(Note from Erin: I’ve been in close contact with some mutual friends of Dr Robert Young and understand sometimes taking a plea is better than being locked away for life. He also spoke up before all this on wearing a 24-hour body cam in light of the recent holistic doctor deaths I’ve covered.)
I was set to go to his clinic with my beau (a holistic DO of 35 years) but we had to delay it, and then this happened. Many think they were making an example of the man.
The government has been after him for a decade or two and now it seems they finally found a way to put him away and end all the amazing work he’s been doing at his healing clinic, under the supervision of a DO who was also an MD and an NMD (all three!) so it should not matter if he had a license or not!
On June 29th, after stating that he illegally treated patients at clinic on his avocado ranch, “without medical or scientific training”, Robert O. Young was sentenced to five additional months in prison . (He was convicted last year on two counts of practicing medicine without a license and pleaded guilty earlier this year to two additional felony counts.) His sentence marked the end of a three-year criminal case.
The author of several books including the bestselling “The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health,” first published in 2002 and later translated into more than 18 languages, based his work and treatments on a theory by a French scientist from the 1800s who saw acidity in the body as the cause of disease. 1
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The Superior Court Judge overseeing the case saw benefit in Young’s work but felt he had “oversimplified the ‘extremely complex fields’ of microbiology and hematology:
“I think where it all went very wrong is you became overly aggressive and overly confident in areas you just had no knowledge about.” 2
During the trial Young had detractors but he also had supporters; although a North County jury convicted him in early 2016 on two counts of practicing medicine without a license, they deadlocked on several remaining changes.
“Several of Young’s supporters, including former patients, attended the hearing. Afterward, they defended him and his work and said he had been unfairly characterized in court. Supporter Brian Claypool said Young’s treatments helped one of his family members, and called the court case “a big injustice.” 3
In April, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California revoked the medical license of Dr.Bennie S. Johnson, a physician who worked at the Valley Center Ranch, finding that he had been negligent in the treatment of four patients in 2012 and 2013. Johnson was initially charged along with Young in the criminal case, but a judge dismissed Johnson’s charges following his preliminary hearing.
Young has had legal troubles in the past in Utah. In 1995, he was arrested on two felony charges of practicing medicine without a license. He pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor, which was dismissed 18 months later under a plea deal. He was charged again in 2001, but the case was dropped.
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