Nevada sues horse doc from Illinois

Monday, Dec. 27, 1999 | 11:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An Illinois chiropractor who stages horse healing seminars has run afoul of regulators in Nevada and some 25 other states that are trying to shut him down.

Nevada is apparently taking the lead, filing suit in Reno against Dr. Daniel Kamen who has been licensed in Illinois as a chiropractor for 18 years.

Kamen, who conducted seminars in Las Vegas and Reno, says he's not going to sit back and take this attack.

"They're trying to handcuff me from making a living," complained Kamen of Arlington Heights, Ill. He suggested he will probably file a countersuit against the state of Nevada and the Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners.

He said he intends to return to Nevada to hold more seminars. Kamen conducts about 40 seminars a year around the country, showing the techniques in treating horses using chiropractic methods. And that's what has state officials upset.

The veterinary board and the attorney general's office seek a preliminary injunction against his operation in Nevada, claiming he's practicing veterinary medicine without a license. And they say he's guilty of deceptive trade practices in his advertising, teaching, speaking and presenting the educational forums.

He charges $289 for a two-day session. The first day is classroom instruction and the second day, there is a demonstration in a local barn with live horses.

A key part of the dispute is whether Kamen actually treats the animals. He says he shows those attending the pressure points and how to manipulate the horse to relieve the animal of pain. But he says he never does the actual treatment.

"I show them how to place their hands and the technique impulse, but I don't apply any pressure," meaning he does nothing to actually cure the horse. But that's not what the attorney general's office claims.

It sent undercover investigator Melissa Watson to attend the Las Vegas seminar that was held July 31. Watson said Kamen diagnosed the conditions in horses and that he "also applied chiropractic techniques to horses to treat conditions he had diagnosed."

Kamen said he doubted Watson, a lay person, knew what was going on at this seminar. "She could not name anything that happened," he said.

Watson maintains Kamen used chiropractic techniques on horses to treat the conditions he had diagnosed, and he was bitten twice by different horses during each procedure. Kamen admits he was bitten once by the horse, but only because a horsefly stung the animal.

Kamen is not licensed in Nevada by either the veterinary or the chiropractic board. The civil suit says, "Dr. Kamen's acts observed by Ms. Watson constitute the practice of veterinary medicine," under the law.

In the early spring, Kamen advertised a Reno chiropractic seminar. And he said it would be a "hands-on" horse adjusting session. His advertisement said there would be private horse adjusting sessions and that a person could earn $40,000 a year adjusting horses one day a week.

Veterinarians or chiropractors attend the session, and it draws horse owners who want to be able to treat the ailments of their animals.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Louis Ling wrote Kamen telling him he would be practicing veterinary medicine if he followed his advertisement. An agreement was reached in which Kamen allowed Dr. Michael Chumrau, an investigator for the veterinary board, to come free of charge to the seminar. Chumrau reported there was no practice of veterinary medicine at the seminar.

The suit also charges Kamen with deceptive trade practices. It says there was language in the advertisements and on the website that caused people to believe he was qualified to perform and treat animals in Nevada.

"They can't put tape over my mouth," Kamen said of Nevada officials. "It's a violation of constitutional rights."

Kamen said he has already filed a response to the suit and will fight it all the way.