Dr. Miracle I 3. Selling Hope

Summary

Podcast Summary: Chameleon — Dr. Miracle | Episode 3: Selling Hope

Release Date: July 15, 2024
Host/Reporter: Larison Campbell
Produced by: audiochuck & Campside Media

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Overview

Main Theme:
This gripping episode delves into the dark world of Dr. Robert Young and his Miracle Ranch, illustrating how he expertly sells "hope" to desperate, chronically ill people—often leading them away from legitimate medical care in favor of dubious and dangerous alternative treatments. Through the personal stories of patients and their families, the episode exposes how manipulative health claims, pseudo-medical interventions, and a veneer of care can mask harm, financial exploitation, and tragedy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Selling Hope Through Storytelling and Community (00:00-04:30)

• Opening Scene: The episode opens with an odd, almost psychedelic promotional video by Rick Lorenzi, a devotee of Dr. Young and advocate for the alkaline diet. Rick equates his discovery of the diet with a spiritual awakening.

  • "Moses went to the mountaintop when he needed help. I guess that's where I'll go." — Rick Lorenzi [01:30]

• Dr. Young claims that beyond food, water, or air, people cannot live "without hope for more than a second."

  • "But you can't live without hope for more than a second." — Narrator quoting Dr. Young [02:38]

• Analysis by Host: Campbell explores the emotional vulnerability of people living with chronic illness or pain, setting up the episode’s theme of desperate people latching onto hope.

2. Daily Life & Practices at Miracle Ranch (04:30-11:30)

• Strict “Miracle” Diet: Patients ate highly restrictive “alkaline” foods, overseen by Young’s wife Shelley — including strange dishes like green mayonnaise, avocado-mint pudding, and steam-fried sprouts.

  • "Good but weird." — Larison Campbell on the pudding [04:46]

• Unorthodox Medical Interventions: Patients, such as Don Calley, received regular baking soda IVs, ostensibly to “alkalize the blood,” even though such treatment is only medically indicated in specific, extreme conditions.

  • Don describes a traumatic experience: "I called it the Kyas, which was the kick your ass IVs... I spent the whole next day in bed, shaking and shivering." — Don Calley [06:08]
  • Dr. Young’s reaction: "Oh, it's nothing but good, you know, getting it all out." [06:47]

• Legal and Ethical Violations:

  • Young administers IVs himself, though he's not a medical doctor. Legal advisor John Baird repeatedly warns him but is ignored.
    • "You can't do IVs. You have to have medical staff..." — John Baird [08:08]

• Poor Conditions & Deceptive Appearances:

  • Despite charging thousands per night, the ranch was filthy, with evidence of rodents and unsanitary living spaces.
    • "...there was probably an inch and a half of rat shit in the bottom of the oven." — Dessa Ireland, ranch cleaner [09:28]
    • "They're just pigs. There's no consideration for anybody else but themselves." — Dessa Ireland [10:54]

3. The Pseudoscience Dr. Young Preached (11:30-14:50)

• Increasing Influence:

  • Patients deeply internalize Young’s metaphors and doctrines, like the “fishbowl” analogy for blood purity.
    • "When the fish get sick, do you treat the fish or do you change the water?" — Don Calley, repeating Young’s speech [12:13]
  • Young rejects germ theory, teaching that “germs” are actually byproducts of acidic blood—an erroneous and dangerous belief.

• Sciencey Nonsense for Marketing:

  • Young appears with Tony Robbins, touting his topical “colloidal” products that supposedly alkalize the bloodstream.
    • "Our particles... range at 5nm. Now, 5nm would be like you standing on the top of the Empire State Building looking down..." — Tony Robbins, quoting Young [14:00]
  • Campbell debunks it as “sciencey sounding nonsense.”

4. The Human Cost — The Story of Dolores McCullough (17:28-30:10)

• Backstory:

  • Dolores, health-conscious all her life due to cirrhosis from a 1960s hepatitis infection, is introduced.
  • She is drawn in by Young’s book and protocol, seeking recovery not found in mainstream medicine.

