Toledo doctor blamed for multiple deaths says his research is misunderstood
Sunday, October 5, 2008 12:59 AM PDT
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleLance Christiansen, the Toledo doctor who gave up his medical license in 2006 after the state blamed him for six patient deaths, defended his actions and record this week, saying he was railroaded by political concerns and officials who don’t understand his research.
“I don’t care what everyone in the world thinks of me,” he said. “I have lots of confidence and know my standing in reality and (the allegations of negligence) are rhetoric and a lot of ignorant b.s.”
Christiansen, 68, has claimed for several years that the area has a large number of cases of rheumatic fever, a once-common disease now considered rare in the United States. He said others aren’t diagnosing it because doctors have been taught that the disease doesn’t exist in modern countries. Christiansen said many of his chronic pain patients actually had the autoimmune disorder he identified, and that many more still suffer.
“There are tons of people sick around these counties, and the truth didn’t get out,” Christiansen said.
State experts, who studied Christiansen’s records at the time of the license suspension, dismissed his diagnoses and said he was over-medicating patients with methadone at his clinics in Toledo, Winlock and Onalaska. The state did not accuse Christiansen of purposefully causing patient’s deaths, but said his strong prescriptions, incompetence and sloppy records led to the deaths, several by overdose.
Christiansen said he prescribed methadone because it was a cheap medication for those with chronic pain, and he said other doctors have prejudices that lead them to think all pain sufferers are drug seekers. He also said he doesn’t believe any of his patients overdosed.
Christiansen, back in Toledo after traveling extensively overseas, said he is writing a book about his discovery titled “Rheumatism Enigma Unveiled.” He’s also working on a academic paper on the subject but it’s not yet ready for publication, he said Thursday in a telephone interview.
“I’ve been an academic all my life and people who do academic things like to find the truth and publicize the truth,” he said. “It’s just a matter of (others) not understanding the disease.”
The state suspended Christiansen’s medical license in June of 2005 after reviewing the case files of several patients. He also had been dropped as a state Labor & Industries doctor after disagreeing with officials there about his diagnoses.
Thursday, Christiansen said no one from the state Department of Health ever spoke with him. And he only spoke to one L&I doctor, who Christiansen described as a government worker who had lost touch with patients.
“I was dealing with people who were bureaucratically tough and intellectually weak,” Christiansen said. “Those L&I guys are probably smart but they went into bureaucracy and went away from medicine. How often do they see an actual patient?”
But Christiansen did mention his findings to state officials in a series of letters released by the state Department of Health in 2005. His intense discussions about his diagnoses also alarmed a state official and another doctor, who both contacted the state with their concerns, according to state records.
Christiansen also could have presented the evidence at a state hearing on his medical license.
Instead, he abruptly gave up his license before the 2006 hearing and also settled all of the civil cases filed on behalf of patients’ families.
Thursday, he said neither action was an admission of guilt and that he felt he had no other options.
His lawyers told him he couldn’t defend himself at the state license hearing because anything he said could be used in civil cases as well as possible criminal charges that had been mentioned by the Lewis Count prosecutor, Christiansen said. Also, he’d lost his practice and his wife was divorcing him, leaving him depressed and despondent.
“I just couldn’t do anything and I didn’t have any support ... I was winging it,” Christiansen said. His lawyers also told him it would cost close to $200,000 to defend himself against the state action. Christiansen had lost most of his income aside from military retirement benefits.
As for the civil cases, Christiansen said he was ready to defend himself but his lawyers told him it made more sense to settle with his $10 million insurance policy because he was being used as a “scapegoat” in the cases. Also, Christiansen and his lawyers thought it might be difficult to explain all the scientific technicalities to a jury.
“I was all ready to go to court ... we had a great case,” Christiansen said. “But my attorney ... was worried the jury would make a crazy decision.”
The first lawsuit filed against Christiansen was by the family of Steven Ridley, a Napavine man who died in 2004 at the age of 45. Ridley died three days after Christiansen prescribed more than five times the recommended dose of methadone for back pain, according to state investigative files.
In 2007, when Christiansen settled the Ridley case, the plaintiff’s lawyer said the move showed Christiansen was taking responsibility for the death.
“(The family) is pleased that Dr. Christiansen acknowledges responsibility in this,” lawyer Reed Schifferman said at the time.
Thursday, though, Christiansen said he isn’t responsible for Ridley’s death and that the true tragedy is that others don’t want to admit he might be right.
And while he’s no longer practicing medicine, he’s still researching rheumatic fever, even visiting clinics in places such as Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico, where it’s more common. If the state investigators had talked to him, Christiansen said, they might have seen his evidence and better understood what he was doing.
He had 700 patients from “halfway to Olympia to halfway to Vancouver and from Packwood to Pe Ell to Aberdeen,” Christiansen said. He documented several cases, he said, in which family members all had the same symptoms and all had had rheumatic fever or scarlet fever.
“These are people enforcing rules ... and they thought I was a kook,” he said of the state health and L&I departments. “And when they get political pressure to do things, they publicize it to make them look good. But it doesn’t mean they’re right.”
Related articles:
Ex-Toledo doctor settles wrongful death suit (April 3, 2007)
Toledo doctor accused in six additional patient deaths (Aug. 4, 2006)
Toledo doc overbilled state $283,000 (Aug. 3, 2006)
Christiansen gives up medical license (Feb. 9, 2006)
Toledo doctor faces more suits (Jan. 6, 2006)
smf wrote on Oct 5, 2008 3:13 AM:
slanteyes wrote on Oct 5, 2008 9:39 AM:
Atrucker wrote on Oct 5, 2008 1:24 PM:
Yes you are A self rightous, self important, nut job. Who should be in jail not out walking around still. "
justareader wrote on Oct 5, 2008 8:24 PM:
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