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So stated the enormous headline in the Paris newspaper L'Aurore (The Dawn) on Thursday, Jan. 13, 1898. The article, which some have called the most important in newspaper history, was a letter to the president of the French Republic by the great French novelist, Emile Zola. He was writing to accuse the French government of a great miscarriage of justice in convicting Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in the French army, of treason. As a result of this polemic, Capt. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated.
March 9, 2004: Joanne M. Gallagher, DC, was sentenced in her federal mail fraud case. She received an 18-24 month prison sentence; a fine of $9,000 and restitution of $631; relinquishment of her chiropractic license; and the order to never practice chiropractie again. Ten days later, she was sentenced in county court for violating Pennsylvania chiropractic regulations and ordered to pay a fine of $500 and serve three to six months in prison (which will run concurrent to the federal sentence).
Gallagher was prosecuted for billing Medicaid for spinal manipulation for neck and shoulder problems. In fact, she was treating Kimberly Lee Strohecker, a 30-year-old woman, for her chronic epilepsy. Ms. Strohecker's fiancée, a Jehovah's Witness, wanted her to discontinue her medication. Gallagher told Ms. Strohecker that her treatment would eliminate the seizures and that she had to discontinue taking the anticonvulsive medications, which had successfully managed her condition for 20 years.
On the last visit to Gallagher's office before her death, Ms. Strohecker was wheelchair-bound, wearing adult diapers, choking on her own vomit,...