2/9/2015

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Dentists and the law: Headlines we’d rather not see

Irene Bober-Moken, DMD, MPH Department of Comprehensive Dentistry University of Texas Health Science Center

San Antonio, Texas 78229 February 28, 2015

Objectives

• Appreciate media’s role with professions’ reputation

• Know story behind dentists’ unsavory endeavors

– Menace to society

– Drug dealing

– Torture

– Murder

– Desecrating bodies

– War crimes

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Dentist Pleads Guilty to Drug Distribution

• Dr. David Acer – Full-blown AIDS 1987 (died 1990)

– 6 patients contract AIDS • 1st pt: Kimberly Bergalis – extractions Dec. 1987

– 2001: CDC – transmission unclear

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– John Hall: injected semen into 7 women’s mouths

– Lost his license

– Jail-time

“ ..conduct fell short of the standards expected of a registered

dental practitioner…performed intimate exam…and talked

with her about and planned to perform FGM on two children”

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2004

2013

Pediatric patients forcibly restrained

- Red marks on head “allergic reaction”

– 85 y/o for routine RPD fitting

– DDS arrested: false imprisonment, grand theft and battery

5 Dr. Hammonds

(Feb. 2013)

“Being a service-oriented professional like a dentist, a fight in your office is probably not the way to get those good Yelp reviews.”

Ms. V. Graham

Dr. M. Jerome Holmes

Terrorism • Dr. Sohail Qureshi

– Terrorist training in Pakistan

– UK for fundraising

– Convicted in 2008

• Dr. Umer Farooq pleaded guilty

– 14 charges: possessing material useful in terrorism

– Convicted: 2 years in jail (2012)

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• Dental school graduate: 1981

• Drug ring: Larry Lavin & “Yuppie Conspiracy” – Cocaine syndicate (1978-1984)

• 20-yr term, fines & a 5-year probation

• Gov’t seized: $20M value cocaine

• Guilty (1986) – Operating criminal enterprise

– Conspiracy w/ intent to distribute

– Tax evasion

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“Organ Grinder”

• Non-hospital recoveries w/o consent

• 1,077 bodies dismembered

• Parts in 10,000 surgeries (bone, skin, heart valves)

– Recipients : HIV, Hep C, syphilis and septic shock

• Charge: body stealing, unlawful desecration of human remains, conspiracy & abuse of bodies

• 18-54 year jail term

• Forfeit: $4.68 M

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“From day one, everything was forged; everything, because we could. As long as the paperwork looked good, it was fine…”

Dr. Michael Mastromarino

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‘The West’s Deadliest Dentist’

• Graduate Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery 1872

• Killed two men and shot eight

• Arrested four times; attempted extradition to AZ

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“I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew." – Wyatt Earp

John Henry (Dr.) Holliday 1851-1887

“ Murder by Mercedes” …Clara, the Driller Killer…

• 2002: struck husband, running him over multiple times

– Having an affair with their former receptionist

• 1st-degree murder w/ finding of “sudden passion”

• Fined: $10,000 and 20 year jail term

• Dental license revoked

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Dr. Clara Suarez Harris

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2009

Papuan student from the highlands killed by two dentists

Torture

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War Crimes

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War crimes

….crimes against humanity

• Concentration camps

– Sachsenhausen (30,000 died)

– Buckenwald (56,000 died)

– Mauthausen (119,000 died)

• Extermination camps

– Auschwitz II (Birkenau) [1,125,000 died]

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"Look at this tin full of golden teeth. It's only what we gathered yesterday and the day before yesterday! You cannot imagine how much gold and how many jewels we find everyday “1

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• Dr. Hugo Blaschke (Brigadier General)

– Responsible for dental treatment for SS, police & Gestopo

– Treated Hitler, Goring, Goebbels, Borman and Himmler

– Charge: exploitation of dental gold extracted from the dead

– 10 years imprisonment but released 1948

War crimes

….. crimes against humanity

• Dr. Hermann Pook (Colonel) – Heads dentists in concentration camps

– Ordered to gather dental gold - “On the feasibility of the re-using the gold from the mouths of the deceased” (Doctoral thesis of dentist Wiktor Scholz 1940)

- Sept 1940 – extract gold from “corpses & teeth that could not be cured”

- Decree reinforced Dec. 1942 -

- “Profit” of about 4, 000, 000 reichsmarks annually

– Ten years prison time (pardoned 1951)

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“No conservation or restorative treatment. Only extractions, and with no anesthesia.”