• Dangers of Alternative Protocol:

  • Dolores is convinced to go off her prescribed thyroid medication and consume massive quantities of “four salts” and water (to dangerous levels).
    • "He told her to stop taking thyroid medication that her doctor ... had prescribed." — Larison Campbell [23:17]
    • "She gained around 50 pounds in water weight..." [24:25]

• Ranch Experience:

  • Dolores is essentially held captive at the ranch, living in squalid conditions, on a starvation diet, and subjected to daily colonics and IVs.
  • When Linda, her daughter, tries to get her out, staff demand $14,000 before releasing Dolores.
    • "I said, here's your check, give me my mother. And that was it. And I wish so much I avoided that check..." — Linda Shaw [27:35]

• Aftermath:

  • Dolores is brought home emaciated and weak; she never fully recovers, and dies in August 2010.
    • "He really weakened her. He did. She tried like hell, but she just couldn't... She was never okay again." — Linda Shaw [30:10]

5. Escalation, Secrecy, and Law Enforcement Attention (30:32-37:52)

• A Warning Letter:

  • Before her death, Dolores writes a detailed letter of complaint to the California Medical Board, sparking an official investigation.

• Danger for Sicker Patients:

  • John Baird recalls how sicker and sicker patients were brought in, with Young instructing staff never to call ambulances, emphasizing cover-up.
    • "He told us we were not allowed to call an ambulance..." — John Baird [31:55]

• Medical Board Investigation (33:43-37:13):

  • Investigators Carlos Rodriguez and Tony Yu visit the ranch but, due to staff loyalty and quick evasive actions, don’t see evidence of illegal medical activity.
    • "June slips away to call John Baird and warn him and Robert about the investigators." — [35:51]
    • Staff hurriedly remove all IV materials from the premises that night.

• The God Complex:

  • June Assisi reflects on Young’s growing sense of being above the law.
    • "He just started getting his God complex that he could do anything. He just felt like he was above the law." — John Baird [37:18]

• Foreshadowing the Fallout:

  • The episode closes by teasing the worsening outcomes to come: “Why is everyone dying?”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Selling Hope:

  • "You can't live without hope for more than a second." — Dr. Young via narrator [02:38]

• On the IVs:

  • "I spent the whole next day in bed, shaking and shivering… He just said, oh, it's nothing but good." — Don Calley & Dr. Young [06:25, 06:47]

• On filthy accommodations:

  • "There was probably an inch and a half of rat shit in the bottom of the oven." — Dessa Ireland [09:28]

• On Dolores's desperate family:

  • "Here's your check, give me my mother... And that was it. And I wish so much I avoided that check, and I didn't, but I knew... I had to give them the money to get my mother. It was awful." — Linda Shaw [27:35]

• On staff loyalty:

  • "At this point, I was very loyalty invested in the process, whether I believed it or not." — June Assisi [34:22]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment / Topic | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------------------|:--------------:| | The power and peril of hope – Rick Lorenzi and Dr. Young | 00:21–02:57 | | Life and dangerous interventions at Miracle Ranch | 04:30–11:30 | | Pseudoscience and product-selling, with Tony Robbins | 14:00–14:50 | | The tragic story of Dolores McCullough | 17:28–30:10 | | Deliberate cover-ups and Medical Board investigation | 33:43–37:13 | | Reflection on Young's "God complex" | 37:18–37:52 |

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Tone & Style

• Honest, unsparing, and deeply empathetic toward victims.
• Wry, sometimes darkly humorous language highlights the absurdity and audacity of Young’s claims (“good but weird,” “sciencey sounding nonsense”).
• Emotional, especially in family interviews and as stories reach their climaxes.

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Final Thoughts

Episode 3 of Dr. Miracle skillfully reveals the tragic cost when hope, desperation, and pseudoscience collide. The narrative moves from quirky promotional videos to harrowing first-person accounts of exploitation and declining health, underlining how seemingly “alternative” or “holistic” health solutions can become predatory businesses. Laws go ignored; loyal staffers stay quiet; families pay—often with loved ones’ health or lives. The episode’s powerful personal testimonies and careful reporting make it a cautionary tale for anyone seeking miracle cures.

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Listen onward for the next chapter—where the law finally begins to catch up with Dr. Young.

Advertisements, introductions, and credits have been omitted for brevity and focus.

Transcript

[Narrator]

There is another way.

[Larison Campbell]

You found Chameleon Season 8. And this is Dr.

[John Baird]

Miracle, a production of Campside Media.

[Don Calley]

Oh.

[Larison Campbell]

The bench.

[Rick Lorenzi]

Hi, I'm Rick Lorenzi, and this is me when I was a kid. Healthy, happy, and the perfect weight. Here's me now. What happened? I got fat. Really fat.

[Larison Campbell]

This is a very, very trippy video on Dr. Robert Young's YouTube channel, which is quite active today. And we're going to be talking about some other things on there later. The man talking, Rick Lorenzi, is a devoted follower of Dr. Young's. Rick actually made this video to spread the word about the alkaline diet, which he says helped him lose 60 pounds. And that fixed everything for him, including his back pain.

