Phony doctor accused of preying on vulnerable patients

By Angelica Martinez (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. April 10, 2009

SOUTH COUNTY — A Bonita man who practiced medicine without a license
was arrested during his Internet radio health show yesterday and faces
11 felony charges including dispensing unapproved drugs, the District
Attorney's Office said.

Authorities said Kurt Walter Donsbach, 73, identified himself as a
chiropractor and a naturopathic doctor in literature and online.

Donsbach claimed to offer alternative, natural and nutritional
remedies for many conditions, including cancer and arthritis, via a
weekly online radio broadcast from Chula Vista, the San Diego County
District Attorney's Office said.

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said Donsbach “preyed on vulnerable
patients who were looking for medical help.”

An investigation by the FBI, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
and the District Attorney's Office led to his arrest.

Donsbach was booked into jail in lieu of $1.5 million bail and was
scheduled to be arraigned today.

Dumanis said Donsbach is not licensed as a physician, chiropractor or
naturopathic doctor.

He advised one patient to inject herself with “neuropeptides” to treat
arthritis, officials said. The woman, who is not from San Diego
County, was told the injections would “reprogram” her body's T-cells.
FDA tests revealed that the drug contains a steroid that was not
disclosed on the packaging, officials said.

The patient spent thousands of dollars for the drugs and injected
herself for six years, which led to severe bone-density loss,
officials said.

Donsbach also claimed to have treated pancreatic cancer successfully
about 60 percent of the time with a supplement he gave to a patient
who also lives outside the county.

That supplement contained a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory that has
not been approved by the FDA, officials said.

In Europe, marketing of the anti-inflammatory has been suspended
because of high rates of liver failure that have led to liver
transplants and deaths, officials said.

Donsbach founded a clinic in Rosarito Beach where Coretta Scott King,
the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died of cancer in January
2006. The clinic used unorthodox treatments that included treating
cancer with insulin and experimental vaccines.

Mexican authorities closed the clinic a month later, and closed it
again in September 2007 after it had reopened.

Donsbach was convicted in 1996 for tax evasion and smuggling illegal
medicines across the border.

Angelica Martinez: (619) 293-1317; angelica.marti...@uniontrib.com

Angelica Martinez: (619) 293-1317; (Contact)