Can DIV Ozone Injections Lead to Death?

by | Last updated: May 27, 2020 | 17 comments

During DIV ozone injections gas is introduced into the vein. This sounds like a bad idea and a recipe for a deadly gas embolism – say critics. Others claim that the injection cannot cause an embolism since oxygen is immediately absorbed by the blood. Which one is true? Is it possible to kill someone with DIV ozone injections?

Yes, DIV ozone injections can lead to death. Several such cases have been documented in Germany in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Additionally, animal experiments have shown that the injection of pure oxygen can be fatal. Still, DIV ozone injections are one of the safest ozone therapies.

How is this possible?

The same way there were isolated acts of people having been killed by kitchen knives, and yet in the overwhelming majority of cases kitchen knives are being used safely by millions of people every day.

As usual, context is everything.

So, let's switch on our critical thinking and explore the issue more in depth:

What is a gas embolism and why can it lead to death?

Gas embolism means the obstruction of an artery due to a gas bubble. [1]

When that happens, blood circulation is interrupted. Without blood the human body cannot function and vital organs like brain or lungs stop performing their life sustaining tasks. [2]

A gas embolism in the brain can lead to loss of consciousness, confusion, dizziness, slurred speech, stroke, and finally death. [3]

If the gas embolism occurs in the lungs, it can stop the lungs from functioning and breathing comes to a halt. [4]

Gas embolisms most frequently occur when deep sea divers come up to the surface too quickly, during surgery, when venous catheters are manipulated or inserted, or when lung tissue ruptures. [3]

The gas which causes gas embolisms is in most cases air, which is made of around 80% nitrogen. [2]

During DIV ozone injections neither air nor nitrogen is used, but pure oxygen mixed with small amounts of ozone.

Can the injection of oxygen cause a gas embolism?

Proponents of DIV ozone injections make the argument that it's as good as impossible to cause a gas embolism with an oxygen injection since one of the main functions of blood is to bind and transport oxygen molecules. 

Embolisms happen only with air, they say, which consists mostly of nitrogen. It cannot be absorbed by red blood cells and remains in gas form in the blood vessel for a long time, blocking blood circulation. 

Not so oxygen, they say. Oxygen is immediately absorbed and never remains as a gas bubble, so it can't block anything. 

Unfortunately, this is not correct.

Yes, red blood cells readily bind oxygen, but it's still possible to cause an embolism by injecting oxygen if the gas is infused too quickly or in too large amounts.

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This has been demonstrated during animal experiments [23], which are cited in Franz Kreutzer's book “Intravenous oxygen therapy”.[5]

Deaths in humans have also been reported after intravenous and intra-arterial injections of ozone/oxygen mix in Germany 30 to 40 years ago. [6]

The fatalities can be explained by the fact that, contrary to popular belief, it can take a while for oxygen to be absorbed by blood.

It's not an instantaneous process.

Until the gas is fully absorbed, it can get into the arteries in the brain, lungs, or heart, and cause an interruption of life sustaining blood flow.

This could lead to temporary hypoxia – lack of oxygen. So it's possible that a paradoxical situation occurs where the injection of oxygen can cause a fatal lack of oxygen.

This could lead to either transient symptoms, or, if the blocked blood vessel is large enough and the blockage sustained for too long – to death.

The question is though: what explains this cluster of deadly DIV cases which all happened in one country and only during a specific time period?

What happened in Germany 40 years ago?

In 1986 a publication with the title “Outsider Methods in Medicine” cited several deaths due to ozone injections which all occurred in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. [8]

The book is an excellent collection of well documented cases of fatalities but also severe complications like paralysis or severe cardiac complication at the hands of practitioners. A very good English translation can be found on Ben Whitmore's blog [6].

Of the six cited fatalities, one has been caused by intra-arterial injection of ozone/oxygen, one by an injection of ozone into soft tissue surrounding an ulcer, and one occurred 3 weeks after the injection and the primary cause was reported as pneumonia. [6]

Which means that three of the six can be clearly attributed to intravenous ozone injections.

So what explains this German cluster?