[Rick Lorenzi]

All that extra weight turned your spine into a spaghetti noodle.

[Larison Campbell]

It fixed his sleep apnea.

[Rick Lorenzi]

Can't sleep in a bed. Fat distorts your body. It changes the breathing passageways.

[Larison Campbell]

He explains his search for the answer to how to lose weight as an almost spiritual journey. Finding the alkaline diet is a religious experience.

[Rick Lorenzi]

Moses went to the mountaintop when he needed help. I guess that's where I'll go.

[Larison Campbell]

Wow.

[Rick Lorenzi]

I need help.

[Narrator]

To live a good life, you must change your path.

[Rick Lorenzi]

Will I ever find a special girl?

[Narrator]

There is a lid for every pot. You must lessen your belly to expand your chances.

[Larison Campbell]

Next, the video cuts to Rick sitting contemplatively in a park. A little girl in a pink puffer vest approaches him. Again, video's a little trippy. And the little girl gives him the answer to all his problems.

[Linda Shaw]

It sounds like you've been eating a dead, acidic diet, Big Rick. It's hard to lose weight when you're at fitness.

[Rick Lorenzi]

It is.

[Larison Campbell]

That was the answer. And now the video cuts to Dr. Young.

[Narrator]

It's not how much you eat, it's what you're eating. What happens to human health when we stay in the acidic zone is we get sick and tired and fat. And if we don't get fat, we die.

[Larison Campbell]

And then he makes the overall point of the video. He puts his finger on what he's really selling.

[Narrator]

I mean, I don't know if you've heard this before. You can live without food for 40 days. You can live without water for four days, and you can live without air for about four minutes. But you can't live without hope for more than a second.

[Larison Campbell]

If you've ever been really sick or in chronic pain, you know that it's difficult not to hope you'll get better. It's difficult not to think that this illness or Pain is the source of all your problems. And it's really difficult to ignore someone who says they have the solution to all your problems, that all you have to do is join this program, buy these supplements, move to the PH Miracle center for treatments. It's easy to get in too deep, because a little hope can be a dangerous thing. From sony music entertainment, campside media, and dorothy street pictures, I'm larison campbell, and this is Dr. Miracle. Episode three. By the 2000 and tens, Dr. Young had gotten so good at selling hope that the people who bought it were willing to do just. Just about anything he told them to do. Ensconced in a little world with Young, they ate an excruciatingly strict diet of recipes his wife Shelley had designed, like green mayonnaise iced salsa soup and steam fried sprouts, which are actually just steamed bean sprouts.

[Dessa Ireland]

You're going to make a pudding with the avocado, shall we?

[Larison Campbell]

Right, right.

[Dessa Ireland]

Well, so it has your almond oil or the almond milk, right?

[Linda Shaw]

Yes.

[Dessa Ireland]

When I make the pudding, I double the avocados.

[Larison Campbell]

I put in a lime.

[Dessa Ireland]

This is good but weird milk.

[Larison Campbell]

Good but weird.

[Dessa Ireland]

It's avocado and mint together.

[Larison Campbell]

Yeah. Mmm.

[Linda Shaw]

Let's see how it tastes.

[Larison Campbell]

But people on Miracle Ranch weren't just eating green or getting colonics. They were doing something else we haven't mentioned yet. Receiving IV drips of baking soda dissolved in water. These IVs were supposed to help alkalize the blood. And in fact, baking soda IVs are actually a thing in medicine. They're given to patients with severe metabolic acidosis. Too much acid in the blood. On the ranch, though, people were given baking soda IVs who were sick with things like cancer or cirrhosis, things that didn't necessarily cause acidosis. People like Don Calley, he was giving.

[Don Calley]

Me lots of IVs.

[Larison Campbell]

Don would sit in a special designated IV room at the ranch, sometimes alone, sometimes with other patients getting their IVs. Young or another doctor would hang a drip bag on an IV pole. He'd push a needle under Don's skin and into a vein and run a tube from the IV bag to the needle. Dawn remembers one IV treatment in particular.

[Don Calley]

I called it the Kyas, which was the kick your ass IVs. He made a bag for me and this other guy who was really, really sick.

[Larison Campbell]

Don and this other patient sat there waiting as their bags of baking soda and water slowly emptied out into their bloodstreams.

[Don Calley]

And both of us got so sick off the iv, I spent the Whole next day in bed, shaking and shivering.

[Larison Campbell]

She thought maybe something had gone wrong. But when she told Dr. Young, she remembers he seemed almost excited about her agony.

[Don Calley]

When he found out about it, he just said, oh, it's. It's nothing but good, you know, getting it all out.

