After getting nicked for $124 last night by John Law for expired plate tabs, I was pretty steamed. I’m not a scofflaw, it was just one of the bits of detail that I manage that didn’t get managed. The reminder came in the mail at the time that I was preparing to go on vacation and get the kids back in school. I tried to do it over the web, but there was a problem, so I intended to do it at the licensing office, which is a few hundred yards from my work office. So damned convenient, but that bit of detail slipped through the cracks. I thought that $124 was a bit steep, so I went looked up the fee for expired tags and, by state law, the penalty is $42. It looks like the city of Bellevue, or Hellview, as my friend calls it, is adding on $82 in court costs. That is what had me steamed.
But then I read this article about people who were slipping through the regulatory cracks to sell machines and medical services to unsuspecting customers who were at their wits end.
A young mother in Los Angeles was desperate. A rare form of cancer was ravaging her 5-month-old son. Their doctor said chemotherapy offered the best hope for survival, a 1-in-4 chance.
Natalia Campos watched as her baby, Antonio, struggled in pain through the first few treatments. Then she learned of an alternative-therapy clinic that promised a cure, without pain, using a machine called a PAP-IMI.
Twice a day at the Bio-Energy Services clinic, Campos held Antonio while the 260-pound machine pulsed powerful electromagnetic waves into the tumor bulging from his neck. The treatments failed, and Antonio died — the victim not only of his cancer, but of what one health official later called a “major national health fraud.”
Who was behind it?
Pappas, 60, a Greek scientist, invented the Pap-Ion Magnetic Inductor, or the PAP-IMI, a medical device he describes as a rapid healing machine. It pulses the body with electromagnetic waves that he says repair damaged cells.
Charles “Chuck” Wallach made a living for 20 years selling insurance, private club memberships, even T-shirts.
A mathematician and a t-shirt salesman have a miracle medical device. Right.
I was reminded that there are services that the government provides that are worthwhile. The article is almost a case study in the nature of rights of citizens in a modern world, as the charlatans exploit every regulatory loophole available and government employees are hamstrung by rules and laws designed to protect individual liberties and privacy. The article is long, but a worthy read.
$124 does seem like more than it should cost to keep the public safe from expired license tabs (renewal was $78). But if that is the cost of keeping scumbags like Wallach and Pappas from killing people, I think I can handle it.