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Teri Figueroa
San Diego, California | A San Diego jury has ordered the author of the bestselling pH Miracle books to pay $ 105 million ($ 146 million) to a cancer patient who said the author "s" was presented as a doctor and advised him to give up traditional medical treatment.
The sentence – more than double what the woman had requested – was ordered about 16 months after the close of a criminal case, the author, Robert Oldham Young, having been sentenced to a few months in prison for have practiced medicine without a license.
Young – who on Friday called the judgment "a fraud" – has written several books, including the bestseller The miracle of pH: balance your diet, recover your health. Published for the first time in 2002, the book has been translated into several languages.
"It's totally outrageous," Young said on Friday's verdict. "It's a tenth of a billion."
Young's work – and the treatments provided at his Valley Center ranch – rested on the theory that acidity in the body was the cause of the disease and that an alkaline diet was the solution.
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In 2015, Dawn Kali, a cancer patient, sued Young in the San Diego Superior Court alleging negligence and fraud. She said that he had advised her to give up chemotherapy and traditional treatments to adopt a treatment consistent with her alkaline theories.
Patrick Swan, one of Kali's lawyers, said that his 45-year-old client's oncologist had stated that Kali was about three or four years old to live. She now has stage 4 cancer.
The civil lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court lasted about seven days and the proceedings lasted less than half a day. The verdict returned Wednesday.
The sum of $ 105 million includes nearly $ 90 million for pain and suffering and $ 15 million in punitive damages.
Swan said Kali felt "justified" by the verdict.
"The jury listened carefully and understood the seriousness of the evidence, and gave a verdict on how much damages Ms. Kali will suffer," said Swan.
He also said that he hoped the verdict "would have an effect on" the miracle industry of cancer treatment ".
Young's lawyer, Conrad Joyner, said that his client thought his views had been repressed because they did not fit the medical facility.
"It does not matter if you believe in the pH Miracle or if you do not believe it, it's clear that Robert believes it," Joyner said. "He sincerely believes what he does."
He also said that Kali – who at one point worked for Young – was aware that Young's theories were outside of established medicine.
Intravenous fluids mixed with baking soda
Young did not have a civil lawyer during most of the case. Joyner was detained a few months ago at the beginning of the trial.
Joyner said that he considered the case as "ripe for an appeal".
"I've never heard of a jury case with so many damages where the jury returns in about 3 hours," Joyner said. "I wonder how they really thought about it."
Young said that there was "a tremendous amount of evidence" that he had not been allowed to present to the jury. He said that he would appeal.
The year before Young's lawsuit against Kali, he had been tried by a criminal court after his arrest in January 2014, following an investigation by the state's medical committee.
During the criminal trial, District Assistant Attorney Gina Darvas described Young as a charlatan who was making money by peddling pseudoscience to desperate and dying people.
She argued that Young's degrees came from an unrecognized "diploma mill", in which Young went from a bachelor's degree to a Ph.D. in about eight months in 1995.
The criminal case highlighted his controversial theories and the costly treatments he offered to critically ill or dying patients, who in some cases received intravenous fluids mixed with baking soda at US $ 500 each.
Young's criminal defense lawyer claimed that his client was under attack for adopting alternatives to traditional medicine. He said people had asked for Young's help precisely because he was not a doctor, but rather a naturopathic practitioner.
In early 2016 – after weeks of trial – a North County jury found Young guilty of two heads of unlicensed medicine practice. The panel is stuck on several remaining changes.
Facing a new trial, Young reached an agreement ending criminal prosecution. He spent several months in prison as part of his sentence.
As part of the agreement, the prosecutor insisted on a specific condition: Mr. Young was to publicly declare that he was neither a microbiologist, hematologist, family doctor, naturopath, nor doctor. qualified scientist. He did it in court.
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