I do not normally become involved in debates about doctors and what they did nor did not do that was right or wrong. However, the opinion expressed on a current thread seems to me to ignore the real point of what is going on with Dr. Jones and the very real danger that it poses for all of us. While I do not wish to get involved in personal denunciation I can only characterize the assesment of the writer as naive and superficial. May I suggest that the writer needs to wake up and smell not the roses, but the landfill.
I would agree with her that if the facts are such that Dr. Jones prescribed a treatment without seeing the patient, this is a potentially serious problem. It should not be done. However if the alternative is that the child or patient in question will not get treatment of any kind for a period of four to say six months, the length of time that if would take to be able to see Dr. Jones then it seems to me a valid medical argument should be made that given the enormously dmamging nature of the infection to delay treatment for that length of time is the greater of the two evils.
As for finding another doctor to treat the child that is the center of the complaint and action against Dr. Jones, has the writer actually gone out and tried to find a doctor who even knows what lyme disese is, much less one who has even the remotest idea of how to test, diagnose or treat it? All I can say is, good luck. Because Lady, you are going to need it, lots of it
The writer has suggested that the medical board should simply discipline Dr. Jones and forbid him to make prescriptions over the telephone. I must in all candor state that that is not what this board or doctors is after. They want to destroy Dr. Jones. Pure and simple. They do not want him praciticing medicine. Period. They further want to use him as an example of what is going to happen to anyone who transgresses medical dogma and orthodoxy. Any one who violates the medical infallilbity on lyme disease is to be destroyed. He is simply part of a larger campaign. The writer has simply ignored that brutal and very ugly fact.
The cruely, not to mention egos, ignorance and malice in such a postition are mind boggling. And let us not forget this little matter of money, lots of it. The argument has been advanced that they want to stop the overuse of antibiotics. That would seem to be a laudable goal. Except that long term antibiotics has been shown to be in a significantly large number of cases to be the only thing that can help or even cure this horrible disease.
Why is it that in other long term and intractible infections doctors even today do not have a problem prescribing long term ntibiotics. If you have TB and are on antibiotics and you do not take them in South Carolina you not only can, you will go to jail. They will not only lock you up, there will be somebody to come in and make sure that you take and actually swallow them thar pills.
The plain truth is that conventional medical practice is twenty years out of date in its understanding of this incredibly insidious and deadly illness. People out there are dying from an incurable bacterial infection ahd the medical establishment is not even keeping statistics on it. The CDC has admitted that the statistics on lyme disease are totally unreliable. The testing is totally unreliable. The conventional medicine cannot diagnonse the disease. And refuses to do so. Further they do not have a clue about how to treat it. But they can and will ruin any doctor who transgresses against their failed medical dogma.
Of course, what they are doing is not medicine, it is not science. It is voodoo. These doctors should simply strip down, put on a loin cloth and nose plug and paint themselves blue for all the good, the little good they are doing.
Let us assume that the medical establishment succeeds in doing what they fully intend to do. What will be the effect. Dr. Jones has a body of experience and understanding of this disease, particularly its manifestations in children which is irreplaceable and literally beyond price. That kind of clincal understanding is as rare as the sight of the morning star at high noon. He has helped over 8,000- yes, read that again people, EIGHT THOUSAND children with a deadly crippling disease. The CDC, I remind you, has said the lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis. Something the doctors keep on ignoring, to our great loss and peril.
I repeat Lyme Disease Can Kill You. The doctors who say it can be cured with a month or so of antibiotics are fools who do not what they are talking about. Why should anybody pay them one grain of attention.
So what happens if they drive Dr. Jones and Dr. Jemsek out of practice. Simple. You are going to have a much much harder time getting any kind of accurate diagnosisl, much less treatment in the future.
As for the children who will lose their doctor. They will not go back to conventional medical practice, which has failed them miserbly. If they did it will not only not do them any good if they do, it will be a total waste of time and only add to their suffering. As for the comment the Dr. Jones is old and has he or has he not trained somebody to take his place, such a truly callous comment is unworthy of reply.
