Cast of Characters:

Daniel Royal, JD, DO, HMD, a licensed insurance agent, runs the New Hope Medical Clinic, where he works with Dean Friesen, an unlicensed pharmacist and former President of the Nevada Institutional Review Board (NIRB), as well as David Steenblock, who has filed seven applications with the NIRB.   Dan Royal served as President of the Nevada State Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners until he was deposed after he and his father, Fuller Royal, MD, HMD, a long-time Board member and spokesman for homeopaths in Nevada, had a falling out in 2006.  To engineer the creation of the NIRB in 2005, Dan Royal registered as a lobbyist and later demanded payment for his legislative efforts from the Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners.  Although it's not clear how much he was paid or if he followed any required reporting procedures, it is clear that extracting these funds from the Homeopathic Board violated state laws regulating lobbying by non-profit and/or government entities.  Likewise, by engineering the hiring of his business partners, employees, and patients to serve on the NIRB, and by soliciting research applications from his colleagues at New Hope Medical, Dan Royal violated various regulations against conflicts of interest for members of state licensing boards. He also violated these rules in setting up the NIRB Medical Foundation, a 501(c)(3) to collect money for the NIRB, and then naming himself, his partner, Dean Friesen, and Robert Gentry, CFO at New Hope Medical, as trustees. For some insight into Dan Royal's competence as a state official, see the findings of a state audit conducted while he was still serving as President of the NSBHME.  Under his watch, the Homeopathic Board ran up a debt of over $83,000 to the Attorney General's Office, fell into complete disarray amid internal squabbles, and failed to formulate or follow any written policies or procedures on budgetary, administrative, and personnel matters.

Fuller Royal, MD, HMD, who is currently listed as President (elect) of the Nevada State Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners (NSBHME), runs the Nevada Clinic, where Mary Lou Heacock, who briefly served as Executive Director of the NSBHME, works as his assistant.  Fuller Royal was the leading advocate for expanding the scope of homeopathy in Nevada until his son, Dan Royal, took over legislative efforts in 2005.  While Dan and Fuller Royal have both wasted considerable state resources, in part by using the Attorney General's Office to carry on their family feud, it's not clear if anyone in Nevada state government cares how much their embarrassing bickering is costing taxpayers.   In 2007, in an effort to counter legislation promoted by his son, Dan, in the State Senate, Fuller Royal lobbied the Assembly to keep the NIRB in existence and to widen the array of treatments than can be legally prescribed by homeopaths in Nevada.

State Senator Michael Schneider, sponsored the original bill to create the NIRB and place it under the supervision of the Homeopathic Board.  In 2006, Schneider proposed additional legislation that was designed to prevent the homeopathic scheme from collapsing amid the battle between Dan Royal at the NIRB and Fuller  Royal at the Homeopathic Board.  However, when Schneider brought the legislation up for discussion before the Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor on 3/28/07, he and Dan Royal failed to line up any credentialed physicians or scientists to explain why the research projects selected and sponsored by the NIRB ought to be supervised by homeopaths.  Instead, Schneider promised that the scientific aspect of the NIRB, in particular stem cell research, would be dealt with a future meeting when the Committee would hear testimony from an unnamed doctor from Pittsburg who is reportedly qualified to speak on the topic.

Dean Friesen, former President of the NIRB and Director at New Hope Medical, described the NIRB as his "baby" and assured his colleagues last year that the NIRB could be "used for personal gain" if members were willing to "go through the hoops required," 2/24/06.   Despite a pharmacy degree and his position at New Hope Medical, Friesen is not a registered pharmacist, having been forced to surrender his license in California in 1995.  At a meeting of the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy in December 2006, while soliciting members for a new state board of "complimentary" --the term used in New Hope advertisements--and integrative medicine, Friesen acknowledged that he "had not been licensed in any state for at least twelve years." Governor Guinn demanded Friesen's resignation on March 3, 2006, after Nancy Lucas, a New Hope Medical employee and Executive Director of Research and Development at the NIRB, filed a restraining order against him for reasons that remain unclear.  On March 9, 2006, the Attorney General's Office absolved Friesen from "a cloud of suspicion" for unspecified reasons (3/10/06 ). However, it appears that Friesen was removed from the NIRB sometime in 2006, and the newly constituted membership of the board reviewed Lucas's application to be reinstated as Executive Director in January 2007.  No outcome was reported.

