Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)

[Aractus]

Okay, so I thought I'd talk about this scandal a bit.

Doug Graham is the crackpot who came up with the 80-10-10 diet, which is now popularised also by 30 bananas a day, and other complete lunatics.

Harley Johnstone, who calls himself "durianrider", appeared on TV in 2007 (check the link at the start of this paragraph), where the dietician discovered that after being a strict vegan for six years he had the lowest B12 levels she had ever seen.

Today he, and his girlfriend, are amongst the most vocal and aggressive proponents of raw veganisim; attacking anyone who disagrees with them because "they know the truth". Their youtube channels are the most watched vegan channels.

Now, there's a very good reason why they think their stupid diet is healthy, which I won't talk about right now, as I want to talk about the Doug Graham scandal that happened this year.

So, the raw food movement is quite broad and there's an annual event called the Woodstock Fruit Festival, which is organised and run by some raw fruitarian vegans, particularly Michael Arnstein who as I understand it was the founder, however they have a board of governors, so any decision is made by the said board.

Here's Doug Graham at WFF 2012 giving a lecture (which I haven't watched but it's relevant since it's on fasting):

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http://youtu.be/Gxiqp_iq6dA

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About a month ago I saw a video on YouTube, which as it turns out was instrumental in having Doug Graham banned for life from WFF - see this announcement.

Leah Branster nearly died earlier this year when she attended one of Doug Graham's fasting retreats in Costa Rica:

http://youtu.be/l4Ge2OCti4I

There's also a video from Leah's mum on the experience:

http://youtu.be/KxwMXwwlz4o

I'll summarise the videos, however I highly suggest watching them:

1. 1. Leah went to WFF 2013, saw a lecture by Doug Graham about fasting and that's how she found out about his retreat. She'd already been following the 80-10-10 diet for 1 year by that time.
   
2. She was suffering from ulcerative colitis before going to the fasting retreat, this was disclosed on her application form and she put her trust in the expertise of Dr. Graham. She expected the fasting retreat to heal her condition (ulcerative colitis).
   
3. She decided she wanted to do both his fasting retreat, and his walking tour and then his course to get "certified as a health coach". Yes, it's a giant scam that Dr Graham runs, but the details are here so you can verify this.
   
4. She paid HALF the cost of the program - i.e. $8,000 - to Doug Graham. The rest was to be paid off, I guess on a payment plan. As part of the application she signed a waiver - that should tell you right now what a scammer Dr. Graham is if he makes people surrender their rights! She also spent $2,000 on air-fairs.
   
5. She fasted for 25 days in Costa Rica. Dr. Graham did not give her proper medical care, and she nearly died. What happened next is truly horrifying...
   
6. Elizabeth Branster (Leah's mum) arrived in Costa Rica and found her daughter in a state she describes as "resembling the fourth state of cancer". Her skin was flaking off her, and she couldn't walk without assistance. She weighed 35 kg. With vomiting and diarrhoea, Leah was unable to hold anything down even water. She believed her daughter could die at any moment. She called Leah's fiancé (Josh) - and Josh immediately started calling their insurance company and immediately started organising emergency medical intervention.
   
7. Dr. Graham tried to convince Elizabeth that it was not an emergency and that her health would improve. Dr. Graham also revealed they don't do blood tests. Dr. Graham tried to convince Elizabeth not to remove Leah from his retreat. Dr. Graham directed both Leah and Elizabeth not to say that Leah had been fasting to the hospital doctors, and they both followed this directive.
   
8. The insurance company (which Josh had contacted), called Dr. Graham and, then spoke to Elizabeth where they directed her to take Leah to the hospital immediately. Even after this call, Dr. Graham went to Leah and tried to convince her to stay at the retreat.
   
9. At 6AM the following morning the taxi arrived to take Leah to the hospital. By this time Leah was critically ill. Elizabeth thought her daughter would die in the taxi - it was a 5 hour drive to the hospital, with Leah vomiting regularly.
   
10. She was in the worst state of dehydration that the doctor in the hospital had ever seen. She was in acute kidney renal failure, had acute bacterial enterocolitis, systemic sepsis (toxic blood), bacterial infection caused by aeromonas, and severe anaemia. Her organs had started shutting down. Despite this she did not want to take antibiotics because Dr. Graham doesn't believe in them, so she called him from the hospital to ask his advice, to which he said words to the effect "oh, you can take them but make sure you get out of there as soon as possible, it's the worst possible place in the world you could be".
    
11. Finally, Leah needed a blood transfusion to live. Costa Rica does not have blood supplies, as a 3rd world country, so if Elizabeth's blood had been incompatible her daughter would have died. She also needed a 2nd blood transfusion, which they got from a Costa Rican woman. After being in the hospital for three days, she developed psychosis and was moved from the intensive care ward to the psych ward, heavily sedated.
    
12. Back in Australia, she needed another blood transfusion.

Leah's total expenses were:

Deposit to Doug Graham - $8,000
Plane tickets - $2,000 (this was probably more in the end, and doesn't include Elizabeth's tickets)
Hospital expenses in Costa Rica - $25,000
Hospital expenses in Australia - $15,000
Loss of income to April 2014 - $7,144 (this would be much more since in the August video Leah says that she still has not been able to return to work).

So the expenses, excluding loss of income, total at least $50,000.

She requests a refund, Dr. Graham writes back saying he'll get his lawyer to draft a NDA for her to sign in order to get her refund, she refuses to sign a NDA saying that his gross negligence, neglect and un-professionalism is what had caused her condition to to get to such a critical state.

The truly tragic thing is that if she continues to follow 80-10-10, the long term health consequences will be terrible, but I'll get into that at another time.