It is important that allegations of harm allegedly caused by massage therapists be verified by well-documented evidence. This is as important in  determining whether the public needs to be protected against such harm as it is in personal injury claims that are litigated.        

The following are excerpts of two letters that I sent (on August 29, 1999, and October 8, 1999) to Peter Behr, President of the Board of the College of Massage Therapists of British Columbia. The complete letters were published in the Massage Law Newsletter 11(2):5-6. October, 1999.

I sent  a copy of my letter of August 29, 1999, to Lincoln Lau who had informed me, during a phone call, that Peter Behr had commented on the two deaths to which my two letters refer.

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Massage Law Newsletter

6907 Sherman Street

Philadelphia, PA 19119

August 29, 1999

Dear Mr.  Behr:

I have been informed that you commented at a hearing of the Health Professions Council (on June 8, 1999, if I recall correctly) that two people in your home town died, one as a result of a massage and the other from hydrotherapy.

I would appreciate it if you would provide me with information about the individual who died from massage. What was the training and experience of the practitioner? And what well-documented evidence do you have that the death was caused directly by the practitioner? 

Please give me permission to publish your reply when we publish this letter to you in the Massage Law Newsletter.

Thank you.

          Sincerely yours,

          Albert Schatz, Ph.D., Editor

__________________________

Massage Law Newsletter

6907 Sherman Street

Philadelphia, PA 19119

October 8, 1999

Dear Mr. Behr:

Who died from massage?

I am writing to you [because] .you have not replied to my letter of August 29, 1999, a copy of which is attached hereto. In that letter, I asked you for information about a comment which I was informed you had made to the effect that in your home town one individual died from massage and another from hydrotherapy."

If you do not respond to my inquiry for information about the death allegedly associated with massage, I shall assume that you did indeed make that allegation; but are unwilling to provide me with documentation, about that death, which I requested in my letter of August 29,1999.

If there is well-documented evidence that the massage was directly related to the woman's death, why don't you reveal what that well-documented evidence is?  If there is no such well-documented evidence, why did you mention that death?

All people who have been massaged inevitably die, sooner or later. However, all those deaths are not acceptable evidence that massage is harmful.

Sincerely yours,

   Albert Schatz, Ph.D., Editor

cc: George  K. Bryce, Board of the College of Mas-sage Therapists BC

     Lincoln Lau. British Columbia Coalition of A-llied Bodywork Practitioners

     David MacAulay. Health Professions Council

     Mary McCrea. Health Professions Council

__________________________

The following communications bring this correspondence up to date. Lincoln Lau has given me permission to publish his letter of April 12, 2000, to Peter Behr.

__________________________

British Columbia Coalition of Allied

Bodywork Practitioners

 210-825 Granville St.

Vancouver, BC. V6Z IK9

April 12, 2000

College of Massage Therapists of

British Columbia

103-1089 West Broadway

Vancouver, BC. V6H IE5

attn: Peter Behr, President, CMTBC

Dear Mr. Behr:

I am writing to request information regarding the claim you made at the public hearing in June 1999, regarding the deaths that occurred in your hometown of Powell River as the result of massage services.

I understand that Dr. Albert Schatz has twice requested information on this topic from you in the past year, but has not received a reply. As you know, Dr. Schatz is compiling research on the risk of massage, and is very interested in the details of the deaths, and other pertinent information.

I have researched for Dr. Schatz on this topic, and have spoken to several acquaintances who practice massage therapy in BC. None of the people I spoke to have heard of such an event occurring in Powell River, much less anywhere else in BC. I have also gone through a decade of the BC Massage Practitioner Journal and have found nothing.

The BC Coalition of Allied Bodywork Practitioners requests the following information:

1. Was the death(s) attributed to the services of an RMT {Registered Massage Therapist] or a bodyworker? When did it occur? Where did it occur?

2. Was the death(s) directly attributed to the massage or was it coincidental? Was there a coroner's report?  Was there a civil action, if the death was attributed to the massage?

3. If the services were provided by an RMT, was there an investigation by the CMTBC or its predecessor to determine any wrongdoing by the practitioner? Are there written records on this?

Dr. Schatz has told me that in his research, he has never heard of any deaths directly attributed to massage. Your claim made at the HPC [Health Professions Council] public hearing concerns the BCCABP [British Columbia Coalition of Allied Bodywork Practitioners] and we are looking at addressing this with HPC, based on Dr. Schatz's research and your reply. As well. I will forward your information on to Dr. Schatz.

    Sincerely,

    Lincoln Lau

    Coordinator, BCCABP

cc: Dr. Albert Schatz

     HPC

__________________________

Peter Behr's reply to Lincoln Lau reads as follows::

Vancouver, BC

Canada V6H 1ES

TEL (604)736-3404  FAX (604) 736-6500

June 5, 2000

Dear Mr. Lau:

This is in answer to your letter of April 12, 2000,  inquiring about my statements to the Health Professions Council in June 1999. I do not recall making statements about deaths that have occurred in Powell River as a result of massage services. I am aware of injuries caused by unregistered practitioners but unfortunately patients whom I have treated with these injuries are unwilling to go public. I am also aware as well of the use of the practice of massage as a front for sexual activities with clients. The CMTBC can not assume everybody who wishes to use the term "massage therapist"  or "massage practitioner" will have the public's interest at heart.

