State Wins Court Order Against Blood-Testing Lab

A Superior Court commissioner issued a temporary order Wednesday against an Orange County blood-testing laboratory, restraining it from practicing medicine, conducting controversial blood tests and advertising the tests to solicit business.

Commissioner Greer H. Stroud’s order came in a lawsuit filed by the state last December. The suit charges Bio-Health Centers and its parent, Tannare International Inc., with false advertising, practicing medicine without a license and unfair business practices.

Stroud’s order also requires that Dr. Roger Palmieri, another defendant, stop acting as a medical director of the clinic until it is issued a clinical laboratory license by the state Department of Health Services.

The order will stand until May 28, when a judge will hear a request of the state Department of Medical Quality Assurance for an injunction against Tannare, which has Bio-Health Centers in Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach. The suit also seeks a $1-million fine.

Bio-Health Centers already has been stopped from soliciting business in New York. Officials there said the mail-order clinic could not distinguish a cow’s blood sample from a human’s.

The California lawsuit claims the blood analysis, known as cytotoxic testing, does not lead, as advertised, to diagnoses of allergic reactions to foods and to diets that can cure headaches, sinus problems, heartburn and a host of other common ailments. Customers pay $350 to $450 for such testing, the suit said.

The suit alleges that Bio-Health has advertised in 11 other states besides California and New York.

David Diem, Bio-Health general manager who also is a defendant, has said previously that the dispute over the blood analysis is just part of a larger debate between proponents of “traditional medicine and nutritional health treatment.”