Dan's Journal of Skepticism

As unbelievable as it sounds Monika Milka, a fraudster based in South Australia has had restrictions lifted by the state’s health department. Milka first came to my attention in May last year when I discovered that she was being sued by some of her victims.

AN alternative therapist is being sued by nine people who say they were injected with a bacteria.

Tindall Gask Bentley lawyer Mal Byrne said his firm had settled five claims, with nine still pending. The victims were allegedly infected with the bacteria, mycobacterium chelonae, in 2008.

They claim homeopathy practitioner Monika Milka infected them while performing biomesotherapy – designed to cure conditions from headaches to injuries. –Adelade Now

Then there was the parlimentary inquiry;

Under the provisions contained in the Public and Environmental Health Act 1987, the Department of Health seized samples and equipment from the premises and ordered that the procedure no longer be undertaken by the therapist at the centre of its investigation

Concerned that this potentially dangerous treatment would continue to be undertaken, the Committee wrote to the Department asking how the public will be protected from this practitioner administering this treatment in the future. In reply, the Department advised the Committee that it would ‘continue to monitor and enforce the standards required under the Public and Environmental Health Act 1987.’

–Parliamentary Inquiry; Page 42

Yet, despite this Monika Milka is now being allowed to continue committing fraud (i.e sell non-existent tratments). I can only hope she doesn’t kill someone. 

It looks like Monika Milka has been upset by all the negative publicity exposing her scams lately. She has posted this absurd piece on her public Facebook page.

Because she wouldn’t want anyone to see her silly comments, such as this.

That would be the Today Tonight show that publicly exposed her. Of course she provides no source for this claim. In true quack style Monika is rapidly deleting comments making it harder to keep them in the correct timeline. She has a lot of criticism that she doesn’t want anyone to see. The link to my blog post about her has already been removed from the Facebook page. So what you see in her timelines are only part of the conversation.

After I mentioned that Homeopathy is bogus medicine she posted this.

So I’m a terrorist, except I’m not the one harming people with unproven treatments. Some of Monika’s remedies have been shown to cause direct harm, which is why she is now on the radar of health authorities.

People who sell fake medicine to the public hate being called out on it. The Facebook page where Monika Milka promotes her fake medicine can be found here.

Monika Milka is a fraud operating in South Australia she sells fake medicines to vulnerable unsuspecting people. However Monika is a little different to most homeopaths because instead of her remedies having zero effect like traditional homeopathy, some of Monika’s fake medicines are actually doing some direct harm. The harm of Homeopathy normally comes from homeopaths persuading their victim to give up real medicine in favor of witchcraft.

Of course now her victims are suing her for the damage she has done..

In addition to being sued Monika Milka is also mentioned [page 42] in a report entitled “Inquiry into Bogus, Unregistered and Deregistered Health Practitioners” by the Parliament of South Australia. I personally like their use of the term “Bogus” it shows they are not afraid to label fake medicine for what it really is.

The document reads. (I decided to copy/paste this report so that Google may find it better.)

COMPLAINTS AGAINST MS MONICA MILKA

The Inquiry received one written complaint about Ms Monica Milka. It alleged that Ms

Milka had:

• claimed that she was able to cure cancer, and
• failed to provide receipts for payment provided.

 

Letter of Complaint: Example 1

“In 2005, my husband, Ross, was diagnosed with cancer of the bile ducts. After surgery and various courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments failed to halt the diseases, my husband sought the help of Monica Milka who did ‘alternative therapies’. Monika assured my husband that she could cure him and commenced treating him with all types of sprays, medicines and injections. The many injections she gave to his stomach were to ‘kill the worms’ that were causing the problem but in fact left him very sore. She also took photos of his eyes and then showed him those supposed images on a computer screen, pointing out the ‘areas of improvement’ and telling him how well he was doing. Ross paid Monica over $500 per week. Initially he paid by visa card so received a receipt for this payment but later on he began to pay cash and no longer received any receipts.”

