A sign on Lin's office door in Flossmoor on Thursday advises that the physician is on vacation.

Dr. Ming Te Lin, who practices in the Flossmoor Commons professional building, has seen an outpouring of public support. ( Todd Panagopoulos/Chicago Tribune photos)

A longtime pediatrician in Flossmoor with a loyal following could face disciplinary action — including losing his medical license — after admitting that he added cat saliva and vodka to patients' vaccines as a treatment for pet allergies, and that he gave immunizations to some children by mouth or nose instead of injection, a method not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Ming Te Lin, whose license was suspended last month by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, is scheduled to appear at a hearing before the agency Nov. 21 in Chicago.

“I am of the opinion within a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the continued practice of medicine by Ming Te Lin, M.D., presents an immediate danger to the safety of the public in the State of Illinois,” Dr. Brian Zachariah, chief medical coordinator of the state regulation division, testified in an affidavit.

The charges stand in bizarre contrast to an outpouring of support that has surfaced both in online posts and interviews conducted by the Tribune since Lin's license was suspended.

Lin declined to be interviewed for this story but told investigators that he had been vaccinating children orally for more than 10 years if the patient or family members had any history of autism, eczema or neurological disorders. He said that while some physicians do not believe that vaccines given by mouth or nose are effective, he disagreed, according to the complaint.

Meanwhile, longtime patients defend the doctor's methods.

“He was just a wonderful doctor,” said Helen Sabol, whose two sons, one of whom had severe asthma, were treated by Lin for decades with both traditional and homeopathic practices that she said brought results. “Anything he did, he explained everything first to make sure everything was OK,” said Sabol, whose sons are now adults.

Pediatric experts say that while Lin's following mirrors an interest in homeopathy that has surfaced in the last decade, it is important for parents to be extremely cautious when exposing children to therapies or remedies outside of conventional care.

“When I see kids in consult, I spend a lot of time explaining why parents should not have their child on that particular supplement, or encouraging them to find out more about the training or background of the practitioner they're working with,” said Dr. Hilary McClafferty, chairwoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics' section on integrative medicine. The section was formed in 2005, largely because of parental interest, to oversee research and offer recommendations for nonconventional remedies and treatments available for children.

According to the state regulation agency's complaint, in November 2015, Lin administered the hepatitis B vaccine orally to a 7-day-old boy and failed to obtain informed consent from his parent, or discuss the risks and benefits. He then signed an official certificate to show the baby was properly immunized. The FDA advises that this vaccine should be administered into the muscle, and Lin should have known that oral administration of the vaccine is not FDA-approved, the complaint said.

When interviewed five months later by state investigators, Lin admitted that he usually administered several other vaccinations by nose or mouth. They included RV, which protects against rotavirus; DTaP, for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or whooping cough; MMR for measles, mumps and rubella; and varicella, for chickenpox — among other vaccines.

Of those, the only vaccine approved for oral vaccination by the FDA is RV, or the rotavirus vaccine. The rest are approved for injection only, according to Dr. Ann-Christine Nyquist, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital Colorado and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases.

Lin also told investigators that he combined cat saliva, water and alcohol with vaccines and ran the mixtures through a machine called the WaveFront 2000, which he said he used to detoxify the vaccinations from mercury, according to the complaint. But thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, has not been used in vaccines for children since 2001, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lin, who said he “applied energy” to the vaccines using the machine, indicated that he obtained cat saliva by sticking a cotton swab in a cat's mouth, and then mixing it with a small amount of vodka and water, the complaint said. The machine was “located in a cluttered office without visible sterile and/or clean field,” according to the complaint. Nearby, there was a box filled with vials or tubes. After flipping three switches on a vial in the machine, Lin told the investigator it was ready to be given to a patient orally, the complaint said.

Neither Nyquist nor McClafferty had ever used or even heard of a WaveFront 2000, they said.

The complaint describes four other patients who had received vaccines by mouth or through the nose between 2006 and 2016. Investigators told Lin that those patients were given blood tests to see if they were protected from certain diseases and the tests showed that they were not immunized.

Lin told the investigator that he was not surprised that the blood tests were negative, because, he said, “they fight the body's immune system in a different manner,” the complaint said.

Failing to have children properly vaccinated poses a threat not only to the patient but also to the broader community, which could be unnecessarily exposed to diseases, Nyquist said.

“The danger of not getting any vaccines is you'll get the disease you're exposed to,” Nyquist said. “And the danger of getting a vaccine that's been tampered with is you could actually get sick from it. It could be dangerous.”

Adam Lewandowski, a 37-year-old teacher and head football coach at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, said he has been treated by Lin for a variety of ailments since he was a young boy and has never questioned the doctor's methods or integrity.

Lewandowski said he had severe allergies as a child, including allergies to dogs, cats, milk and feathers.

“He basically took care of all of that for me,” said Lewandowski, who doesn't oppose traditional medicine but noted that Lin used natural remedies whenever he could. Lewandowski did not recall receiving vaccines containing cat saliva.

“Because of him, I found that doing something that is naturally occurring is far more safe for the human body,” said Lewandowski, who added that he hasn't had reason to visit Lin in recent years, but said at times the waiting list for new patients was up to three years.

Public records show that Lin, 76, graduated from medical school at the Medical College of Taiwan in 1970 and has been affiliated with nearly two dozen hospital groups across the Chicago area. He has been certified with the American Board of Pediatrics since 1979 and is also certified by the American Board of Allergy and Immunology.

Lin has no criminal history nor previous disciplinary actions listed by the state regulation agency.

A sign posted outside the door of his second-story office door on Vollmer Road says the doctor will be out for October on vacation.

After declining to comment for this story, Lin sent the Tribune the text of an abstract of a clinical study published in The Faculty of Homeopathy in 2013, in which researchers tested the way cat-allergic adults reacted to pills containing cat saliva. The study, which included a control group that received a placebo, concluded that “the homeopathic medicine reduced the sensitivity reaction of cat allergic adults to cat allergen” but noted that further studies are warranted.

During the hearing in November, Lin will appear before the state regulation agency's professional board and its administrative law judge. After the hearing, the board will deliver its findings, conclusions and recommendations to the director of professional regulation, according to Terry Horstman, spokesman for the state agency.

Disciplinary action can include termination of Lin's license, suspension, probation, reprimand or censure. The license could also be ordered to remain in good standing. Illinois law also allows the board to issue fines, Horstman said.

While Nyquist, of the American Academy of Pediatrics, is not involved in Lin's case and declined to comment on the specifics, she said the altering of vaccines is not a common problem in the medical field. In general, the vaccines supported by the academy and FDA are acknowledged by doctors to be the safest and most effective ways to build immunity.

“The vaccines go through incredible testing to be safe and to know that they're going to work,” Nyquist said. “This isn't something that you make up in your backyard and your garage.”

The academy's McClafferty, who studies medical remedies and techniques outside conventional care, said there have been examples in recent years of complementary treatments that have shown positive outcomes in the health of kids. For example, in the August edition of the journal Pediatrics, she and other researchers discussed the growing body of research that shows how mind-body medicine — including guided imagery, clinical hypnosis and progressive muscle relaxation — has a positive impact on management of stress and chronic pain.

Such findings are welcomed by parents, she said, because of a growing interest in avoiding pharmaceutical remedies in favor of less-invasive and more cost-effective treatments. They also are popular in areas of poverty, where patients have less access to conventional care, McClafferty said.

Still, she said she is cautious when it comes to considering nonconventional remedies for her patients — and her own children.

“You just have to be careful,” McClafferty said.

vortiz@chicagotribune.com