Physician Won’t Face Manslaughter Retrial : Medicine: First jury deadlocked on charge involving death of patient after hydrogen peroxide injection.

SANTA ANA —  Prosecutors on Wednesday decided not to retry a Huntington Beach doctor accused of involuntary manslaughter after the death of a cancer patient he had injected with hydrogen peroxide.

The first trial for Glenn C. Mahoney, 63, ended in a mistrial two weeks ago after jurors deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of acquittal on the manslaughter charge. The jury acquitted Mahoney on three counts of fraud.

“I had a very conscientious jury and they really struggled with this issue,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Connie Johnson. “I thought if they were having this much difficulty, that should be taken into consideration in deciding whether to retry him.”

Superior Court Judge John M. Watson agreed that the charge should be dismissed.

“Both sides gave it their best shot, but I don’t think a new trial would produce a different result,” the judge said from the bench Wednesday.

When Mahoney walked out of the courtroom, his wife, Donna, patted his arm and said, “Whew!”

“This has left me in financial ruin and destroyed my practice,” Mahoney said. “But today was a good day for us.”

Mahoney, who has practiced medicine for 37 years, still must face a hearing before the California Medical Board on whether his license should be revoked. He said his attorneys have told him that because he believes in alternative treatment practices, his chances of retaining his license are not good.

Mahoney is prohibited by temporary retraining order from using hydrogen peroxide injections. He said he has discontinued his practice, declared bankruptcy and moved to Idaho with his wife, who is a minister.

“I’ve had my own clinic, a very good practice, and all the trappings of success,” the doctor said outside the courtroom. “And now I’ve had to sell my house and have been professionally destroyed. And all because I tried to help my patients.”

Mahoney was arrested a few days after the death on Nov. 7, 1988, of Kenneth Simms, a 39-year-old cancer patient who had recently come under Mahoney’s care. Simms knew he had cancer but had gone to Mahoney on the recommendation of a lecturer on alternative treatments.

“I told him that I couldn’t do anything for his cancer; it was inoperable,” Mahoney said. “But I could treat the side effects, and at least make him more comfortable.”

Mahoney ordered his staff on Oct. 24, 1988, to give Simms an injection that included 0.0357% of hydrogen peroxide. Two days later Simms was hospitalized at UCI Medical Center, where he lingered for 13 days before dying.

Prosecutors contended that Simms had a bad reaction to the hydrogen peroxide injection, and that it was a contributing factor in his death. The conclusion was based largely on statements from Simms’ attending physician at UCI, who was also Simms’ doctor for his cancer treatment before Mahoney. Other prosecution experts supported the contention, though they agreed that the condition caused by the injection had stabilized before Simms’ death.

But Mahoney attorney Jerome J. Goldfein produced statements from dozens of Mahoney’s patients, several of them testifying at his trial, that they had received the same injections and their conditions had improved.

“This whole thing started because someone heard the words hydrogen peroxide and said, ‘Hey, that stuff can kill you,’ ” Goldfein said. “But if you check it out, doctors are using it every day.”

Goldfein countered with his own doctors, both traditionalists in cancer treatment and experts in holistic medicine.

A key Mahoney witness was Dr. Charles H. Farr of Oklahoma City. It was at a Farr lecture in Dallas in 1986 where Mahoney said he first learned about the hydrogen peroxide treatments. He returned to Orange County and began the treatments himself with so much success that he produced his own paper on the procedure at another medical convention.

“We’ve never claimed that it was a cure for cancer,” Mahoney said. “It can only help with the side effects, which often lead to the person’s death before the cancer.”

Mahoney said he was a “traditional” doctor for 28 years, but turned to holistics--treatment of the immune system first, considered an alternative medical approach--in 1980.

“In holistic medicine, we believe in doing whatever it takes to help the patient,” Mahoney said. “I suppose that belief is going to put an end to my medical career, even though I have never done anything wrong.”

Mahoney said several California doctors who use the hydrogen peroxide treatments declined to testify for him, out of fear that they would also become targets of the medical board.

Goldfein said that politics played a major role in the district attorney’s decision to file involuntary manslaughter charges against Mahoney.

“I really think the (medical board staff) put the squeeze on (Johnson) to try this case as a manslaughter,” Goldfein said.

But Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Maury Evans reacted sharply to what he said was an unfair statement.

“We absolutely do not let the medical board tell us what to do,” Evans said. “That’s not the way we take cases to court. We evaluated the case on its merits.”