Oregon Death with Dignity house doc loses medical license

Dr. Stuart Weisberg, the Portland Oregon Psychiatrist who made news last June 2010 for planning to establish an assisted suicide center in a similar manner to the Dignitas assisted suicide house in Switzerland, under the name "Death with Dignity" house.

After a disciplinary hearing, related to other issues, on April 8, 2011, the Oregon Medical Board removed the license from Dr. Weisbergs to practise medicine.

People who follow the issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide would remember the story of Dr. Weisberg. Link to a previous article.

What happened:
On June 1, 2004 Dr. Weisberg was put on probation by the Oregon Medical Board for:
1. Violations of the Medical Practice Act,
2. Gross negligence or repeated acts of negligence in the practice of medicine,
3. Prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose,
4. Failing to follow accepted procedures for record keeping

After fulfilling the requirements related to the probation, Dr. Weisberg was assigned a practice mentor who was approved on June 9, 2009. On June 14, 2010 Dr. Weisberg informed the Oregon Medical Board that his practice mentor no longer supported his ideas and he requested "removal from his services."

Meanwhile, his practice mentor, before being removed as practice mentor, reviewed several of his cases. During the hearing it was explained that at least two of the cases that were reviewed by the practice mentor not only recommended treatment that was not medically indicated, but also an unnecessary risk to his patients.

Compassion & Choices, the assisted suicide group in Oregon, is probably celebrating that they will not face new competition for assisted suicide any time soon.

Now that the Farewell Foundation is attempting to establish a Dignitas style assisted suicide group in Canada, maybe they will invite Weisberg to apply for the right to practise medicine in British Columbia.

Exoo cancels plans to open assisted suicide clinic.

Last week we reported that euthanasia lobby activist, George Exoo, was planning to open a suicide clinic in North Carolina.

Exoo bought a small house in Gastonia North Carolina that he was planning to renovate and turn-into a suicide clinic.

Link to my blog article on the suicide clinic: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/09/george-exoo-planning-to-start-death.html

Recently Stuart Weisberg, a psychiatrist in Portland Oregon announced his intention to open a suicide clinic, similar to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Weisberg was planning to offer extra services for his clients, including a $1200 fee for a three session with his dog (dog therapy). Link to my blog article about Weisberg: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/06/dignitas-founder-ludwig-minelli-is-now.html

The fascination with opening assisted suicide clinics appears to be linked to the reports that Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas the assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, has become phenomenally wealthy from his death mission.

Yesterday, an article written by Karen Garloch was published in the Charlotte Observer reported that Exoo didn't expect that he would be met with such outrage for opening an assisted suicide clinic and has shelved his plans to open an assisted suicide clinic.

Garlock reported:

Only days after going public, an internationally known right-to-die advocate says he's calling off plans to open a center for assisted suicide in Gastonia.

The Rev. George Exoo of West Virginia claims to have attended the suicide deaths of more than 100 people in multiple states and, most famously, in Ireland.

Exoo, 68, spent several months in a West Virginia jail in 2007 until a U.S. judge rejected a request from Irish authorities who wanted to extradite him and charge him in connection with the 2002 suicide of Rosemary Toole.

The experience didn't deter Exoo. He still believes mentally competent adults have the right to end their lives with assistance and support if pain from cancer or other disease becomes too great.

His plan for Gastonia grew out of his purchase four years ago of a $30,000 investment property. In a phone interview, he said renovations didn't go as planned, and he came up with the idea to use one of two houses on the lot as a "hospice facility for people who want to die intentionally."

Exoo thought North Carolina would be a good location because it has no law specifically making assisted suicide a criminal act. (N.C. law allows a person to choose a natural death, free from unwanted medical treatment or life-prolonging measures. But it also says that "should not be construed to authorize any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying.")

Thirty-six states, including South Carolina, have laws specifically prohibiting assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Exoo said he expected people would come from other states to take advantage of his service in Gastonia. Unlike Michigan's Jack Kevorkian, the widely publicized "Dr. Death," Exoo said he had hoped to operate quietly, like a shelter for battered women.

But last week, after newspaper and TV reports generated "nasty" website comments from the public, Exoo said he's abandoning his plans. "It's been a nightmare," he said.

Exoo's idea would have run into other roadblocks anyway.

Zoning might have been a problem because his property is in a residential area. Also, hospices require state approval in North Carolina. Gaston Hospice has been in operation since 1981, and the current state plan doesn't call for another.

Beyond that, hospice isn't the right word for what Exoo was planning. The hospice movement is based on providing pain relief and spiritual and emotional comfort at the end of life. But it does not endorse suicide.

When I talked to Exoo, he didn't seem to have thought much about these details. His focus was on people who might want his assistance.

