The Proof from a Supporter of John Catanzaro, Mark Driscoll’s Naturopath

Posted on by March 13, 2014avatar

(We apologize that the video in the first story plays automatically.)

We have received two videos from someone who appears to be a supporter of John Catanzaro who is Mark Driscoll's former (or current-who knows?) naturopath. This individual believes that these two news reports provide proof. He/she does not tell us "the what" that these two videos are proving. We guess that it might be documentation that Catanzaro is saving lives. He/she said

This is your proof.

We need to point out that TWW found out about this story AFTER John Catanzaro had his license suspended by the Washington Department of Health. In the interest of providing the "other side of the story," we provide you, without commentary, the offered proof. We will leave it up to our perceptive readers to determine if this exonerates the naturopath. Please join us in praying for the folks in these two news videos.

Here is the link to the first story.

Here is the accompanying video.

Here is the link to the second story.

Here is the accompanying video.

Comments

The Proof from a Supporter of John Catanzaro, Mark Driscoll’s Naturopath — 45 Comments

  1. I watched the king5 one when it aired the other day. My question is, where are the rest and what % have been healed? I wish I could remember if people recommended him when i was in the midst of my homeschooling days 3 yrs ago (it seemed like someone was always asking about naturopaths in that group).

    I noticed one of the moms that I am friendly with has liked his facebook page, I’m going to ask her next time we are waiting for school to get out if she has gone to him and what her impressions are.

  3. Here’s what bothers me…if John Catanzaro found a successful way to treat cancer don’t you think the medical community would have embraced it? I can’t imagine an oncologist or university withholding research due to the Hippocratic Oath.

    This is about ethics, and people being manipulated when they are vulnerable. People with severe or terminal illness are vulnerable to manipulation and that is what is going on. The proof is in the details, I would like to see and have those patients in the videos reviewed by an appropriate physician and get a second opinion. Besides when I have had to make major medical decisions I have always leaned upon a second decision. You know that Dee, especially with the decisions I am making now.

    But I just see Catanzaro as a tool who manipulates and takes license with the truth. I am not convinced and see this Naturopath in the same light as those who travel great distances to “enjoy radium benefits” in abandoned western US mines to improve asthma, and arthritis and a host of other issues.

    What did Jesus calls his followers to be? To be wise as serpents and harmless as doves? Let’s be wise and appeal to reason, knowledge, and science. And in the process let’s also be Bereans as we are called to search the scriptures. Let’s be wise as serpents….

  5. I live near Seattle, and while I have no personal or anecdotal knowledge with this naturopath, I’m inclined to be supportive if – and only if – he has been forthright with his patients about the nature of the treatment. I believe very strongly that people should have the freedom to make their own informed decisions in this area.
    I do have plenty of anecdotal knowledge and experience with alternative medicine in general, and believe it is of tremendous value to a lot of people. Also keeping in mind every individual is different and may respond differently based on many factors.

    Unfortunately with our medical system, it is prohibitively expensive to have treatments officially sanctioned unless there is a very large profit to be made off of them. This opens the door to situations like this one, and while manipulation is definitely a danger, I think the key is education and transparency, not shutting the door on treatments people want.

  6. There are about three Mark Driscoll related posts on this guy’s blog that look interesting.

    The top one is
    Don’t Throw Rocks – Mark Driscoll’s Humble Plea? by Zach Hoag
    (You would think from Driscoll it would be, “Please don’t throw me under the bus!”)

    Other titles on his blog:
    – Are These the Last Days…of Mark Driscoll’s Pastoral Ministry?
    – What Everyone Might Be Missing About Mark Driscoll: It’s All Business

  7. The first thing I was wondering about while watching the supporters on the news the other night was if these people were also using conventional methods such as chemo or radiation.

  8. You know in my many times working at the state facility, convalescent facilities etc. I remember the many many many many times where parents / family / patient prayed, begged, pleaded. I cant think of one time there was some miracle, family would do anything and some did, preachers would tell them to pray, try this or try that and it always came to naught in the physical i.e. they were not healed. But the people found peace as did the families in a spiritual sense and I consider that powerful. I don't know if this doctor is a tool, Mark Driscoll is a tool and that is just the way it is. Time for the guy to move on.

