TOUCHED BY LYME: Latest on Dr. Charles Ray Jones
Connecticut’s Lyme-treating pediatrician has lost his appeal to the state Supreme Court. This does not change his status in any way. The appeal focused on a particular point of law, and the court did not agree with his argument. However, due to a wide variety of circumstances, Dr. Jones is in need of immediate financial help. Dr. Sheila Statlender, a long time supporter of Dr. Jones, gives the following explanation.
Update: As of August 25, about half of the money that Dr. Jones needs has come in. He is very grateful to all who have donated, but more is needed urgently to keep his doors open! To make a donation (no amount is too small), and for more information about Dr. Jones, please click here.
It’s wonderful to read all of the posts in support of Dr. Jones and outraged on his behalf! He is preparing an update which will be available shortly.
In the meantime, he wants to assure you that he continues to practice, retains his license, and remains committed to treating our children afflicted with TBDs. His vital contributions continue both in and out of his office: he is scheduled to present in a plenary session at the ILADS conference in San Diego this year, and also will be a contributor for a cutting edge conference on PANDAS/PANS and Lyme, scheduled for November in Providence.
Many of you have asked how to send donations to help him during this difficult time. His office is working on setting up a website to allow online donations, but it won’t be ready for a few more days. In his recent update, Dr. Jones estimated that he would need to raise $40,000 by August in order to keep the office open. About $13,000 in donations have come in, which is wonderful, but it is not enough. If you would like to donate, please send your contribution, in whatever amount is possible for you, made out as follows: Charles Ray Jones, M.D. (be sure to write “gift” in the memo field!)
Mail to:
Charles Ray Jones, M.D.
111 Park Street – First Floor
New Haven, CT 06511
or click here to donate on-line now
Many of you also have asked about the CT Supreme Court decision, and this will addressed more fully in a subsequent update by Dr. Jones shortly. The hearing was focused on a very specific point of law which would impact all physicians: whether the burden of proof used in medical board proceedings is too light, making it too easy for them to find physicians at fault when complaints are lodged against them. Also, it pertained to charges from the first case only, involving 2 children from Nevada (neither of whom was harmed in any way), their RN mom, and a contentious divorce in which the dad was challenging the mother’s medical decisions.
Had Dr. Jones prevailed, if I understand correctly, it could have had the effect of overturning all of the findings against him. I attended the Supreme Court hearing and was struck, among other things, that the thrust of the questioning seemed focused on protecting the public from errant physicians. Would the adoption of a more stringent burden of proof make the job of medical boards harder, not only in Dr. Jones’ case, but in complaints against all physicians?
The long ordeal has cost Dr. Jones dearly, in terms of stress, hours necessary to review, prepare and respond to the complaints, staff time to meet the practice monitor’s demands, legal fees, and so forth. It is wonderful that some of his colleagues have started a fund which has been meeting the cost of the monitor’s fees, but it is not enough. He really needs our support, both financial and more, in order to continue.
Many thanks for your consideration!
Warmly, Sheila
I wonder if websites like GoFundMe or Change.org would help Dr. Charles Ray in any way.
A medical board is about as close to fascism as you can get in America. You are guilty unless you can absolutely, without a doubt, prove your innocence. You find yourself in a kangaroo court, with a board full of Sanctimonious, self-serving hypocrits, whose main concern is justifying their own existence.
The Supreme Court and insurance mafia are practicing medicine without a license. Where is science? All of these extortion tactics and butting into (private) relationships between physician and patient should be rejected.
It is so sad that this continues to go on– is allowed to happen! Oh why can’t they let the poor doctor just do his work? Is it not enough that he’s dedicated his every waking hour to helping the suffering of children with lyme?
I attended a meeting at the NY legislature in Albany about 10 years ago that was also attended by a large group of lyme patients, doctors and insurance representatives. Because of this, they passed a decision that the medical associations had to back off the harrassment of the lyme doctors because there was just not enough evidence to prove that chronic lyme did not exist and did not require treatment.
I’m wondering if a petition could be put to the state assembly in CT to make some decisions and intervene in these matters.
Just a thought!
Dear Dr. Charles Ray Jones.
I saw you in the video under our skin, so I send you my prayers for help.
The video helped me cure the Lyme when I learned that I was mis- diagnosed by Ksr. & IDSA corruption.
My lyme – bobesia experiance has left me financially hurt, and dismay of the whole lyme touch buracracy.
I will protest at the ISDA conference in San Francisco in oct 5 for you…
blessing for healing
stan
I’ve been lyme-disabled for six years. I don’t have disposable income anymore. Regardless, it was a no-brainer to donate to Dr. Jones. The loss of his voice in the lyme community would be a tragedy.
It won’t matter if he loses his license, or just goes bankrupt fighting this injustice. He will still be gone.
Not on my watch.
Leave him alone …PLEASE! How many kids has he helped??
Shiela, thank you for the detailed note above giving us the latest on our beloved Dr. Jones!
We were devastated as well on this huge loss for HIM/our llmds.
I was lucky enough to TALK to Dr. Jones on the last phone raiser since I don’t do online donations; SNAIL MAIL. He was delightful as I’ve listened to him in the lyme conferences taped for our huge community.
I’ll continue donating EVERY time he needs help.
