APPENDIX B

Samantha Simon Letter

 

 

This is a letter written by Suzanne Northington whose avowed purpose has been for years the destruction of Dr. Robert Sinaiko.  All “facts” in this letter are false.  No people are ever identified.  None of the “large group of patients who sustained injury” has ever been found. 

 

This letter was filed at the Medical Board of California (MBC) after her effort to open a sexual harassment case against him fell through.  The MBC used this letter as though it were factual, showing it to their “experts” and quoting the misinformation contained in it in their briefs. 

 

The letter had been suppressed by Administrative Law Judge Cohn before the trial, and no attempt to properly enter it as evidence was ever made during the trial.  However, at the Reconsideration Hearing, the Prosecutor slipped it to the MBC Panel members in a binder of other information, as though it were a legitimate document in evidence.  In his oral argument, the Prosecutor claimed this fabrication was his “proof” that there really were patient complaints against the doctor.

 

Because many of the claims made in the letter were used to bias the MBC investigators, MBC experts, and the “jury” of MBC Panel members, details are provided below:

 

  1. This case involved in large part a treatment called EPD – Enzyme Potentiated Desensitization.  It is a low-dose allergy treatment using an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase in a minute amount.  See research list in Appendix A.

 

  1. Northington/“Simon” claims Dr. Sinaiko is a “clinical ecologist” – this baseless charge was used extensively by the Prosecutor to smear him.  Whether or not you like clinical ecologists – he is not one of them.  He is a board certified clinical immunologist and a board certified internist.   The Prosecutor claimed that “clinical immunologist” was “just another term for clinical ecologist” which showed the depth of HIS ignorance. (PCB p.150) 

 

  1. Northington has contacted the Progress in Medicine Foundation (PIMF) volunteers by email under many different aliases that were traced electronically to her.  She has faxed the volunteers using various names (but she forgot to remove her real name from the fax machine and it printed across the top). 

 

  1. Northington always claimed to be writing “on behalf of a large group of his patients.”  She always speaks for “hundreds” of people.  None of these hundreds of people ever have a name or any proof that they exist.  After sending her “Samantha Simon” letter to the Medical Board, she used it in an effort to get real patients to sign a petition against him.  She sent the bogus letter with her petition (under her own name) to many of his patients, but none signed.  One patient turned the information packet over to Dr. Sinaiko. 

 

  1. One way it can be proven that the “Simon” letter was written by her – besides recognizable content and style – is that only the filer could have legally had a copy of the letter stamped “Received Medical Board of CA” at that time.

 

  1. Northington/“Simon” claims to have been “critically injured” by Dr. Sinaiko with a “different drug” which she never names.  This entire letter purports to describe his practice of EPD use, which she claims to know all about but cannot even spell.  She herself was never offered or given this treatment.

 

  1. She claims Dr. Sinaiko committed fraud by telling patients about EPD success rates.    The medical literature and his own experience were the sources of the information he provided to his patients (see Appendix A)..

 

□       It is not fraud to quote the medical literature.

 

□       Although Mr. Terrazas also complained that by telling his patients about EPD success rates, Dr. Sinaiko was “advertising” it, all doctors tell their patients about treatments they propose to provide.   They all tell their patients about expected success rates. 

 

□       It is called patient education.

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claims to have a husband and children – in reality, she lives alone, and her landlord claims to be afraid to talk to her unless his wife is present.  In one of her communications, under her own name (Northington), she listed five children …. and named seven of them. In some of her letters she has small children, and in others she has grown children and grandchildren. 

 

  1. After she had been served with a restraining order, and she was aware that her landlord had told the process server that she spent time on a particular street frequented by gentlemen looking for ladies, she explained that various gentlemen often escorted her home “because she was afraid of Dr. Sinaiko.”  These letters, faxes, voice mail messages, and email messages have been coming to PIMF volunteers for years.  Our policy is never to respond once she is identified as the source of a message.

 

  1. Northington/“Simon” claims to know what “the majority of patients” think and say, and she claims to represent them.  Now, how would she, as a patient herself, be privy to such information?  As head of the Dr. Sinaiko Patient Support Group, Karen Scott actually does talk to many of his patients.  As the PIMF Medical Defense Fund, we have heard from many of his patients.  They usually say he saved their lives, since most of them found him only after many other doctors were unable to help them with their complicated immunological problems.  They have given thousands of dollars in his defense, one donation consisting of a crumpled $1 wrapped in tissue paper with a note that the patient had been treated for free and this is all she can afford; one was a $100 bill also wrapped in paper from a doctor afraid to reveal his identity. (The color of the return card revealed that this donation resulted from a mailing to doctors.)

