Australian cancer patient killed by quack doctor's poison, Thai police
say

July 12, 2006
Arrested … Hellfried Sartori.
Photo: AP

AN AUSTRALIAN woman is believed to be among the victims of a
deregistered doctor accused of peddling fake cures for cancer and AIDS
in Thailand.
Hellfried Sartori, 67, is being held on charges of fraud and practising
medicine without a licence in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Police allege that several ill foreigners travelled to Thailand with
false hopes for his cures, only to die after receiving injections of a
dangerous chemical compound bought for $A50,000 from Sartori.

Bangkok's Nation yesterday reported that one Australian cancer patient,
Kathleen Preston, had died in a Thai hospital last July. An autopsy
report found an excessive amount of potassium in her blood, the report
stated.

Ms Preston's death is being investigated by the Northern Territory
Coroner, a spokeswoman, Lorelei Fong Lim, said. "The NT Coroner's office
is investigating the death of NT resident Kathleen Preston," she said.
"It would be inappropriate to speculate or pre-empt any outcome of the
investigation."
In Canberra, Australian Federal Police said they had passed on
information from police in Western Australia and the Northern Territory
regarding Sartori's arrest. A spokesman denied a report the AFP would be
seeking to extradite Sartori to face charges. Northern Territory police
and Western Australian police both declined to comment.

Thai police said Sartori's internet advertisements offered desperate
people all over the world the false prospect of a cure for "everything
from AIDS and cancer to allergies and hardening of the arteries".
His patients had "consultations" carried out in various hotel rooms in
Chiang Mai. Several had died in hospitals in Chiang Mai, according to
Thai police.

Chiang Mai detectives said Sartori, who studied medicine in his native
Austria, had been convicted in the US of illegally administering his
so-called "ozone treatments", and had been jailed in New York State in
May 1992 and Washington in July 1998.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, the director of research at the Sydney Cancer
Centre at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, dismissed the cancer
treatments offered by Sartori.
"Neither ozone treatments nor cesium chloride have any evidence based
behind them for being effective as cancer therapies," he said.

Sartori had been stripped of his medical licence in several US states,
police said.
It was not clear yesterday when he would appear in court or if he would
face more charges. The investigation is widening following reports he
had links with cancer treatment groups in Perth and Darwin.
New Zealand police also joined the investigation after a national, named
as Melissa Judith Taylor in Nation, was admitted unconscious to
intensive care at Chiang Mai Hospital.

Hospital officials said yesterday the woman had recovered sufficiently
to return home.

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