Dental Gold

• Amounts – Buchenwald: 182-504 grams every month

– Mauthausen: 25 Kg

– Treblinka: 8-10 Kg/week

– Auchwitz-Birkenau*: 6 tons (up to 12Kg/day)1

– Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen: 80,000 teeth found on in boxes after liberation

• Estimation: – 5 teeth extracted/individual

– 3 gms. 22 carat gold/tooth

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Boxes of gold caps and dentures removed from prisoners in Buchenwald Concentration Camps, near Weimar, Germany, Apr-May 1945 *46 ovens in 5 creatoriu: fully operational ~4,700 cremations/day

Crematorium III had a smelter

War crimes

… crimes against humanity

• Wilhelm Henkel

– Mauthausen : 61% mortality rate

– Trial at Dachua: March 1946 (US. vs. Hans Altfuldisch, et al )

• 61 former camp personnel and prisoners

• “Common Design” criminal charge

• Charge: “violation of the laws and usages of war,” as well as with subjecting foreign nationals to killing, beating, torture, and starvation

– Execution: hanging May 1947 • Torture and murder of allied nationals

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Autopsy room

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“To make the work more rational, a cross was marked on the chest of those who had gold dental work.”

“After the execution, the S.S. dentists, Capt. Henkel and Franz Jutmann, removed the gold teeth.”

Mauthausen

“…dentists pulled out the golden teeth and golden crowns with pincers and hammers.”

Mauthausen alone: Nov ‘41 - Apr ‘45

~30 Kg gold

….. crimes against humanity

• Dr. Walter Sonntag

– Dentist and physician

– Mustard-gas poisoning at Sachsenhausen

– 4th Ravenbruck’s Trial • Mistreatment and torture

• Sending women of Allied nationalities to gas chamber

– Executed: September 1948

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“He particularly enjoyed extracting healthy teeth without anaesthetic.” 1

…Crimes against humanity

• Dr. Willi Frank (Lieut.)

• Trial held 1963-1965

• SS Dentist Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

• “Hungarian Action” (summer 1944) – Selection >6,000 for gas chambers

• Canisters of Zylon B poison gas

• Sentence: 7 yrs. imprisonment

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5 crematorium (light gas) w /46 ovens

Dr Karl-Heinz Tauber sentenced to 6 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of mass killings

Yugoslavia

• Ethnic cleansing, murder, torture & eviction

– Pleaded guilty; indicted in 2004 at the Hague

– Commits suicide - 2006

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“The U.N. plan to send…peacekeeping troops to Croatian trouble spots has won.. support from all parties to the Yugoslav conflict, except for one bespectacled dentist who controls the angry enclave of Krajina.”

Dr. Milan Babic

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Bibliography

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2 More patients of AIDS stricken dentist carry virus. Associated Press Sep 22,1990.. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1990-09-22/news/mn-613_1_immunodeficiency-virus Epidemiological notes and reports updates: Transmission of HIV infection during invasive dental procedures – Florida. MMWR 40(23);377—381, published June 14, 1991. Retrieved from http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/m0014428/m0014428.asp AIDS patient infected by dentist dies. Associated Press June 27, 1993. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/david-j-acer Fourth patient of Florida dentist with HIV dies of AIDS . Times Wire Services Dec. 19, 1994 Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1994-12-19/news/mn-10841_1_florida-dentist

Defrocked dentist in Semen Suit . The Smoking Gun, June 9, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/defrocked-dentist-semen-suit Porter, Tom. UK Dentist Struck off for offering to perform female genital mutilation. Free Republic Sep. 8, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3064251/posts O’Carroll, L. Undercover reported had sex with dentist during female circumcision The Guardian Aug. 28, 2013 Retrieved from http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/undercover-reporter-had-sex- with-dentist-during-female-circumcision-sting-operation/.

Langford, C. (2013). No way to treat a child. Courthouse News Service. Retrieved from http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/02/25/55136.htm Photo Dr. Holmes from Dentist the Menace retrieved 8 Jan 2014 from http://blog.dentistthemenace.com/2013/02/malpractice-suit-filed-against-texas.html

Hsu, C. (2011) Denture fight: Dentist Assaults Elderly Patient over dentures Retrieved from http://flapsblog.com/2011/05/25/florida-dentist-arrested-after-fighting-85-year-old-patient-over-her-dentures/

Barrie, A. Al Qaeda’s Dentist. Fox News. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/01/24/al-qaeda-dentist Dentist jailed after terrorist material found on Computer. Manchester Evening News. Nov. 16, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.infowars.com/dentist-jailed-after-terrorist-material-found-on-computer

Larry Lavin and the “ Yuppie Conspiracy>” FBI Philadelphia Division. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/philadelphia/about-us/history/famous-cases/famous-cases-larry-lavin-and- the-201cyuppie-conspiracy201d Bowden, M. How Bill-bob the Bear Led the FBI to Larry Lavin . The Inquirer. May 25, 1986. Retrieved from http://articles.philly.com/1986-05-25/news/26048918_1_fbi-agents-d ear-mom-new-location

Bibliography

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Willson, K, Lavrov V, Keller M, Maier T and Ryle G. Body wranglers at work: Inside the global trade in human corpses. NBC News July 17, 2015 . Retrieved from http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/17/12787790-body-wranglers-at-work-inside-the-global-trade-in-human-corpses?lite NJ dentist who ran multistate body parts ring dies in NY prison after bout with cancer. Fox News July 9, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/09/nj-dentist-who-ran-multistate-body-parts-ring-dies-in-ny-prison-after-bout-with/ Midhael Mastromarino: The Organ Grinder. From https://www.themedicalbag.com/despicabledoctor/michael-mastromarino-the-organ-grinder