 

  1. Northington/“Simon” writes that the “majority of patients” claimed “no medical benefits at all” from the EPD treatment.  With her help, the MBC identified about 13 patients who had received EPD.  The MBC wrote them highly intimidating letters demanding access to their records.  Only 3 responded.  The only one who actually claimed “no benefit” was RS, a man who clearly had been cured of allergic fungal sinusitis and no longer needed repeated severe headache treatment after his very first EPD shot.  However, he had never paid a penny of this 2 year treatment, which Dr. Sinaiko completed for him anyway.  After RS had been approached by Northington, he asked for a ‘bribe’ from Dr. Sinaiko or, else, he threatened, he would sign the records release.  Dr. Sinaiko refused to “cooperate.”  This information comes from Dr. Sinaiko’s nurse, and is not in the record.  You can see RS’s complete medical record at www.treatmentchoice.org/working.htm#RS

 

  1. Northington/“Simon” claims Dr. Sinaiko did not follow proper procedures and did not have the requisite skills.  She also admits to being a patient, not a specialist in such matters.  EPD has been used in Britain for over 30 years, and there are experts available there – yet the publishers of Food Allergy & Intolerance, a widely used British allergy textbook, available in most American medical school libraries, commissioned Dr. Sinaiko to write the chapter on EPD.  One would think the editors of such a book would investigate Dr. Sinaiko’s expertise before inviting him to write for them.  Indeed, one would think that their opinion might be more credible than an ex-patient who had never even received that treatment.

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claims that “almost all” Dr. Sinaiko’s patients received EPD.  This may indeed be close to the truth.  Since he is an allergist, most of his patients needed allergy treatment, and EPD was his allergy treatment of choice, being clearly safer than classical American allergy treatment, more efficacious, and cheaper to boot.

 

  1. In an interview with Dr. William Shrader, head of the American EPD Society, in which Northington represented herself as a journalist doing a report on EPD, she tried repeatedly to get him to say that EPD was dangerous for seriously ill patients.  Dr. Shrader repeatedly told her that EPD was in fact the best treatment for the seriously ill patient, and it was not contraindicated by any known condition.  She nevertheless wrote that Dr. Sinaiko endangered seriously ill patients by using EPD, and claimed that an (unnamed) EPD doctor told her so.  Dr. Shrader can be reached for comment at 505-983-8890 (New Mexico). 

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claims he charged exorbitant rates and that patients must take the treatment for 5 or 6 years.  In truth, most people are finished their main EPD treatment in 2 years, thereafter needing only occasional “boosters” every year or so (which they can no longer get now) to live a normal life.  The “exorbitant” rate of $250 (her figure) every 3 months compares favorably with the American classical allergy price of $25 twice a week for 3 months ($300) not counting the time saved by needing treatment only 4 times a year rather than twice a week.

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claims that Dr. Sinaiko was buying “$10,000 worth per month” of EPD supplies.  This is a fiction, and where would a “patient” get such information?  She obviously made it up.  Besides, what does that have to do with anything?

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claims that EPD treatment is “so new and experimental” that nobody knows the correct dosages.  This is nonsense.  EPD has been used in England for over 30 years, and there it is considered the only allergy treatment safe enough to be used outside a hospital.

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claims that Dr. Sinaiko had been “widely criticized for his abuse of prescription drugs.”  This is not true.  The MBC tried really hard to come up with some “abuse” of prescriptions, but the best that they could do was:

 

□       He used the drug Flagyl off-label for Giardia (it is commonly used thus). And the patient got better.

 

□       He used oral amphoterocin B (Fungizone swish ‘n swallow compounded to a solid capsule) for a GI antifungal treatment in a boy who tested with exposure to aspergillus (a fungus).  While every MBC “expert” agreed that it is harmless to swallow the “swish ‘n swallow” version of this medication, considered safe even for premature babies, they each insisted that it was dangerous to take it in pill form, citing all the serious side effects of the IV application.  This makes no sense.

See:  http://www.treatmentchoice.org/FIRSTHALF.htm#IVB

 

□       He used Diflucan for allergic fungal sinusitis in the exact manner recommended by the Physicians Desk Reference – but the MBC claimed it was “excessive.”

 

□       He used Zovirax (acyclovir) for 11 months on a patient with herpes and serious symptoms.  This drug is specified in the PDR as safe in studies of long term use of several years, for suppression of viral herpes infections. And she got better, but the MBC ignored that and called it “excessive.”

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claimed Dr. Sinaiko had been a partner of Dr. Joseph McGovern when in fact he simply bought his practice from Dr. McGovern.  She claimed Dr. McGovern had his license revoked because he “injured a number of patients with controversial allergy treatments.”  This is not true.  According to the MBC allegations against Dr. McGovern, he was actually accused of not weighing a particular lady “often enough” or taking her blood pressure “often enough” during some days of allergy testing.  The lady in question was not harmed.  Dr. McGovern himself had cancer, so he did not fight the accusation but sold his allergy practice.  Dr. Sinaiko was looking for an allergy practice.  Is this so very unusual?

 

  1. Northington/”Simon” claimed that Dr. McGovern later accused Dr. Sinaiko of being “too radical and irresponsible.”  This is her own fantasy, but Dr. McGovern is long dead and unable to testify. 