  9. @ Patti:
    According to Catanzaro’s website, they are supposed to work alongside medical oncologists. But, the news report does not say this.

  10. I really feel for the elderly gentleman (81 y.o.) who is working 3 days a week to pay for his wife's treatment.

  11. Daisy wrote:

    Don’t Throw Rocks – Mark Driscoll’s Humble Plea? by Zach Hoag

    The supposedly repentant “sermon” by Mark is plain BS. Pleading for mercy while confessing sin is nothing like what he did.

    He lectured people on how we all stumble, how there’s always a rock that can be thrown, and how Jesus forgave the prostitute (inference, he’s less bad than that prostie so hey…). “Let it go,” he says.

    Pompous desperation.

    No, you let it go, Mark. Speak to yourself about yourself.

  12. Patrice wrote:

    how there’s always a rock that can be thrown

    Yeah-he gets to throw people under the bus and everyone else is supposed to hug Mark.

  13. These videos are complete balderdash to anyone with even a remote knowledge of how healthcare delivery works. For starters, a treatment does not become standard of care until exhaustive clinical study is done (and this is after the exhaustive non-human studies) to ensure that the doctors are “doing no harm”. There are plenty of good historical reasons for this approach. For example, in the early 20th century, some doctors treated cancer with mercury. Did it work? Yep. For the patients that survived the treatment. To put it in terms that most people will readily grasp – how would you feel if doctors began using an untested drug on patients that was developed by Big Pharma? No doubt the conspiracy theorists would shout about the drug causing everything from SIDS to autism. But because someone is a naturopath, he is somehow off the hook? Were carcinogenic and mutogenic studies done? What are the highest correlations between successful implementation and other factors? How many people pray for healing and get chemo, and are healed? Do we then prescribe ($10,000 a pop) prayers and ignore the chemo just because someone got well? I think the state board was more than justified in pulling this man’s license. Even if he is doing good work on a promising solution, there are ethical guidelines for pursuing treatment, and I don’t see him following them in this story.

  14. Patrice wrote:

    He lectured people on how we all stumble, how there’s always a rock that can be thrown, and how Jesus forgave the prostitute (inference, he’s less bad than that prostie so hey…). “Let it go,” he says.

    “BUT EVERYBODY’S DOING IT!”

  15. dee wrote:

    Yeah-he gets to throw people under the bus and everyone else is supposed to hug Mark.

    RANK HATH ITS PRIVILEGES.

  17. @ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
    I attempted to convey this point to the individual. I am concerned that they believe that I am presenting only one side of the story. This person believe that this is proof. In the near future, I need to do a post to help folks understand why anecdotal reports do not mean proof. Far too many people rely on “word of mouth.”

    A woman tried to convince once that certain oils with certain aromas heal us from diseases and that this was “biblical.” She gave me a long convoluted explanation about the biblical reasons. I then asked her to show me the randomized, blinded, peer reviewed studies. She has no idea to what I was referring.

  18. I feel for these people. I’ve turned to natural remedies myself for some things, and have been known to scour PubMed looking for abstracts or published material on the efficacy of certain supplements. John Catanzaro hasn’t even conducted a clinical trial to show whether or not his vaccines are having any effect. Without any carefully controlled, clinical study there is no definable proof that his methods are working at all– it’s all anecdotal. Wikipedia even says of John Lind that “[b]y conducting the first ever clinical trial,[1] he developed the theory that citrus fruits cured scurvy.”

    There is a lot of money to be made in the world of alternative treatments. There are unscrupulous people making bank off of others’ fears. The people who support Catanzaro should encourage him to test his methods and publish his results. (And not to falsely piggyback on the names of persons and institutions that are legitimately doing so.)

  20. Patti wrote:

    The first thing I was wondering about while watching the supporters on the news the other night was if these people were also using conventional methods such as chemo or radiation.

    ………….

