Dr Jozef Krop's Appeal December 3 and 4

Dr Jozef Krop’s appeal will at last be heard in the Ontario Provincial Court in December. This may well be the end to a 12-year battle between the champions of antiquated medicine and the innovative medicine practised by Dr Krop and other environmental physicians.

Twelve years ago, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) wanted to prove incompetence and seek revocation of Dr Krop’s licence. Deputy Registrar Dr John Carlisle of the College wrote that “this will be a costly and lengthy process, but may be the only way once and for all, of dealing with these clinical ecologists [environmental].”

So eager was the CPSO to retard the progress of alternative medicine, officials proceeded without patient complaint. They ignored the medical literature provided by the defence and dismissed the peer review of his practice by an internationally recognized team of experts. Criminal lawyer Michael Code, when reviewing Dr Krop’s case for evidence of abuse of process and power on the part of the CPSO found so much that he compared it to being like “Alice in Wonderland.”

The CPSO was unable to prove any patient harm and Dr Krop was allowed to practise freely. But the College objected to Krop’s therapies and diagnoses, like chemical sensitivity, food intolerance, candidiasis, intravenous and oral treatments with vitamins and minerals, detoxification treatments, rotary diets and electrodermal testing.

Having declared “patient outcome” as “not very helpful when establishing scientific validity,” the CPSO placed a reprimand on Dr Krop’s record. They said it would “ensure that other physicians know why [his] practice fails to meet the standard.” This reprimand is also supposed to “protect the public from practitioners who lack credibility” by requiring them to inform patients that all their therapies and diagnoses are “based on simple beliefs unsupported by scientifically acceptable evidence.”

Dr Krop refused to accept the CPSO’s reprimand. He has launched an appeal in Ontario court, where the rules of evidence stand a chance of being obeyed. It’s a medicine whose time has come. Over the past year Krop’s lawyer, Matthew Wilton, has studied the 7,000 pages of transcripts for submission of the appeal.

Steps to Freedom
Much has happened lately to further the cause of freedom of choice in health care. In Ontario the Kwinter Bill became law last December; in BC a similar health freedom bill was passed. The federal Standing Committee on Environmental and Sustainable Development recommended in its May 2000 report that Health Canada take steps to recognize multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome as a medical diagnosis.

The World Health Organization has identified candida-related infections from overuse of antibiotics as a serious health threat. Germany opened government-funded hospitals for the treatment of environmental illness.

In May, the Toronto Star published an ongoing series of articles exposing the horrendous abuses and negligence of the CPSO in complaint cases. Yet, undeterred by the emerging facts and developments in the rest of the world, the CPSO has recently reasserted its desire to keep the status quo by disciplining other progressive doctors. Like Dr Krop, these physicians have no patient complaints against them. They practise state-of-the-art pain therapy or environmental and nutritional medicine.

For Dr Krop to win this appeal would go a long way towards ensuring that enlightened physicians could treat their patients unhindered and medical practices could become patient-centred and preventive, as they should be. It would also help credible insurance and workplace cases to be won in court by acknowledging illnesses whose legitimacy has already been established. Most importantly, witch hunts against competent physicians like Dr. Krop would cease. Last but not least, this 12-year nightmare would finally end for the Krop family and allow Dr Krop to practise his good medicine unobstructed. But it will not be over until we have gone the full distance.

Dr Krop’s defence has so far cost a little more than $1 million, mostly money publicly donated by alive readers. (Some of you may have recently received a letter from us requesting assistance with funding the ongoing legal fees.) The appeal will cost about $250,000, much of which we still need to raise. We are counting on your continued support. You have stood by Dr Krop generously through these long and hard years and both Dr Krop and the Environmental Health Group thank you very much indeed for your unwavering moral and financial support of good, sensible, relevant medicine.

Please send your donations to the J. Krop MD Legal Defense Fund, alive magazine, 7436 Fraser Park Drive, Burnaby BC, V5J 5B9.