`Christian wellness’ practitioners draw federal scrutiny

[spinbaby]

I just couldn't believe this when I saw it in today's WSJ:



As her lung cancer spread, shortening her breath, pressing into her back, Minna Shakespeare had faith that a thick, brown liquid she bought by mail from a California physician for $13,536 would cure her.

Her husband says Mrs. Shakespeare, a registered nurse and devout Christian in Cambridge, Mass., stopped chemotherapy on the doctor's advice. Easton Shakespeare recalls his wife assuring him that the doctor, who prayed with her over the phone, was trustworthy.

Mrs. Shakespeare died in April 2003, four months after her first dose of the viscous liquid. Her husband's complaints triggered a federal investigation of Christine Daniel, a licensed physician and Pentecostal minister practicing in Mission Hills, Calif. Investigators say she used religion to sell expensive nostrums that she claimed could cure cancer.

Dr. Daniel's small business is part of a boom in "Christian wellness" — dietary supplements and herbal formulas, sometimes along with diets inspired by Biblical descriptions, that sell briskly in a lightly regulated industry. Sales by religiously affiliated companies have surged since the mid-1990s to account for 5 percent to 10 percent of the dietary-supplements business, which had about $21 billion in 2005 sales, says Grant Ferrier, editor of Nutrition Business Journal in San Diego.

(More)

http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/new_singleEdit.asp?individual_SQL=1%2F24%2F2007%4013307_Public_.htm