    I wondered where, by who they were diagnosed in the first place? THere is very little medical information supplied other then a supposed diagnosis of some kind, type of cancer. Really? These personal stories prove nothing about diagnosis,treatment or cures. If these people don ‘t believe in tradtional medicine
    practices, why on earth will they not document how and why their vaccines work……show the darn process.
    Be transparent.

    I can’t imagine if this clinic documented it’s trials,and could prove through those trials, the efficacy of these treatments, their not having mainstream oncolgy studies begging to partner with them. Same with the pharma co. Or why wouldn’t the nature clinic, partner up with somoeone just to mass market these cures? Why keep such wonderful cures exclusive to so few people?

  21. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    These videos are complete balderdash to anyone with even a remote knowledge of how healthcare delivery works. For starters, a treatment does not become standard of care until exhaustive clinical study is done (and this is after the exhaustive non-human studies) to ensure that the doctors are “doing no harm”. There are plenty of good historical reasons for this approach. For example, in the early 20th century, some doctors treated cancer with mercury. Did it work? Yep. For the patients that survived the treatment. To put it in terms that most people will readily grasp – how would you feel if doctors began using an untested drug on patients that was developed by Big Pharma? No doubt the conspiracy theorists would shout about the drug causing everything from SIDS to autism. But because someone is a naturopath, he is somehow off the hook? Were carcinogenic and mutogenic studies done? What are the highest correlations between successful implementation and other factors? How many people pray for healing and get chemo, and are healed? Do we then prescribe ($10,000 a pop) prayers and ignore the chemo just because someone got well? I think the state board was more than justified in pulling this man’s license. Even if he is doing good work on a promising solution, there are ethical guidelines for pursuing treatment, and I don’t see him following them in this story.

    Word. All I was hearing when listening to these two testimonials was, “Placebo effect, placebo effect.”

  22. dee wrote:

    A woman tried to convince once that certain oils with certain aromas heal us from diseases and that this was “biblical.”

    This kind of thing has been all over Christian TV the past several years, and to make a profit.

    Christian networks pretty regularly have TV hosts on who present certain eating habits or vitamins as being “biblical,” and who promise you if you use their advice or products, you can defeat sickness or have better health.

    Off the top of my head, two such hosts have been in trouble (legally I think, not just with bad PR) for promoting bogus ideas or products.

    There’s one guy, with dark hair, who has a weekly show on TBN who goes on and on about organic eating and how it’s “more biblical” than eating other things. He’s against people eating hot dogs.

    He’s not the only one. Some of these health quack guys on Christian shows sell books and DVDs based on Old Testament based dietary laws God put in place for the Jews of that era.

    What I don’t understand is that in the NT, God took such foods previously on the ‘do not eat’ list on the ‘go ahead and eat it now’ list when he gave that vision to Peter, in the book of Acts:

    The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

    (Maybe the point of the vision had a bigger message to it, but there it is.)

    And, in Mark 7:19,

    For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

    There was a blond lady who used to have a weekly show on TBN for a few years, and she was in legal trouble for her medical/ health claims. I think she talked about dietary stuff and vitamins.

    State suing Fort Worth ‘naturopathic doctor’ [this was the blond lady who had a weekly show on Christian network TBN]

    “She’s making these outrageous claims with these dietary supplements when they haven’t even been proven,” said Tom Kelley, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

    The lawsuit was filed against Valerie Saxion, 49, and her company, Valerie Saxion Inc….

    The Texas Department of State Health Services inspected Saxion’s office on four occasions and determined that Saxion claimed that dietary supplements could treat, prevent or cure diseases, according to the lawsuit.

    For example, the lawsuit says, Colloidal Silver was touted as effective against Lyme disease, herpes, Legionnaire’s Disease, staphylococcus, salmonella, warts, gangrene, pseudomonas, streptococcus, Candida and other viruses and bacteria.

    The dark haired guy with his show on TBN was got into some kind of legal trouble over his medical advice or products, I believe. I looked him up on the internet, his name is Jordan Rubin.

