HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Retired doctor Parker Griffith’s campaign to keep a north Alabama congressional seat held by Democrats for generations was going smoothly until his opponent released 20-year-old documents that accuse him of manipulating his cancer patients’ radiation doses.

The accusations, which Griffith disputes, are contained in a previously sealed internal review done during a bitter feud between Griffith and the hospital where he once worked. The review claims Griffith manipulated the doses to keep patients in treatment longer and make more money.

The controversy is dividing north Alabama’s medical community and slowing Griffith’s campaign just as voters have started to pay attention to the race.

Griffith’s medical license is in good standing and supporters say he provided excellent care, but Republican candidate Wayne Parker has begun airing television ads about Griffith’s past, saying it raises questions about his fitness for office.

Griffith and Parker, who runs an insurance agency, are competing to replace Rep. Bud Cramer, a Democrat who has held the seat since 1990.

“There’s been talk about it for years,” Parker said in an interview. “I don’t know many physicians that Huntsville Hospital has voted to revoke their privileges from. My guess is there are not a lot.”

Griffith claims the hospital orchestrated the report to damage the reputation of two competing cancer clinics he had opened, which were threatening hospital revenues.

“It was a retaliatory review,” Griffith said in an interview. “I had built a cancer center that was much, much improved over the care that people were getting at Huntsville Hospital.”

A hospital spokesman declined to discuss the hospital’s split with Griffith. But Robert Williams, chief of medicine at the time, said he initiated the evaluation after getting complaints from staff about the radiation oncology unit.

The hospital hired two outside oncologists who said they found Griffith’s charts showed unusual radiation patterns that at times fell outside accepted standards of care, with radiation often stretched over numerous visits and delivered in lower dosages than is customary.

“My personal opinion is that he was maximizing profits in the radiation therapy business and that much of the radiation therapy was of no value and was just done to maximize revenue,” Williams said.

No evidence, such as malpractice lawsuits, has surfaced to corroborate the accusations. The Alabama Board of Medical Examiners has no record of complaints or disciplinary actions against Griffith.

Williams said he wasn’t sure why nothing more serious came of the allegations.

Another doctor who worked alongside Griffith said Williams and other old-guard doctors resented Griffith’s success and were looking to get him off the hospital staff.

Greg Cotter, now an accreditation officer with the American College of Radiation Oncology, said he, Griffith and others pushed the hospital to improve its equipment and staff in the cancer unit but the hospital resisted.

When Griffith began taking away their patients, they “just went crazy,” Cotter said.

“He was a very good doctor,” Cotter said. “His patients absolutely loved him.”

Griffith, who filed an unsuccessful $2.5 million lawsuit against the hospital claiming anticompetitive practices, said the hospital gave the outside reviewers only partial charts to review. He said if the allegations were true, he would have at least been stripped of his license.

He has been lining up former patients and medical colleagues who strongly defend his care.

“I cannot stand people telling lies on somebody that I know is a good man,” said Paul Harris of Florence, whom Griffith treated for lung cancer in 1979. “If it weren’t for him and the good Lord, I wouldn’t be here today.”