GOD BLESS YOU DR. JONES FOR CURING AND GETTING INTO REMISSION the younger generation.
Regarding the quote from above: “protecting the public from errant physicians”. I would love to see the public protected from MDs who are “errant” meaning ones that know nothing about Lyme. I took my daughter to “errant physicians” for 8 months here in CT and she got sicker and sicker before someone out of CT diagnosed her with late stage Lyme. In fact, her blood test came back CDC POSITIVE and the lead MD at the pediatric medical group here in CT said it was positive but that they were NOT going to treat her for Lyme! I even asked another MD in the group practice for an IGG test and she raised her voice on me snapping daughter did NOT need that. This group even told me NOT to take daughter to Dr. Jones! Wow. Why can’t we haul these “errant physician” in front the CT medical board? Or better yet, educated them about Lyme? My daughter was in bed literally for five years with Lyme and missed all of high school because these pediatric MDs did not treat daughter for Lyme and did not care that she continued to get sicker. Daughter is alive today because Dr. Jones accepted her as a patient. I find it obscene and inexcusable that MDs in CT could not diagnose late stage Lyme. Yet these CT MDs are calling Dr Jones “errant”. Their accusations are absurd. And these CT MDs have never been seen by the CT medical board for their “errant” treatment of daughter. Thankfully, Dr. Jones has the gumption to stick out the legal battle and the dedication to his young patients to get them well. His 10,000 patients are both fortunate and alive to have had Dr. Jones as their MD.
Your case sounds exactly like ours. For 13 years, despite positive IgM western blots, our pediatrician, a neurologist, two orthopedists, an endocrinologist, rheumatologist and infectious disease dr refused to treat her! She too has tertiary stage neuro Lyme with encephalopathy of the brain including severe hypoperfusion (lack of capillary blood flow) and severe hypometabolism (similar to Alzheimer’s patients) in all her lobes, basal ganglia and cerebellum. I’m outraged that my daughter, who is now 18 and had to defer college, because of all their mistakes, is suffering. She started with symptoms at age 5, but because of the outlandish CDC and IDSA guidelines,that require five specific IgG bands to constitute Lyme (and at the time my daughter only and IgM bands), they would not treat her! We found Dr Jones in 2012, thank God and he ordered western blots fro Igenex and quest that showed IgG and IgM positive plus Bart and Babs. We had the advanced labs culture test and that was positive (they sent pictures of the spirochetes) and she had the antineuronal antibody test that indicated she is likely for PANs. I was disgusted to hear these errant drs say it was depression when she had such insidious cognitive issues and bonecrushing fatigue. They should all be disbarred and fast instead of chasing the one dr willing to do a brain spect after treatment with orals failed, and our insurance company still will not pay for IV rocephin calling it experimental when it is the most common drug used to reverse encephalopathy. She also had a pet scan and pet MRI. If my daughter gets worse, blood will be on all their hands. I will sue every one of these ignorant “errant” doctors!
Everything I’ve ever read about Dr. Jones makes him sound like a really good guy, therefore we’d love to help. Unfortunately we live in a state without any good Lyme-treating doctors. It is also a state that does not have the good medical programs for lower income taxpayers, which we’ve become thanks to Lyme, that most other states have. So going to a good Lyme doc in a neighboring state for several visits has cleaned us out of the remaining savings we have. None of the Lyme related websites have been able to get back to us regarding who we could go to that would be more reasonable. Therefore we sit, very ill, without treatment. The Lyme doc we went to wrote an RX for an antibiotic for me right away, but said he wanted to hold off giving antibiotics to the family member with me, who also payed a steep charge for the first visit, until he looked at her lab results in a few weeks. When we called after a month to see if he was comfortable giving her the antibiotics, we were told by the doc’s office manager that we would have to pay for another visit before he could tell her if he could write any RX for her for anything. Not quite what the doctor said; even his nurse agrees who was standing with us when he originally spoke to us. Must have been that time of year when the office manager wanted her Christmas bonus to be as juicy as possible. Anyway, we did pay for another office visit, and just couldn’t continue what was virtually thousands per month with the cost of labs. We agree that Lyme docs have to make a decent amount of money and we would imagine they do a fair amount of donation to Lyme causes. The problem is that people like us are cut out of any care whatsoever due to the high cost of treatment by these docs. We hope that those in a more fortunate position can help Dr. Jones out.
So sorry to hear about your struggles. We went through similar. The financial part of treating became too much for all 3 of us. I refused to stop though, found the Gerson Therapy, & began with that first. After 6 months, we put the Stephen H. Buhner protocol into play. It is about $400.00 per month doing his protocol, so is a lot more reasonable for us to do, & we are having better results. I was afraid at first, but now seeing these results wish we had taken this route first. Good luck to you and your family, & hope your on your road to healing once again, very soon! 🙂
This doctor is a saint. He saved my daughter’s life. Please help him now in his time of need.
This is indeed sad news however the truth always wins, it just takes a while. We have a God above who sees the oppression of the sick and the doctors like Dr. Jones who give their life to help them. My LLMD has gone through the same.
I pray for Dr. Jones, his dedicated staff and all of his patients to continue to press through and for the oppressors in the way of arrogant and ignorant medical boards and insurance companies to be exposed and held accountable for the failing health of Americans due to Tick born illness.