    Rubin is mentioned on the Quack Watch site under this headline:
    “Jordan Rubin and Garden of Life Ordered
    to Stop Making Unsubstantiated Advertising Claims” by Stephen Barrett, M.D.

  23. It is good to see the other side of the story. Interestingly, though, the ‘other side of the story’ people on TWW almost always ignore inconvenient truth’s such as Catanzano allegedly misrepresenting his research, which would be sufficient for him to be struck from medical practice, at least in the UK.

  24. dee wrote:

    I attempted to convey this point to the individual. I am concerned that they believe that I am presenting only one side of the story. This person believe that this is proof. In the near future, I need to do a post to help folks understand why anecdotal reports do not mean proof. Far too many people rely on “word of mouth.”
    A woman tried to convince once that certain oils with certain aromas heal us from diseases and that this was “biblical.” She gave me a long convoluted explanation about the biblical reasons. I then asked her to show me the randomized, blinded, peer reviewed studies. She has no idea to what I was referring.

    I go to a lot of networking events and most of them have a lot of new multi level marketing salespeople at them. Years ago, one of them tried to convince me that her miracle powder could cure cerebral palsy. Trying not to laugh i asked her if she even knew what caused cp. She was clueless.

  25. Daisy wrote:

    dee wrote:
    A woman tried to convince once that certain oils with certain aromas heal us from diseases and that this was “biblical.”
    This kind of thing has been all over Christian TV the past several years, and to make a profit.
    Christian networks pretty regularly have TV hosts on who present certain eating habits or vitamins as being “biblical,” and who promise you if you use their advice or products, you can defeat sickness or have better health.
    Off the top of my head, two such hosts have been in trouble (legally I think, not just with bad PR) for promoting bogus ideas or products.
    There’s one guy, with dark hair, who has a weekly show on TBN who goes on and on about organic eating and how it’s “more biblical” than eating other things. He’s against people eating hot dogs.
    He’s not the only one. Some of these health quack guys on Christian shows sell books and DVDs based on Old Testament based dietary laws God put in place for the Jews of that era.

    Yep. We were one of those groups who ate kosher, plus had a lot of “extra” rules such as chocolate being forbidden. Breaking the rules could get you a sound tongue lashing. (I’ve heard they now allow chocolate. So mercurial.)
    I wonder if all of this plays a part in the moral decline of some segments of the church? There is a study showing the correlation between eating wholesome foods and being more judgmental. http://spp.sagepub.com/content/4/2/251

  26. (off topic)
    I don’t know if Nancy ever re-visits old threads or not, but I left her a reply on an older thread here/a>, about boys and girls and teachers in the classroom.

  30. @ Daisy:

    Yes! Chocolate is good for you! 🙂

    I do like to eat healthy as much as possible. But, like the people you mentioned in your previous post, I found it tends to become a religion among people who place a strong emphasis on it. And, like the science suggests, they DO become more judgmental about many things overall.

  31. @ Peter:

    Interestingly, though, the ‘other side of the story’ people on TWW almost always ignore inconvenient truth’s such as Catanzano allegedly misrepresenting his research, which would be sufficient for him to be struck from medical practice

    That was my thought as well. Just because someone is a crook overall, doesn’t mean they’ve never done anything positive. So I’m not sure what the videos are supposed to “prove,” unless they can demonstrate Catanzaro was honest about the things Dee originally mentioned – which would basically require a grand conspiracy theory involving the NIH, Dana-Farber, etc.

  32. I would recommend reading Paul Offit’s book on Alternative Medicine. Excellent read on the topic.

    http://www.amazon.com/Do-You-Believe-Magic-Alternative/dp/0062222961

    I feel that withholding vaccinations, homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, can cause more harm than good and often make unsubstantiated and even false claims. PLease inform yourselves before going the AM route. What you don’t know about it could cause you harm.

    Just my 2 cents from someone whose been down that road…

  33. As I have said before, if your child is otherwise healthy and you do not get them the full range of vaccinations, you are a child abuser!!!!

  34. amen, amen, amen….I say this with full hearted enthusiasm. I am also a parent of an autistic child. Vaccinations save lives-they do not cause autism (we’re still not sure what does).