Given that such a increased number of serious complications after i.v. ozone injections has not occurred anywhere else, it makes sense to assume that it was because the practitioners in Germany followed a unique method which was not followed anywhere else. 

Usually, that’s because there is a local authority which sets a particular treatment standard which is followed by the rest of the practitoners.

In Germany 40 years ago, that authority was Dr. Hans Wolff.

A foto from Dr. Hans Wolff's book “The Medical Ozone”. This book was regarded in the 1970-80's by practitioners in Germany as the most important guideline on ozone therapy. It shows Dr. Wolff's infamous DIV technique which he designed in the hopes of preventing deadly gas embolisms but which produced the exact opposite effects. 

Dr. Hans Wolff’s deadly DIV technique

In 1979 the German doctor published a book, “The Medical Ozone”, where he describes the art of performing DIV ozone injections in a very specific manner which I’ve never seen or heard about anywhere else. [7]

There, he demonstrates that the intravenous injection of the ozone/oxygen gas mix has to be performed while the tourniquet is cutting off the patient’s blood circulation the whole time.

Usually, during any type of intravenous injections, the tourniquet is released the moment the needle has been inserted into the vein and before the nurse starts pushing the medication into the blood stream.

Not so with Dr. Wolff’s method.

Here, he stressed the importance of binding the tourniquet to the point that no pulse could be palpated and to remove it only 10 to 15 minutes after the injection has been completed.

Hans Wolff DIV foto 2 marked

“After 10-15 minutes the bind around the thigh should be removed, the patient can get up.”, reads the loose translation from Dr. Wolff's instructions. So, the doctor should inject the ozone WITH the bind firmly closing off the blood circulation and only release it after around 10 minutes.

Why did he devise such a peculiarity?

The idea was apparently to prevent gas embolisms. 

Hans-Wolff-DIV-foto-3

Here Dr. Wolff described exactly what his technique was supposed to prevent. He even made a sketch to demonstrate that the too quick infusion of oxygen could cause a long piece of the blood vessel being blocked off by O2. What he didn't realize is that the binding off of the vein and simultaneous injection of the gas in some cases caused exactly what he wanted to prevent.

The binding of the vein was supposed to prevent the oxygen from being transported into the general blood circulation until it was fully absorbed.

Unfortunately, it appears that his calculation was wrong and that his method caused exactly the problem which it was designed to prevent.

It’s easy to imagine that if the tourniquet was released before the gas was fully absorbed, then this must have resulted in a huge bolus of gas being catapulted through the blood vessels causing a devastating gas embolisms – with oxygen.

The fact that some autopsies in those cases could not find signs of embolism makes this still a probable cause. Since it is likely that until the autopsy was performed, the oxygen was finally absorbed, not leaving a trace behind.

Dr. Wolff’s badly designed technique explains why nowhere else has there been such a well documented cluster of fatalities after DIV ozone injections at the hands of trained practitioners.

Have people died due to the current method of DIV ozone injections?

So, if no one is using Dr. Hans Wolf’s method anymore, have there been any fatalities reported with how DIVs are performed nowadays?

If there were, then they must be well hidden, since I could not find a single well documented case in the past 30 years.

With well documented I mean a death at the hands of a known licensed practitioner at his/her practice who was performing the injection legally and where no one denied that it was an intravenous ozone injection which had been performed at the time of death.

A not well documented case would be something that happened at someone’s private apartment and where the participants denied that they performed what they were accused of, as happened in the case of two men and two women in Las Vegas. [9]

Apart from this Las Vegas account, I could not find a single case of a fatality after a correctly and legally performed intravenous ozone injection at the hands of a well trained practitioner, who was not using Dr. Wolff's method.

How many DIVs have been performed safely in the past 40 years?

Is it possible that the reason why there have been no well documented casualties due to DIV ozone injections in the past 40 years is because doctors stopped performing them?

Unlikely, since they only seem to have become more popular in the past few decades.

Here just a few examples:

Dr. Howard Robins says he has performed over 300,000 DIV ozone injections in the past few decades. He has seen zero fatalities in that time. [10]

Dr. Robert Rowen went with Dr. Robins to Sierra Leone to train doctors to perform DIV ozone during the Ebola pandemic around 5 years ago. [11] So he's been using DIV at least since then, probably longer. Dr. Rowen has also been supporting the use of DIV during the Coronavirus outbreak.

