Things are not going well for two Wisconsin Department of Regulation & Licensing (DRL) prosecutors, Arthur Thexton and James Polewski. Their world, and their relationship with the notorious “quackbuster” operation, is under intense scrutiny by the people of Wisconsin. They are not going to survive the experience.
Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
Last Tuesday, October 14th, 2003, the State of Wisconsin Assembly Health Committee met to discuss the entry of a consumer protection bill designed to safeguard Wisconsin consumers against out-of-control DRL prosecutors, and the “quackbuster” operation, believed to run out of a New York advertising agency. The “quackbuster” operation, records show, is believed to be funded originally by 26 drug companies who want anything that competes with drugs as treatment, defined as “health fraud.”
Assembly members met with about 100 Wisconsin State health activists who were there to complain, and ask for legislative protection, against the “quackbuster’s” subversive activities. The committee listened to almost two hours of testimony. The media was there covering the event.
The bill, AB 397, originally designed solely to protect chelation therapy, at this first meeting, took on a life of it’s own. The general consensus seemed to be that “this bill wasn’t enough, of itself, that more would have to be done to protect Wisconsin consumer’s rights to health options.” The committee listened to activist, after activist, complaining about the activities of two Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing (DRL) prosecutors who had embraced the anti-American activities of the so-called National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF). The NCAHF, forced to flee it’s quarters at Loma Linda University, in California, several years ago, homeless for a time, is now operating out of the same address as it’s so-called president Robert S. Baratz – hair removal and ear piercing salon owner, in Braintree, Massachusetts.
NCAHF president Baratz has been “testifying” in a case in Wisconsin as “expert witness” against Green Bay MD Eleazar Kadile, claiming all sorts of strange things about Kadile’s practice. So strange, and so “out there,” that the Judge in the case, ordered three days of cross-examination on Baratz’s “credibility,” alone, last July 15th, 2003. After only one day, the Judge stopped the cross-examination, and ordered an immediate focus on “negotiating a settlement” in the case. Even before Baratz was cross-examined on his so-called “Medical Testimony.” Even before the SUPERB defense witnesses testified.
In the first day cross-examination of Baratz, it was brought out that Baratz has virtually been FIRED from EVERY job he’s ever had… It appeared, also, that Baratz had made personal injury claims against others, including lawsuits, on the same arm, three separate times – unsuccessfully. At the last instance, Baratz had claimed that “he could no longer work as a doctor, after (he claimed) a frail 72 year old woman doctor attacked him like a Doberman.” The case was dismissed. In an earlier case, where Baratz had claimed virtually the same injury, a jury deliberated only NINE MINUTES before ruling against Baratz.
The State of Wisconsin has paid, or has been billed, about $100,000 for Baratz’s so-called “expert testimony” in the case. An amount greater than the COMBINED TOTAL of witness fees paid to ALL other witnesses, in ALL other DRL prosecutions, for the same period.
Wisconsin legislators, and news media, are being given edited copies of video tapes of Baratz’s testimony. In one segment, Baratz cries, tears flowing, while he claims to have worked as a paper boy, at 8 1/2 years old, to buy his first car. Huh? The videos speak clearly of themselves. As a witness, Baratz does himself in.
After the State of Wisconsin Assembly Health Committee meeting, several of the Assemblymen stayed around to ask questions of the activists. As a result of THOSE conversations, it appears the Assembly Health committee is now going to Legislatively Subpoena both Thexton and Polewski to testify on their behavior.
Stay tuned…
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate