Dear Patients and Friends of the Livingston Foundation Medical Center:

As most of you know by now, the LFMC closed its doors on Wednesday, February 25, 2004. All of us were profoundly saddened by the closure of the historic and important Center. The news of the clinic's shutdown spread literally across the globe in a matter of twenty-four hours from the time of its announcement to the clinic's staff on February 23. In its final few days, the LFMC received scores of anguished calls and e-mails from current patients and prospective patients on both sides of the Atlantic. Many of the leaders of our own nation's "alternative medicine" movement were especially disturbed to learn of the demise of the Center.

The staff members from the LFMC are concerned about the LFMC's former patients at this time. We want to maintain continuity of care for the patients, not just abandon patients to a medical establishment that does not understand immunotherapy very well. The chronic and difficult diseases that plague so many of our patients demand more thoughtful help than mainstream physicians are prepared to provide. (Sadly, even the brightest practitioners of "alternative medicine"-for example, the ACAM's generally excellent physicians-are usually not equipped to administer the specialized therapies that the LFMC's physicians have used over the years, beginning with Dr. Virginia Livingston herself.)

I am committed to the kind of science-based and extraordinarily aggressive immunotherapy that Dr. Livingston practiced. It would be scientifically and morally irresponsible to let her overall approach be discarded just because the LFMC has shut down; I even want to take the present providentially strange opportunity to offer certain important therapies that go above and beyond what Dr. Livingston discovered. (Some might style my program only as "alternative medicine." I prefer to regard it as advanced medicine. My former patients already realize that my consuming interest in medicine is that of extending the boundaries of scientific knowledge for the direct benefit of the sick.)

To that end, I am opening a new clinic in the San Diego area, a clinic to be known as "San Diego Immunotherapy." Of course, the present letter comes to you as part of a mass mailing using the patient list that was given to me by the LFMC's long-time owners. All former LFMC patients are welcome to call me for consultations and re-orders of medications at 1-858-554-0433. I can also be reached via e-mail at ebm@SanDiegoImmunotherapy.com Former LFMC patients who do not already know me personally are urged to request an e-mail copy of my resume.

In any case, please contact me as soon as possible if you want to be considered as a patient. There are minor practical and legal issues that have to be addressed for the sake of a smooth transition. Patients who are concerned about their medical records should ask the LFMC to mail the medical records directly to their home addresses. Finally, please be wary of anyone-including even former LFMC employees, perhaps-who might presume to peddle medicines without a physician's license. Some of the medicines that were used under the LFMC's protocol are clearly "over-the-counter" substances. Others are not.

P.S. My friend and colleague, Mark LaBeau, D.O., also intends to continue an alternative medicine practice in Encinitas, California. I wish him well in whatever he decides to do.