Scots doctor’s pioneering treatment helped rock stars kick their addictions
11 May 2020
Dr Meg Patterson, George, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards
She treated rock stars and celebrities for addictions but her controversial therapy was rubbished by fellow medics.
Former Scots missionary Dr. Meg Patterson pioneered a method based on Chinese acupuncture for drug users as an alternative to other pills.
Dismissed by the medical establishment, she started her own clinic and helped Boy George, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards to kick their habits.
More than four decades later, new documentary The Final Fix – narrated by Ewan McGregor and now on Amazon Prime – follows addicts in the US as they try out the device to detox from illegal and prescription drugs.
It comes as America’s National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Health are looking at using the neuro-electric therapy (NET) device.
And before Covid-19, an unnamed Scottish university was claimed to be in discussions about testing the device.
For the Aberdeen-born doctor’s family, the documentary could mean their mother’s legacy is fulfilled – being able to help those on drugs get off them for good.
Her daughter, Myrrh Winston, said: “In the 1970s, women doctors were not looked upon as equal.
“Psychiatrists, who controlled drug treatment, asked, ‘Who was this upstart surgeon?’ The medical community was an old boys’ network and addicts were seen as dregs of society.”
Myrrh’s brother Lorne, who trained as a psychiatric nurse and worked with his mother, said even as drugs took a grip of communities, no one would take her seriously.
He said: “UK drugs policy was in flux, with the medical establishment groping to find a new way to treat drug addictions.
“Mum had no experience or training in addiction.
“It was accepted at the time that pharmacology was needed for an effective and humane detox. A detox that did not use other drugs was effectively seen as abuse.
“So there was a huge amount of hostility towards Mum’s pharmacology-free method.”
The device today is not much different from how Meg designed it.
A small box with two wires attached, it looks like an MP3 player. When the wires are taped behind the ears, it delivers a small electrical current to the brain.
These, according to supporters, allow addicts to stop taking drugs without the horrific side effects of withdrawal.
Meg became the only female surgeon in Scotland after graduating from Aberdeen University.
A committed Christian, she travelled to India to become a medical missionary and then fell into drug rehabilitation by accident when she took a job in a Hong Kong charity hospital and saw colleagues using electro-acupuncture as a painkiller.
The ones who were regular drug users reported that their cravings disappeared.
Lorne said: “Within 15 or 20 minutes, the observable signs of heroin or opium withdrawal ended. The sweating stopped, eyes dried, the obvious discomfort smoothed off.
Mum was fascinated and perplexed by this.
“She didn’t believe it was anything to do with acupuncture. It was the electrical factors that were significant.”
Married to George, a fellow Scot who served as medical officer and diplomatic representative of the Tibetan resistance movement during the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the family moved back to the UK in 1973.
Meg had to decide whether to continue as a surgeon or pursue NET.
The family moved into a flat in London’s Harley Street, with a room where she began treating outpatients.
Once every couple of months addicts, including Eric Clapton, would come and stay with them. Lorne and his siblings had to tell their mum who he was – she had no idea.
Despite her lack of official support, Meg made great progress at first.
Cash came from creative industries, allowing her to produce her NET device and design separate treatments for addictions to different drugs, alcohol and nicotine.
The BBC featured her in several documentaries, which increased interest in her work. The Rank film firm funded a clinic, Broadhurst Manor.
Myrrh, who now lives in California, said: “Dad was gregarious but mum was quiet and humble.
She was very unassuming, not a typical surgeon.
She had vision and clarity of thought that was phenomenal but it didn’t come with any arrogance. They entertained a lot – people from all walks of life.
It wasn’t that much of a stretch to have an addict sitting there being treated.
“Musicians used to do concerts to raise funds for mum. I remember going to a gig in a tiny club off Oxford Street.
“At the end of the night they put all the takings into a paper bag and we walked home with that.”
Lorne said: “NET was never going to be scalable as long as it was a specialist treatment.
“No busy health professional has got months for training. We had to eliminate the skilled operator, which meant computerisation.”
Medical technology firms in the UK were not keen to help. Lorne recalled: “They told mum it was impossible, that she was dreaming. One laughed her out of their offices.”
So his parents moved to the US to find backers. A major study said the device was no better than a placebo and Lorne, while not disputing the result, said the tests were designed for drugs rather than devices.
But he said one important finding was forgotten: “Our study demonstrated you don’t need pharmaceuticals to deliver a comfortable detox. That was not meant to be possible then. The researcher called the outcomes ‘remarkable’.”
Now the siblings hope the documentary and the passage of time will reopen the debate on the device.
Before Covid-19, opioid addiction was the biggest crisis facing the US. In 2018, nearly 10million Americans were abusing prescription painkillers. Between 1999 and 2016, 770,000 Americans died of overdoses.
Last year there was outrage at the news that 1187 Scots died of drug abuse in 2018.
Lorne added: “Once mum died, we decided to generate new evidence. There was no point arguing over old evidence. It’s a whole different world.
“We look back and talk about the good old days when people came in with only a heroin habit. Now it’s six to eight drugs at any one time – half the time we might not even know what’s in them.
“Prescription opioids are as devastating to families and communities as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine are.
Myrrh hopes The Final Fix will put pressure on the authorities to give NET a chance. She said: “I hope there’s a groundswell of outrage. Communities, families and addicts need to rise up and say, ‘Let’s make this happen.’
via the UK Daily Record https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/new-documentary-sheds-light-electric-22001946
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