The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 113: According To Peter

Episode Date: October 10, 2018

This man's reputation needed to be destroyed - and that's the gospel truth... according to Peter.

This is the way I heard it. According to Peter, Dr. Hank was America's favorite physician, thanks in part to the many celebrities who publicly thanked him for saving their lives. Ronald Reagan, Nicole Kidman, Hallie Berry, Ed Koch, Kerry Fisher, Ellen Barkin, Cher. All of them were deeply grateful to the charismatic doctor whose life-saving procedure kept them alive. According to Peter, it was Dr. Hank's charisma and his outstanding reputation that allowed him to advance his next big, life-saving idea,

a medical breakthrough no less important than the procedure that made him a household name. The year was 1993, and Hollywood was reeling from the impact of AIDS. Dozens of actors and artists were dying, hundreds more were infected, and many believe the government wasn't taking the crisis seriously. According to Peter, Dr. Hank told Joanna Carson, one of Johnny's former wives, that he could kill the HIV virus. All he needed was a few months of human trials and $600,000. Joanna Carson not only offered to host a fundraiser at her home in Beverly Hills,

she invited a few close friends who had lost loved ones to the disease, friends like Amy Irving, Estelle Getty, John Voigt, Ed Asner, all of them eager to help find a cure. According to Peter, the A-listers nodded appreciatively as Dr. Hank discussed the barriers of medical research. They murmured their assent, as Dr. Hank described, the bureaucratic nightmare of dealing with the AMA, the CDC, and the FDA, all of whom had delayed his research with onerous compliance issues. People are suffering, damn it, and what does our government do? They quibble. They reject my research because it doesn't complains.

with their protocols, even as people continue to die. I say enough. Then Dr. Hank explained the essence of his revolutionary new treatment. It's really very simple, he explained. A controlled fever of 105 degrees will trigger the body's immune system and destroy the HIV virus. I propose to create such a fever in patients with AIDS by injecting them, with live malaria. Now, a typical crowd might have reacted with skepticism. A typical doctor might have been laughed out of the room. But this was not a typical crowd.

These were wealthy celebrities with sick friends, desperate to do something. And this was not a typical doctor. This was America's favorite physician, an accomplished, charismatic man of medicine whose famous invention once considered controversial was now endorsed by the Surgeon General and the Red Cross. According to Peter, when Dr. Hank concluded his presentation on the wonders of malaria therapy, the celebrities in Joanna Carson's house lunged for their checkbooks. Amy Irving wrote a big one. So did Jack Nicholson. Ron Howard was very generous, as was Bob Hope. Ed Baker. Lee Jr., Ted Danson, Angelica Houston, Muhammad Ali, Bet Midler, and Richard Dreyfus.

These people became Dr. Hank's Hollywood Support Committee, and with their help, he raised the $600,000 he needed to begin human testing in China, a place where the AMA, the CDC, the FDA, and all those other annoying acronyms wouldn't stand in the way of his life-saving work. What happened next, according to Peter, wouldn't have surprised a Boy Scout with a first-aid merit badge. After being injected with malaria, a dozen patients in China suffering from AIDS began to exhibit symptoms of, wait for it? That's right. Malaria. Along with the promised 105-degree fever, these unfortunate souls endured weeks of profuse sweating, convulsive shivering, excruciating migraines, severe body pain, projectile vomiting, intermittent flushing,

anemia, hallucinations, fatigue, shortness of breath, tightness of the chest, explosive diarrhea, plunging blood pressure, rashes, joint pain, muscle weakness, and ultimately an acute allergic reaction that turned out to be fatal. Dr. Hanks, malaria therapy, really was a wonder. Wherever he tried it, China, Africa, Mexico, it. never failed to kill the HIV virus, along with the patient. It was Peter, who finally blew the whistle. Thanks to his investigative reporting, the medical community has reconsidered Dr. Hank's sterling reputation and dismissed the majority of his ideas for the utter nonsense they turned out to be. And yet, when he died at 96 years of age, the general public had no idea. They still don't.

According to Peter, Dr. Hank is still among the most admired figures in modern medicine. Understandable, I guess. There was something about the guy that made people feel grateful. People like Ronald Reagan, Nicole Kidman, Hallie Berry, Ed Koch, Carrie Fisher, Ellen Barkin, Cher, and over 100,000 others who bit off more than they could chew. I'd live to tell the tale. to Dr. Hank's famous procedure. And yet, according to Peter, the procedure for which Hank is credited was actually discovered

by his business partner, a man named Edward Patrick, who is today credited with nothing. According to Peter, the public needs to know the truth about Dr. Hank. The truth about his dangerous attempts to sell his famous procedure as a way to revive drowning victims, as well as stop heart attacks and epileptic seizures. The truth about his preposterous efforts to persuade lifeguards that CPR was dangerous. The truth about the celebrities he fleeced and the patients he tortured when he injected them with live malaria. The truth about the charismatic quack who proved repeatedly that his own fame was of far greater importance than the well-being of his own patients.

Of course, Peter wasn't the only investigator, who was alarmed by the real, Dr. Hank. But unlike the others, Peter wasn't investigating America's favorite physician. No, Peter was investigating his dad. In fact, he still is. Even now, years after his father's death, Peter is still systematically destroying

the reputation of the death. the man who raised him by posting online a vast collection of damning evidence collected over a lifetime of careful observation. It's a modern-day Greek tragedy, and you can see the results for yourself over at medfraud. info. According to Peter, it's the only place online to find the whole truth about the con man who raised him and the maneuver that made him famous. the heimlich. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. If you work in university maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP

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