PHD board member accused of lying in bio

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Allen Banks, the Careywood resident who sits on Panhandle Health District’s board, said the newfound commotion over his curriculum vitae remains a mystery to him.

“I don’t really see what the problem is,” he added.

The problem was a tip sent to the Hagadone News Network on Wednesday afternoon, where a reader who wished to remain anonymous alleged that the longtime board member had lied about the credentials he listed on his Panhandle Health biography.

That biography, which as of Friday afternoon remained up on the health district’s website, lists Banks' education — a PhD in chemistry from the University of Colorado — and area of research — prolotherapy — but it also makes the following claim:

“Dr. Banks teaches at the University of Wisconsin and is a world recognized expert in prolotherapy, a technique for healing injured ligaments, particularly in the lower back.”

The University of Wisconsin’s payroll, administration, human resources and registrar’s office all confirmed with the Hagadone News Netework they have no record whatsoever of Banks ever teaching at the University of Wisconsin or any of its 12 campuses.

The Hagadone News Network investigated the remainder of his biography and found it accurate. Banks received his PhD in chemistry from the University of Colorado in 1975. His 1991 paper published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Medicine, A Rationale For Prolotherapy, is an often-cited foundational text used by medical professionals around the globe invested in the study of prolotherapy, an injection-based medical therapy to treat chronic musculoskeletal pain.

When asked about the teaching discrepancy, Banks insisted that he did, indeed, teach at the university.

“I lectured at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school,” he told The Hagadone News Network. “It was continuing medical education for physicians. I was kind of an expert on the biochemical basis for why prolotherapy worked, and I was asked to speak for several years on the subject.”

After conducting an internal investigation, officials at the University of Wisconsin confirmed that Banks was an invited speaker at the medical school’s continuing education workshop, but that was the extent of his involvement with the university.

“The various medical schools around the country hold these conferences,” Banks said. “The doctors have to get certified, so they fly in, they listen to the lectures, they take part in the conference for a few days, they get credentialed, and they fly off.”

In Banks’s eye, the mistake — the present tense use of the word “teach” in the biography — is the result of the bio being authored years ago. Banks couldn’t say how many years he lectured at the conferences, but he said he was certain that when whomever wrote the bio, he was a yearly and active participant. He further directed at least some of the onus on Panhandle Health.

“What’s surprising to me is, nobody at the health district ever asked me these questions,” Banks said. “Why didn’t it ever get changed?”

That time lapse, he concluded, is what explains the discrepancy, and that changing the present tense of “teach” to the past tense of “taught” should be the end of the matter.

Only, it isn’t.

School officials take exception to Banks’s characterization that he teaches — or taught — at one of the top-ranked medical schools in the Midwest.

“Being an invited speaker at a continuing medical education workshop is different than teaching at the university as an instructor or faculty member,” said Meredith McGlone, director of news and media relations for the University of Wisconsin.

Banks, meanwhile, circled back to the genesis of the story: an anonymous tip he characterized as a blatant attempt to discredit one of the key voices of dissent against the health board’s mask mandate. The districtwide mandate has been a source of fiery debate, both among the general public and among the individual board members.

Banks, an opponent of a mask mandate since the dawn of the COVID-19 emergency, has often questioned the voracity of the virus, the reliability of testing, and — at times — the very existence of COVID-19 itself.

That opposition helped delay a Kootenai County mask mandate until late July, then helped the board rescind the mandate in October, only for the board to bring it back in November. That November vote passed 5-2; the mandate’s extension into April passed on Jan. 28, only this time by a 4-3 decision.

“As the old saying goes, if you’re taking flak, you must be over the target,” Banks said. “I think it’s pretty clear [the anonymous tip] must be [about the mask mandate]. At the previous meeting, I had two votes to remove the mask mandate. At the last meeting, I had three votes. They’re terrified I’ll get four votes. So now you see this story.”

As for the University of Wisconsin, Banks said he understands the school’s position but politely agrees to disagree.

“They’re probably looking at the point of view of, ‘Did this guy say he was a professor?’” Banks said. “I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think it’s right to say I’m a professor. But you teach this course several years in a row, you’re about to go work for some institution or another, so you put on your resume, because they might be interested that you have some expertise in the field. If you taught this course, you’d probably list that on your resume.”

When Marlow Thompson, chair of the Panhandle Health board, was reached for comment, he directed The Hagadone News Network to Panhandle Health District's public information officer, Katherine Hoyer.

HNN contacted PHD on Thursday for comment, following up Friday to ask the district when Banks's bio was posted and who's responsible for updating it — the health district or the board member — as well as how the process for how biographical information posted on the site gets verified. Hoyer said not everyone with knowledge of those processes and histories were at the office Friday, and that Panhandle Health would answer those questions once the information could be ascertained.