Once-Amish Man Running Unlicensed Health Facility Claimed To Have Treated Over 70 Cancer Patients

Following the news on once-Amish Eddie R. Gingerich’s arrest and felony charges connected with running an unlicensed health facility, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported more on the story.

Reporter Clark Kauffman provides more details on Gingerich’s clientele, and how his practice was outfitted. We also learn more on some individual patient cases – two that turned out poorly, and one with a positive outcome.

Claims of Treating Many Cancer Patients

One thing that jumps out immediately to me: it turns out Eddie Gingerich claims to have treated dozens of cancer patients:

Police allege that between April 2023 and February 2026, Gingerich knowingly held himself out as a medical provider and dietician and performed medical evaluations, diagnoses, treatments and procedures without the required licensure.

In court filings, Gingerich has indicated he never progressed in school past the eighth grade but, according to Appanoose County law enforcement, he claims to have treated more than 70 cancer patients at the Old Cabin Retreat.

That claim makes you wonder – did they all really have cancer? In the previous post, we heard about how Gingerich was actually apparently diagnosing cancer, somehow. It may be that some of those people were falsely, or to be more charitable, “incorrectly” diagnosed.

It may also be the case that some did in fact have cancer and opted for treatment at Old Cabin Retreat rather than, or perhaps in addition to, more conventional treatment. In any case, one wonders what his qualifications were to be doing this.

One of the charges Gingerich faces is “Operating a hospital without a license”. Along those lines it appears that it had an array of amenities akin to a treatment center or clinic:

Court records show the building in rural Centerville is outfitted with therapy and treatment rooms, patient rooms with hospital-style beds, an oxygen chamber, a heat bed, a body scanner of some type, and an office with laboratory equipment and medical charts.

I suppose those details would be a part of the authorities’ case supporting that charge. The reporting also states that the facility attracted business over social media:

Court records indicate the Old Cabin Retreat advertises on social media by stating, “Helping the sick – spiritually, mentally and physically, by the Word of God and with God-given foods and herbs!! Bring us your worst case. Warning: There are no MDs here, only the wisdom God taught us, and to him be all the glory. Memberships only.”

I would say that text at least seems to make clear that people shouldn’t expect to be treated by conventionally-trained or certified medical professionals.

Investigated With The Help Of A Woman Wearing A Wire

There is also information on how Gingerich was investigated, apparently at least partly without his knowledge, in 2023. An ex-Amish woman named Rosemary Miller assisted law enforcement in an undercover probe, wearing a wire and carrying a coffee mug equipped with a camera.

The ensuing search warrant application gave insight to what Gingerich was providing, and charging, patients:

During Miller’s visits to the retreat, Gingerich had Miller “pee in a cup and spit in a cup,” and then diagnosed her with various illnesses, including cancer, prosecutors alleged.

As part of a search warrant application in the 2023 case, the Appanoose County Sheriff’s Office alleged that after Gingerich collected the samples from Miller, he spoke to her about her diet, indicated he could tell her kidneys were stressed by the redness of her eyes, and told her that her pancreas and liver had “carcinoma cells in them,” suggesting she had cancer. He allegedly charged Miller $75 for the visit, with future visits to be billed at $175 each.

Gingerich’s attorney called the October and November 2023 search “illegal”, maintaining that “The facility is run by an Amish man engaged in religious practices consistent with the tenets of he and his patrons’ beliefs.”

As noted in the prior post, Gingerich at some point left the Amish church. But apparently he was a church member in good standing for a significant part of his time running the clinic. Official allegations suggest the facility was quite lucrative, with Gingerich tallying well over $800,000 in “illicit proceeds”.

An Amish Boy With Diabetes, and a Woman With Stage 4 Cancer

The court records include accounts of two patient cases with negative outcomes. One case involved an Amish child with diabetes:

County law enforcement officials allege beginning in July 2023, an 11-year-old Amish child was being treated for diabetes at the Old Cabin Retreat. According to the sheriff’s office, while being treated there, the child stopped taking his insulin and other medications.

Three weeks later, deputies claimed, the youth was “extremely ill and vomiting,” prompting his parents to take him to a licensed emergency treatment facility, from which he was life-flighted to Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines.

The second involves a woman with stage 4 lung cancer:

…a Centerville police officer contacted the sheriff’s office about a female relative coming to the Old Cabin Retreat to be treated for stage 4 lung cancer at a cost of $3,500 per week.

Two months later, the officer’s relative died, and family members reported the woman had stayed at the retreat for six days, where she was told to stop taking all medications and was then treated with a special diet and supplements.

At the time there were reportedly 10 other patients at the facility. Court records show law enforcement was actually at the facility as far back as December 2021, conducting a death investigation before executing a search warrant.

A Positive Patient Experience Story

There is also a story in the reporting of a patient with a positive experience – which seems to be referring to Old Cabin Retreat.

The account showed up in a search warrant application of a Centerville woman who appeared in a Facebook post, posing with two of her children in front of Old Cabin Retreat.

Then, though it doesn’t seem to be explicitly stated, a second post of hers suggests she got help from “a man” used by the Amish:

In a separate post, the woman wrote that one of her daughters had an unspecified disease and that she, the mother, had decided to go against the advice of the medical team at the University of Iowa Hospitals where the doctors recommended radiation treatments.

The woman wrote that she then took her daughter to “see a man” used by the Amish community. “My daughter no longer has this disease,” she wrote. “Praise the Lord!”

Eddie Gingerich has not yet entered a plea in the case. I checked sources including the Iowa Courts Online Search but wasn’t able to find information on his next court appearance. We’ll update this story when more is known.