Court Orders California Medical Board to Set Aside Decision Revoking License of Growth Hormone Pioneer.

Business Editors

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 2000

Hormone Growth Pioneer Stands Up to Insurance Industry, Medical

Board and Attorney General

In a Sept. 26, 2000, ruling of the California Superior Court, Judge Lloyd G. Connelly ordered the California Medical Board to set aside its decision to revoke the physician's and surgeon's license of Dr. Edmund Chein, the pioneer of total hormone replacement therapy.

Dr. Chein, represented by Attorney Philip W. Boesch, Jr., is the holder of the U.S. patent on Total Hormone Replacement Therapy and the well-recognized pioneer of a hormone therapy used now by millions of people. He also is the author of a best-selling book and the founder of the Palm Springs Life Extension Institute, which opened in 1994 to make Dr. Chein's total growth hormone replacement therapy available in a clinical setting that emphasizes complete anti-aging health and well-being.

The complaint to the Medical Board had been initiated by insurance giant Blue Cross, which did not want its patients submitting reimbursement requests for a therapy that addresses symptoms of normal aging. An administrative decision then revoked Dr. Chein's license because the therapy was not medically indicated by the standard of care recognized by traditional medicine, and because Dr. Chein had misleadingly and falsely claimed that biological age can be reversed by total hormone replacement therapy.

After the Board revoked Dr. Chein's license, the Palm Springs Life Extension Institute retained attorney Philip Boesch, who filed the court action in the California Superior Court. Mr. Boesch argued that Dr. Chein's anti-aging practice cannot be judged by the standards of traditional medicine, and that despite years of investigation, not one patient complaint had been uncovered by the Medical Board. Boesch noted that the Medical Board in fact had acted against the recommendation of the Board investigator who had followed Dr. Chein's practice for years.

The Court's decision reversed the Medical Board and specifically rejected many of the findings which had been the basis for the Board's decision, including the findings that the doctor had prescribed human growth hormone for a patient without medical indication and that the doctor had falsely claimed that his hormone replacement therapy could reverse biological age. Dr. Chein's claim that the therapy reversed biological age is not false, Judge Connelly found, holding that Petitioner's claim about the reversal of biological age, when read in context, is defined and explained in a limited and supportable manner and thus is not misleading. The Court further determined that the Medical Board applied an erroneous traditional medicine standard of care to Dr. Chein's anti-aging practice.

"This is a victory for patients' rights," Boesch said. "It's about patient choice. There are many people who don't want to wait twenty more years for long-term studies on a therapy that's working right now for thousands if not millions of people."

The Court's Order granted the Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed by Mr. Boesch, ordered the Medical Board to modify its findings, and remanded the matter to the Medical Board for further proceedings consistent with the Court's ruling.