Founder of Moose Jaw health centre suggests ‘ALS drug industry’ was behind CBC investigation of his business

The man behind the Moose Jaw health centre that has claimed “a 100 per cent success rate in stopping the progression and in restoring function of people with ALS” says a recent CBC story about his company is evidence that he is seen as “a direct threat to the ALS drug industry.”

Dayan Goodenowe made the comments in a Dec. 5 email he sent out to supporters after a recent CBC investigation into his Dr. Goodenowe Restorative Health Centre.

That investigation told the story of Susie Silvestri, a 70-year-old American who sold her home so she could afford Goodenowe’s $84,000 US “biochemical engineering” program. 

Silvestri was convinced Goodenowe could cure her ALS. In one text to her brother, she wrote, “He is such a sweet man. How could I not be healed?”

Fewer than four months after arriving at his Moose Jaw facility, Silvestri died from late-stage ALS — a disease that causes gradual muscle loss. As her health deteriorated, she was unable to get a feeding tube installed at the Moose Jaw hospital because her American insurance company wouldn’t pay the bill. 

She had to rent her own ambulance, borrow some medical equipment and find an American hospital to do the surgery. She ended up dying alone in a Montana hospital, concluding she was the victim of “false hope.” 

Her story led to Saskatchewan politicians calling for a series of investigations.

Goodenowe’s letter to supporters takes particular aim at the NDP, saying it has engaged in “grandstanding.” It also includes a link to a 30-minute video responding to CBC’s story. In the video, he touted the financial and employment benefits of his health centre, and called on the public to take political action.

“I urge all of you to contact your elected officials,” he said in his video. “It’s not acceptable behaviour from the CBC. It’s not acceptable behaviour from the NDP party.”

Goodenowe didn’t stop there. He also alleged there’s a wider “coordinated ‘shock and awe’ attack” underway.

“It has now come to our attention that these attacks may be coordinated by the ALS drug industry and the ALS association,” he wrote in an email entitled Love Diffuses Hate, sent to “friends, practitioners, clients and residents of Moose Jaw.”

Those bodies, Goodenowe says, are trying to get the provincial government to pay for a new ALS drug in Saskatchewan “and to set up an ALS clinical trial centre” in the province. He notes that CBC Saskatchewan recently did an interview about an ongoing Canadian clinical trial. 

“We have been singled out as a direct threat to the ALS drug industry,” he concludes. 

Denis Simard, executive director of the ALS Society of Saskatchewan, said that while he has no direct interaction with drug companies, his organization routinely asks the Saskatchewan government to pay for all drugs approved by Health Canada that may help ALS patients here.