So it is not simply a case of one patient, and one child. This case directly effects all of us. and if Dr. Jones is destroyed lots of people are going to get sick, suffer horribly and many of them are going to die. Think about it. Thomas Parkman
-------------------- Thomas Parkman Posts: 341 | From Columbia SC 29206 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Thomas, You have shown the complications that could affect all of us because of the attacks on our LLMDs. Even when there is no evidence to back up the charges, damage is done.
My opinions are concerning the overall picture, not addressing individuals' comments.
I doubt that any doctor can practice medicine in a way that pleases 100% of the patients. We all perceive things from a different perspective based on what we have experienced.
The total picture should be the major focus and how many patients will be adversely affected by any action against that doctor.
It was my understanding that doctors take the oath to "first do no harm."
The doctors who are bringing these charges obviously have no regard for the harm that they will bring to all those who need treatment for chronic Lyme disease. Have they forgotten the oath they took?
Saint Jerome said: "It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance."
Posts: 4638 | From South Carolina | Registered: Mar 2001
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One really nasty aspect of all this that I realized/discovered when I was relating this to a nurse who is a friend of mine and also is disabled with LD is that the person who made the complaint against Dr. J-please correct me if I am wrong-was involved in a custody battle over the child in question. I thing is obscene to drag a doctor into your divorce dispute. As for prescribing things without seeing the person in question, with regard to children, my nurse friend tells me doctors do it all the time. So why this business of making Dr. Jones into some kind of monster. It really is a disgrace. These people doing this to him do not know their shame for the shame that it is. Cheers Thomas Parkman
-------------------- Thomas Parkman Posts: 341 | From Columbia SC 29206 | Registered: Feb 2003
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breathwork
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 567
posted
The way that Dr. J slipped up is that he prescribed for a child that he has never seen in another state...It's the "another state" that broke the law, not that he prescribed over the phone.
Physicians are licensed by state not nationally, and every state has differing laws concerning prescribing medications. Hopefully his state laws will not be as rigid...
What then is brought into question is telemedicine which is being widely promoted as a good thing. Perhaps this can be a way to muddy the waters sufficiently so that the charges are not as clear.
He is unquestioningly a remarkably generous, kind man who deserves all the consideration that anyone can muster.
Thomas, as always, thank you for your wonderful words.
Posts: 1062 | From CA USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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Boomerang
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7979
posted
Go Thomas! You are "spot on"........what they are doing to this doctor is ridiculous.
They will do it to other respected LLMDS. Just give them time.
Posts: 1366 | From Southeast | Registered: Sep 2005
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I have been told that Dr. Jones problems arise from the fact that he is practicing medicine in another state. What nonsense. He is liscensed to practice medicine in Connecticut isn't he. Specialists treat people from all over the country, even the world. They even prescribe for them. What nonsense.
I would remind you of the full faith and credit clause in the Constitution of the United States (I hope I am getting the phrasing right, my brain just shut down). In it the contracts made and recognized in one state are to be honored and recognized in every other state. If, for example you go to Maine and are married your marriage is recognized in SC and elsewhere, even though the person who performed the marriage is able to do so only in Maine. He can do it in Maine, but cannot do it in SC.
Dr. Jones was practicing medicine in one state, His right to practice there and treat patients is recognized by every other state. As for prescriptions, same thing. One state reciprocates the respect given to a liscence in another state. Dr. Jones does not have a liscense to practice medicine in SC but he can practice medicine on patients from SC so long as he is in Connecticut.
Suppose however he was present at an accident on an interstate in Texas. He was thereby responsible for saving a person injured in an accident there and prescribed medication. Don't try to tell me the authorities in Texas or in his own state would dream of going after him.
The whole thing is a set up. A Kangaroo court, pure and simple. To have such a doctor dragged into a child custody battle is a disgrace. The ducks in Connecticut should be ashamed of themselves. Thomas Parkamn
-------------------- Thomas Parkman Posts: 341 | From Columbia SC 29206 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I have been told that Dr. Jones problems arise from the fact that he is practicing medicine in another state. What nonsense. He is liscensed to practice medicine in Connecticut isn't he. Specialists treat people from all over the country, even the world. They even prescribe for them. What nonsense.