Written submission: Ms VWright

 

In addition to this complaint, in the course of its Inquiry, the Committee became aware of an investigation undertaken by the Department of Health into treatment known as ‘mesotherapy.’ This treatment includes injecting minute quantities of various substances and saline under the skin to ‘target’ fat cells and reduce cellulite. According to the Department, instances of this treatment were provided by ‘Monika’s Entity’, an alternative therapist operating in Gawler, South Australia, and who the Committee understands is Ms Milka. Cases investigated by the Department were linked to skin abscesses affecting at least six people who had undergone treatment at the premises of ‘Monika’s Entity’. One patient was confirmed as having a mycobacterial infection which the Department noted is a particularly difficult condition to treat.

Under the provisions contained in the Public and Environmental Health Act 1987, the Department of Health seized samples and equipment from the premises and ordered that the procedure no longer be undertaken by the therapist at the centre of its investigation

Concerned that this potentially dangerous treatment would continue to be undertaken, the Committee wrote to the Department asking how the public will be protected from this practitioner administering this treatment in the future. In reply, the Department advised the Committee that it would ‘continue to monitor and enforce the standards required under the Public and Environmental Health Act 1987.’

–Parliamentary Inquiry; Page 42

Although I didn’t write any of that report, I have learned that charlatans prefer to blame me for the actions of Government Investigators. However what I will write in response to this report is that Monika Milka is a dishonest fraud selling bogus medicine. I’m sure anyone looking into her remedies will draw the same opinion. This woman has already harmed people and she needs to be stopped.

Today Tonight has even done an episode starring Monika Milka:  Quackery of the first order

HomeopathyPlus is a website run by Fran Sheffield whose integrity has been diluted to homeopathic levels of non-existence. The site is notorious for ignoring instruction from the Therapeutic Goods Administration to remove false and misleading claims from its website. Of course if Fran Sheffield had any ounce of honesty the website probably wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Now the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has stepped in:

Homeopathy Plus! Pty Ltd has removed representations from its website that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission considered to be misleading and deceptive and that could lead to serious health risks for consumers.

The representations were made on the ‘Whooping Cough – Homeopathic Prevention and Treatment’ page which has since been removed from the Homeopathy Plus! website.

“The combination of claims that the vaccine was ineffective and that the homeopathic remedies listed on the page were an alternative prevention and treatment regime elevated this matter to one of extreme concern,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.

The ACCC examined content on the Homeopathy Plus! website following a complaint from the medical profession. The ACCC considered that the Homeopathy Plus! claims that the current whooping cough vaccine is dangerous and ineffective, while the homeopathic remedy is a proven and safe alternative, were likely to be misleading or deceptive.

Reliance on these claims may influence consumers to avoid the whooping cough vaccine and rely solely on the homeopathic approach for treatment and prevention of whooping cough, which is strongly discouraged by medical professionals. Whooping cough is a serious respiratory infection which can cause a long coughing illness and is life threatening for babies.

The ACCC result was considerably assisted by the engagement of the Therapeutic Goods Administration and NSW Fair Trading with Homeopathy Plus! Pty Ltd in resolving this matter.

The ACCC will continue to monitor the Homeopathy Plus! Pty Ltd site for potential breaches of the Australian Consumer Law. –ACCC, Media Release

Its good to see that action is being taken against those who profit from the spread of dangerous information. As we have seen in the past misinformation is deadly. I hope to see a lot more government crackdowns on Homeopathy, which is litte more than a means to scam the sick.

My Apologies for not posting this sooner. Last week was the Global Atheist Convention and I forgot that I had this sitting in Draft.

So recently the controversial (soon to be infamous) homeopath Francine Scrayen sent me a Cease and Desist notice as a result of some criticisms I wrote on this blog. My opinions of Scrayen and the way she treated one of her patients are less than humbling. After reading a report from the State Coroner I am happy to say that I find Ms Scrayen’s involvement; as detailed in the report to be nothing less than that of a callous fraud. Homeopathy is a fake “medicine” that has never been proven to work. So I have to seriously question the integrity of anyone who would sell it as a cancer treatment. According to both the Coroner Report and the letters written by Ms Dingle, Francine Scrayen has done just that.

