Feds: Man falsely promised to cure patients of Lyme disease

Posted at: 04/14/2009 5:35 PM | Updated at: 04/14/2009 10:37 PM
By: Eric Kahnert, KOB-TV, and Joshua Panas, KOB.com

The feds are investigating a New Mexico man, accusing him of ripping off patients while promising to cure them of Lyme disease.

The Food and Drug Administration says Carl Haese, the owner of a Las Cruces health clinic, has been charging patients $5,000 a piece for Lyme disease treatments.

They say the so-called doctor was using an intravenous cocktail that contains prescriptions that are not approved by the FDA to treat Lyme disease.

One patient even told investigators that he began to urinate blood after the treatments.

"The allegation is these people received treatments from someone who is not a licensed practitioner, and they had failures in treatment and had some side effects," said Bill Harvey of the NM Board of Pharmacy.

According to a federal search warrant, FDA investigators think Haese was ripping off patients, telling them he has cured all of the 3,000 people he's treated for Lyme disease.

The state says Haese is not a licensed health care practitioner.

The feds say Haese never reported Lyme disease cases to the state, even though doctors are supposed to do so.

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