Dr. Olmedo in Spain, an oncologist, has been an ardent supporter and enthusiastic practitioner of ozone therapy, including DIV ozone injections. I reported about his love for ozone treatments during the Coronavirus crisis in an earlier article. [12]

A local practitioner in New Jersey has been performing DIV injections for the past 30 years. I estimate that the number of infusions he has done in that time lies at roughly 30,000, probably more. When I used to visit him more than 10 years ago, there were always 2 or 3 people waiting, so that number is a conservative estimate. 

There is also an individual who does the same on the West Coast who has been practicing for over 20 years. According to his calculations, he must have also performed around 30,000 DIVs in that time.

I've learned of another underground practitioner who, I was told, has performed around 5,000 DIVs in the past 10 years.

A doctor in Columbia has been advertising DIV in his practice. A few members of The Ozone Group traveled all the way to South America to receive 10 pass treatments and DIV ozone injections at the hands of the medic. 

Another practitioner in Mexico has been applying this method for the past 5 to 6 years, and at an increased rate during Corona times, he told me. 

Those are just a few examples of doctors who practice DIV. The total number of practitioners who use this method safely without causing any casualties may be in the hundreds or thousands worldwide. 

Which means that thousands of DIVs are being performed every year all around the world, in most cases without any major incidences.

How many people died due to oxyvenierung?

In addition there is the art of oxyvenierung which has been practiced in Germany for the past 60 years. Although it is not ozone therapy, it is very similar to DIV: it's the injection of pure oxygen intravenously. [13]

According to a representative of the Oxyven company (the maker of the machines which are used to perform oxyvenierung), a total of 100,000 to 150,000 intravenous oxygen treatments are performed every year.

This means that in the past 60 years 3 to 4 million intravenous oxygen injections have been performed.

How many people died during that time? Zero.

Add this to the few million DIV ozone injections which must have been performed in the past 40 years without a single casualty.

And you'll get a picture which shows that DIV ozone injections are one of the safest ozone modalities, as long as they are performed correctly.

How does the risk of DIV ozone therapy compare with other medical treatments?

What is also important is to keep things in perspective.

The several deaths due to ozone injections appear to be significant.

Until one looks at the deaths due to other medical interventions. 

A review from 2010 listed 26 well documented cases of death after chiropractic adjustments. [14

That’s 4 times more than what we have in ozone therapy so far.

There are 19 documented cases of people having died from drinking water. [20 – 22]

Between 150 and 500 people die each year in the US due to Tylenol, an over the counter medication. [15]

At least 3,000 people die every year due to aspirin, another over the counter medication. [16]

Which means that in the last 20 years those two medications have killed around 63,000 more Americans than ozone therapy.

But of course all of this pales in comparison to the genocide legally perpetrated by modern medicine every year: It is estimated that between 40,000 and 250,000 people die each year due to medical errors in the US alone. [17] [18]

Add this to around 128,000 deaths annually due to correctly taken medications [19], and you have a health threat of unprecedented proportions no one is getting hysterical about.

But just dare to mention the intravenous injection of ozone to any medical professional, and the reaction you'll get will be so unhinged, that you'd think there are piles of dead bodies from DIV treatments lying on every street corner.

Bottom line

Yes, intravenous ozone injections can lead to death, and yet they’re still one of the safest ozone treatments.

Just like handling a kitchen knife, drinking water, chiropractic adjustments, tylenol, or eating peanuts can kill a person, yet all of those things, in the overwhelming majority of cases, are used or consumed safely by millions of people every day.

So, although it is possible, the risk of death during intravenous ozone injections appears to be extremely small if the injection is performed safely and as long as the person performing the injection has been instructed properly.

