Other LanguagesOLYMPIA - A Thurston County Superior Court judge today ordered an Olympia man to permanently shut down an Internet website he used to promote a cancer treatment with no proven record of success.
Judge Thomas McPhee also ordered David L. Walker, owner and operator of DLW Consulting, to pay attorney fees and make $230,000 in restitution to 127 consumers nationwide who purchased his treatment.
Attorney General Christine Gregoire's High-Tech unit filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Walker last October.
McPhee's ruling on the state's motion for summary judgment also bars Walker from promoting the cancer treatment in print or in seminars.
McPhee is expected to rule early next month how much Walker should pay in civil penalties. State attorneys are seeking $500,000.
Walker's treatment, which he promoted on the Internet and in presentations across the country, is called "CWAT-Treatment: BioResonance Therapy." Walker claimed that all but 15 of the 745 cancer patients who underwent the treatment survived. State investigators, however, said Walker was unable to substantiate that claim.
According to the lawsuit, Walker's treatment -- for which consumers paid between $2,436 and $5,220 -- used a combination of an herbal mix known as "Indian Mud" ingested orally, coffee enemas, a variety of dietary supplements and the use of an electrical device called a "bio-resonance oscillator" or "molecular enhancer" that patients were instructed to use each day.
In court papers filed earlier in the case, Robert Livingston, M.D., chief of oncology at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, raised serious concerns about Walker's treatment.
Walker's treatments and their alleged success rates "are not based on any objective, competent and reliable scientific evidence and can cause patients to do themselves harm when they believe they are helping themselves," Livingston said.
"Walker has preyed on vulnerable people who are critically ill and desperately looking for help," Attorney General Christine Gregoire said. "He only provided false hope, phony cures, and fraudulent fees."
In the original lawsuit, state attorneys alleged that Walker and his company committed numerous violations of the state's Consumer Protection Act, including:
- Making unsubstantiated health claims;
- Misrepresenting the success rate of his treatment;
- Making an unsubstantiated testimonial to the treatment's effectiveness;
- Offering medical advice and treatment without having the necessary qualifications; and
- Marketing an unapproved new drug.
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