Claims of alternative medicine and pharmacy practitioners on efficacious healing on terminal diseases suffer a crushing setback as laboratory analysis of some formulae on therapy for cancer ended up being a hoax, and a naturalized American doctor and Pentecostal preacher, Christine Daniel, faces the possibility of up to one hundred and fifty years behind bars.
The medical doctor originally from Nigeria, with e-mail spam-like name Christine Daniel, promised unsubstantiated snake oil healing for cancer patients who at the most critical point of their illness are made to drink portions that stink like sewage water.
Christine Daniel, 57, of Los Angeles was found guilty Monday of 11 counts, including wire fraud, tax evasion and witness tampering. She faces up to 150 years in prison and $5.5 million in fines when she’s sentenced on Dec. 5.
Daniel used her position both as a doctor at the Sonrise Wellness Center and a Pentecostal minister to entice people from across the nation to take her herbal product. She charged as much as $150,000 for a six-month treatment program that she said could cure cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes.
In court documents, authorities contend Daniel took advantage of patients who desperately sought alternative measures after enduring draining rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.
She claimed the supplement’s success rate was between 60 and 100 percent for metastatic or terminal cancers. However, at trial experts called by federal prosecutors said chemical tests of the product showed it contained beef extract flavoring and a sunscreen preservative among other ingredients.
Many of her patients, relying on her product, died from complications of cancer within three to six months after taking the supplement. In all, authorities believe Daniel siphoned about $1.1 million from 55 families between 2001 and 2004.
Prosecutors said Daniel tried to influence the testimony of at least two witnesses who were called before a grand jury. She was acquitted of one count of witness tampering.
The trial, which began in March, took a four-month hiatus after the daughter of Daniel’s defense attorney died in May. The lawyer was relieved and Daniel represented herself for the remainder of the trial. A phone listing for Daniel, who is free on bond, could not be found.
The steady ascendancy of claims of superstitions and faith-based healings amongst Africans and Nigerians in particular call for concern. Radio, television and newspapers are normally awash with advertisements on herbal therapies that have sent patients to their early graves. Churches and mosques and traditional worshippers often look like people on psychological warfare on who can best market claims of miraculous healings. It is not strange to find rickety cars mounted with megaphones hawking products that allegedly perform multiple healings all laced with hyperbolic stunts and zero cautions on side effects of the use. Maternal and infant mortalities often trace directly to such unrestrained medicine administration. The country’s agency for drug and food administration control is stepping up campaigns and may even make deaths coming from such use to be punishable by death.