Link to the article in the Charlotte Observer: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/09/21/1707013/assisted-suicide-plan-shelved.html

A couple of years ago Jon Ronson, a film biographer from the UK, produced a film about Rev Georger Exoo that was televised in the UK entitled Reverend Death. Ronson came to the project as a supporter of euthanasia. While filming the biography of Exoo he became aware of many concerns related to Exoo and the euthanasia lobby in general.

Link to my blog comment about the film - Rev Death: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/05/euthanasia-advocates-fail-to-distance.html

Link to the Reverend Death film on U-Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/slackmaster2000#p/u/7/0VR7mK5hZwU

Dignitas founder, Ludwig Minelli, is making millions

Who says that assisted suicide is about compassion and choices?

Ludwig Minelli

Ludwig Minelli has become a millionaire in the ten years since he set up his Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland.

An article that was published in the Telegraph examined the real motivation for the Dignitas founder, Ludwig Minelli. They reported that he has become wealthy by selling memberships, assisting suicides and getting donations from his vulnerable clients.

The Telegraph newspaper reported:

A newspaper investigation has raised new questions about Dignitas and whether Ludwig Minelli, its founder and director, makes profit from his “mercy killings”.

Previously a human rights lawyer and an attorney at the Zurich bar, Mr Minelli had no taxable personal fortune registered when he set up his suicide clinic in 1998.

A decade later, the Beobachter investigation found, he had an annual taxable income of £98,000 and a personal fortune of over £1.2 million, wealth that includes a luxury villa.

Mr Minelli, who said he would take no salary from Dignitas when opening the clinic 12 years ago, has insisted that his wealth comes from an inheritance, left by his mother.

But the cost of a simple suicide at Dignitas has risen from £1,800 in 2005 to £4,500, fuelling suspicions that the clinic may not be sticking to Swiss laws that are supposed to prevent people “selfishly” profiting from assisted suicide.

The cost of the clinic’s full service, including funerals, medical costs and official fees, is as high as £7,000.

Andreas Brunner, a Swiss prosecutor, has accused Mr Minelli, and Dignitas, of hiding behind Swiss privacy laws to refuse publication of their accounts for the last five years.

Soraya Wernli

”We have never had a good look at their book-keeping but in order to demand that we need a good reason and a concrete example that there is something suspicious to investigate,” he said. “He has promised for years to make the accounts public but it has never happened.”

Dignitas has faced criticism for accepting donations from suicide clients, one patient is said to have signed over more than £60,000.

Soraya Wernli, a nurse employed by Dignitas between 2003 and 2005, has accused the organisation of being a “production line of death concerned only with profits”.

In April this year, police divers found over 60 cremation urns dumped in Lake Zurich. Each of the urns bore the logo of the Nordheim crematorium used by Dignitas.

Mr Minelli, in an interview in March, insisted that Dignitas did not make profits for personal gain but claimed that Swiss law did not prevent money being made from euthanasia.

”If you are helping and abetting without selfish motives, this is quite legal,” he told the American PBS broadcaster.

”If you would take a lot of money for this service, then it might be selfish. But if somebody would do it for normal profit, it would even still be legal. But Dignitas is not working for profit. We are an association, and the association does not make profit. If we make profit, we will take this profit in order to have a higher quality of our services.”

At the same time Stuart Weisberg, a psychiatrist, announced plans to open a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. The Oregon Medical Board has temporarily stopped Weisberg by suspending his license to practise medicine in Oregon. Nonetheless, the law in Oregon does not prevent doctors from competing with Compassion & Choices by setting up lucrative suicide clinics.

At the same time Compassion & Choices has also been able to turn assisted suicide into a lucrative fund raising business with reported income from donations and services in the millions.

Link to a previous article about the Dignitas Clinic: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/7851615/Dignitas-founder-is-millionaire.html

Suicide Psychiatrist has medical license suspended in Oregon

Yesterday, an article,from Oregon Live reported that Dr Stuart Weisberg, the psychiatrist who planned to open a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, had his medical license suspended by the Oregon Medical Board.

The article in Oregon Live stated:

A Portland psychiatrist who plans to open a private facility where people could end their lives under Oregon’s assisted-suicide law was suspended from medical practice Thursday amid a second investigation for improperly prescribing drugs.

The Oregon Medical Board voted 8-0 to suspend Stuart G. Weisberg, 37, a solo practitioner in Northwest Portland specializing in treating addictions.

Weisberg did not return phone calls Thursday for comment.

Kathleen Haley, the board’s executive director, said the suspension means Weisberg “cannot practice, period.”

In 2006, the board gave Weisberg a five-year reprimand for improperly prescribing psychoactive drugs to seven patients who were recovering drug addicts or suffering chronic pain. Last year, the board lifted the reprimand but put Weisberg under the watch of another doctor.