Valerie Kilgore, who is currently listed as Vice-President (elect) of the NSBHME, works at the Century Wellness Clinic in Reno.  The clinic is headed by James W. Forsythe, MD, HMD, who was indicted in September 2006 in a drug scandal (see below) and managed by Earlene Forsythe, APN, who is currently listed as a member of the Nevada Institutional Review Board.  Valerie Kilgore seems to be related to Ricci Kilgore, Forsythe's niece, who has become a spokesperson for the seemingly magic results of stem-cell treatments she received at Dr. William Rader's clinic in the Dominican Republic.

Frank Shallenberger, MD, HMD, who runs the Center for Anti-Aging and Alternative Medicine in Carson City, and served as Secretary-Treasurer of the NSBHME during the late 1990's, was forced to surrender his medical license in California in 1995.   Shallenberger moved to Nevada and was granted a license to practice medicine by the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners, which apparently found nothing sufficient in his background to prevent him from practicing medicine. The most recent complaints against Shallenberger are described in two articles by Jacyln O'Malley, reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal: Doctor says he's guilty of malpractice (9/24/07), and Homeopathic Board Hears Second Complaint (10/9/07). At a public meeting on December 1, 2006, the Nevada Medical Board gave Shallenberger an opportunity to discuss his illegal administration of human growth hormone (hGH), which conflicts with the current policy of the FDA.  Although the Board also addressed ongoing complaints against Shallenberger on December 1, none of the Board members offered him any advice about his prescribing of hGH for FDA-disapproved purposes.  Like his homeopathic colleagues, Shallenberger sends patients who visit him in Nevada for treatment at David Steenblock's California gateway to stem-cell therapy in Mexico (follow links below).

David Steenblock, DO,  HMD, who runs the Brain Therapeutics Medical Clinic in Mission Viejo, CA,  co-authored Umbilical Chord Stem Cell Therapy with "Dr." Anthony Payne, a medical researcher who has apparently never studied medicine or human biology at any institution of higher education that is recognized or accredited in the United States.  Steenblock was disciplined and fined in California in 1994 and 1995, first for negligence in treating two patients, one of whom died, and then after a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at his clinic blew up, injuring three people. Here's how Steenblock defends his practice of sending patients to Tijuana for stem cell therapy that is illegal in this country: "You give me some money and I'll go through the FDA," Steenblock said, but he added: "Why should you go through it when you could send the patient to Mexico or Costa Rica rather than deal with the malarkey here? The amount of red tape is astronomical." Steenblock, who is also affiliated with Dan Royal's New Hope Medical Clinic, reportedly submitted seven research proposals on stem cell research and clinical applications to the NIRB, sometime before or after the Royals procured him a license to practice as a homeopathic physician in Nevada.  However, the status of Steenblock's research activities is uncertain now that he is under investigation by the Medical Board of California.  According to the Orange County Register, the investigation was launched after a two-year-old girl had an allergic reaction to a $10,000 stem cell injection that Steenblock had ordered for her in Mexico.

James W. Forsythe, MD, HMD, a frequent visitor to Homeopathic Board meetings, shared offices and carried out a cancer research study with Philip Minton, MD, HMD?, who served as President of the Homeopathic Board in 2004 (see below).  Forsythe is currently under indictment for smuggling human growth hormone (hGH) into the U.S. from Israel and set to go on trial on 10/22/07.  According to an extensive profile in the Reno Gazette Journal, the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners investigated 18 complaints against Forsythe between 1996 and 2004, but none resulted in disciplinary action.  The Board of Medical Examiners failed to discipline Forsythe even though a medical board investigator described him as "one of the five most serious physician offenders known in the state of Nevada." Although the Board acknowledged that it had found extensive wrongdoing on Forsythe's part, it asserted that it was unable to take action against him because he claimed to have been acting as a homeopath rather than as a medical doctor, which is the same defense that Frank Shallenberger is currently using in the Medical Board's ongoing investigation of complaints against him.  The Medical Board did take disciplinary action against Forsythe in 1995 for overcharging for medical tests and procedures.  In addition to a $1,000 fine, Forsythe was required to pay the Medical Board $44,000 that was supposed to be "used by the Board for future public protection and awareness."  However, there is no discernable evidence that the Medical Board made any effort to protect the public either from Forsythe or from any of the other homeopathic MD's who engaged in similar misconduct in Nevada.  Forsythe's wife, Earlene Forsythe, APN, who manages Forsythe's Century Wellness Clinic, is currently listed as a member of the Nevada Institutional Review Board.

