Judge’s injunction halts horse-healing seminars

Thursday, May 11, 2000 | 10:13 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A district judge has issued a preliminary injunction stopping an Illinois chiropractor from staging horse-healing seminars in Las Vegas and Reno.

District Judge Janet Berry also said Dr. Daniel Kamen must modify his advertisements and public statements to indicate he is not available for private chiropractic consultations or treatment of animals in Nevada pending the final resolution of the lawsuit.

But Kamen, who has been licensed as a chiropractor in Illinois for 18 years, said, "I'm going to hold seminars still in Nevada. It's nonsense. The seminars are freedom of speech."

The suit against Kamen was filed by Senior Deputy Attorney General Louis Ling on behalf of the state Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, which said Kamen is not licensed as a veterinarian or registered as a veterinary technician or a chiropractor in Nevada.

Ling said Kamen's website indicates he will hold seminars in the two major cities but has "disguised" the dates. He said he hopes Kamen will obey the injunction until the full case can be argued in Reno.

Kamen conducts about 40 seminars a year around the country, showing techniques in treating horses using chiropractic methods. He charges $289 for a two-day session. The first day is classroom instruction and the second day involves a demonstration in a local barn with live horses.

Last December Kamen said 25 states are trying to shut him down. And he had a close call a earlier this month in New York. He had scheduled his session in Long Island and was tipped off that a state investigator and members of the licensing board would attend the second day demonstration at a barn. He changed the location, and the 35 participants were not disturbed while authorities searched Long Island for the demonstration.

He said the investigator and licensing board members called him several times trying to learn the location but he kept one step ahead of the law.