Touted as a cure for everything from wrinkles to autism, hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been hyped by celebrities worldwide, but experts say it needs to be regulated – warnings that are becoming more urgent in the wake of several horrific deaths and injuries, and amid fears that these are going to increase, reports The Guardian.
In January, Thomas Cooper (5) and his mother, Annie Cooper, arrived at the Oxford Centre in Detroit, Michigan, where the boy was going to receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnoea.
There, he got into a tubular metal and clear plastic chamber, which was sealed, pressurised and filled with 100% oxygen. Then, according to an expert who viewed a video of the incident, Thomas squirmed just enough to pull the sheet off the mattress, causing a spark of static electricity.
In the oxygen-rich environment, that spark became a flash fire that incinerated Thomas within seconds. Annie, desperately trying to open the tank, got badly burned on her arms and chest. When firefighters arrived, all they could do was extinguish the flames.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – breathing concentrated oxygen in a highly pressurised enclosure – is prescribed by doctors for a handful of conditions like severe burns, non-healing wounds or radiation injury. When provided by trained and licensed physicians and nurses in medical facilities using equipment that meets regulations and is properly maintained, it is safe and effective.
But hyperbaric physicians and experts told The Guardian HBOT is increasingly being made available in wellness businesses, provided by people without medical degrees or training, including chiropractors, physical therapists and alternative medicine practitioners.
Without evidence, these businesses often promote HBOT as a cure-all for everything from Alzheimer’s to ADHD to wrinkles. The website for the Oxford Centre, where Thomas received HBOT, marketed it for 108 conditions including sleep apnoea and ADHD – many more than the 13 approved by the FDA.
“It’s absolute anarchy and chaos,” said John Peters, executive director of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS), which runs the US hyperbaric oxygen facility accreditation programme. (The American Medical Association recommends that all states require HBOT facilities to be UHMS accredited, though none currently does.)
Experts – including Peters – say that fires like the one that killed Thomas are rare. UHMS estimates that seven people have died since 2009 due to fire, suffocation or other adverse events in HBOT chambers.
But they expect to see more deaths, and injuries, as HBOT spreads across med spas, wellness centres, private homes and other non-medical settings.
Peters believes unsafe HBOT chambers may now number in the tens of thousands in the United States.
The Michigan Attorney-General alleges that on the day Thomas died, the Oxford Centre did not have a physician or safety co-ordinator onsite, and the HBOT technician was not properly trained. The chamber had not received maintenance checks and was probably too old to be safely used, and Thomas himself did not receive a safety check before getting into the chamber.
Nor was he fitted with a grounding strap, a device that would have probably prevented the fire.
“There was no physician oversight when they oriented the parents. There was no mention of risks and benefits and consent … the risk is death,” Peters said. “It’s a total failure.”
The Oxford Centre owner and CEO, Dr Tamela Peterson (her doctorate is in education), as well as the centre’s safety manager and management assistant, have been charged with second-degree murder, while the chamber operator was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
All four have pleaded not guilty.
The Cooper family has filed a civil suit for $100m in damages against Peterson and the other employees who were charged, as well as the Oxford Centre and the manufacturer of the chamber, Sechrist Industries.
The Oxford Centre and Peterson denied the family’s allegations of gross negligence, breach of warranty and failure to warn of risk of injury. In a hearing on 1 December, the safety director for Sechrist Industries testified that using a grounding strap, which the Oxford Centre allegedly neglected to do, is required by the chamber’s operating manual.
“That shouldn’t ever happen,” said Dr Thomas Masters, undersea and hyperbaric medicine Medical Director at Hennepin County Medical Centre in Minneapolis, of the fire. “And as these things (non-medical providers of HBOT) proliferate countrywide, I worry it’ll be something that happens more and more often.”
In July, it happened again: Walter Foxcroft, a physical therapist, was killed in a fire in his own chamber.
Wound therapy
Dr Caesar Anderson, medical director at University of California-San Diego’s hyperbaric medicine and wound healing centre, sees the therapy doing tremendous good, especially in helping patients with diabetes avoid amputations, but he often has to educate people who arrive convinced that HBOT is a miracle cure for anything – including cancer.