    I’ll get off my soap box now-but thanks for saying this AN Attorney @ An Attorney:

  35. Eagle wrote:

    Here’s what bothers me…if John Catanzaro found a successful way to treat cancer don’t you think the medical community would have embraced it? I can’t imagine an oncologist or university withholding research due to the Hippocratic Oath.
    This is about ethics, and people being manipulated when they are vulnerable. People with severe or terminal illness are vulnerable to manipulation and that is what is going on. The proof is in the details, I would like to see and have those patients in the videos reviewed by an appropriate physician and get a second opinion. Besides when I have had to make major medical decisions I have always leaned upon a second decision. You know that Dee, especially with the decisions I am making now.
    But I just see Catanzaro as a tool who manipulates and takes license with the truth. I am not convinced and see this Naturopath in the same light as those who travel great distances to “enjoy radium benefits” in abandoned western US mines to improve asthma, and arthritis and a host of other issues.
    What did Jesus calls his followers to be? To be wise as serpents and harmless as doves? Let’s be wise and appeal to reason, knowledge, and science. And in the process let’s also be Bereans as we are called to search the scriptures. Let’s be wise as serpents….

    It would be difficult. The fact is most of these guys are not very scientific in their approaches, and a lot are quacks. If one of them happened to stumble upon something useful, it would take a good bit of money and time to prove it worked at the level that would be required for it to become established medicine. It can happen, but it is hard. Just look at how difficult it is if one goes against the established wisdom of the day and one IS a qualified scientists or Doctor. I am thinking of the discovery that Ulcers can be caused by certain kinds of bacteria which eventually earned Warren and Marshal a Nobel prize. For a long time they were regarded in a less that positive light to say the least (look up the timeline for this particularly long an drawn out fight against the prevailing wisdom on Wikipedia). It was very hard for him to get a serious hearing. Eventually he was able to get his data considered and tested, and many people benefited from it. Medicine is one of the harder sciences to buck the common wisdom. A good bit of that is because when the bucker is a quack, people die. And it can sometimes be hard to tell the quacks and hacks from those with something useful to give.

    Zeta

  36. Off topic, but I just read MD’s “apology” letter. (Comments section at http://davekraft.squarespace.com/posts/2014/3/8/do-you-swear-to-tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-b.html?currentPage=8#comments scroll down to near bottom for the long letter). I don’t want to be deceived, but I’m kind of wondering if this is a positive thing? Could he be actually a little bit sorry?

    Despite ALL of the MD related controversies, I think the thing that has always personally bothered me the most is his misogyny, which he has passed on to other church leaders (like my former A29 pastor). I don’t think he will ever really repent of that, because he can’t see that he’s guilty of it. But as far as his other crap goes, maybe he’s starting to see the light?

  37. I’m not clear if Mark Driscoll left this reply at Dave Kraft’s site, or if it was pasted into a post there from Driscoll (i.e., was this based on an e-mail Driscoll posted inside his church, and someone posted it under his name at Kraft’s blog), or what this is.

    But if you scroll down this page, someone posting under the name of Driscoll posted a very, very long letter:
    Dave Kraft blog

    It starts out, “Dear Mars Hill Church, Thank you.” And is signed, “With the Father’s affection, –Pastor Mark Driscoll” and posted using the screen name, “Pastor Mark Driscoll”

    Several people think it’s really him posting it. I have no idea.

    A few comments from it:
    “To reset my life, I will not be on social media for at least the remainder of the year. …I will also be doing much less travel and speaking in the next season. In recent years, I have cut back significantly, but I will now cut back even more. I have cancelled some speaking events…”

    Someone else in that thread said, “That letter was sent out through the City for all Mars Hill members. Don’t know if that was Mark posting it here or someone in his stead.”

  39. @ BeenThereDoneThat:
    The food faddism has taken root in a very weird way among US evangelicals [small “e”]. We don’t tend to see it to anything like the same degree over here.

