Mail-Order Operators Agree to Drop False Cancer Claims

The operators of a Huntington Beach mail-order operation have agreed to stop saying that a solution of hydrogen peroxide and water can prevent cancer and ease arthritis pain, the U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday.

Postal Service officials said Kurt Donsbach, founder of DRK Supplements, and his nephew, Richard Donsbach, have signed a consent agreement to stop falsely representing their product through mail-order sales.

The Donsbachs could not be reached for comment. Their attorney, Robert G. Leff, said the Donsbachs had not admitted any wrongdoing but signed the agreement because the costs of litigation would have been prohibitive.

The Huntington Beach operation attracted the government’s attention after a postal inspector attended a health products convention in the Los Angeles area in February, 1987.

The inspector was presented with literature promoting hydrogen peroxide, a common antiseptic, as a cure for arthritis, cancer and other ailments.

The literature urged people to join a mail-order health-products club, the DRK Buyer’s Plan, to buy DRK’s solution. The mixture, containing 65% water and 35% hydrogen peroxide, is rubbed into the skin by users.

Donsbach and his nephew decided to negotiate a consent agreement with the Postal Service after the agency won a court order in May halting all incoming mail to their Huntington Beach operation.

“The incoming mail is the mail that contains the money,” said Larry Larson, a Postal Service inspector attorney.

Larson said seizure of the mail was necessary because the advertising posed a medical threat to recipients of DRK’s remedy.

“In cases like this, we’re concerned that the use of these methods delay proper treatments that may help them,” Larson said. “In the case of cancer, a delay can be fatal.”

According to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, DRK charged $15 for a 16-ounce bottle of the hydrogen peroxide solution. The same quantity of hydrogen peroxide can be bought at discount pharmacies for less than $1.

Donsbach initially denied the government’s allegations. “He claimed that he never made the deceptive advertisements, even though we have much information otherwise,” Larson said. “He even said that he no longer had anything to do with the business and lived in Mexico.”

The Postal Service said it has no plans to prosecute the Donsbachs but will closely monitor their activities to ensure that no other fraudulent claims are made.

A proponent of unorthodox medical treatments, the elder Donsbach has previously been investigated by federal, state and local health authorities.

In 1971, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of practicing medicine without a license in California, after assuring an undercover agent who feigned breast cancer that her illness could be cured by a strict diet of vitamins, minerals and tea.

The Food and Drug Administration has also considered taking action against Donsbach for advertising his hydrogen peroxide solution as a cure for various conditions.

Donsbach operates a clinic in Mexico, near Tijuana, where he treats cancer and arthritis patients, most of whom are American.

At the clinic, patients receive injections of the hydrogen peroxide solution, Larson said. Physicians have warned that the injections if large enough can destroy red blood cells and cause high fever.

Donsbach is also chairman of the Monrovia-based National Health Federation, an organization that lobbies on behalf of unorthodox medical practitioners, holds “alternative” health conventions and publishes a monthly journal in which many Tijuana clinics advertise.