Clearly Ms Scrayen is not happy about my criticisms and wants me to censor myself. I believe that the Cease and Desist notice she sent me was intended to intimidate more than anything else. She graciously decided that a four day public holiday would be sufficient time for me to prepare my legal response. However I’m not convinced that the court would consider that to be an acceptable time frame, and for this reason I do not think the Cease and Desist is anything more than an intimidation attempt.

There is such a thing as acting in “Bad Faith” and someone looking to file legal action would probably not want to act in any way that could possibly be construed as Bad Faith, such as giving someone a public holiday to seek legal advice for example. I also have to question her motivation for going after me rather than the sources I reference.

She claims that I have made the following “false” statements about her. There are sixteen point in all but a lot of them are just the same thing repeated. I suspect this was done to make the legal threat look more intimidating. So rather than just repeating myself on multiple similar points I will cut it down to the key points. I think I can justify my statements. Obviously this is just a quick summary for the purpose of a blog post. Going through the courts will require far more scrutiny and more extensive examination. 

has been sued for the death of Penelope Dingle;

–Legal Correspondence 

On this point I would suggest that Ms Scrayen retake an English class and learn the difference between past and present tense. Since no where on this website have I ever claimed that Ms Scrayen “has been sued for the death of Penelope Dingle” starting off on a lie is not a good start Francine. I do however state that she is currently being sued for the death of Penelope Dingle.

Feel free to check my source. Does Ms Scrayen deny that she is being sued by Toni Brown for the death of Penelope Dingle? If so perhaps she should file action against the newspaper for covering the storey.

My Source: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/13310801/woman-sues-homeopath-over-sisters-cancer-death/

defrauded Penelope Dingle;

 –Legal Correspondence 

Did Francine Scrayen convince the deceased that she could cure her cancer? Yes, did the deceased receive the service that Ms Scrayen charged her for? No, therefore any reasonable person could conclude that Ms Scrayen committed an act of fraud by misleading the deceased with false promises. My opinion after reading both the Coroners Report and the letters that Penelope Dingle wrote to Ms Scrayen is that the deceased chose to have an effective treatment that would cure her of cancer. But instead Ms Scrayen provided a bogus treatment (Homeopathy) that has never been shown to cure cancer. 

sold witchcraft;

–Legal Correspondence  

Ms Scrayen provides an alternative medicine that has never been proven to work beyond a placebo effect. To date the scientific community has been unable to determine any mechanism by which Homeopathy might work. In light of this fact it is perfectly reasonable to call Homeopathy “Witchcraft” as it falls into the same category as other mythical clap trap, such as magic, psychic powers and many more.

Selling magic water or magic sugar pills would fall within the general populations idea of witchcraft.

killed Penelope Dingle;

–Legal Correspondence  

Going all out to persuade a cancer patient to avoid treatment so that you can sell them your mythical clap trap certainly sounds like killing to me. There is no doubt that any reasonable person would interpret a person to exploits a cancer patient in this manner as; at the very least indirectly killing the patient. I feel that my claim that “Ms Scrayen killed Penelope Dingle” falls well within the grounds of fair comment, especially in the context of my publications.

intentionally influenced Penelope Dingle into making bad medical choices;

–Legal Correspondence 

Who am I to disagree with the State Coroner? Does MS Scrayen expressly deny influencing Penelope Dingles medical decisions? Because the findings of the State Coroner state otherwise.

Source: https://www.danbuzzard.net/storage/Dingle_Finding.pdf

is the very worse type of fraud;

–Legal Correspondence 

Ms Scrayen is indeed the very worst type of fraud and I will be happy to repeat my opinion in court. Duping a cancer patient so you can sell your unproven “medicine” to them, sounds pretty despicable to me. Especially when the patient who might otherwise live ends up dead from lack of treatment. Cheating the sick and desperate is the worse type of fraud that one can commit.

sold fake medicine;

–Legal Correspondence  

FACT: Francine Scrayen is a Homeopath, or does she deny providing homeopathic (fake medicine) “treatment” to the deceased?

I want to thank everyone who’s been blogging and tweeting about this. Normally this blog is quiet and only a few people ever read the articles that Scrayen complains about, that is until she sent me a Cease and Desist notice.

