From the July 1999 Idaho Observer:

MD persecuted for proving that poisons are poisonous

Detox doctor destroyed over his expert court testimonies

by The Idaho Observer

The people of Sturgeon, MO, were exposed to toxic levels of dioxin when a train carrying two tankers full of Monsanto's pesticide orthochlorophenol derailed near the town's elementary school and high school December 27, 1979. Dioxin is an extremely toxic byproduct of phosphate fertilizer production. The amount of dioxin contained in the spilled pesticides was only three to four ounces.

Unaware that the town had experienced the chemical catastrophe, Zane Gard, MD, and his family moved to the small, friendly town of Sturgeon in May, 1980, to open a medical practice.

According to Dr. Gard's observations as he began to treat patients who were suffering from illnesses resulting from exposure to dioxin, “All small ground life died within 2-3 miles of the spill. Cattle on a farm 7-8 miles downstream died. The farmer who owned the cattle died within the first 6 months, another within a year and a half. A young Amish boy died of tri-lateral retinoblastoma (of which there have only been 9 cases reported anywhere in the world) and a young Amish man died of malignant lymphoma that same year. There was 10-15 times increase in flu-like symptoms, allergies and kidney infections (many were in young boys). The urinary infections always followed a rain. There was an increased number of cases of infectious mono diagnosed.”

Dr. Gard and many other townspeople contacted the local public health department with questions about the dangers associated with the dioxin spill. According to Dr. Gard, “...the health department and the Monsanto Chemical Co. assured the townspeople that there was no danger to their health.”

The Gards, all of them sick with a variety of illnesses consistent with other Sturgeon residents, left the town 18 months after the spill and returned to California where they could combine their efforts with other researchers to investigate the effects of toxic exposure to people. Dr. Gard and his wife, a PHN, hoped that their studies would allow them to develop treatments for toxic exposure.

To this day, the residents of Sturgeon suffer unprecedented numbers of cancers, tumors, and other serious illnesses and psychological disorders that are well above the national average. Many people have died.

The people filed suit against the powerful Monsanto Chemical Co. Dr. Gard was called in several times to testify as an expert witness. “It was frustrating because I was never allowed to present anything of substance to the court because the attorneys kept objecting to everything on procedural grounds,” remembers Dr. Gard.

After years of litigation, the only settlement for damages that was reached was after the company that manufactured the railroad car coupler was found to be negligent.

No legal precedent was set to hold chemical companies liable for damages when their toxins have provably poisoned and killed people.

Chemical companies attack detox doctor

Dr. Gard estimates that 17 percent of Americans are toxic from multiple chemical exposures to the point that their quality of life is compromised. Some people are so toxic that just a whiff of a common chemical is enough to send them into a coma.

“We found a detox regimen that would expel toxins from sick people,” said Dr. Gard, who added that he had been told by a congressman that there had been three “top secret” treatment centers for high-ranking Viet Nam war officers that had used a similar detox process after being exposed to chemicals such as agent orange.

Dr. Gard became the medical director of the Bio-Tox Reduction Program® in 1982. By 1991 the program had evolved to include the Hans Selye treatment of diet, exercise, sauna baths, massage, niacin supplementation and chelation therapy to remove toxins from patients.

The Bio-Tox methods of detoxification were so successful that the program was taught to health care providers all over the world.

Dr. Gard and his colleagues enjoyed tremendous success and felt blessed that they could help so many people who would otherwise be doomed to living a life of pain and sickness.

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Gard began to testify against such corporate giants as Dow Chemical, Monsanto and Union Carbide as an expert witness on behalf of his patients. Soon after Dr. Gard's testimonies helped his patients to be awarded settlements from the chemical companies, the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance began to engage in activities designed to discredit Dr. Gard and ruin his business.

As can easily be inferred from a statement by Bruce Halstead, MD, who has known Dr. Gard for nearly 40 years, the activities of the board were synonymous with the term racketeering.

Dr. Halstead, who himself had been persecuted for having the audacity to practice medicine in the best interest of his patients rather than the pharmaceutical companies, stated February 21, 1992, that a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent came by on matters unrelated to Dr. Gard. According to Dr. Halstead, Mr. Levine, the DEA agent, asked Dr. Halstead if he knew a guy named Zane Gard. When Dr. Halstead responded that, yes, he had known Dr. Gard for many, many years, Levine said, “The thing that really bothers me about Zane Gard is that he mixes an I.V. of cocaine with vitamins and sells a series of 24 injections of this stuff for $36,000.”

Dr. Halstead expressed to Levine that his friend, who has an impeccable record as a physician, would never treat his patients in such a manner. Levine explained that he “...got that from the Medical Board. All of my information about you and about him come from the Medical Board.”

The Medical Board even went so far as to spread rumors that Dr. Gard had murdered his wife.

In 1991, an internationally reknown biochemist who will be referred to as Dr. Smith was having dinner with a friend who happened to be dating Dr. Gard's daughter. The friend mentioned to Dr. Smith that he might be interested in having Dr. Gard lecture for him. Dr. Smith responded, “No, you don't want anything to do with that Dr. Gard. He recently spent time in jail for having his wife killed.”

Dr. Gard's daughter inquired as to where Dr. Smith had gotten his information because it was not accurate. Dr. Smith responded, “Oh yes, it is because it came directly from the Board of Medicine.”

Dr. Gard's daughter then introduced herself and assured Dr. Smith that her mother was quite well and she encouraged the red-faced doctor to check his facts before he passed them on. According to Dr. Gard, his daughter indicated that the normally outspoken and opinionated Dr. Smith was “extremely quiet for the rest of the evening,” and to this day is embarrassed over the incident.

That was only the beginning. The Medical Board used purchased testimony in an effort to prove that Dr. Gard's methods were unproven quackery -- regardless of the peer-reviewed documents and case histories which prove beyond doubt that Dr. Gard's techniques were supported by solid science and that he successfully treated his patients.

The Medical Board's hired hands reportedly attempted to bribe more than a dozen of Dr. Gard's patients by offering them $5,000 to file a malpractice suit against him. Dr. Gard's wife Erma commented that not one of their patients took the money. “Several of them were losing their homes because their toxic conditions had made it impossible for them to work, but they chose to remain loyal to the doctor who saved their lives,” she explained.

A deputy attorney general for the state of California, apparently working with the Medical Board to put Dr. Gard out of business, offered one of Dr. Gard's patients an all expense paid trip to San Diego for herself and her children -- including tickets to Sea World.

People close to the Gards will attest that for several years the Gards were harrassed, poisoned, and attempts were made on their lives.

Unable to prosecute or otherwise “neutralize” Dr. Gard, the Bio-Tox facilities were infiltrated by mismanagers and systematically destroyed from within. Dr. Gard was forced to declare personal and professional bankruptcy after his life and his practice had been sabotaged through an elaborate web of deceptions and betrayals.

Other successful environmental physicians such as Dr. William Rea of Dallas were being hauled into court and charged with medical heresy. “It is shameful the lengths that they (the Medical Board) will go to discredit good doctors,” commented Dr. Gard.

Dr. Gard had developed a thriving practice that was successfully treating people who had become so toxic from the chemical world around them that their quality of lives had been reduced to ones of chronic pain and perpetual misery. Apparently, the work that he was doing was successful enough to bring down upon him the combined wrath of both the chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

Through the Medical Board, the American Medical Association, the Food and Drug Administration and the DEA, powerful chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies are systematically assassinating the professionalism and destroying the practices of physicians who seek to treat the growing numbers of Americans whose bodies are saturated with their poisons to the point that they can be diagnosed as being clinically toxic.