 

  1. She claims that Dr. Sinaiko is under investigation for malpractice and sexual misconduct – this is the case she herself earlier attempted to file against him, but it was again her own fantasy and went nowhere.  What actually did happen is that she tried very hard to seduce him during her first appointment, and when he did not respond to her she threatened to ruin him.  You may contact his nurse and office manager, Trish Miles, for corroboration, at 785-594-4044.

 

  1. She claims 7 other patients were “planning to file formal complaints against Sinaiko” in the next two months.”  No patients ever filed any complaint against him for anything then or now or ever.

 

  1. She claims that he is also the defendant in a medical malpractice lawsuit – again, this is one she herself tried to initiate on her own behalf, but she did not succeed because it was so transparently not legitimate.

 

  1. She claims that 25 to 40 “former Sinaiko patients” were planning to file a “Joint Petition-Complaint” to the MBC against him.  She claims that they were planning a class-action lawsuit against him.  None of this ever happened.  She herself sent a petition form to some of his patients (how she got their addresses is not known).  None – not one – of these patients signed her petition.  A copy of this petition is in the office of attorney Richard Turner along with a large size notebook of her other fanciful writings.  He can be called for corroboration at 916-557-1111.

 

  1. She claims that one (unnamed) EPD doctor is making a crusade to get him stopped, claiming that he is doing it all wrong and injuring people.  She claims that this unnamed doctor requested the McEwen Labs in England stop selling him materials for EPD.  This is fantasy.  Dr. L. M. McEwen at McEwen Labs can be contacted for corroboration at 0118-984-1288 (UK)

 

  1. She says he has never published anything.  This is not true, either.  While not extensively published, he has some published studies to his name, which can be found via MedLine search.

 

  1. She has conducted a peculiar story that he was illegally supplying other doctors with his EPD supplies – and that they are not allowed by the FDA to practice EPD.  In truth, the FDA was never involved in “giving permission,” and a doctor does not need permission to practice EPD in patient care.  Most – but not all – doctors are using EPD under a national IRB for data collection.  He did share his medical knowledge with other doctors in conferences, Grand Rounds, etc.  Hospitals don’t usually invite bad doctors with bad reputations to do Grand Rounds.

 

□       Note – the MBC used this bogus letter, quoting her creative “facts” to attack EPD itself as well as Dr. Sinaiko, and the entire IRB study has been closed.  NOW it is illegal.

 

  1. She fabricates multiple stories about nameless patients getting “dozens” of EPD injections, claiming that EPD made them sick, that they felt duped, etc.   The MBC was unable to find any such patients to come forth to be their witnesses.

 

  1. She claims that what Dr. Sinaiko tells his patients orally is not the same as what is in the patient forms they sign.  His patients have testified that his patient forms are the best they have ever seen in any doctor’s office, and that he is conscientious and honest in the extreme.

 

  1. She quotes unnamed and probably nonexistent doctors and researchers claiming that EPD does not work, cannot work, is dangerous, etc.  She even quotes a mythical “failure rate” of 80% …. since she also says that there is no research, where would she get such a figure?

 

  1. She claims several times that he “makes wild guesses” as to doses to give his patients.  There is no basis for this claim, as he is highly knowledgeable and experienced and respected in this field.  Not to mention that information such as this would not be available to a patient in any circumstance.

 

  1. She claims (page 8) that the “medical damage” done his patients is from the “high doses of potent allergens” in the EPD injection.  She seems to have forgotten that elsewhere she claims that the doses are so low that they can do nothing.  In truth, these allergy ‘shots’ are very low-dose antigen treatment because of the enzyme.  For this reason, they are much safer than classical American allergy treatment, which kills a certain number of people a year.  There has never yet been a single fatality from EPD.

 

  1. She claims that his fees were exorbitant – that he charged $250 for the EPD, as well as $350 per office visit.  This is not true.  $350 was indeed about the price of an intake visit which was 1-1/2 hours.  When a patient came in for their EPD shot, there was no office visit charge at all.  At other visits, he charged $85 for a half-hour visit – hardly excessive.  Not only that, but when patients could not pay, he would just “run a tab” for them and carry them as a receivable for a year or so before writing off their charge.

 

  1. She claims he had office hours less than 3 days a week.  This is just not true.  He did teach on certain days, and he also spent one half-day a week receiving scheduled patient calls at home – at no charge to the patient.

 

  1. Finally, she recommends the services of the infamous Dr. Abba Terr as a resource for the MBC.  Indeed they take her up on it.  She says Dr. Terr has treated Dr. Sinaiko’s “former patients.”  The opposite is true – several patients of Dr. Terr transferred to Dr. Sinaiko’s care.   In fact, one of the witnesses for the Defense was the mother of a former patient of Dr. Terr’s.   Her child, with a life-threatening milk allergy, which Dr. Terr pronounced incurable, then went to Dr. Sinaiko who cured her … yes, with EPD.  The two doctors were competing doctors in the same specialty in the same building.  Dr. Terr now makes about $600 per hour testifying on behalf of insurance companies that people who claim injury from chemical accidents or spills are simply crazy and should not receive compensation.