[Larison Campbell]

Now, anytime you do a medical procedure that involves breaking the skin, drawing blood, administering a vaccine, even tattooing someone, there are serious risks involved, like infections or transmitting bloodborne pathogens like hepatitis or hiv. This is why in order to legally break the skin, you need special certification. And to get it, you usually need to be a nurse or a doctor. An actual medical doctor, that is. And as we know, Young was not that. The thing is, though, a lot of patients did think he was a medical doctor. I mean, he did call himself Dr. Young. But most of the employees at the ranch knew that Young wasn't an MD like his legal advisor, John Baird, who was on him to stop these IVs. Jun Assisi, the accountant.

[John Baird]

John told him that he had to hire medical people. If he was going to do medical treatments, he had to hire medical people.

[Larison Campbell]

John was a by the books kind of guy, a Mormon. He'd even been a mission president. So when Young pushed needles into veins, it was illegal.

[John Baird]

John kept telling him, you can't do IVs. You have to have medical staff to do IVs. But that was his thing, to do saline IVs to change people's blood.

[Larison Campbell]

Even John Baird couldn't get Young to stop giving the IVs. The best he could do is get Young to hire an actual medical doctor to sign off on some of Young's work at the ranch. But would that keep Young from breaking the law? And would it keep him from being found out? It wasn't just the illegal IVs that made miracle Ranch a chaotic place. The ranch itself was sort of falling apart. Don's friend Caroline. It was beautiful on the outside, the grounds. But apparently when he bought it, he never did anything for improvements along the way. Clients were even saying, we paid all this money to come and be here in this environment.

[Dessa Ireland]

These people. People think they're paying this $3,000 a night or whatever. It was a night to stay in this luxury clinic.

[Larison Campbell]

Dessa Ireland held the unfortunate position of cleaner at the ranch.

[Dessa Ireland]

And literally, one of the units when I got there was their RV coach with the keys still in it from a family Christmas vacation. And all of the personal stuff still in the cupboards. And not only that, I kid you not. There was probably an inch and a half of rat Shit in the bottom of the oven, in the bottom of the cupboards.

[John Baird]

Oh, God.

[Dessa Ireland]

And people were paying that amount of money to stay in this.

[Larison Campbell]

The other rooms were more normal, but they were also filthy. When she first arrived, I don't think.

[Dessa Ireland]

They were changing duvets and stuff, which is disgusting to me. One time I went in there, I changed the duvet, and everything was beautiful and tight, clean. Everything was white, you know, And I went back in because it just is my nature before someone's going to check in to do a once and done. There were footprints.

[John Baird]

Little.

[Dessa Ireland]

Well, not little from a rat or something that had crawled across the bed so big that it left footprints, indentions.

[Larison Campbell]

It wasn't just the patients rooms that were disgusting. The main House where Dr. Young and his family stayed was as bad as the rv.

[Dessa Ireland]

Yeah, I was in their personal home doing their laundry, cleaning their. Their dishes. So their shower, the master shower, was so filled with mold that it took me days to get it clean. They're just pigs. There's no consideration for anybody else but themselves. This is not just, oh, borderline, oh, well, he's a good man. No, they have. No, no, no. I don't know what's going on there, but it's not healthy.

[Larison Campbell]

What does it say about a person when they keep their space extremely dirty and make other people clean it up? What does it say about someone whose job is to care for patients, administer colonics and IVs? What does it say about the quality of care? Now it's 2013, six years since dawn first came across Young's books. Three years since her first long stay at the ranch. And dawn is still totally into Young's protocol.

[Don Calley]

I know his speech by heart. He always used a fishbowl metaphor. When the fish get sick, do you treat the fish or do you change the water? Your blood is only as healthy as the fluids that it bathes in. And then due to its environment, it becomes corroded, turning a normal, healthy red blood cell into bacteria. The bacteria, then the fungus. The fungus, then into mold, and then that's cancer. Cancer is mold. And so if you want to get rid of cancer, you clean your fishbowl. He was on fire and passionate, and he was just in discovery mode.

[Larison Campbell]

It's true. Dr. Young was constantly picking up all sorts of theories, like one that says germs don't make us sick. Instead, Young's the theory is that our own over acidic blood cells turn into viruses and bacteria. So germs are a symptom of disease, not the cause.

[Narrator]

Germs don't cause disease. Germs are the symptoms of cellular breakdown and transformation, and they're endogenously created. The germ theory, we've been programmed to believe it without any solid evidence of its case.

[Larison Campbell]

This is all so, so wrong. But selling BS is a swift business, and Young had products to sell along with all of that bs. Here he is with motivational speaker Tony Robbins, talking about a special product Young says that you can put on your skin to alkalize the bloodstream.

