Joyce M. Martin -- although "surprised and shocked" by the Health Department's action -- says she has complied.

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 21, 2005

BY FELICE J. FREYER
Journal Medical Writer

Health Director David R. Gifford yesterday ordered chiropractor Joyce M. Martin to stop performing "live blood analysis," a test that health officials say has no value and that Martin was conducting in violation of laws governing clinical laboratories.

Martin -- who has offices in Cranston, East Greenwich, East Providence and Providence -- faces no other restriction on her chiropractic practice.

Live blood analysis involves looking at blood under a microscope that has a video screen. Health officials said that Martin was apparently using it to diagnose problems that she said could be treated with nutritional supplements.

Under federal law, laboratory tests can be performed only in accredited laboratories, or in doctors' offices that receive waivers from state authorities. The state would be unlikely to give a waiver for such a test because it is useless, said Bruce W. McIntyre, lawyer for the state Board of Examiners in Chiropractic Medicine.

"It's one of these moneymaking schemes that seems to be growing in popularity," McIntyre said. Patients, he said, "are being sold a bill of goods. They're being told that things are deficient in their blood. . . . The point of it all is apparently to sell nutritional supplements."

Live blood analysis is one of the tests that was used by John E. Curran, the unlicensed "natural healing" practitioner whose practice was shut down June 7 in an emergency order from the health director. But unlike Curran, Martin has a legitimate license to practice chiropractic, and her practice can continue.

Reached yesterday afternoon at her Providence office, Martin said she had removed the equipment from her office on Friday and would no longer do the test. She declined to describe how she was using the test.

"I was really surprised and shocked" by the Health Department's action, she said. "I would never do anything that wasn't by the book. I'm a chiropractor and that's what I will continue to do."

Martin came to the Health Department's attention when someone complained that her name is listed in the Verizon Yellow Pages among those of physicians. But in a meeting Thursday with the chiropractic board, Martin documented that the listing was an error made by the Yellow Pages, and that she had attempted unsuccessfully to fix it before publication, McIntyre said.

Meanwhile, though, health officials noticed that Martin was advertising "live blood analysis." The chiropractic board instructed her to stop the practice, and Gifford followed up yesterday with an Immediate Compliance Order.

"I think it is important that the public know that this is a test of no discernible value and they should be very suspicious of any practitioner who offers this test," said Dr. Robert S. Crausman, chief administrative officer of the state Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline.

"We're told there are other chiropractors doing it," McIntyre said. "Now would be a good time to stop."