Another fatality
Sage Workinger-Brecka was ready to go to dinner. But her husband, Gary Brecka – a self-described biohacker, host of the Ultimate Human podcast and co-chair of the MAHA Action Committee – was taking too long with his HBOT.
According to a video, she walked into a room in their home and panned the camera to a hyperbaric chamber with Gary inside, while on a video call. Annoyed, she told him: “You’re going to have to do emergency,” referring to a rapid decompression button for emergencies. “Out you get.”
Dr Owen O’Neill, medical director at Westchester Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Care and president of UHMS, emailed an assessment of the video: “Chamber questionable, training questionable, cellphone in chamber against fire safety, definitely not accredited.”
This was a month after Brecka had met up with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and invited him over to do nutritional IVs over his HBOT setup – “a complete game-changer for human performance, longevity, and recovery”, he called it.
The previous year Kennedy had claimed HBOT was being “suppressed” by the FDA.
Dr Mehmet Oz, former TV host and current head of the Centres for Medicaid and Medicare Services, promoted hyperbaric oxygen as long ago as 2009 as a “simple way to extend your lifespan”.
It is easy to see why people imagine oxygen as a panacea – but hyperbaric chambers are complex medical devices, and there are many ways HBOT can go wrong in untrained hands.
Notably absent from MAHA-world testimonials is information about safety risks, FDA regulations or how to find a medical provider.
In June 2011, in North Carolina, Jarred Sparks (19) got into a soft-sided chamber at his home, helped by his brother who turned on the oxygen and left the room.
The family’s subsequent lawsuit against the chamber manufacturer revealed that Sparks had autism, and his family had consulted Dr Jerry Kartzinel, a paediatrician who wrote a book spreading the myth that autism is caused by vaccination.
Kartzinel allegedly told the family HBOT would alleviate Sparks’ autism symptoms, so the family bought the chamber from OxyHealth.
Soft-sided chambers are like body bags that can be inflated with pressurised, concentrated oxygen; the FDA warns they pose a risk of fire and suffocation when used this way.
Later that night, Sparks’ mother found the bag partially collapsed around her son. An investigation found a valve had disconnected, cutting off air flow, and Sparks had suffocated.
In September 2015, a judge dismissed the lawsuit against OxyHealth partly because the family did not use the bag according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
“There’s basically no evidence to support hyperbaric oxygen therapy as autism therapy,” said Dr Andy Shih, chief science officer at Autism Speaks.
Walter Foxcroft, a physical therapist who ran Havasu Health and Hyperbarics in Arizona, with a centre that was not UHMS-accredited, billed HBOT as a treatment for autism – and dementia and ageing.
According to a police report, on the evening of 9 July, Foxcroft’s wife went to find him at his work after he did not come home for dinner. She discovered him burnt to death in his chamber.
Foxcroft had apparently been alone, and several electronics were found with him inside the chamber. The death was ruled accidental.
Fighting for regulation
Tom Workman (75), a retired air force colonel, aerospace physiologist and certified hyperbaric technician, has amassed mounds of evidence about unsafe HBOT, including a video of a soft-sided chamber explosion in India.
The footage is disturbing in its sudden violence as the bag bursts and the occupant slowly emerges from the wreckage, dazed and unsteady. Workman said the man suffered gastrointestinal trauma. He calls soft-sided chambers “ziplocks”.
Workman was UHMS’ director of quality assurance and regulatory affairs, and he developed the organisation’s accreditation programme back in 2001. He is spending his retirement documenting facilities providing unsafe HBOT – he has a list of nearly 300 locations that concern him – and sending his concerns to the FDA.
But now that Kennedy, who has contended that HBOT is too regulated, is in charge, a crackdown seems even less likely, just as HBOT’s popularity explodes.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Boy’s family sues over hyperbaric chamber death
Boy (5) killed in hyperbaric chamber explosion
Four charged after boy’s hyperbaric chamber explosion death