Friday, 19 October 2007

By Angel Novelo - Staff Reporter

Dr. Mitchell Ghen.

The Belize Medical Council, the regulatory body tasked with issuing a medical license to those wishing to practice medicine in Belize, has asked the Police Department to investigate and arrest an American doctor who is illegally engaged in the practice of medicine in the Corozal District.

Stem cell research center in Consejo Shores, Corozal.

Doctor John Waight, the Chairman of the Belize Medical Council confirmed to the Reporter this week that the Council asked the police to investigate and arrest Doctor Mitchell Ghen two months ago, as it is alleged he is involved in stem cell surgery at the Eden Laboratories Clinic in the Consejo Shores area of Corozal.

Waight says the Council has yet to hear from the police and are seeking an audience with Police Commissioner Gerald Westby, to find out what is taking the police so long to act on the Council's complaint.

Westby on Wednesday confirmed that he has received the Council's complaint and has instructed Superintendent James Magdaleno to take the necessary action.

Magdaleno confirmed that he has indeed received instructions from his boss but insists the investigation has nothing to do with Ghen or Eden Laboratories.

Magdaleno said that he is investigating three other foreign individuals illegally practicing medicine in Belize, but none is from the Eden Clinic in Corozal.

Magdaleno declined to divulge the name of those the police are investigating.

When asked if the names on the list included Doctor Ramin Roshan or Doctor Ramish Roshan, Magdaleno said no.

According to the Eden Laboratories web site (edenlaboratories.net) the Roshans are also engaged in medical practice at the Eden Clinic.

Neither Roshan nor Ghen are listed as having a license to practice medicine in Belize.

Several local medical practitioners Reporter spoke with, said they have made numerous complaints to the Belize Medical Council about Ghen and his team of doctors, who they say is practicing illegally in Belize.

The Eden Laboratories' web site claims that Ghen and his team have conducted a number of successful stem cell transplants at their clinic in Corozal.

The web site features several written testimonies of individuals whose loved ones came to Belize from abroad over the past year to receive stem cell transplants.

One local doctor claimed that the purported stem cell transplants being performed at the Eden Laboratories in Consejo, is not what the clinic says it is.

At least three Belizeans who have paid thousands of dollars to the clinic for the procedure, have had a bad and potentially dangerous result, one local doctor commented.

A British newspaper reported this past week that a British couple is depending on Eden Laboratories to save their 20-year-old son from motor neuron disease, through a stem cell procedure at a cost of some ?60,000 sterling.

According to the newspaper report, the stem cells which will be used on the young man has already been successfully removed from the mother's new born baby's umbilical cord a week ago.

The newspaper reported that the young man and parents, Julian Emms and Joanna Stanley, are making preparations to travel to Belize where the procedure is to take place.

A deeper probe into the Doctor Ghen revealed that he has had run-ins with the law in the United States.

He was reportedly charged with gross and repeated malpractice in 1993 for failure to practice osteopathic medicine "with that level of care, skill and treatment which is recognised by a reasonably prudent osteopathic physicians."

News reports say Ghen agreed to pay a $2,500 fine in that instance. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has reported that in 2003 Doctor Mitchell Ghen was under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for experimental blood treatments in Atlanta to patients with ALS - or Lou Gehrig's disease.

The FDA claimed that Ghen did not seek the agency's approval and was allegedly overselling the promise of it's procedure.

The Journal described Ghen as an alternative medicine specialist from South Carolina, who treated 43 patients with the progressive and fatal nerve disease, between August and early March of 2003.

The patients travelled to Atlanta from several other states and from England, paying $25,000 each.

"After the FDA got a search warrant to obtain Ghen's medical records and contacted the Florida blood bank supplying him, he stopped offering the treatments at the Institute of Cellular Medicine in Dunwoody," the report said.

Ghen was reportedly transfusing umbilical cord blood, which is rich in stem cells. The primordial cells, under the right conditions, can turn into life-sustaining neurons and other cells. The burgeoning field has only recently come under detailed FDA regulations.

Stem cells are "blank" cells that have the potential to develop into any type of cell in the body - nerve cells, heart cells, kidney cells.

Reports say scientists have tried to harvest the cells before they have differentiated, then coax them into becoming certain types.

If they could grow cardiac cells, for instance, scientists one day may be able to replace damaged heart tissues in someone who has had a heart attack.

By growing nerve cells, they may be able to repair brain cells damaged by Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, or replace injured spinal cord cells in a paraplegic.

Reporter's efforts to contact Ghen at Eden Laboratories this week were unsuccessful as the telephone number listed on Eden's web site only provides a voice recording service.

Last Updated ( Friday, 19 October 2007 )

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