Okay, I know that non-conventional treatments can often work better than contemporary science (I've seen it myself and that's why I'm here) but they can also go wrong, just as conventional medicine works sometimes but can also kill in the wrong circumstances. If, by sheer luck, this guy had matched the dose to the patient, he could have saved a life and been a hero, but he didn't. Its newsworthiness is not because of some conspiracy. The SMH didn't paint him as a quack - he did that by claiming to serve a "higher authority", like ISIS and The Exclusive Brethren do. I'll absolutely grant you that the science of the early 20th century that "proved" cannabis to be dangerous was incomplete and arguably influenced by moral prejudices and the economic interests of chemical industries, but that does not come into play in this case. Prescribing the oral ingestion of marijuana butter or even smoking buds is a long way from injecting oil directly into the abdomen. I don't believe he had criminal intent and I will personally consent to something like this if I am ever in such a terrible predicament, but his response suggests recklessness more than simply negligence.
I understand that the situation didn't allow time for the science to be done adequately and that it may well have worked, but it was an experiment that didn't pay off except to show that injecting oil of unknown potency into the abdomen was a game of Russian Roulette. IMO, he should stand by his actions as a desperate attempt to save or prolong the life of a dying woman and offer nothing so flippant as "I answer to a higher authority". This may have been selectively edited and I can only hope that there is more to Mr Katelaris than at this one reading. What is do know of the case is from my inference from a direct quotation and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity.
Medicine and Public Health are not the same thing but have to coexist in an often uneasy partnership. They both vary from place to place and from generation to generation and even interpretations of science vary among colleagues. No health practitioner, whether registered by the state or otherwise, knows exactly what they're doing in any particular case, but to disparage the authority of medical science in self-defence can only undermine a field of research that has come so far in the face of opposition from powerful vested interests.
A deregistered doctor supported by a religious organisation should choose his words very carefully and think about what he is really trying to achieve. A loose cannon does nothing to uphold the integrity of the science.
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