Under Our Skin Page #8

and an economic disease

as much as it is

a bacterial-borne infection.

My office was stormed by

the Board of Nurse Examiners.

I got a letter around 2000

saying that I was a subject

of an investigation.

A complaint went in from a physician

to the Virginia Board of Medicine

stating that I was following

unusual practices in treating

Lyme disease patients.

Here we are in Raleigh, North Carolina,

and we're on day two

of the Jemsek trials.

We're going.

Dr. Jemsek's license

is suspended for one year

stayed in the conditions

to be determined.

That concludes the hearing

in this matter.

A Charlotte doctor must

surrender his medical license

for the way he treats Lyme disease.

Less than an hour ago,

the state medical board ruled

that Dr. Joseph Jemsek

acted inappropriately

when treating some patients.

The board suspended

his license for one year.

- I thank you all.

- Well, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Medical boards don't act on their own.

They need a complaint

to initiate an investigation,

and we've been told by the medical boards

that the great majority of complaints

don't come from doctors or patients,

but they come from insurance companies

trying to get rid of doctors

who cost them a lot of money.

There has been for many years

a controversy

within the medical community

about how best to diagnose

and treat Lyme disease.

We allege that Dr. Jones

prescribed an antibiotic

to a patient he did not know

and had never examined.

As a mom, my kids were sick.

I left no stone unturned.

I finally found somebody that recognized

what their problem might be.

It was treated, in my opinion,

appropriately,

and my kids are better now because of it.

This whole thing

is kind of ridiculous, I think.

It was really nothing more

than a witch hunt

on behalf of my ex-husband.

He called me,

and he said he was going

to lodge a complaint

against every doctor

that I took the children to

unless I agreed not to bill him

for half of the medical care.

How could my dad have done this?

He said, "Well, you don't

have Lyme disease."

Dr. Jones is just making it up

so he can get money,"

and I thought,

"You know what? No, he isn't,"

because I was always sick,

and then, when he told me,

my brother, and my family

that we had Lyme disease

and we got treated for Lyme disease,

we got so much better.

Did you testify contrary

to Dr. Jones' opinion

in a criminal case

in the last several years?

Yes.

Did you ever call him a "nut" in public?

Patients develop physical complaints,

but it's got a psychological basis.

Dr. Jones is the best

pediatric Lyme doctor

in the United States,

so the implications for me

is that if my son's Lyme comes back

or if we contract it again,

then what you'll be taking away

is the one person that can truly help us.

What kind of response would you get

if this was a kid with cancer?

Everybody and their mother

would say that this is inhumane.

Dr. Jones is not

the heart of the problem.

I think the opposition,

they're going to use him

as an example if they can,

perhaps to frighten other doctors

so that they won't want

to get involved in care.

I was reviewed by the investigators

for four years.

As long as I'm not too well-known,

it's okay to do what I do,

but if I would become very

well-known or very outspoken,

I think that I would probably

lose my medical license.

It got to the point

where I would tell people,

"Don't tell the office you're

coming in because of Lyme."

Let's leave this alone.

Just let us do our work.

If you don't want to treat that stuff,

that's fine,

but you can't make it go away.

It's not going away.

Dear Lord and Heavenly Father,

thank you for this meal,

and help it nourish our bodies

and help us advance your kingdom

and just let the truth prevail

for Dr. Jones

and help him help others,

in Jesus' name, Christ, amen.

We're here today to remember Brett Paul.

- Doris Grade.

- Robert Baird.

Geri Teitelbaum Fosseen.

I think it really points out

how dangerous this illness is.

We're the heartland of the nation,

and our people are dying here

from Lyme disease.

My son was 31 years old,

and he died from Lyme disease

because no one would treat him.

I keep wondering

what else I could have done.

Should I have taken her to Europe?

Should I have taken her somewhere

where somebody would have done something?

But we don't seem to care

in this country.

They just didn't try to help.

When we tried to get medication for her,

it was almost impossible,

because the medical profession

is afraid to give medication for this.

If I was asked whether

Lyme disease could be fatal,

I would say not in my experience

and not suggested by any

of the existing literature.

My husband died

two months ago of Lyme disease.

It's specifically

on his death certificate.

By the time they

figure it out, it's too late.

The last words my daughter spoke to me,

her last words to us,

"Mommy, they're gonna kill me,"

and they did.

I am one of the many

that will speak for her now.

She shouldn't have had to die.

I'm angry at the fact that

there's nobody there to help me.

I'm angry at the fact that

this disease is being ignored.

I'm angry at the fact

that there's a Hippocratic oath out there

that these doctors

are supposed to heal me,

and they ignored me,

and they put a price on my life,

which was nothing.

Nobody was there to help me, and instead,

they blamed it on me by saying

it was all in my head.

We were having dinner,

just, you know, watching TV,

and she started having a reaction.

It was a mild seizure at first,

and it progressively got worse.

She was having problems breathing,

and then stopped breathing all together.

The first doctor that we met with,

first statement was,

"Lyme doesn't do this.

That's not what you have."

Three of the doctors all asked

if she's seeing a psychiatrist

because they all just assumed

it was in her head.

My body had been

losing ability for a long time,

cognitive function,

physical ability to do things,

and I'd been keeping it down,

you know, working around it,

adjusting my life, so you know what?

I don't want to hear it, and I'm sorry,

but I have been dealing with it,

and now we have been dealing with it.

That's ten years.

That's a long time to be patient.

I mean, it's frustrating

to hear doctor after doctor

after doctor say either,

A, "Lyme doesn't exist,"

or, "Lyme doesn't do this," or, you know,

"Well, what you're experiencing

isn't Lyme."

It's almost like they've been

trained or programmed

that this is what they're

supposed to say.

It's really madness, you know?

There's something wrong.

I don't hear it in any other disease,

never heard it in my life.

So there's something funny.

I don't know what

that something funny is.

Attorney General Blumenthal

of Connecticut

has taken the historic move

of starting an investigation

into the panel members who wrote

the Infectious Diseases

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