have been attempting to pump up the health tourism industry by explicitly permitting alternative healthcare providers to engage in practices that have yet to be approved or that have been  prohibited by the FDA.  At the same time, in a dubious effort to position the state to cash in on advances in medicine, lawmakers have placed the supervision of medical research and treatment, especially in the area of stem-cell applications, in the hands of a unique coalition of homeopaths. 

What distinguishes these homeopaths from most doctors is not only that they appear to be opposed to scientific investigation and FDA controls, but also that many of them have been disciplined by medical boards or have lost their medical licenses in other states.  And what distinguishes Nevada from every other other state in the country, including those that license homeopaths, is that its medical board shields unfit physicians from effective discipline both by ignoring existing statutes and by allowing homeopathic MD's who are accused of misconduct to determine which laws should or should not apply to their case.  While the medical board contends that it can do nothing to reign in renegade homeopaths even if they are also licensed MD's, an examination of the board's history of incompetence shows that its hands-off policies regarding alternative practitioners falls directly into line with its longstanding tradition of protecting reckless doctors rather than their patients.

The pages that follow document how Nevada's dangerous foray into medical tourism, which has been fueled by factors ranging from tort reform to bureaucratic bungling to political corruption and old-fashioned greed, has produced a perfect storm of medical misconduct that threatens public health and safety far beyond the borders of the state.   

"Las Vegas is No. 1 as a tourist destination, No. 1 as a shopping destination. The reality is we believe in  two years we can make Las Vegas the No.1 destination for alternative medicine," unlicensed pharmacist Dean Friesen, President, Nevada Institutional Review Board, Director, New Hope Medical Clinic, 12/2/05.

Go to:   1. Introduction    2. Context      3. History      4. Medical Results     5. Political Results

Author: Susan E. Gallagher, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts                                  Page updated 1/30/08

*All of the criticism offered on these pages is directed at elected representatives, political appointees, government officials, and public figures who have made information about their public activities freely available on the Internet.  All assertions are documented by links to public documents, and all commentary springs from a sincere commitment to promoting good government by providing accurate information about significant social and political problems.  If you find any misinformation on this site, please send specific evidence to Professor Susan E. Gallagher.  Keep in mind that empty declarations and idle threats will be ignored.