Bonita Springs stem-cell doctor asks judge to dismiss state's case against him

BONITA SPRINGS The defense for Bonita Springs doctor Zannos Grekos says a state complaint that he committed medical malpractice should be dismissed because prosecutors failed to show how his stem-cell therapy was below a standard of care or responsible for a patient's death, according to new court filings.

Prosecutors with the Florida Department of Health also ignored a state law that patients have the right to seek out alternative medicine, said Richard Ozelie, the Boca Raton attorney for Grekos.

That's what occurred with 69-year-old Domenica Fitzgerald, he said.

"The Florida Legislature authorized its citizenry to seek out, as patients, either complementary or alternative modalities of treatment," he said Friday.

Late Thursday, Ozelie filed a proposed order for Administrative Law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston to consider. The state submitted its proposed order this past Tuesday.

The judge has 30 days to issue a recommendation to the Board of Medicine on potential discipline against Grekos, following a four-day hearing in October in Naples.

The state wants Grekos' license revoked, a $40,000 fine imposed and $200,000 assessed for the state's costs.

In 2010, Fitzgerald sought out stem-cell therapy with Grekos for numbness in her feet that was a side-effect several years earlier from chemotherapy for breast cancer.

In Grekos' Bonita Springs practice in March 2010, he extracted bone marrow aspirate from her and injected it back into her circulatory system without removing bone fragments and fat. She suffered a stroke and was taken off life support April 4, 2010.

The state said Fitzgerald hadn't been fully informed about the procedure and its risks, but Ozelie said that's not true.

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Bonita Springs stem-cell doctor asks judge to dismiss state's case against him

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