I-Team: False Hope
 

I-Team: False Hope
Reporting
Jim Osman HAVERFORD (CBS 3)
Video
http://cbs3.com/investigations/i.tea....2.729405.html


― The CBS 3 I-Team investigated a local woman who calls herself a doctor. But Investigative Reporter Jim Osman reports some of her former patients say she is pushing expensive bottles of false hope.

Janine Schiller is a 39 year old mother of three from Bucks County. She has ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. It has no cure and is ravaging her muscles.

"It's sad. Very hard, very disappointing," Schiller said.

But Schiller did have reason for hope. She was desperate and turned to a woman who identifies herself as Patricia Kane of the Haverford Wellness Center.

"I felt like I had a second chance" Schiller told CBS 3's Jim Osman.

Kane is not a medical doctor, though she does sport a stethoscope in a picture found on her website and says she has a PhD.

But Janine Schiller said Kane told her that she didn't have ALS, leading her to believe she wasn't dying after all.

"This is my opportunity someone is going to be able to do something," Schiller thought.

She said Kane told her she had a build up of toxins that could be remedied by infusions and dozens of supplements.

After spending about $4,000, Schiller felt no better.

A Philadelphia area woman, who asked we not reveal her name, took her mom to see Kane after a medical doctor diagnosed her mother with ALS.

"She said, 'You don't have ALS,'" the Philadelphia woman said Kane told her mother.

Her mother died less than a year later of complications from ALS.

"I am aware of people who have spent tens of thousands of dollars and had no effect", said ALS Association Executive Director Jim Pinciotti.

Doctor Leo McCluskey, a renowned University of Pennsylvania neurologist, said ALS patients facing certain death get desperate.

"Lots of patients do lots of different things to try and ameliorate the disease to slow it down and I haven't seen any of that work," said McCluskey.

The I-Team found Kane touts her successes in a pamphlet, but she repeatedly refused to answer any of our questions.

She refused to provide CBS 3's I-Team with her credentials and did not connect us with clients she claims benefited from her treatments for ALS. Our investigation focused exclusively on her ALS patients.

The Haverford Wellness Center refused to discuss Kane's position and has refused to answer any questions.

http://cbs3.com/investigations/i.tea....2.729405.html