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BloombergBusinessweek October 12, 2020DejayCartwrighthadvisite
dmo
rethan^4(^00)
lighthouses,
andshewassettingouttoseeanother.Shewasanaficionado,
sodrawntothecharmofthesequaintrelicsthatshe’djoined
theLighthousePreservationSociety.Thehomesheshared
withheradultdaughter,TiffanyCartwright,inTownsend,
Del.,wasteemingwithminiaturereplicas.
She’dinvitedTiffanytojoinherthatsummereveningin2015.
Thetrailwaslongerthananticipated,though,andCartwright’s
walkerkeptcatchinginthepath.Afterabouta half-hour,she
wastootiredtocontinue,andtheyheadedhome.
Evenso,Tiffanywasdelighted.It wasthefirsttimeinyears
her62-year-oldmotherhadfeltwellenoughfora substan-
tialwalk.CartwrighthadbeendiagnosedwithLymedisease
in2003,andshe’dsufferedpersistentsymptomseversince:
coughing,runnynose,jointaches,poorsleep,lowenergy.
She’dbeenforcedtoretirefromrunningthefamily’schild-
carebusinessandnowspentmuchofhertimeplayinggames
online.Overtheyearsshe’dtriedallsortsoftreatments.
Nothinghelped.Butshe’drecentlystartedseeinga newspe-
cialist,HenryChildersIV,inGeorgetown,a 90-minutedriveto
thesouth,andfeltencouraged.Childershadstrawberry-blond
hair, a strong jaw, and an authoritative manner, and he came
recommended by Cartwright’s primary-care doctor.
Childers was licensed to practice medicine in Delaware,
but he largely eschewed traditional treatments. During an ini-
tial consultation in July, he proposed starting Cartwright on a
nine-week program. Four times a week she would drive to his
private clinic, Delaware Integrative Medicine LLC, for infusion
procedures, typically involving the mixture of ozone gas or
vitamins with her blood. Cartwright called her mother, Dee,
from Childers’s office, sounding optimistic. The cost would be
around $9,700, all out-of-pocket. Dee volunteered her credit
card number so Cartwright could start that same day.
Not long into the treatments, to prevent the frequent
venous draws from becoming uncomfortable, Childers sent
Cartwright to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., to have a
port surgically inserted in her chest. This would allow the
infusions to be done via a central line, as is done for chemo-
therapy. After a couple of weeks, Cartwright was feeling hale
enough to scout for lighthouses.
On Thursday, Sept. 24, Childers sent her back to the hospi-
tal to have the port replaced because it had become clogged.
Over the next several days, the skin surrounding the new
port became inflamed and hot to the touch. When Cartwright
returned to Childers’s practice on Monday, according to asser-
tions contained in court filings, she reported flulike symptoms.
Clinic staff carried on with her treatment, and again the fol-
lowing day. (Childers says there was no inflammation at the
clinic, calling the site “unremarkable.”)
The next morning, Cartwright collapsed in her bathroom.
She recovered and continued going in for her next infusions,
during which clinic records indicate she had an elevated, irreg-
ular heartbeat. On Oct. 1, Cartwright said she was in pain, so
the clinic sent a blood sample to a lab.
The following morning, Tiffany found Cartwright lying
onherkitchenfloor.AsTiffanywenttohelp,Cartwright
lostconsciousness. Tiffany called an ambulance to bring
Cartwright to the emergency room at Christiana Hospital.
Physicians there removed the port, which was infected, and
began treating Cartwright with antibiotics, transferring her
to intensive care.
When the bloodwork came back, it showed that Cartwright
had MRSA, an aggressive staph infection resistant to many
antibiotics. It had spread throughout her bloodstream and
was too advanced for effective treatment. (The sample taken
by Childers’s clinic later confirmed the diagnosis.) She spent
the weekend on life support, drifting in and out of conscious-
ness, surrounded by family. On Monday, Oct. 5, Tiffany and
Dee instructed doctors to discontinue life support, in keeping
with Cartwright’s wishes. She died within minutes.
That Cartwright’s original symptoms were commonplace
had made their cause difficult to pinpoint. The afflictionshe
thoughttheytracedto,Lymedisease,ismostoftencaused
inNorthAmericabybacteriafrom thespeciesBorrelia
burgdorferi, typically transmitted via bites from infected
ticks. Roughly 30,000 cases are reported each year to the
U.S.CentersforDiseaseControlandPrevention,though
theagencyestimatesthatthetrueprevalenceiscloserto
300,000cases. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue,
and a bull’s-eye-shaped rash; left untreated, the infection
can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. The
recommended remedy is a course of antibiotics lasting two
to four weeks. If treated right away, most patients make a
quick and full recovery.
In some cases, though, Lyme patients continue report-
ing symptoms for months or even years after treatment. The
CDC recognizes these cases, describing them collectively as
post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, but says there are
no proven treatments for them and they’re not likely the
result of an active infection. Some patient communities have
adopted the term “chronic Lyme disease” to describe their
symptoms. Many say their concerns often aren’t taken seri-
ously by traditional doctors, which has created an opportu-
nity for hundreds of alternative practitioners—some licensed
medical doctors such as Childers, some not—who call them-
selves “Lyme-literate medical doctors,” or LLMDs.
These practitioners have proliferated in recent years, with
officials and industry watchers estimating their ranks at more
than 500. Many of them join the International Lyme and
Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), an advocacy organi-
zation that offers conferences and training programs. They
tend to rely on nonstandard diagnostic criteria and scientif-
ically unproven treatments, including ozone therapy, long-
term antibiotics, and vitamin supplements. Insurers rarely
cover these treatments, and doctors typically require pay-
ment upfront. Nevertheless, the treatments are compelling
to many patients, in part because the practitioners offer-
ing them tap into a strain of American culture that will be
familiar to anyone paying attention during the coronavirus
pandemic: surging skepticism of scientific expertise and