Perhaps in the future, we can work together in the interest of public protection.

    Yours,

                                  Peter Behr, Past President

cc: Dr. Albert Schatz

Health Professions Council

__________________________

Massage Law Newsletter

6907 Sherman Street

Philadelphia, PA 19119

July 31, 2000

To: Peter Behr, Past President, CMTBC

I would like to publish Lincoln Lau's letter of April 12, 2000, to you, and your reply of June 5, 2000, to Lincoln Lau in the Massage Law Newsletter.

I would therefore appreciate your granting me permission to publish your letter of June 5, 2000, to Lincoln Lau in the Massage Law Newsletter.

Thank you.

 Sincerely yours,

Albert Schatz, Ph.D., Editor

__________________________

Douglas M. McRae, Registrar of the College of Massage Therapists of British Columbia, wrote me on August 15, 2000, and gave me permission to publish Peter Behr's reply to Lincoln Lau, a copy of which Behr had sent me.

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Massage Law Newsletter

6907 Sherman Street

Philadelphia, PA 19119

September 6, 2000

To: Peter Behr.c/o CMTBC

Dear Mr. Behr:

Thank you for the copy of your June 5, 2000, reply to Lincoln's letter of April 12, 2000. Only the first two sentences of your letter are relevant to the issue about which Lincoln Lau requested information. The other sentences are completely irrelevant because they provide no information about anybody who died as a result of a massage.

In the second sentence of your letter, you say, "I do not recall making statements about deaths that have occurred in Powell River as a result of massage services." If you do not recall having made such statements, you do not recall not having made such statements. This is very different than a categorical denial..

I assume you agree that killing a client is the most serious kind of harm a massage therapist can inflict on a client.

If such a death had occurred, I assume it would have been reported in major newspapers, and on major TV and radio news programs throughout Canada. It would also have been reported in massage newsletters and other massage periodicals in all Canadian Provinces. 

It is therefore surprising that you do not remember whether you commented on such deaths  at the HPC hearing, especially since you do remember much less serious injuries that you attribute to unregulated practitioners? However, your letter provides no well-documented evidence that those injuries were indeed caused by unregulated practitioners.

I assume that the College of Massage Therapists of British Columbia is not aware of any deaths caused by unregulated massage therapists or other bodyworkers because:

1. No deaths are mentioned in CMTBC's    Submission  Revising the Scope of Practice of BC's Massage Therapists to the Health Professions Council on July 28, 1998. This Submission reports a few reports of harm but no deaths allegedly caused by unregulated practitioners.

2. The Health   Professions Council's Massage Therapists Scope of Practice (Preliminary Report issued February 1999, reports Responses from Consultation Process to Proposed Scope of Practice Statements from several organizations including

The British Columbia Medical Association

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia

The British Columbia College of Chiropractors 

The College of Physical Therapists of British Columbia.

All these organizations disapproved of expanding the scope of practice which the College of Massage Therapists of BC had requested in its submissions. They gave reasons why they disapproved, but none of them referred to any deaths caused by unregulated massage therapists in British Columbia. I believe it is reasonable to assume that these organizations would be aware of such deaths, if they had occurred,  and would certainly have commented on them.

3.  On November 19, 1999, you sent Mr. Irvine Epstein, Chair of the Health Professions Council, CMTBC's Supplemental Response to the Health Professions Council's February 1999 Preliminary Report on the Massage Therapists Scope of Practice. This report did not refer to any deaths caused by unregulated practitioners. 

4. On July 6, 2000, CMTBC submitted a Further Commentary on the Risk of Harm Associated with the Practice of Massage Therapy to the Health Professions Council. This was A Supplementary Response to the Health Professions Council's February 1999 Preliminary Report on the Massage Therapists Scope of Practice.

This Supplementary Response included the comment that "Massage therapy is unusual as compared to most therapies in that its effectiveness is greatly out of proportion to its potential risk for causing harm. The Supplementary Response gives the following three references to publications which report harm associated with massage:

Trotter, J. F. Hepatic hematoma after deep tissue massage. New England Journal of Medicine. 341(26):2019-2020. 1999.

Mikhail, A., Reidy, J. F., Taylor, P. R., and Scoble, J. E. Renal artery embolization after back massage in a patient with aortic occlusion. Nephrol. Dial. Transplant 12:797-798.1997.

Kerr, H. D. Ureteral stent displacement associated with deep massage. Wisconsin Medical Journal 96:57-58. 1997. 

However, this Supplementary Response does not provide the important information as to whether the massage therapists, who allegedly caused the harm, were regulated or unregulated in the states in which they worked.    

5. Finally, this July 6, 2000, Supplemental Response  does not refer to any deaths   caused by unregulated massage practitioners in  Powell River, British Columbia, or anywhere else.

CMTBC would certainly have reported such a death to support its Submission in which it requested a Reserved Act that would restrict massage to Regulated Massage Therapists.

I therefore conclude that no people have been killed in British Columbia by unregulated massage therapists or any other bodyworkers in British Columbia.

If you  have any additional comments that you would like publlished in the Massage Law Newsletter, please send them to me and I shall see that they are published 

               Sincerely yours

               Albert Schatz, Ph.D., Editor 

cc: David MacAulay. Health Professions Council

     Mary McCrea. Health Professions Council

     Lincoln Lau. British Columbia Coalition of Allied Bodywork Practitioners