NZ-born therapist in Olympic row

The controversial work of a New Zealand-born orthopaedic practitioner in Ensenada, Mexico, Milne Joseph Ongley, is attracting attention in debate at the Turin Winter Olympics over alternative medicines.

Mr Ongley is best known for injecting a solution that includes a substance found in mouthwash into the knee of injured competitive skiers to promote healing - including nearly half the US alpine skiing team. US alpine skier Bode Miller is at the centre of the debate, the Los Angeles Times reported this week.

He and another US skier, Erik Schlopy, have acknowledged travelling to Mexico for shots of "the Ongley solution" from Mr Ongley, who calls himself on his website "the Mozart of reconstructive therapy".

The Ongley solution, according to the website, consists of distilled water, sugar, glycerin and phenol, an antiseptic sometimes used in mouthwash and throat lozenges. None of those ingredients are banned as performance-enhancing, and the treatment, known as prolotherapy, is also available in the US.

Neither Miller nor Schlopy has ever failed a drug test, but US ski team officials have publicly voiced doubts about the treatments, and at the same time medical experts have said mainstream interest in prolotherapy is growing.

Prolotherapy is a technique that is more than a century old; it purports to stimulate cell growth that can repair an injury by triggering inflammation of surrounding tissue or joints.

Although the therapy has shown promise in some studies, it has not been widely accepted because of great variation in the injections and solutions, which sometimes contain an anaesthetic. A number of the solutions studied are similar to those that Mr Ongley says he uses.

ESPN has reported that at least four members of the nine-member US Olympic men's ski team have visited Mr Ongley, including Miller, Schlopy, and J. J. Johnson, who credited Mr Ongley for his being on the team.

Now aged 81, Mr Ongley's website says that he earned a medical degree in 1953 in Ireland. Herald files show he left New Zealand after he was fined $80,000 for malpractice in 1973, and moved through Africa to the United States, where he ran foul of authorities in four states.

In 1989, Mr Ongley's California acupuncture licence was revoked for illegally practising medicine, harming patients and committing perjury after it was discovered he lied about his past troubles in his application for certification.

The state acupuncture board learned his licence to practice in New Zealand was revoked. In 1992, he was convicted of practising medicine without a licence in California and New Mexico.

The 1992 California court ruling prohibited Mr Ongley from saying the solution was accepted medically and was without risk. A story in the San Diego Union-Tribune, reported authorities had identified more than nine patients harmed by Mr Ongley's injections.

Before these difficulties, Mr Ongley earned a strong reputation among athletes drawn to him by testimonials in muscle magazines. In the 1980s, he treated some US Olympic medal winners, including pole-vaulter Mike Tully, and volleyball player Mike Dodd.

He also treated high jumper Dwight Stones, who sued Mr Ongley in 1987, blaming his badly torn hamstring muscle on his treatment.

After leaving California, Mr Ongley moved to a hotel in Mexico. From Tijuana on the border to Ensenada 100km south, there are many facilities where practitioners locked out of the US offer therapies considered unproven.

According to a 1990 story in the San Diego Union, Mr Ongley moved to the US after marrying a San Diego woman, Marilyn M. Cooper Ongley, a former figure skater he met in Africa.

In 1977, Mr Ongley shot and killed a man in his house.

Las Vegas police said it was considered a justifiable homicide after Mr Ongley said an intruder was trying to rape his wife.

In 1987, Mr Ongley escaped unharmed when a pipe bomb exploded beneath his motor home in Costa Mesa.

- NZPA