Haley said Thursday the “practice mentor” recently informed the medical board that Weisberg had terminated the relationship. The board learned that during the mentoring, Weisberg had wrongly authorized a medical-marijuana card for a drug addict and had improperly prescribed a different drug for another patient.

This week, Weisberg invited local physicians and politicians to a July 21 dinner at which he was to unveil his plan to open a “Dignity House” in Portland where the terminally ill could end their lives under his care in accordance with Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act.

In the invitation, Weisberg said he had been inspired by Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian, who claims to have ended the lives of 130 people who asked for his help in dying.

Weisberg’s website for his venture, End of Life Consultants LLC, listed a host of charges that would apply for anyone wanting to use “Dignity House” for catering, security, music or flowers.

As much as I found it disgusting that Weisberg planned to set up a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, he probably would have been more transparent than Compassion & Choices in providing relevant information about the assisted suicide deaths that he would have caused.

Link to my previous blog article on this story: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/06/death-with-dignity-house-or-dignitas.html

Link to the article: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/06/oregon_medical_board_suspends.html

Death with Dignity house or Dignitas suicide clinic

Dignitas comes to Oregon.

It appears that Dr. Stuart Weisberg, a Portland psychiatrist, intends to open a Death with Dignity house that is similar in scope to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland.

A recent article in the Atlantic monthly magazine interviewed supporters and detractors of Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, including Soraya Wernli, a former Dignitas employee.

Link to a commentary to the Atlantic monthly article: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/search/label/Ludwig%20Minelli

Dignitas is known for pushing social limits, dumping Urns of ashes from their dead clients into Lake Zurich, experimenting with helium and exit bags on their clients, selling the left-over items from their dead clients to pawn shops, charging large fees for their suicide service, etc. The Zurich government has been unsuccessful in their attempts to stop the Dignitas suicide clinic.

Recently Dignitas opened a new home in Zurich called the "Blue Oasis" which seems very similar to the proposed Death with Dignity house. Weisberg is simply introducing a similar suicide system in Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1998.

Weisberg has invited Jack Kevorkian to join him on July 21 to announce the opening of their Death with Dignity house.

I am sure Jack will make an incredible edition to the project, especially considering his fascination with experimenting with death and on the dead.

Similar to Dignitas, people can purchase extra services for their dying enjoyment. An article stated:

They include catering, security, video taping, music, flowers and -- for an additional $1,200 -- three hours with the psychiatrist and his therapy dog. The total package carries a price tag of $5,000.

Does the dog know about the incredible fees that are being collected by its service?

Not everyone is happy in the suicide promotion lobby. George Eighmey from Compassion and Choices, the group that last year facilitated 97% of all assisted suicides in Oregon, stated:

"Never heard of him,"

"I don't think his setting up a business to do it -- in my opinion is not appropriate, and even the taking of the photographs and videos is ghoulish,".

But then again, Eighmey is also concerned about the potential for competition and about losing control of the law. Compassion and Choices has developed a monopoly on assisted suicide in Oregon to control the information flow about the assisted suicide law and to enable them to convince people that there are no problems with the Oregon law.

Cornering the market on physician-assisted suicide is worth reading: http://www.pccef.org/articles/art77.htm

It is much easier to promote the legalization of assisted suicide when the only real information that is known about the law comes from the suicide promotion lobby. But Eighmey does correctly recognize that Weisberg is planning a Dignitas type death clinic. Eighmey said:

the only place akin to what Weisberg proposes is Dignitas in Switzerland.

Like Kevorkian, Weisberg doesn't appear to have a great record with the medical board. The article in the Oregonian stated:

Weisberg, 37, is a solo practitioner with an office in Northwest Portland. In 2006, the Oregon Medical Board disciplined him for improperly prescribing psychoactive drugs to seven patients who were recovering drug addicts or dealing with chronic pain.

The board's order said Weisberg, who earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2000, was terminated from his four-year residency at OHSU several months before he was to finish. No explanation was given.

On July 9, 2009, the board ended Weisberg's probation a year early and put him instead under the wing of an unnamed "practice mentor," another doctor who was to meet twice a month with Weisberg and file quarterly reports with the board.

Before reading further, I suggest you google Dr. Michael Swango. He was also terminated from his residency program, experienced similar medical complaints, and had a fascination with death and killing.

The reality is that now that assisted suicide is legal and socially accepted in Oregon, it should not surprise anyone that someone would decide to make the practise of killing into a business. By the way, there is nothing in the law to prevent Weisberg from setting up his suicide clinic

Link to the article in the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/portland_psychiatrist_plans_ho.html

Link to the article in Kgw.com: http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Death-with-Dignity-house-planned-in-Sellwood-96938714.html