Dr. Holliday kills for the first time (Jul 19, 1879) .This Day in History. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/doc-holliday-kills-for-the-first-time Source of Photo: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-docholliday2.html (photo) West deadliest dentist …by Robert Barr Smith, in the April 1994 Wild West

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/mercedes-madness-wife-runs-cheating-hubby-article-1.1259905 Glenn, M. (2013) Clara Harris denied parole in husband’s death. Houston Chronicle Retrieved from http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Parole-denied-for-Friendswood-s-Clara-Harris-4430944.php#photo-4465122

http://freewestpapua.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/indonesian-dentists-torture-then-kill-innocent-papuan-man/ http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/country/papuanewguinea.html

1. Dental gold: quote from : http://isurvived.org/Lustig_Oliver-CCDictionary/CCD-14_V.html under Vergassung (1)[gasing(1)] 2. Photo Crematorium IV, Mar 43-Oct 44. Auschwitz-Birkenau: crematoria & Gas Chambers from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/augas.html

Riaud, Xavier. (2006). Story of three SS dentists during World War II: Pr Hugo Blaschke, Dr. Hermann Pook and Dr Willy Frank Acta Internationales historiae medicinae, 12 , 79-93 Riaud, Xavier. Medical Ethics under a Totalitarian Regime: German Dentists and the Third Reich. From http://www.ideals.ac/members-only/bulletin/Bulletin-9.1/Riaud.htm Radiography source: http://greyfalcon.us/restored/myPictures/Hitler%20teeth.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/19/balkans.warcrimes http://www.ask.com/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia?qsrc=3044 http://www.ask.com/wiki/Republic_of_Serbian_Krajina?qsrc=3044 http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/milan-babic

Bibliography

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http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/Mauthausen06.htm

http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=23626

The Story Behind the Nazi Gold." 123HelpMe.com. 02 Oct 2013 http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=23626>

http://isurvived.org/Lustig_Oliver-CCDictionary/CCD-14_V.html#B2

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Gutman, Y. and Berenbaum M. (1998) Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=mub823JQrdUC&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=himmler+dental+gold&source=bl&ots=ljqv38Xjph&sig=FQhKrMUUNkKkoxUU45B5C-I3d08&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jkezVN2QJcLZsATYiYKoCw&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=himmler%20dental%20gold&f=false Pook’s photo: http://hugo-blaschke.seebyseeing.net/ http://www.jta.org/1959/05/27/archive/nazi-dentist-who-removed-gold-teeth-from-camp-inmates-is-cleared#ixzz2gaH6YKiA Riaud, Xavier. Medical Ethics under a Totalitarian Regime: German Dentists and the Third Reich. From http://www.ideals.ac/members-only/bulletin/Bulletin-9.1/Riaud.htm

1 Auschwitz Concentration Camp: The gas chambers & crematoria Mass Extermination http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/auschwitzgaschambers.html Riaud, X. Symbolism, solidarity and gold teeth in the concentration camps.(http://histoire-medecine.fr/seconde-guerre-mondiale/solidarity.pdf Birkenau-Auschwitz (1) . Retrieved from http://isurvived.org/Lustig_Oliver-CCDictionary/CCD-02_BC.html#B6 Photo boxes of teeth: Trials of major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1946 , Vol. XXX, p.433 from http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/photos/images/Teeth.jpg

Mauthausen Gas chamber testimony. Retrieved from http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/Gas%20Chamber/Gas02.html http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/db/admin/de/index_main.php?cbereich=1&cthema=36&carticle=51&fromlist=1

Helm, Sarah. Inside the Nazi death camp for women: infected with petrol, infected with syphilis and raped by their liberators, the shocking fate of prisoners at Ravensbruck. Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2903887/Nazi-death-camp-WOMEN-s-shocking-medical-experiments-injected-prisoners-petrol-syphilis.html Nazi medical experiments from http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/384.html

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Barbara Huber, The Regensburg SS dentist Dr. Willy Frank, Regensburg, Univ., Diss, King Publishing & Neumann, Würzburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8260-4151-8 Riaud Xavier : « La pratique dentaire dans les camps du IIIème Reich », L’HarmattanEditors, “Allemagne d’hier et d’aujourd’hui” Collection, Paris, 2002 Myers, P. 2009. The Memoirs of Rudolph Hoess, head of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Retrieved from http://mailstar.net/Hoss-Memoirs.html L. Mac Lean French, The camp men – The SS Officers who ran the Nazi concentration camp system, Schiffer Military History (ed.), Atglen, 1999, p. 236.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/19/balkans.warcrimes http://www.ask.com/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia?qsrc=3044 http://www.ask.com/wiki/Republic_of_Serbian_Krajina?qsrc=3044 http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/milan-babic