The Daily Mail writes
A Harley Street physician has been struck off after he was accused of trying to ‘exploit’ a dying patient into paying £33,000 to undergo an unlicensed cannabis-based treatment programme in the belief it might cure his terminal cancer.
Dr Julian Kenyon, 77, may have given the unnamed man ‘false hope’ after he recommended vitamins and cannabidiol along with sound and light therapy.
Kenyon, who is medical director of a private surgery in Hampshire, told the patient: ‘You have had all the standard treatments, and you are running out of treatment options.’
The man, known only as Patient A, believed he had as little as six months to live.
He was informed by the Harley Street doctor the treatment would initially cost £13,000, but if it were unsuccessful, then further treatment would cost £20,000.
Dr Kenyon also told Patient A that he would need to have some blood tests which would cost £750.
Whilst telling the patient he could not be cured, Kenyon was said to have ‘bamboozled’ him with literature, insisting there was a ‘ten per cent chance’ of his stage four prostate cancer getting a ‘complete response, no tumour’ with the new treatment.
The patient, who was already undergoing conventional treatments on the NHS, was said to have felt ‘distressed and under pressure’ due to the cost of the private treatments.
After consulting his daughter who worked as a doctor, he decided against the treatment. He died 12 months later.
Married grandfather Kenyon, who ran the Dove Clinic in Twyford, Hampshire, was later reported to the General Medical Council.