I would remind you of the full faith and credit clause in the Constitution of the United States (I hope I am getting the phrasing right, my brain just shut down). In it the contracts made and recognized in one state are to be honored and recognized in every other state. If, for example you go to Maine and are married your marriage is recognized in SC and elsewhere, even though the person who performed the marriage is able to do so only in Maine. He can do it in Maine, but cannot do it in SC.
Dr. Jones was practicing medicine in one state, His right to practice there and treat patients is recognized by every other state. As for prescriptions, same thing. One state reciprocates the respect given to a liscence in another state. Dr. Jones does not have a liscense to practice medicine in SC but he can practice medicine on patients from SC so long as he is in Connecticut.
Suppose however he was present at an accident on an interstate in Texas. He was thereby responsible for saving a person injured in an accident there and prescribed medication. Don't try to tell me the authorities in Texas or in his own state would dream of going after him.
The whole thing is a set up. A Kangaroo court, pure and simple. To have such a doctor dragged into a child custody battle is a disgrace. The ducks in Connecticut should be ashamed of themselves. Thomas Parkamn
-------------------- Thomas Parkman Posts: 341 | From Columbia SC 29206 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Yep.
Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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breathwork
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 567
posted
Thomas, I agree with you in principle completely.
The difference, fine point, that they are hanging this on, is that he prescribed for a patient in another state without actually seeing and examining the patient in person.
A medical license does not fall under the same restrictions or privileges as a contract. Doctors must be licensed in the state in which they practice. They cannot practice in other states without reciprocity established, or by becoming licensed in that state. That is the point of law that they are using to go after him.
Now, some states automatically have reciprocity with one another, meaning that if I were licensed in one state, I could automatically be considered a licensed physician in some others. But, this isn't an across the board sort of thing.
I agree that it's bogus bull...especially with telemedicine becoming more common, which muddles the licensure and reciprocity provisions already in place in each state.
I did not mean to imply that the investigation is in any way anything but a targeted witch hunt. I only wanted to share what the powers that be were using as their legal tool to go after him.
It's all in the grey areas of the law now, which will mean that his defense strategies and team will have to be on the ball...which means that he will need financing to support a substantive defense. In other words, we gotta support the guy in any way we can financially and with letters if we have been his patients.
I am in complete agreement with you on this. Dr. J is one of our heros and his case could open a floodgate of accusations against our LLMDs if a stand isn't made here and now.
I am distgusted with our legal system and the gall of the rats that are dedicating themselves to going after physicians who are bravely and generously working like dogs to help us.
Carol Ann
Posts: 1062 | From CA USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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I agree with those about over the phone scripts...
I have been prescribed FAR FAR more serious, toxic drugs over the phone by physicians in MANY differents fields over the years then some antibiotics to tide me over until an appt......
Posts: 437 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I find it very odd, to say the least. People consult with specialists in any and every field of medicine every day of the week, except after lunch Friday, Saturday and Sunday of course! Oh, my you mean to tell me that Dr. Jones even sees patients on Saturday and Sunday. Why, how unprofessional of him. He is setting a standard of service-what on earth is that-that puts the rest of the good doctors to shame. So they do this.
As for this business of reciprocity, if they are going to punish Dr. Jones they might as well throw a lot of other doctors in jail. Cheers. Thomas Parkman
-------------------- Thomas Parkman Posts: 341 | From Columbia SC 29206 | Registered: Feb 2003
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breathwork
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 567
posted
I couldn't agree with you more, Thomas...It's all a farse...and it's just plain wrong!
Posts: 1062 | From CA USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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-------------------- "Help Or Be Helpless" Please visit "Activism" board daily. See the threads regarding the IDSA Guidelines crisis and the threads about Dr. Charles Ray Jones and decide how best to help today! Posts: 1265 | From does not list | Registered: Jun 2004
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