[Tony Robbins]

You've found a way to deliver these nutrients so the body can really use it. But your solution to that is to really deliver almost all of your products as a base in a colloidal form. Could you explain to people what a colloidal is? When we're talking about colloidal, we're talking about size. We're also talking about system. So we're talking about the size of the matter or the particle. Our particles, because we're using very fine meshes, range at 5nm. Now, 5nm would be like you standing on the top, top of the Empire State Building looking down and trying to see that little tiny ant. That's how small. So it's transdermal. That means that this little particle will go right into the lymph or right into the blood. And since it's negatively charged, these elements can then go to work to help neutralize acids or help build or structure or act as cofactors for carrying out metabolic biological purposes.

[Larison Campbell]

If this idea sounds confusing to you, it's because it's a lot of sciencey sounding nonsense, like a of lot, lot of Young's ideas. By the way, I really wanted to hear more about Young's perspective on all this stuff. So late last year, I emailed him asking for an interview. He politely declined. Anyway, as far fetched as Young's ideas may sound, dawn is taking them very seriously, at grave risk to her health.

[Don Calley]

I remember I had these little tumors in my lymph nodes.

[Larison Campbell]

Now, feeling your body for tumors when you already have cancer is not a good way to track the spread of cancer. Western medicine has a whole field of radiology and scans for that. But dawn says Dr. Young discouraged her from getting any. And without effective treatment, her cancer was spreading silently.

[Don Calley]

And at first they felt like little rice pellets. And eventually they merged into one. And he was like, this is great. It's encapsulating. It's actually not cancer. Now there's stones. There are stones.

[Larison Campbell]

How can someone who's been diagnosed with cancer believe that these new lumps are not tumors, but stones. I think dawn really wanted to believe her cancer was going away, and so she would latch onto anything that seemed to support that. It all goes back to what Young was really selling, hope.

[Don Calley]

He would give me these little tidbits of hope, like the lymph node changed by, like, now I know more about labs and stuff as they fluctuate all the time. So it was like 1. 1.1 0.01% of had change. And I'm like, celebrating. It's working, and he's celebrating right there with me.

[Larison Campbell]

As the cancer spread, dawn started feeling pain. But even that was waved off.

[Don Calley]

My back was in so much pain. I remember asking Young, do you think I have cancer in my bones? And he said, no, no. He said, I've looked at your labs. You don't have cancer in your bones. So I felt very reassured.

[Larison Campbell]

But she shouldn't have been reassured because nothing medical was happening here. Plus, that doctor that John Baird had had Young hire to oversee the IVs. He wasn't there very much.

[John Baird]

The doctor only came about once a month.

[Larison Campbell]

June says Young kept on administering IVs.

[John Baird]

I did see patients at the ranch with IVs in when I knew that there was not a nurse or a doctor there.

[Larison Campbell]

Eventually this would be a critical mistake by Young. But the dominoes started to fall in a different way. At first, It was all set in motion when a certain patient arrived at the ranch. Her name was Dolores McCullough.

[Linda Shaw]

She was just ahead of her time, like, health wise. When we were in fifth grade, she was growing wheatgrass.

[Larison Campbell]

Linda Shaw is one of Dolores daughters. She's talking to me with her twin sister, Kelly Despotakis. It's two days after Christmas and they're both at Kelly's house. Her son just had an engagement party. They're in their 50s and have a tendency to finish each other's sentences.

[Kelly Despotakis]

Juicing, extracting.

[Linda Shaw]

I mean, she was just eating macrobiotically. So she was always just ahead of the game in health and trying to be well. And so when my sister and I were born, we were born in a naval hospital, and they. I think we were a year. So she was never.

[Larison Campbell]

There was a reason Dolores was so health conscious. When Linda and Kelly were babies, something happened to her dirty needle.

[Linda Shaw]

Yeah. And she ended up. She had, I want to say, strep throat and went to the hospital and.

[Kelly Despotakis]

They gave her, like, an antibiotic through, like, a needle.

[Linda Shaw]

They shared needles back in the day. I mean, what did they know? It was 1967. 1960. So fast forward. She ended up with cirrhosis. Non alcohol related, but it was cirrhosis from. She ended up with hepatitis.

[Kelly Despotakis]

Hepatitis B from the dirty needle.

[Larison Campbell]

Back on the East Coast, Dolores was living with cirrhosis, a disease that causes scarring of the liver. It's serious and can eventually lead to liver failure. Medications can slow the progression of the disease, though, and diet changes can help with symptoms.

