NERVECENTER Lyme Wars Update: New Conn. Law Protects Physicians Treating ‘Chronic Lyme’

The Connecticut legislature has passed a new law designed specifically to protect physicians who treat “chronic Lyme disease” with long courses of IV antibiotics, an approach that contradicts recent clinical guidelines by the American Academy of Neurology and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA).

The Connecticut law prohibits the state medical board from taking disciplinary action against a physician who treats Lyme with antibiotics, so long as a diagnosis and treatment plan is documented in the patient’s medical record.  It was triggered in part by the case of Charles Ray Jones, a New Haven pediatrician who has been battling the Conn. Medical Examining Board over charges that he diagnosed and prescribed IV antibiotics to a child in a Western state without ever examining the child.

It’s the third law of its kind nationwide:  Rhode Island has a similar law, and California includes Lyme disease in a statute protecting physicians who use complementary and alternative medical therapies.  At least two other states, Massachusetts and Minnesota, are expected to introduce related legislation this summer, according to Pat Smith of the Lyme Disease Association.

Lyme disease patient advocates lobbied heavily for the law and have vehemently criticized the IDSA guidelines, saying they are being used by insurance companies to deny reimbursement for expensive antibiotic treatment.  At their urging, the Connecticut Attorney General launched an antitrust investigation of IDSA soon after it published its guidelines in 2006.  IDSA agreedin a settlement to review the recommendations with a new committee and expand the process to include public commentary.  (See NerveCenter, March 2009.)

Infectious disease specialist David Simms of St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, an IDSA chapter officer who wrote testimony opposing the law, said he worries about the precedent being set in the state.  “This kind of politicization of scientific information and guidelines is unprecedented, and of great concern.  If people like attorneys general and state legislatures can start deciding what constitutes good science and what doesn’t, I think that’s a very dangerous slope we’re on.”

Brenda Patoine