The Facts About
The California Medical Board Complaints

Susan Gallagher, an associate professor of politics at the University of Massachusetts, has made several false accusations against me regarding what happened with the California Medical Board.  Here are her accusations, along with the facts.

False Accusation Number One:   According to Susan Gallagher, there were “several extremely serious complaints” made about me to the California Medical Board.

The Facts:   None of the complaints before the medical board involved any negative effects to my patients.   The medical board could not show even one side effect caused by my treatments. 

All the complaints stemmed from the “unacceptable” fact that I was using natural therapies instead of medications.   Indeed, if you look at paragraph 4 of the medical board complaint, you will see that it defines natural therapies like magnesium, vitamin B12, and folic acid as “dangerous drugs!”
False Accusation Number Two:   According to Susan Gallagher, these complaints all came “from his patients and their loved ones.”

The Facts:   None of the complaints came from my patients. One complaint came from an insurance company
• One came from a conventional doctor who was outraged that I had used magnesium to treat the irregular heart of an elderly woman.  This despite the fact that the irregular heart beat was successfully treated.
• One came from a resentful spouse involved in a nasty divorce.  She was attempting to discredit her husband for taking his father to see a “quack” alternative doctor.  
• One came from a patient who was being treated by the doctor I sold my practice to when I moved to Nevada. 

The fact is that I have never had a single patient complain to the medical board about the way I treated them. 
Indeed, the opposite is true.  Many of my patients write me letters thanking me for helping them when no one had been able to.  You can see some of the letters from my patients by clicking here

False Accusation Number Three:  According to Susan Gallagher, I was disciplined due to "gross incompetence, repeated acts of gross negligence, and acts of dishonesty and corruption.”

The Facts:  The accusation of “dishonesty and corruption” came from a patient’s insurance company.  It was the insurance company’s opinion that since the treatments I used were alternative instead of conventional, applying for insurance reimbursement constituted fraud. 

They made this accusation even though I never filed for any insurance reimbursement; the patient did.
As for the acts of “negligence” and “incompetence,” these had nothing to do with the clinical outcomes of my patients. They had everything to do with the fact that I used natural methods instead of pharmaceuticals. 

The fact is that every single patient mentioned in these complaints improved while under my care



False Accusation Number Four:   According to Susan Gallagher, the Medical Board “found that Dr. Shallenberger was subject to multiple disciplinary actions.”

The Facts:  The medical board did not make any finding of any kind.  While a hired lawyer brought charges against me based on the above complaints, these charges were never heard before the Medical Board.

False Accusation Number Five:   According to Susan Gallagher, “After losing his license in California, Dr. Shallenberger moved to Nevada….”

The Facts:   At the time the California Medical Board made the accusations I was already living and practicing in Nevada.  I agreed to settle with the California Board.  The settlement agreement was that I would voluntarily give up my California license in exchange for the medical board dropping all charges. 

I made the decision not to fight the medical board for several reasons.  First was the time and expense.  The legal fees would have exceeded $200,000, and I would have had to travel back and forth from Carson City to Sacramento.  Second, since I was living and practicing in Nevada, I no longer needed a California license.  Lastly, I knew that I could not win this fight because I was indeed “guilty” of using alternative/homeopathic medicine.

I still practice in Nevada, where I have served as a member of the Nevada State Homeopathic Medical Board, and where I direct the Nevada Center of Alternative and Anti-Aging Medicine

False Accusation Number Six:  According to Susan Gallagher, “Dr. Shallenberger was publicly admonished by the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners in 1995.  The President of the Board, Thomas Scully, MD, wrote to Shallenberger, ‘Your conduct casts great discredit upon you personally and professionally, and upon the medical profession in general. It is my unpleasant duty as President of the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners to formally and publicly reprimand you for your conduct.’”

The Facts:  This one isn’t an outright falsehood, but it is misleading.  The fact is that the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners was required by law to reprimand me for the simple fact that I surrendered my license to practice in California! 

In other words, the reprimand from the Nevada Medical Board was simply a continuation of what had already happened in California.  There were no new complaints. 

The harsh language that was used in the reprimand, "Your conduct casts great discredit upon you personally and professionally…” is the standard boiler plate language that is used in all reprimands for physicians practicing alternative medicine. 

And now, some facts about Susan Gallagher:

Susan Gallagher has never met me, never contacted me, never spoken to me on the phone.  She has never been in my clinic.  She has never talked with any one on my staff or with any of the patients in the above mentioned case.  And she has no medical training.

In short, Susan Gallagher knows almost nothing about me or the way I treat disease.  She knows nothing about the principles that I use to get patients well when conventional medicine has failed to help them. 

But ignorance of the facts doesn’t seem to bother Susan Gallagher.




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