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BloombergBusinessweek October 12, 2020in2004,a detox patientinSponaugle’scareallegedly
experiencedinflamedbloodvesselsafterbeinggivenAdderall
unnecessarily,leadinghisinsurer’srisk-managementdivision
tosayit hadcounseledSponaugleonsafety.Thesameyear,
accordingtocourtfilings,a patientsuffereda permanentbrain
injuryfollowing detox treatment with Sponaugle; the doctor
won the resulting malpractice lawsuit. In 2006 a patient sus-
tained nerve damage during a detox infusion with Sponaugle
at Helen Ellis, leading to a malpractice lawsuit and a subse-
quent $95,000 settlement payment. (Sponaugle didn’t respond
to an emailed request for comment on these cases.) In 2013,
Sponaugle sued a dissatisfied detox patient for defamation
and won.
The same year, the CDC published guidance warning that
anesthesia-assisted detox treatments could have adverse
effects. Sponaugle had by then left Helen Ellis, pivoting to
focus on alternative treatments for Lyme and for ailments pos-
ited, without scientific proof, to be related to mold and chemi-
cal toxicity. His star rose: Reality-TV personality Yolanda Hadid
shelled out $30,000 to be treated by him, and he spoke at an
ILADS conference in 2016.
Sponaugle offered hope to families such as the Burgesses.
Growing up in Jena, La., Anna Burgess listened to classic rock,
wrote poetry, and fashioned dream catchers by hand. Over
time, though, fatigue, aches, and other symptoms damped
her bubbly nature. Her struggles made attending high school
difficult and her ambition of becoming a physician seem unat-
tainable. After a Mayo Clinic doctor diagnosed Burgess with
POTS, an autonomic nervous system disorder, she and her par-
ents, Gawan and Sherrie, a former school administrator and
a nurse, respectively, found Sponaugle online.
When they visited his clinic in Oldsmar, Fla., in the fall of
2016, he told Burgess she suffered from a variety of conditions,
including Lyme (for which she’d previously tested negative)
and toxicity caused by mold and chemicals. He recommended
she enroll in his 12-week treatment program. Clinic staff fit-
ted her for a catheter so they could administer antibiotics and
other compounds through her arm. In the following weeks,
she developed severe new symptoms, including stomach pain,
a burning sensation in her head, and tremors. She started
coughing up dark fluid. “The tremors and head pressure are
returning,” she wrote on Facebook on Nov. 25. “Unsure what
the next course of action is.”
Sponaugle continued to increase Burgess’s antibiotics dos-
age and prescribed sedatives, explaining that she was experi-
encing a “biofilm burst” as toxins left her body. Each visit to
her bedside cost her family $1,000, on top of a sum in the low
six figures for the treatments and affiliated accommodations.
To defray the costs, Sherrie started a crowdfunding campaign.
In court filings, Burgess’s parents say her condition contin-
ued to worsen until, in the early morning hours of Nov. 29,
emergency medical services transported her to a local hospi-
tal, where diagnostic tests indicated she was suffering from
pancreatitis. Sponaugle arrived with a nurse. Lacking privi-
leges to practice at the hospital, he instructed the nurse torotate the security cameras so they wouldn’t capture him
administering eight vials of the antioxidant compound glu-
tathione to Burgess’s IV drip, according to allegations made
by Burgess’s parents in court filings. She died in the hospi-
tal the following day, her 19th birthday, with her fiancé, Ben
Ketchens, still en route to her bedside. “I just felt like my
whole body was tearing up,” he says. “It was gut-wrenching.”
Gawan and Sherrie sued over Burgess’s death in 2017.
After court proceedings began, the Florida Department of
Health issued a public complaint against Sponaugle for mal-
practice in a different Lyme-related case involving a 27-year-old
man treated in 2014. The complaint, signed by the state’s sur-
geon general in February 2018, requested that the state licen-
sure board revoke, suspend, or restrict Sponaugle’s license or
take other corrective action such as a fine. No action has been
taken, though Sponaugle has requested a hearing on the mat-
ter, according to the health department. His license remains
active, as does his practice. Sponaugle denies wrongdoing in
this case and the Burgesses’ but declined to comment further
for this story, citing ongoing litigation.When regulators have tried to publicly intervene in cases
involving alternative Lyme treatments, they’ve struggled to
make their judgments stick. State boards can investigate com-
plaints, issue warnings, and suspend or revoke professional
licenses, but their decisions tend to be enforced only upon
referral to state prosecutors. Some LLMDs continue to helm
lucrative practices despite a record of sanctions.
In 2017, for example, David Cameron, of Mount Kisco, was
charged by the New York State Department of Health Office of
Professional Medical Conduct with violations including gross
incompetence,grossnegligence,andfailuretokeepappropri-
atepatientrecords.Camerondisputedtheallegationsbutulti-
matelysigneda consentordersubjectinghimtothreeyears of
probation. That year the board also charged Bernard Raxlen,
who ran the clinic Lyme Resource Medical of New York, with
a similar set of violations; he, too, signed a consent order sub-
mitting to three years of probation. Cameron continues to
practice in New York, while last summer New Jersey granted
Raxlen a license, and he now sees patients in Guttenberg.
One of the best-known Lyme-focused practitioners, Joseph
Jemsek, who began his career in AIDS research, was able to set
up shop in Washington, D.C., despite having had his license
restricted by North Carolina in 2006 and having been subse-
quently denied one in Maryland. (He fought the North Carolina
judgment and later had the conditions lifted.)
Henry Childers didn’t set out to be an alternative Lyme
specialist, either. He trained at elite institutions, graduating
from Tufts University School of Medicine and serving as a
resident and then a fellow in cardiothoracic surgery at the
University of Pennsylvania. In 2008 he became chief of car-
diothoracic surgery at Southern Ohio Medical Center, a hospi-
tal in Portsmouth, and in 2011 he joined Beebe Medical Center
in Lewes, Del., in the same role.
The following year, Childers left Beebe and veered away