SHAMAN OR SHAM? FAITH HEALERS BRIDGE GAP BETWEEN OLD, NEW WORLDS.

Byline: Michael Gougis Staff Writer

In garages, bridal shops and party supply stores across the San Fernando Valley, thousands of Latinos turn to a thriving underground health care network - one that bridges the gap between Western medicine and traditional folk cures.

Curanderos, unlicensed faith healers who dispense a wide range of treatments and are believed by patients to possess unique curative powers, are the backbone of the system.

The best and most-respected curanderos offer emotional counseling and recommend herbal remedies - services that even Western health officials say are needed in the community.

The worst peddle dangerous drugs and administer illegal injections - sometimes from filthy public restrooms - while preying on illegal immigrants who are afraid to visit more traditional centers.

``They have been an important part of the culture,'' said Juana Mora, professor of Chicano and Chicana Studies at California State University Northridge. ``But some people take advantage, and they have been more of a problem in the past decade or so.''

Law enforcement crackdowns, education campaigns and high-profile scandals and tragedies have forced practitioners to go further underground, making their detection even more difficult.

``They are now hidden in any type of business you can imagine,'' said Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Steve Opferman, who oversees a task force targeting illicit health care practitioners. Hundreds of faith healers have been convicted since the task force started in 1998.

In one case highlighting the dangers of such operations, a Van Nuys woman pleaded guilty in November to unlawful medical practice after one of her patients died. Reina Chavarria, now free on bond and awaiting sentencing, pleaded guilty after her assistant injected an Orange County man, complaining of a skin rash, with vitamin B-12.

The man, Roberto Caceres, had an allergic reaction and when he went into convulsions at her home, Chavarria threw him out on the street. He later died at a local hospital.

The Chavarria case cast light on how the clandestine health care system reaches its patients. Word-of-mouth remains critical, but Chavarria's patient found her through a Spanish-language radio broadcast network and its immensely popular disc jockey who allegedly recommended her to his listeners.

Chavarria's conviction was the second this year of a high-profile curandero whose patients found the healer on a radio show hosted by disc jockey ``El Cucuy'' (The Boogeyman).

Patients said ``El Cucuy,'' whose real name is Renan Almendarez Coello, recommended Chavarria and Fernando Lozano, another healer, on his program. Lozano, known to listeners as ``Dr. Misterio,'' pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his patients and is now in jail.

``El Cucuy's'' program, still broadcast on KSCA-FM (101.9), has had audience ratings three times the size of shock jock Howard Stern's show.

Task force created

In recent years, complaints about unlicensed medical practitioners led county officials to create its HALT program (Health Authority Law enforcement Task force), which Opferman oversees. Starting in 1998, the team of sheriff's deputies, health care officers and physicians have investigated tips to track down illegal medical practices and drug sales.

Many of the cases the team pursues are illegal prescription medicine sales, such as Viagra from Colombia or fluids for injections, which are popular among immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

``They prefer injections, they believe it is more medically effective than taking pills,'' Opferman said of the patients. The team also pursues Medi-Cal fraud, fake doctors and fake dentists.

And, officials note, much of what a curandero does is not only legal, but often little different from what spiritual, emotional or nutritional advisers do.

Non-Western ailments

The average curandero, CSUN's Mora said, is someone who is passing along what he or she learned as an apprentice. Typically, they treat menstrual problems, aches, pains, emotional trauma and sickly babies with herbal remedies, massage, a sympathetic ear and sometimes prayer.

Many times, patients seek treatment for ailments not recognized by Western medicine. A common complaint is mal de ojo or ``evil eye'' - a sudden downturn in physical or emotional health caused by the admiration or jealousy of a person with powerful eyes.

``They don't treat major medical conditions. They treat body, mind and spirit,'' said Mora, who has consulted with Kaiser Permanente about the role the curandero plays in Latino cultures.

Facing the influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants, Kaiser created a division devoted to creating videos and performing stage plays for the company's doctors, nurses and other employees, demonstrating how to incorporate a patient's folk healings into the medical care the company provides.

One San Fernando Valley healer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said his family has dispensed traditional Mexican medicines and treatments for four generations.

``These are treatments that go back generations, treatments that people grew up with,'' he said. As a child, he said, he accompanied his mother on nighttime visits to sickly people in his Mexican village. Today, much of his advice has to do with nutrition, and his shelves are stocked primarily with supplements.

Waving his hand at shelves of healing teas in his shop, he said, ``A lot of these things, if you lived in Mexico, you would just go out back and pick them. But people who live here can't do that, so we provide it for them.''

Driven by frustration

Patients say they seek out curanderos out of tradition, or out of frustration with Western doctors. All three of the patients in a civil lawsuit against healers Chavarria and Lozano, radio host ``El Cucuy'' and the radio station hosting the program, said Western doctors had failed to cure stomach ailments, skin rashes and epilepsy, so they turned to the healers.

Healers insist they can offer aid where Western medicine fails. But most Western doctors characterize folk cures as harmless at best.

``While most 'folk remedies' are harmless, when people talk about 'folk medications,' we - and they - really don't know what they're taking. No lab is measuring dosages,'' said Dr. Frank Meza, physician in charge at Kaiser's East Los Angeles medical offices.

Chavarria told Caceres to dig a hole in his back yard to take a cypress root bath in. She also sold him some pills for insomnia. For the pills and advice, she charged $310. Misterio was even more expensive, charging up to $600 for massage treatments, court records indicate.

What the DJ said

The families and victims of Chavarria and Lozano are suing Coello and the network for, among other things, negligent misrepresentation of the healers. The suits claim Coello and Univision Radio, which now broadcasts Coello's show, knew or should have known that recommending the healers would put listeners in harm's way.

Their chances of success at trial ``rely precisely on what he (Coello) said,'' said Matthew Spitzer, professor of law at University of Southern California and an expert in broadcast media law.

``If they can demonstrate that they had a special relationship with their listeners, if it was completely reasonable to rely upon him, there might be a cause of action.''

Michael Gougis, [phone]

michael.gougis(at)dailynews.com

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These medicines were confiscated from unlicensed medical practitioners who dispensed them. Some faith healers limit their practice to counseling and recommending herbal remedies.