I believe they call this the Streisand Effect. Apparently Ms Scrayen’s attempt to silence me has only drawn more attention to the facts surrounding the death of Penelope Dingle. It has also lead to a lot more people downloading and reading the Coroners Report. If Scrayen wants to put both herself and Homeopathy on trial in the Supreme Court then she can pursue legal action against me and open her “treatments” up to the scrutiny of the courts. Many of us, myself included look forward to the possibility of a Supreme Court examining the evidence, or rather lack thereof for Homeopathic treatments.

Coroners Report. <- Read this and decide for yourself.

Letters by Ms Dingle

Francine Scrayen the homeopath who defrauded one of her patients with bogus medical treatments is now being sued for the death of her patient; or should I say victim. Toni Brown is suing Scrayen over the death of her sister, Penelope Dingle who died after giving up conventional treatment in favor of the witchcraft that Ms Scrayen sold.

Penelope Dingle’s sister is suing the homeopath who persuaded the cancer victim to ignore conventional treatment in favour of fighting the deadly disease with alternative medicine.

The case made national headlines in 2010 when State Coroner Alastair Hope held an inquest into Mrs Dingle’s death, finding that her husband, Peter Dingle, and homeopath Francine Scrayen had played important roles in the decision.

Mrs Dingle’s sister Toni Brown has launched District Court proceedings against Ms Scrayen, claiming she suffered her own psychological problems as a result of the way in which her sister died. –The West

I have already written about the tragic death of Penelope Dingle at the hands of Francine Scrayen in “Scammed to death: How Francine Scrayen killed Penelope Dingle.” (Comments at the bottom of the page are worth reading)

In my view the deceased’s rectal cancer was present and causing bleeding and other symptoms from at least 31 October 2001.  During the period 31 October 2001 until at least the end of November 2002, the deceased regularly described the symptoms of her rectal cancer to a homeopath, Francine Scrayen.  It was not until November 2002 that Mrs Scrayen and the deceased discussed the possibility of reporting her rectal bleeding to a medical practitioner and it was not until 5 December 2002 that she first reported those problems to a doctor.

I accept that Mrs Scrayen  believed that the deceased had suffered from haemorrhoids years earlier and the bleeding and pain was “an old symptom coming back”, but a competent health professional would have been alarmed by the developing symptoms and would have strongly advised that appropriate medical investigations be conducted without delay.

Mrs Scrayen was not a competent health professional. I accept that Mrs Scrayen had minimal understanding of relevant health issues, unfortunately that did not prevent her from treating the deceased as a patient.

This case has highlighted the importance of patients suffering from cancer making  informed, sound decisions in relation to their treatment.  In this case the deceased paid a terrible price for poor decision making. 
 
Unfortunately the deceased was surrounded by misinformation and poor science.  Although her treating surgeon and mainstream general practitioner provided clear and reliable information, she received mixed messages from a number of different sources which caused her to initially delay necessary surgery and ultimately decide not to have surgery until it was too late. –Coronors Report; conclusion.

So after such a conclusion from the coroner it’s good to see that action is being taken against Francine Scrayen. While it won’t undo the damage already do it will bring fake medicines such as Homeopathy and those who sell it back into the spot light.

I personally feel that criminal charges should be filed against Francine Scrayen because she intentionally influenced her “patient” into making bad medical choices. Francine Scrayen is not a medical professional, but that didn’t stop her from treating Ms Dingle as a patient and charging her for “treatment”.

Francine Scrayen is the very worse type of fraud. Not only did she cheat her victim of money but she also cheated her out of life. Francine Scrayen sold fake medicine to a cancer patient who died as a result of being given snake oil instead of real medicine. This type of practice is unacceptable and Ms Scrayen needs to be held accountable for her despicable actions. 

Well it didn’t take long for a supporter of Homeopathy to respond to calls for an alternative “medicine” crackdown. Sandra Lucas from La Trobe University has responded in defence of Homeopathy. While I am not surprised to see someone defend outright fraud, I am surprised by the platform that was used.

