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Vincent Gammill, 69, from El Cerrito, California, has been recently arrested for practicing medicine without a license and giving prescription medication to the patients who came to see him.
The man was posing as the “guru” of alternative medicine on the website dedicated to his “Natural Oncology Institute”. He was pretending to be able to cure cancer using various remedies and charged a lot of money for the treatment he provided.
One of the people he managed to scam was a 49-year old mother from Thousand Oaks, CA, who prefers to be called Fern. She has been a breast cancer patient for several years and she found Gammill’s website in 2008.
Because chemotherapy was not helping her much, she was hoping alternative medicine would be the solution, especially given the fact that the cancer had spread to her brain, bones and lungs. According to her statements, she had been following Gammill’s website for a long time before she decided to go and pay him a visit at his institute.
“[Cancer patients are] very vulnerable because there isn’t a cure and when you’re getting further down the line you get desperate,” she said.
The fake doctor treated her for 16 hours and charged her $ 2000. She was also given a few bags of dirt and various other expired medications.
After she realized it was all a scam, she called the police. The authorities found about 25,000 prescription meds at his home, in the treatment center. Some of them were very powerful and harmful to patients.
It was soon proved that the man had no license to practice medicine and not even a college degree. He only had a high school diploma.
After being arrested, Gammill got out on bail and is expected in court on the 31st of August.
He said he does not consider himself guilty of anything because he did not treat people of cancer but just showed them what the alternatives were. He also stated that he was the only victim in this whole story.
According to detective Robert Davidson with Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, he might also be accused of dependent adult abuse.
Image Source: dispatchtimes
