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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Scam artists used Lyme disease to scare victims, feds allege

The U.S. Attorney for Kansas says a California woman, Carole E. Bradford, has been indicted in an alleged Lyme disease scam that also included others, including her husband. Here's how it reportedly worked:

The 20-count superseding indictment alleges Carole E. Bradford and the other defendants conspired to violate the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by conspiring to sell a microscope that supposedly would diagnose Lyme disease, as well as drugs that supposedly would cure the disease.
They distributed marketing materials making false claims that Lyme disease was “the plague of the 21st century” and was a contributing factor in 50 percent of all chronic illness including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Carole E. Bradford’s husband, Robert W. Bradford, claimed to be a “doctor” and a “professor” even though he was not a physician and had no science degrees from an accredited university in the United States. He was the inventor of what he called “the Bradford Variable Projection Microscope,” which he claimed could be used to identify Lyme disease.
Toth, who was a licensed medical doctor in Kansas, used Bradford’s microscope and treatments, charging patients approximately $100 for each use of the equipment and approximately $320 for a series of injections he called “antimicrobial treatment.” In March 2008 in Shawnee County District Court, Toth was sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading no contest to a state charge of reckless involuntary manslaughter in the death of a patient, Beverly A. Wunder.

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