Dr Dean Diaries
In my last blog I mentioned that 4 days before I was off for a year’s sabbatical in New York, my office was raided and files were taken by the College of Physicians and Surgeons licensing board. That was December, 1991. Because of that raid, it did take me ‘a minute’ to get to New York, but I did get there and it was only supposed to last a year. I did not expect it to become the rest of my life — and it happened because my mentor died and I had to take on his work.
I learned a lot in the 15 years we lived in New York. Staying in the U.S. certainly made it possible for me to eventually end up in Maui at the end of the rainbow, where I produced my Maui ReSet Study, which is the culmination of everything I’ve learned over the past 55+ years.
From Toronto to Manhattan
In Diary Blog #4 I spoke about learning a new technique called MIHR – Magnetically Influenced Homeopathic Remedies to treat the adult son of the Ambassador to Iran, James George. That detour was monumental. I was a Canadian doctor with thoughts of maybe retiring in British Columbia, never imagining ending up an American citizen in Maui.
Dr. Walter Fischman invented MIHR and at the request of Mr. George, Dr. Fischman’s wife and assistant came to Toronto and taught me the MIHR technique. A year later, Dr. Fischman, who had been planning an AIDS study, invited me to be the chief medical investigator. Serendipitously, I was ready for a break. I had already been telling my patients that in 1991-1992 I would be taking a sabbatical, but I didn’t know where…then ‘the where’ manifested. And it wasn’t really a break – more like a breakdown!
Earning My California Medical License
However, it wasn’t until February 1993 that we made our move to Manhattan with a circuitous route via Venice Beach, California. I had passed my first set of American Medical Boards during 3rd year medicine and the second during my Internship, but I had to qualify for a medical license. So, we spent about 6 months in Los Angeles flying back and forth to New York to learn the necessary lab procedures and application of MIHR.
I found it literally impossible to study for my medical license exam in LA…so I didn’t. It was an oral exam and I was flying by the seat of my pants. Using intuition and improvision I somehow nailed the test.
Here’s how it went. I was presented with a case of a couple coming into the doctor with the husband demanding extensive testing for his complaints and the wife just quietly mentioning some achiness in her right lower abdomen. I heard the two cases and was asked for my recommendations. I said I would do some routine blood work for the husband to quiet his fears but I would work up his wife for ovarian cancer. Bingo! The examiners seemed impressed and I was awarded my California license, which I hold to this day. I do that because it forces me take regular CME (continuing medical education) course credits as I observe the terrifying decline of allopathic medicine into almost exclusively drug-based therapies.
Taking Over the AIDS Study in Manhattan
Perhaps he knew what was coming and that’s why Dr. Fishman invited me to Manhattan, but I was only in the lab a few short months before he became ill. It was heart failure – many decades earlier he had a severe heart attack that he told me was due to some seriously unhealthy habits when he was younger. It was after that, in the 1970’s that he started studying homeopathy, Chinese herbal medicine, and acupuncture but I guess his heart remained weak.
It was a very stressful time as the proverbial rug was being pulled out from under his wife, the study, and me but I rallied, even to the point of kidnapping Walter out of New York Presbyterian hospital when the treatment they were giving him was not helping in the least. He wanted to die at home, and he got his wish on August 12, 1993. I had to rally once again to deal with his distraught, much younger wife and continue the study as well as bring the MIHR treatment to other clinics.
Don’t forget, we were treating AIDS patients at a time when people were terrified of it. I got quite a shock one day when the very thin 30-gauge needle I had just used to inject a remedy into a patient’s acupuncture point ended up piercing my skin. I quickly went into the lab and soaked the area in bleach! There was really no protocol for such a blunder. I don’t remember being freaked out – because after all, I told myself, I had the remedies for AIDS at hand!
When Alternative AIDS Treatments Came Under Fire
We were having good initial results with our patients, but everything was cut horribly short when Anthony Fauci mounted a huge campaign publicly demonizing any alternative AIDS treatments including the infamous Buyer’s. Clubs while promoting AZT.
NOTE: Buyer’s clubs for AIDS were informal networks that emerged in the 1980s, allowing individuals to access non-FDA approved treatments for HIV/AIDS that included herbs, vitamins, minerals, and medications.
Fauci was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and played a significant role in the development and promotion of AZT. With his help, the FDA granted accelerated approval to AZT a few years before I arrived in NY; it gradually took over as the “only” treatment for AIDS. Most study participants in our trial were drawn away by ‘the promise’ of AZT and ultimately died
From Natural Medicine to Manhattan Morning TV
I didn’t go public about my AIDS work, I knew from the attack on me by my licensing body in Ontario that alternative medicine is easily demonized but I did promote natural medicine as much as I could on the Manhattan morning TV shows. The invitations came about because I published my second natural medicine book. Here’s how that happened.
I was attending all the alternative medicine conferences in New York and I met Nathan Keats, the owner of Keats Publishing promoting health and wellness topics. I told him about my book When You Can’t Reach the Doctor and he said he’d like to take a look at it and do an updated version, which came out in 1994 as “Dr. Carolyn Dean’s Complementary Natural Prescriptions for Common Ailments.”
Perhaps it was someone at Keats who got me on the New York morning talk-show circuit, including roughly a dozen episodes of The View. It was fun but frustrating. I even had the producer tell me to tone down my comedy and leave it to the hosts.
My Years on The View
My favorite show on The View was about hemorrhoids. We had to do a pre-show rehearsal, and I was told that I had a bigger pre-show audience of crew members than Pamela Lee Anderson! I guess you could see why they tried to shut down my comedy!
I brought props. I was ready to go with a bunch of grapes and the cardboard tube of a toilet roll wrapped in aluminum foil. As I was describing how hemorrhoids form, I eased the narrow bunch of grapes down the tube so they poked out the bottom. Hilarious! It was one of the several segments of mine that made it on “Talk Soup,” which featured humorous commentary from daytime talk shows.
My favorite guest on The View was Garth Brooks. One of the producers told me he was going to be on, so I wore a pair of tights covered in horses and I had a chance to show them off to him while we were in makeup.
It was fun and it was also pretty silly. I’d have a few minutes to talk and nothing of much importance was aired. Silly also because of the tension between the hosts. Barbara Walters did not want to be in the same room with Star; famous guests brought their own makeup team who pranced around them nipping and tucking until they actually looked the worse for wear; the health segments weren’t meant to educate anyone but to get some quick laughs.
When Drug Advertising Changed Daytime TV
All the fun ended once Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertising was permitted on TV. I’m sure that Big Pharma advertisers wrote it into their contracts that shows carrying their ads could not feature guests promoting drug alternatives. Ergo, more evidence the dumbing down of America. I’ll tell you more when I talk about why I wrote Death by Modern Medicine in 2005.
Another show I did in the mid 90’s was “Alive and Wellness,” which aired on the NBC cable channel “America’s Talking.” The show focused on health and wellness topics and was hosted by Carol Martin. Carol was dedicated to giving out good information and I had a lot more airtime to express my views. The other morning shows I did were interesting – I saw “stars” from Friends and other TV series but they were mostly nursing their coffee trying to wake up from their late-night lifestyle.
My Last Brush With Daytime TV
My last brush with daytime TV was being sought out and then rejected by the Dr. Oz TV show because I gave them full disclosure about the fake “removal” of my license in Canada. They were supposed to be an alternative medicine show but would not tolerate someone who spoke out against sugar and would forever be ostracized.
A concern I had about the Oz show at the time was learning from an exercise guru friend who had a 3-book deal with Random House about the contract she would have to sign to be on the Dr. Oz show. I’m sure she told me the truth – and she’s since passed away – but she was told she would be obliged to pay a substantial percentage of her earnings for a certain amount of time after the show because of the huge publicity push she would receive.
The Book That Changed My Direction
In my next blog, I’ll talk more about my life-altering experience writing a book on magnesium for Random House. Briefly, a friend connected me to a Random House publisher, Leslie Meredith. I was pitching a Chinese diet book that I wanted to write with Jeffrey Yuen, a twice ordained Taoist Priest and Chinese Medicine Doctor. As fate would have it, the publisher had just signed an author for that topic but, having had personal success using magnesium for migraines, Leslie asked me if I would consider writing a book about magnesium instead. I signed a contract with Random House, August 2000.
From Manhattan to City Island
It was a fate-filled year. We made a 2000 move to City Island in the Bronx, escaping before 9/11, Sept, 2001. The move was on the recommendation of the Ambassador to Iran, who brought me to Manhattan in the first place. The Ambassador and a member of had family had homes on City Island. It’s a beautiful mile-and-a-half-long island rumored to have been settled by the mafia for its quick boat escape routes. I walked the island and the adjacent beach parks daily. It was a big change from the big city.
I was ready for this move; the AIDS–Chronic Fatigue study had fizzled out and so did the work with local clinics. On City Island I began a telephone consulting practice and organized a Community Supported Agriculture group that planted in me a whole box of seeds for my intensive farm experience in Maui.
I had previously joined and then helped coordinate a CSA out of a church at East 91st Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. After moving to City Island, I organized a group of locals to bring that same farmer out to the island with delicious boxes of organic produce.
Next week: What a phone call on a September morning taught me about food security, and the long, roundabout road it put us on toward Maui.
This content is for educational purposes only and discusses nutritional and lifestyle support for normal structure and function of the body. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure disease. Consult a qualified healthcare professional for personal medical guidance.
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