This article is from page 11 of the 2008-07-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
A RENOWNED consultant surgeon said he could not be sure that treat- ment offered to patients at the East Clinic had any positive affect.
London-based Dr Colin Hopper said he believed that it was likely that other treatments received by the three patients he interviewed helped to elongate their lives.
The Consultant Oral and Maxillo- facial Surgeon at the University Col- lege London Hospitals and Senior
Research Fellow National Medical Laser Centre London, was giving evidence in the case of Dr Pascal Carmody who has denied deceiving terminally ill patients at his clinic in Killaloe.
Mr Hopper visited Dr Carmody at his clinic in 2002.
Spending almost two hours in the witness box on Friday morning, Mr Hopper said, “There is a quantum leap, a leap of faith if you will, be- tween what is mainstream medicine and this medicine being provided.
That is what I have the greatest dif- ficulty with.”
He raised concerns about using drugs on patients without having any information on them and said pa- tients who are terminally ill should not be used as guinea pigs.
‘People who have a very short time to live should not have new medi- cines experimented on them. Pa- tients who are terminally ill have to be protected,” he told the jury at the circuit court.
Council for the defence Pat Mar-
rinan SC told Mr Hopper that the patients were told that they were dy- ing.
Mr Hopper replied, “Dying with an unknown prognosis. None of us have a crystal ball. I have seen pa- tients who were told they had three weeks and they were still alive in ten years.”
The defending barrister asked if there was an adverse reaction in the patients he reviewed.
“The patients did well but whether it was from PDT or other therapies
offered I would expect other thera- pies to have the effect,” he said.
Mr Hopper agreed that he described the case of Mark Hadden, who was given three months to live in 1996, as miraculous, in his 2002 report. Mr Hadden died weeks before the trial preteen a
The consultant surgeon told the court, however, that he could not be sure what was at work as Mr Hadden had also received hyperthermia im- munotherapy in Germany. The trial is to continue this morning.