Physician Charged in 1988 Death : Treatment: Infusions of hydrogen peroxide into a cancer patient who died have led to criminal charges. A restraining order against practicing medicine is also sought.

An El Toro doctor who treats patients with intravenous infusions of the disinfectant hydrogen peroxide has been accused of involuntary manslaughter and fraud in the 1988 death of a cancer patient.

In addition to the criminal charges, the Medical Board of California has filed a civil suit contending Dr. Glen C. Mahoney is a danger to public health and seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent him from practicing medicine. An Orange County Superior Court judge is expected to rule next week on the request for a restraining order.

Irvine businessman Kenneth Simms, 39, died at UCI Medical Center two weeks after receiving an intravenous dose of hydrogen peroxide at Mahoney’s clinic, then located in Huntington Beach.

County prosecutors contend that the unorthodox treatment caused a severe anemic reaction that killed Simms, who was already ill with cancer of the esophagus.

The fraud charges were filed against Mahoney in November, and the manslaughter charge was added in March. A preliminary hearing of the criminal charges was interrupted by scheduling conflicts and is scheduled to resume in August.

Mahoney, 62, has declined comment. But Jerome Goldfein, his attorney, noted that Simms was terminally ill before he received the hydrogen peroxide treatment. Goldfein also claimed that defense witnesses will show that hydrogen peroxide can bolster the immune system.

“There is something to be said for alternative treatments,” said Heidi R. Weisbaum, a state deputy attorney general who is representing the medical board. “But patients need to be informed of the possible risks and I don’t think that happens” with Mahoney.

Board experts in toxicology, family practice and oncology have asserted that hydrogen peroxide treatments are dangerous and destroy red blood cells, Weisbaum said.

“You might want to pour hydrogen peroxide on a cut to clean it,” she added. “But to infuse it in your veins--that’s scary.”

Meanwhile another Mahoney attorney, Russel Read, said that “this prosecution seems to be motivated by a bias and a prejudice against anybody who’s not practicing strictly orthodox medical treatment.” He said he will soon be filing 1,000 pages of “scientific documentation” on the effectiveness of hydrogen peroxide in medical care.

Huntington Beach police and Medical Board officials opened their investigation of Mahoney shortly after Simms became critically ill in October, 1988, after receiving a hydrogen peroxide treatment at the Health Resource Center of Huntington Beach.

Simms died at UCI Medical Center in Orange on Nov. 7, 1988, and doctors there listed the primary cause of death as acute destruction of red blood cells and the secondary cause as cancer of the esophagus.

Huntington Beach Detective Charles Thomas, who interviewed Simms while he was in intensive care, said Mahoney had told the cancer patient that intravenous hydrogen peroxide would “kill the bad cells.”

However, medical experts to the board asserted that hydrogen peroxide causes severe damage to red blood cells. Los Angeles family practitioner Alan Abbott, a board consultant, said, “Intravenous hydrogen peroxide is not known to be of any benefit and is not an acceptable treatment for any condition.”

According to the Medical Board, Mahoney also gave intravenous hydrogen peroxide and intravenous vitamin treatments to two breast cancer patients and prescribed the same treatments for patients with a wide range of problems--from yeast infections to rheumatoid arthritis.

Mahoney’s criminal lawyer, Goldfein, maintained that Mahoney had never promised patients that he could treat cancer but instead told them that hydrogen peroxide infusions “could sometimes help the immune system to fight secondary infections.”

Goldfein also noted that Simms clearly had terminal cancer before he visited Mahoney, “so he was really on his way out.” He added that he did not believe the hydrogen peroxide had any effect on Simms’ condition. “Or if it did have any effect, he (Simms) stabilized afterwards. He didn’t die for two weeks.”

Citing “negative publicity,” Goldfein said that Mahoney in March closed his Huntington Beach clinic. He now sees patients at the Health Restoration Center in El Toro as well as at a Costa Mesa acne clinic, Faith Up Skin Care, associates said.