Nomination for Paul G. Harch, M.D. for the 2010 Citizen's Medal

by William A. Duncan

Dr. Paul Harch should receive the 2010 Citizens Medal because his volunteer actions have directly reduced diabetic foot amputations for thousands of Americans since 2002. President Obama brought these amputations to the nation's attention at the August 2009 New Hampshire Health Town Hall meeting. Further, another treatment protocol Dr. Harch pioneered has enabled 80% of all treated brain-injured war veterans to return to duty, work or school. This saved the government nearly $2 million for each active duty veteran rescued.

This treatment protocol, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, or HBOT, is FDA-cleared and is approved for wound healing. It saturates the body's tissues with oxygen 7 to 12 times more oxygen than we can normally breathe.

In 2001, as a unpaid volunteer, as President of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association, Dr. Harch presented evidence to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that this treatment reduced Wagner Grade III diabetic foot amputations by 75%. In 2003, CMS approved payment. Today each year about 13,500 people do not need their feet amputated because of Dr. Harch's self-less effort. Only about 11% of the estimated 158,000 persons who have amputations because of diabetic wounds are receiving HBOT. However, this small number of persons is already annually saving approximately $298 million health dollars, over 96% of it for Medicare & Medicaid patients.

Dr. Harch's advancement of diabetic foot wound treatment has had the greatest impact on the nation's minority population. The 2010 Citizens Medal will recognize "citizens of the United States of America who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens." Preventing amputations and savings millions in the Medicare budget, with no financial gain to Dr. Harch, is an exemplary deed.

Further, for the past 20 years, Dr. Harch has developed a treatment for traumatic brain injury that is helping our veterans recover. He has been criticized and ostracized by many who simply cannot believe that a simple, available, safe, and inexpensive treatment can heal non-healing wounds in the brain, even decades after injury.
Dr. Harch has organized a national study, not funded by the government at all, to help rescue as many veterans of the war as possible. Despite these hardships, scores of veterans are now able to continue their lives, joining the thousands that have been treated by scores of doctors using Dr. Harch's protocol over the past 20 years.

I strongly urge that Dr. Paul Harch be considered for this award. William A. Duncan

PAUL G. HARCH, MD
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, 504-309-4948
Submitted by DR. WILLIAM A. DUNCAN, 46 DRAPER CIRCLE, STAFFORD, VIRGINIA, 22554 (703) 505-7530