Not a week goes by that we don't hear from someone around the nation about our story last year entitled "Lyme Aid," (here it is).
The piece concerned an ailing young Gilbert woman whose parents spent thousands of dollars at an East Valley health clinic, where the practitioners claimed she was suffering from Lyme disease.
The co-owner of the Remnant Health Center, Dr. Dana Rosdahl (a family nurse practitioner and former ASU professor), put the young woman, Alyssa Goodale, on a variety of opiates and other drugs to treat myriad internal ills that Rosdahl apparently was convinced were caused by Lyme disease..
Named after the small Connecticut town where it first was identified, Lyme is an infectious illness often caused by the bite of a tiny deer tick that is not indigenous to Arizona.
Janet Love, who is Rosdahl's partner at the well-appointed East Valley clinic, told us for the story that "I believe that at least 70 percent of the population are infected [with Lyme], whether they know it or not. I didn't in my own case, for 15 years. We are passing infected blood directly into the blood supply. Some people think this is wacko, but it's not."
Love employs so-called "energy machines" (see the linked story for details) to "treat" her clients (she is not a medical practitioner) .
Alyssa Goodale's blood tests never did turn up Lyme disease. But the high-potency drug regimen she was on landed her in an emergency room in 2010, and a doctor quoted in our story said she could have died had she continued on that path.
The reader E-mails aimed at us in the aftermath of the story are about 50-50: People either claim that we are part of a U.S. government conspiracy to keep the public from truly understanding the magnitude of the Lyme "epidemic," or want to take the heads off true believers (we dubbed them "Lymeites") for playing with the lives of their patients/clients.
At least in Goodale's case, a Maricopa County jury may get to decide some things: The young woman's civil lawsuit against Remnant and its two owners is moving forward in Superior Court.
She is not asking for a certain dollar amount from the women, but claims that the way in which she was treated at the clinic could have killed her, and definitely caused her unnecessary pain and suffering.
Rosdahl and Love (who have separate attorneys) strongly deny any wrongdoing.
We'll do a longer take-out on this fascinating and troubling case as it develops.