Sandra’s article was posted on none other than TheConversation.edu.au

People have a right to choose the treatments they want and decide how to manage their health issues. All health professionals including homeopaths should be qualified so the public has appropriate treatment. Treatments should be based on how well they make people feel rather than how scientific or traditional the medicine is. –Sandra Lucus

This came as a surprise because this is a site that tries to bill itself as a source of reliable information from experts in the academic field. Yet, they allow people like Sandra Lucus to post such un-scientific rubbish that I am now going to have a hard time taking their site seriously.

We will:

• Unlock the knowledge and expertise of researchers and academics to provide the public with clarity and insight into society’s biggest problems.
• Give experts a greater voice in shaping scientific, cultural and intellectual agendas by providing a trusted platform that values and promotes new thinking and evidence-based research.
• Provide a fact-based and editorially-independent forum, free of commercial or political bias.
• Create an open site for people around the world to share best practices and collaborate on developing smart, sustainable solutions.
• Ensure quality, diverse and intelligible content reaches the widest possible audience by employing experienced editors to curate the site.
• Ensure the site’s integrity by only obtaining non-partisan sponsorship from education, government and private partners. Any advertising will be relevant and non-obtrusive.
• Work with our academic, business and government partners and our advisory board to ensure we are operating for the public good.
• Support and foster academic freedom to conduct research, teach, write and publish.

–The Conversation, Charter

Fact based my arse. If you want to provide a “fact based” forum then you shouldn’t be allowing people to pimp bogus medicine. Homeopathic theory is so thoroughly debunked that we have a greater chance of proving the existence of Unicorns and Pixies than we do of finding evidence to support Homeopathy.

I’m not allowed to write for The Conversation because I’m not an academic. Yet kooks like Sandra Lucus are given a special privilege due to their academic status, regardless of the trash they may write. The editors should realise that just because someone has credentials it doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about. Or that they won’t deliberately make false, unsupported claims in order to defend an ideology.

People who sell bogus Homeopathic “Medicine” in Australia are coming under fire from health authorities once again.

Homeopaths are facing a fight to defend their practice in Australia after the National Health and Medical Research Council flagged it might declare their work baseless and unethical.

A draft public statement seen by The Age concluded it was ”unethical for health practitioners to treat patients using homeopathy, for the reason that homeopathy (as a medicine or procedure) has been shown not to be efficacious” –The Age

I have written about Homeopathy on numerous occasions. Most notably the incident in which it lead to the death of local Perth woman Penelope Dingle at the hands of her homeopath Francine Scrayen who was treating her ineffective treatment. Like all homeopathic practitioners Francine Scrayen wasn’t a medical professional but rather a fraud looking to cash in on the vulnerable.

The draft statement by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council said that although homeopathy was not harmful in its own right, it might pose a risk to patients if safe and efficacious conventional treatments were delayed in favour of homeopathic treatments. –The Age

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for people to skip legitimate medicine in favor of a treatment that has never been proven to work, despite being more than 200 years old. The late Steve Jobs was also a victim of Homeopathy.

So its about time that Homeopathy became recognised as the unethical sham that it is.

The late Steve Jobs was yet another victim of the great medical scam that is Homeopathy. I am left wondering how many more lives must be lost due to this scam. Steve Jobs died of Pancreatic Cancer in October this year after delaying vital surgery in favor of Homeopathy.

ALTERNATIVE medicine is unethical, criminal and likely contributed to the death of Apple boss Steve Jobs, visiting professor Edzard Ernst says.

The world’s first professor of complementary medicine was in Adelaide yesterday to speak at the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association conference at UniSA.

Famous for causing an uproar when, in July, he labelled Prince Charles a “snake oil salesman” for his dandelion and detox remedy, Professor Ernst yesterday spoke of the dangers of unproven complementary medicine.

“They mislead people to the point of being quite dangerous, all of this is idiotic rubbish,” he said, calling for more rigorous testing of claims. –Perth Now

Homeopathy is not supported by empirical evidence, yet it’s proponents continue to promote and sell it in order to turn a profit. Homeopathy is not medicine and should never be used to treat cancer or any other ailment. If you watch just one news segment this year make it this one: