TORONTO – The director of a Florida health spa where two aboriginal girls from Ontario went to seek alternative therapy for cancer has been ordered to stop practicing medicine.
The Florida Department of Health sent a letter earlier this month to Brian Clement of the Hippocrates Health Institute, saying it has “probable cause” to believe he is practicing medicine without a licence.
Hippocrates Health Institute has not responded to requests from The Canadian Press to comment on the action by the state. However a Florida TV station, WPEC CBS 12, quotes a statement from a spokeswoman as saying Hippocrates denies the allegations and will vigorously contest them “through the administrative process.”
READ MORE: Ontario girl Makayla Sault, who refused chemo in favour of traditional medicine, dies
Makayla Sault, an 11-year-old member of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, located near Brantford, Ont., made headlines when she abandoned her cancer treatment to go to the Florida spa.
Her family blamed chemotherapy for the stroke that killed her last month, but oncologists said that untreated leukemia can in fact cause strokes.
In a second case from the Brantford area, a judge ruled an 11-year-old girl with cancer had a constitutional right to opt for traditional medicine over chemotherapy.
READ MORE: Ontario judge sides with aboriginal girl’s family in case over cancer treatment
The girl, whose name cannot be revealed due to a publication ban, was receiving chemo before her mother removed her to take her to the Florida spa for alternative therapy, which involved herbal treatments and lifestyle changes.
A order issued to Clement on Feb. 10 states he is to “cease-and-desist from practicing medicine in the State of Florida” until he is “appropriately licenced.”
The Hippocrates website says it offers a Cancer Wellness Program that changes “a person’s vibrational frequency or bioenergy field … so that it is more difficult for their cancer or tumour mass with its own specific vibrational frequency to be sustained.’
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