[Kelly Despotakis]

She just never felt 100%, but you would never know it. Like, she was going to school, she was working two jobs, she was raising two kids. She got her master's degree. Like, she didn't let things stop her.

[Larison Campbell]

Because Dolores never felt well. And there was so much she wanted to do in her life. She took her health seriously. She saw a hepatologist at a hospital in New Haven and she also tried alternative therapies.

[Linda Shaw]

Then she stumbled upon Jung's book.

[Kelly Despotakis]

Oh, I found this new book.

[Don Calley]

This book.

[Larison Campbell]

It's amazing.

[Kelly Despotakis]

And her crazy ass friend, excuse my French, this woman, she was a wackadoo. She introduced her mom to this book and then let my mom borrow it. And, you know, she was like, so.

[Linda Shaw]

Yeah, it spoke to her.

[Larison Campbell]

It was Robert Young's book. It explained that there was only one disease being too acidic. The cure, of course, was to alkalize your body. Could this be the answer to Dolores struggle with cirrhosis? At first, it seemed to Linda and Kelly that this was just another one of those harmless wellness fads that their mother was trying out, like the wheatgrass. But this diet was more intense than that.

[Kelly Despotakis]

I'll never forget this. We were. And all she was eating.

[Linda Shaw]

Yeah. Was tomatoes and avocados. Tomatoes and avocados, which she grew on his ranch.

[Kelly Despotakis]

And cucumber sweat. I remember going to her house and she was preparing herself lunch. And when I tell you she was. It was probably 6 tablespoons of salt that she was. That she was encouraged to take, but she couldn't taste anything because of the salt.

[Larison Campbell]

Yeah. Dr. Young advised people to take in a lot of salt.

[Kelly Despotakis]

And she kept trying to say to us, what the difference? We're like, mom, that's so much sodium. No, no, no, trust me. He's told us. This isn't sodium. This is so what? She couldn't taste food. She couldn't taste anything because she had destroyed her taste buds from using these salts. It was incredible.

[Larison Campbell]

The salts were one of Young's supplements, which he called four salts, spelled p h o u r, like pH. Get was baking soda mixed with some other stuff. Yeah. Young Was really into baking soda. By 2008, Dolores had been following the alkaline diet for about a year and a half, but wasn't feeling any better. So she booked a three or four day stay at the miracle ranch. During that time, young consulted with dolores. According to her, he said his protocol would cure her, which is actually impossible. Cirrhosis can't be cured. It can only be managed. But young spent time with Dolores, really listened to her. Here's her daughter, Kelly.

[Kelly Despotakis]

Look at this doctor. And he's so reachable and he's so wonderful. And look, he's here. He's invested in my case. He wants me to get healthy. You know that because sometimes you go to a doctor and they come in, you're there for 15 minutes, you walk out, you're like, wow, what just happened? Do I even know my doctor? So I feel he felt he put like a personal spin on it, and his children were there and his wife. You know, it felt very like a family of people that cared so much about you.

[Larison Campbell]

But there were some surprising instructions from Dr. Young. According to her daughters, he told her.

[Kelly Despotakis]

To stop taking her thyroid medication.

[Larison Campbell]

He told her to stop taking thyroid medication that her doctor, her real doctor had prescribed. This is dangerous. If your thyroid isn't regulated, it can cause severe liver damage. So now dolores was off her thyroid medication, and she was taking tons of these salts, which could also make her cirrhosis worse. And at home, she began to retain water in her abdomen.

[Linda Shaw]

So my mother had some potluck dinner at her church that she asked me to help her, like, you know, get her stuff ready.

[Larison Campbell]

Okay, fine.

[Linda Shaw]

So I met her in the church, and my mom, I don't know, it was maybe three weeks, I hadn't seen her. My mom's walking down the hallway of the church, and I was like. I mean, it caught my breath. I'm like. Her stomach distended. And I said, mom, what the hell are you doing? Doing?

[Larison Campbell]

As Dolores mccullough's cirrhosis got worse, she also began retaining water in her legs. So she called up Robert young for advice. He told her to keep taking the salts and increase her water intake to about eight liters a day. That's about three times the recommended amount. She gained around 50 pounds in water weight and finally went to a hospital. They gave her diuretics to help her eliminate the extra fluid. But after all this time following young and buying into his anti medical establishment beliefs, the idea of taking this medication scared her. Young told Dolores not to take the diuretics. Instead, she should come back to the ranch for treatment. The treatment at the ranch started with a four day fast. Dolores had nothing but water and four salts. Here's Dolores daughter Linda.

