Dr. William Hammesfahr believes Terri can be rehabilitated. Fox News and other media outlets reported this has if it were a good story from believable source. It took me about 30 minutes on the web to find out some interesting facts about the doctor. Why didn’t Fox News bother to check facts or do a little research?
Dr. William Hammesfahr believes Terri can be rehabilitated using techniques he pioneered. Wanting to know more about his work I turned to the National Library of Medicine to search information about this “miracle” of neurological rehabilitation. With brain injuries, as a general rule, recovery happens in the first 2 years, after that you’re stuck with whatever deficits are left.
Dr. H has ZERO articles authored and rates no mention in the journal database at the National Library of Medicine.
All I can find on the web are self-serving press releases he made and copies of a report he did on right to life sites. It appears his work has not been submitted for peer review to any journal. All I can say is if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it’s probably a duck, or perhaps just a quack.
As for the touted “nobel prize nomination” mentioned on his website, it was made by his local congressional represntative and was rejected immediately by the nobel committee. Only peers working in the same field may nominate. It’s a bald-faced lie.
Naturally, given his dubious qualifications, Faux News had him saying all the other doctors are wrong and he can rehab Terri. I wonder how much he would make off that and how much his practice has been boosted by his frequent television bloviation? His treatment doesn’t rate publication in peer reviewed journals of neurology. I guess the Schindler’s really, really want to believe.
I also saw this page dedicated to Dr H’s rehab treatment on Quackwatch They seem to strongly believe he’s not legit and his treatments may be dangerous to his patients. The quackwatch.com site is ran by Yale University School of Medicine.
His practice seems to be based on referals from ambulance chasing personal injury attorneys and his dubious treatments of brain injury patients. Patients must pay cash up front and no insurance covers his treatments.
He has also been censured by the Florida Board of Medicine for defrauding patients. The board’s judgement against him can be found here.
He’s an old school snake-oil salesman and charlatan of the worse sort. He’s preying on the hopes of a desperate family for personal gain.
A larger question is why can’t Faux News do simple fact checking and backgrounding? All it needed was an intern, a PC and about 30 minutes to realize Dr. H is not credible. Putting stuff like this on TV just damages the credibility and reputation of the news organization. Oh wait, we were talking about Fox here, truth is optional, if inconvenient to their a priori assumptions.