Dr. Phillip Drew Minton, MD, HMD? served as President of the Nevada State Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners during 2004, when he was also reportedly carrying out clinical research with James Forsythe on treating Stage IV cancer victims with Poly MVA.  Minton, who self-published The Immortality Enzyme: Aging, Cancer, and Heart Disease in 2001, promotes ordinary chocolate, especially hot cocoa, as a "healing balm" for "degenerative diseases" including "cancer, diabetes, dementia, and aging."  He also offers medical consultations via e-mail, which cost $87 (non-refundable) for a single consultation or $185 (non-refundable) per hour for more extensive services. On one of his web sites, Minton claims that he served on the " State Medical Licensing Board," presumably in Nevada, from 2000 to 2004.  However, Minton is not listed as a licensed medical doctor by the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners, although his resume indicates that he operated medical clinics in both Jackson, California and Reno, Nevada from 1983-2004. Minton's name is also missing from the current list of licensed homeopaths in Nevada.  However, it is not clear if the Homeopathic Board decided to prohibit him from renewing his license despite his status as former Board President.  On April 1, 2006, the Board reviewed a request from Minton that his homeopathic license be reinstated, but after closing the meeting to discuss his case, members publicly agreed to a motion made by Dan Royal to authorize Deputy Attorney General Ned Reed to contact Minton "to ascertain the status of the unresolved issue existent at the time that his license lapsed."  Without specifying what this "issue" might have been, the Board agreed that Minton should "appear personally before this Board in order for the Board to determine whether or not he is fit for relicensure."

Dr. Bruce Fong, DO, HMD, who is currently listed as Vice-President of the Homeopathic Board, runs the Sierra Integrative Medical Center in Reno.  Fong established this clinic in 2003 after he and his mother, Dr. Katrina Tang, separated their practice from that of Dr. James Forsythe at his Century Wellness Clinic.  Earlier, in 2002, after numerous complaints against her, Tang agreed not to take on any new patients.  In 2004, with lawsuits still pending, she reportedly surrendered her license and retired.  However, since Fong does not list any of the names of the various "doctors" and types of "doctors" who reportedly work with him, it is not clear if Tang is still active.  In an article on lyme disease published in 2004, Tang is described as "founder and Director of Research at the Sierra Integrative Medicine Clinic," and she may still hold that position. A person named "Magid Magid" is pictured on Fong's web site, along with SIMC CEO Sandra M. Guth; this may be Maged H. Maged, who is licensed as an Advanced Practitioner of Homeopathy (APH) in Nevada and who has sometimes described himself as an "MD," but who does not appear to be licensed to practice medicine anywhere in the U.S.

Michael Gerber, MD, HMD, whose California medical license was revoked in 1984,  was nominated by Dan Royal to serve on the NIRB subcommittee on "Scientific Concepts," with Dean Friesen as chair and Roger Belcourt as co-chair.  Gerber, who is not licensed to practice medicine in Nevada,  currently heads up the Nevada Homeopathic and Integrative Medical Association and also runs the Gerber Medical Clinic in Reno.  For insight into Gerber's conception of "science," see Thirty Years of Progress in Cardiovascular Health by Michael Gerber, MD, HMD, MD [ 2 degrees?].

Robert A. Eslinger, DO, HMD, has carried on the practice of the late W. Douglas Brodie, MD, who moved to Nevada from California in 1980 and eventually established the Reno Integrative Medical Center after what Eslinger describes as "three attacks on [Brodie's] medical license" by the Medical Board of California.  Like Harvey Bigelson (see below) and Frank Shallenberger , Eslinger uses "Darkfield Microscope and Internal Terrain Analysis" to diagnose a variety of diseases, especially cancer.  And like Fuller Royal and Shallenberger, Eslinger promotes Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) as a harmless alternative to conventional cancer treatment, even though there is no reliable indication that IPT works, and a great deal of evidence that suggests that it is dangerous to patients.

Meeting Minutes, Nevada State Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners, 7/19/2003 4. Applicant Hearing: Harvey Bigelsen: The board conducted an evidentiary hearing on the applications of Harvey Bigelsen for licensure as a homeopathic physician or, alternatively, for certification as an Advanced Practitioner of homeopathic medicine. Attorney, Hal Taylor, presented a legal argument for certification as an APH [Advanced Practitioner of Homeopathy]. Harvey Bigelsen testified under oath, and answered questions from board members. A. Motion: David Edwards moved to deny Harvey Bigelsen a HMD license. Second: Linda Read Action: Passed unanimously B. Motion: Fuller Royal moved to grant Harvey Bigelsen a APH certificate based upon the board's approval of his protocol at a future meeting. Second: Daniel Royal Action: Passed unanimously

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