[Linda Shaw]

It was our mother's like life savings that she was spending out there. Do you know what he had her in a cage camper van in the back of his property.

[Larison Campbell]

It was the same one Dessa the cleaner had found full of rat poop. After the four day fast, Dolores ate only tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, salad greens, and sometimes a sort of alkaline pancake. She had a colonic every day, and every day she felt worse. Finally, Dolores demanded to be taken to the hospital. Young told her not to mention to the hospital staff that she was staying at the miracle ranch. Dolores found that a little suspicious, but she was in such bad shape, she couldn't really focus on it. At the hospital, they drained 6 liters of fluid from Dolores abdomen and then she was free to go. So she headed back to the ranch. And that's when Young started giving her IVs.

[Kelly Despotakis]

She would call us and be on some vitamin C drip that they would administer and then leave her. And she was like, it's empty. It's been hours. She'd have to remove the needle herself.

[Linda Shaw]

Kelly and I had what, like nightly, every other night phone calls with him.

[Kelly Despotakis]

I remember sitting on her back porch and the birds were chirping. It was such a beautiful day. And this man was like, yeah, she's dying.

[Linda Shaw]

I mean, yeah, if you don't, if you take her home, she'll die. He did not want us to bring her home. He wanted her to continue spending her money.

[Larison Campbell]

After about a month at the ranch, Dolores was so sick. Robert Young wanted her to stay there, but Linda and Kelly wanted to bring her home. According to Linda, they were told that Dolores still owed $14,000 for her stay. And they were made to understand that Dolores wouldn't be released until someone paid.

[Linda Shaw]

So I flew out to San Diego. They wouldn't even let me go to the ranch. They met me at the airport. I was outside and they pull up in the car and there's my mother. She couldn't get out first. She couldn't help herself. So they get the wheelchair. And my mother was massive with the water weight. Massive. And then they wheeled her up to me and my mom's sucking on that bottle of greens. And I took and I fucking threw it at that woman. And then I said, here's your check, give me my mother. And that was it. And I wish so much I avoided that check, and I didn't, but I knew. I was aware that I had to give them the money to get my mother. It was awful. Got off. I flew that morning, got my mother at the airport, got on a plane to come home with her, and just was like, my mother will die on this flight. It was so terrifying.

[Kelly Despotakis]

She smelt like death.

[Linda Shaw]

She smelled like death.

[Kelly Despotakis]

She had ketosis.

[Linda Shaw]

And she slept the entire flight home. And then I had a car service meet us in New York, and the driver had to help me, like, basically carry her to her apartment because she couldn't walk up the stairs. And I tell you, when I just was like, she's not going to wake up. And then. So I obviously, I slept there, and I slept in her bed because I wanted to keep an eye on her. And I remember she had her back to me, and she was just skin and bones. Like, she was just skin and bones. And our mom was always so vibrant. And I said, she's not gonna make it through the night.

[Larison Campbell]

Deloris did make it through the night, and Linda and Kelly did whatever they could do to help her get better, starting with taking her to a real doctor.

[Linda Shaw]

Before this, her liver doctor who would see her, I think it was monthly for a. A wild lawyer said, okay, you're good for a year. I'll see you in a year. Keep doing what you're doing. And then the next time I brought her to him was after I got her back from the ranch. I pushed her into his office in a wheelchair, and he looked at her and he said, dolores, what have you done to yourself? And I said, wait, do I have a story for you? And I told him, yeah.

[Kelly Despotakis]

He was horrified.

[Larison Campbell]

By the time Dolores McCullough came home from. From the ranch, she understood that she had made a terrible mistake in following Robert Young. She had trusted the wrong person. And instead of making her healthy, he had made her so much sicker.

[Linda Shaw]

And then we worked really hard to get her better, and she just never got better. She never got better. He really weakened her. He did. She tried like hell, but she just couldn't. She couldn't. She was never okay again.

[Larison Campbell]

Dolores McCullough died in August of 2010. But before she passed away, she thought deeply about what happened to her, and she wrote a detailed letter to the Medical Board of California, which regulates how medicine is practiced in the state. In it, she described everything that happened to her, from reading Young's book to being hospitalized, to being held hostage until her daughter handed Young's employee a $14,000 check. But Robert Young didn't know about the letter. So rather than sticking to weight loss and selling his bogus supplements, Young brought patients under his care at the ranch and who were sicker and sicker.

[John Baird]

Initially, the patients that were coming were still mobile and still able to care for themselves even though they had cancer and were told that by the doctors there was nothing more they could do. So those kind of patients were, those were fine. And most of them only stayed for a week. They couldn't afford more. And then we started getting more long term patients.