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About the author:

PaolaI’m Paola the Crazy Old Ozone Lady behind The Power of Ozone. I’m a licensed naturopathic practitioner, natural health consultant, ozone therapy enthusiast, researcher, and ozone therapy analyst. I hold certificates in ozone therapy, hyperbaric ozone applications, Oxyvenierung, and the Andrew Cutler chelation. I own several ozone generators including a German hyperbaric 10 Pass machine. I have been using ozone for over 13 years, I’ve chelated with the ACC program for close to 5 years and I’ve been carnivore for nearly 1.5 years. This website serves as a resource for those who are interested in ozone therapy and other approaches to successfully manage chronic conditions.

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Information provided is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. No health claims for these products or treatments have been evaluated by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), nor has the FDA nor any other medical authority approved these treatments or products to diagnose, cure, or prevent disease. Neither The Power of Ozone nor the manufacturers of these items are responsible for the misuse of this equipment or the information on this page. It is highly advised to receive professional council from a licensed doctor before using ozone therapy or any of the mentioned products or tests on yourself.

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Do you want answers? Great! I got answers. Loads of answers. But before you ask your question, contribute to my “Make Paola Bionic” project first, then come back here and I'll get you all the answers you want.

17 Comments

  1. Alex Tur

    Hello Paola
    How often do you do the DIV course? What break do you take between DIV courses (10-12 injections)? Thank you very much, your website and your activities have helped me a lot …

    Reply
    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi Alex,

      thank you for following me but I am not sure what “course” you are referring to … ?
      I am not aware that I do such a thing nor that I ever claimed to?
      Unless I am blanking out on something?
      I don't see a need to do DIV courses of exactly 10 to 12 injections. Depending on what is being treated, it can be more or less or no courses at all but just continued treatments …

      Best,

    • Alex Tur

      thanks for the answer … I will ask differently .. is it possible to do DIV for a healthy person? If possible, how many injections? I don't think that a healthy person can do DIV every day for a year or five years! thanks

    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi Alex,

      yes, a healthy person can do DIV.
      As many as you want or can take.
      If someone is perfectly healthy, then there is no way to gauge if the DIV therapy works or not, since there are no symptoms to trace the progress or lack thereof on.

      No person could do DIV every day for a year or any number of years since the veins would give in at some point.

      Best,

    • Alex Tur

      I used the Rowan / Robins method and the DIV protocol, and there he indicated that the course of treatment is usually 10-12 injections .. Unfortunately, I did not find any other DIV methods on your website ..

    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi Alex,

      a course of 10 to 12 injections is not a specific DIV protocol. That recommendation is given for any type of ozone treatment: MAH, 10 pass, ozonated saline, ozone saunas, you name it. If you are “treating” a perfectly healthy human there is no wrong or right amount of DIV to give since there is no way to find out what could be wrong or right because of lack of symptoms.

      Best,

  2. John

    Paola, thank you so much for all this information, your website is a treasure.
    Would you have an email address for Dr Lahodny at his clinic you could give me?

    Reply
    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi John,

      sorry for the belated reply.

      I'm afraid I don't have an email address, but I have a phone number to his clinic in Austria: +43 2742 351818.

      Let me know if this helps.

      Best,

  3. Barry

    Please give a web address link that shows a list of recommended professionals who will give Ozone Therapy in their office, or please give a list of recommended names here, or place this list into your Ozone Therapy Forum.

    Reply
  4. Bernard Huang

    Very well documented article. Everyone should read this before they start their own ozone DIV. I asked Dr. Ahmad who did prolozone to my knee, he is too scared of DIV. He said his practice would be over if one single person dies from it.

    Reply
    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi Bernard,
      thank you!
      Best,

  5. Dean

    Well done Paola, thanks for your solid research and for addressing “the elephant in the room.”

    Reply
    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi Dean,
      thanks!
      Best,

  6. Graham

    Another great article Paola, did your research tell you what happened to this Dr Wolff? Was he struck off the medical board in Germany? Was he even a proper doctor?

    Reply
    • Paola Dziwetzki

      Hi Graham,
      He was 100% a proper doctor, yes.
      No, he was never struck off the medical board.
      As far as I understand none of his patients ever died from the DIV, it was all people who followed his technique.
      Best,

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This website contains links to vendors of products I endorse, including amazon.com. If you decide to make a purchase through one of my links, they will pay me a commission. This does not influence my opinion about the products, as you can see from my reviews.