    A while back, Lesley and I listened to a CD series by an American minister chap teaching on prayer and fasting. For 2 CD’s, his stuff on fasting was well-argued, thought-provoking and based on a lot of practice (i.e. he fasted often). But then he got into “nutritional fasting”. And we had a whole CD, or more, of crackpot theories and junk science on how cancer is caused by an overdose of dietary protein, and eating nothing but melon cleansed and purified his body so that he could live to be 120 like Moses. The western diet, you see, is a strategy of satan to kill off Christians with cancer so that they can’t minister to as many people.

    It’s a sad irony that the preacher concerned died of cancer at a relatively young age. I don’t know whether his extreme dietary habits were likely to have helped or hindered him in his battle with the disease. Certainly, I prefer to remember him for the better stuff he learned and taught than for the unfortunate distractions.

  40. One question I ask, if someone is pushing some kind of “Biblical” diet or herb is, —“And what was the life span of people during this time? How I’d it enhance their lives if they only live to 25? ” Then I hear that they didn’t suffer from cancer, diabetes, etc. To that I say,”They didn’t live long enough to develop these health issues!”

  41. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    These videos are complete balderdash to anyone with even a remote knowledge of how healthcare delivery works. For starters, a treatment does not become standard of care until exhaustive clinical study is done (and this is after the exhaustive non-human studies) to ensure that the doctors are “doing no harm”. There are plenty of good historical reasons for this approach. For example, in the early 20th century, some doctors treated cancer with mercury. Did it work? Yep. For the patients that survived the treatment. To put it in terms that most people will readily grasp – how would you feel if doctors began using an untested drug on patients that was developed by Big Pharma? No doubt the conspiracy theorists would shout about the drug causing everything from SIDS to autism. But because someone is a naturopath, he is somehow off the hook? Were carcinogenic and mutogenic studies done? What are the highest correlations between successful implementation and other factors? How many people pray for healing and get chemo, and are healed? Do we then prescribe ($10,000 a pop) prayers and ignore the chemo just because someone got well? I think the state board was more than justified in pulling this man’s license. Even if he is doing good work on a promising solution, there are ethical guidelines for pursuing treatment, and I don’t see him following them in this story.

    The key word is “natural”. People have been brainwashed into equating “natural” with “good” and “wholesome”. I have an in-law like this. My husband (her brother) pointed out to her that all kinds of natural things are harmful to humans and she actually argued. He asked her if she picks up poison ivy. Answer: “Of course not!” His response: But it is NATURAL. She still was not convinced and still stands by her ideal that anything “natural” is good and anything developed by science is bad.

  42. Ann wrote:

    One question I ask, if someone is pushing some kind of “Biblical” diet or herb is, —”And what was the life span of people during this time? How I’d it enhance their lives if they only live to 25? ” Then I hear that they didn’t suffer from cancer, diabetes, etc. To that I say,”They didn’t live long enough to develop these health issues!”

    ……..

    And women died in droves from childbirth, children from influenza, TB everywhere, cholera, smallpox, rotten, fetid food and grain. Yup, living natural sure was grand generations ago.

  44. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    It’s a sad irony that the preacher concerned died of cancer at a relatively young age.

    That’s very sad. My MIL had a similar experience with a nutritionist she was seeing for some health concerns. (They only rarely use conventional doctors in a medical emergency– maybe.) The nutritionist passed away not too long ago. He was only in his late 40s or early 50s I believe. It shocked my in-laws.

  45. ar wrote:

    The key word is “natural”. People have been brainwashed into equating “natural” with “good” and “wholesome”. I have an in-law like this. My husband (her brother) pointed out to her that all kinds of natural things are harmful to humans and she actually argued. He asked her if she picks up poison ivy. Answer: “Of course not!” His response: But it is NATURAL. She still was not convinced and still stands by her ideal that anything “natural” is good and anything developed by science is bad.

    Yep. I know some people who believe in the healing power of essential oils. They even started a business selling their own special blends. These oils can have some unexpected effects. For example, lavender and tea tree essential oils are suspected of causing gynecomastia in boys.
    http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20070131/lavender-oil-may-spur-breasts-boys