[Larison Campbell]

What were you worried about with having very sick patients on the ranch?

[John Baird]

That they were going to die on the ranch? He told us we were not allowed to call an ambulance to pick up patients from the ranch. And so I'm like, well, you can't have people dying here, then you've got to keep them off the ranch.

[Larison Campbell]

Young didn't want anyone to call an ambulance because he didn't want to draw attention from the authorities. He didn't want people to die on the ranch for the same reason. So when very sick patients like Dolores McCullough needed to go to a hospital or just came too close to death, he had him, dropped them off at the emergency room. Each time they took patients to a different hospital. Again, probably to keep the ranch flying under the radar. What had started as a diet of green smoothies had turned into a massive coverup of actions that caused sickness and led to death. But maybe eventually the law would catch up with Robert Young. It's a hot day at the miracle ranch in May 2011. The Palma Valley is decked out in bright colors of the bougainvillea, and fat flies buzz in lazy circles under the sun. Patients are getting their treatments, drinking their avocado smoothies and their ionized water. Robert Young and John Baird are off the ranch on their way back from the airport. And June Assisi is pretending that she's not totally freaking out as she talks to two men who have shown up at the ranch.

[John Baird]

I was at the kitchen and they drove up and they told me who they were.

[Larison Campbell]

They were investigators for the California Medical Board. Their names were Carlos Rodriguez and Tony Yu. And they were there to look into a complaint about Miracle Ranch that someone here was practicing medicine without a license, doing things like administering IVs. Did June know anything about that? They asked. June could have told them then and there. She could have brought them to the IV room, shown them the evidence, introduced them to the patients who'd been receiving IVs there, but she didn't.

[John Baird]

I have this really Strong sense of loyalty. I've had it all my life. Like when I worked for Provo City as a dispatcher, I would not shop outside of Provo City because I wanted my tax dollars to go to the city that I was working for. But that's kind of where my loyalty is. And so at this point, I was very loyalty invested in the process, whether I believed it or not.

[Larison Campbell]

So June lied to the investigators as she gave them a tour of the property, carefully avoiding anything incriminating.

[John Baird]

We happen to have a very, very ill patient in the guest main guest house, which was pretty close to the kitchen. I took him in the kitchen and explained that it was all about the food. Everything that was, you know, whatever was going on at the ranch was just exercise and proper nutrition. And then I took them down to the office.

[Larison Campbell]

Did you sort of instinctively know not to take them near the places where the IVs were to keep them away from that?

[John Baird]

Yeah, yeah. John had drilled that into us.

[Larison Campbell]

June slips away to call John Baird and warn him and Robert about the investigators. And eventually, as June is showing the investigators around the microscopy classroom, John and Robert arrive back from the airport. But only John shows up in the classroom to join June.

[John Baird]

Robert hid. I guess he hid in the main house, and John came down and took over and just mainly was going through things with people from the medical board in the classroom.

[Larison Campbell]

The whole visit lasts an hour. Carlos and Tony see the garden and the tennis courts and the breathtaking views of Palomar Mountain, but they don't see any patients and they don't see any medical supplies. But that night, panic sets in at the ranch, and another loyal employee named Rosie offers to help.

[John Baird]

That night, we were instructed to to get all of the IVs and IV things off the ranch. We loaded everything up. There were several loads, truckloads full, and put it in a shed on Rosie's property.

[Larison Campbell]

June was starting to see who she thought Robert Young really was.

[John Baird]

He just started getting his God complex that he could do anything. He just felt like he was above the law.

[Larison Campbell]

Next time on Dr. Miracle.

[Don Calley]

That's started occurring to me over time, was like, everyone's dying. Why is everyone dying?

[Narrator]

A good con man isn't abrasive. He's a likable guy. He's telling him what they want to hear, and he's saying it with conviction. We're learning new information about why this center providing alternative cancer treatments was raided and its owner arrested.

[John Baird]

10News broke the story yesterday and today.

[Larison Campbell]

Doctor Miracle is a production of Campside Media. Sony Music Entertainment and Dorothy Street Pictures. The show was hosted by me, Larison Campbell. I reported it with Lily Houston. Our producer and also our field recordist. Shoshi Shmulovitz is our managing producer and editor. Our executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadis and me, Laris and Campbell from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producer is Catherine St. Louis. Our sound designer and mix engineer is Michelle Macklem. Studio recording by Ewin Ly Trimuin Story editing by Amy Padula Fact checking by Julia Case Levine Additional help from Rachel Yang and Rajeev Gola. If you're enjoying the show, please tell a friend. It really does help spread the word.