Wisconsin Lyme Doctor Under Fire During Governor-Proclaimed “Lyme Disease Awareness Month”

by PJ Langhoff

Three Lakes, WI - He drives an old pickup truck, wears cowboy boots and would rather spend time in his cabin in the woods than in the public eye. When he drives through town, everyone who is anyone waves to the man, a well-known, good-hearted “oldschool” country doctor. When a Lyme patient could not afford the cost of a certified service animal, the physician went to great lengths to facilitate the certification for the patient’s dog “Jetta” after the animal underwent appropriate training.

Physician Gregory Hoffmann has dedicated his entire life to serving patients in northern Wisconsin in general practice, for pain management, and for the last several years, for the treatment of Lyme disease. His fees would make any mainstream physician blush, often providing services pro bono, and even meeting out-of-state patients at a motel when they were too sick to travel further.

Recently, despite current personal problems with the state, this dedicated doctor drove several hours over the weekend on a holiday to personally visit one of his patients following her abdominal surgery, for no other reason than because that is the kind of doctor he is. Like his physicians Father and Grandfather before him, this doctor derives his satisfaction from being able to help cure ill patients, many of whom have been turned away by traditional clinics, especially for Lyme disease, and many who have precious little more than “thanks” to offer him. His patients are not only local, but those who make a pilgrimage from other states in order to receive the type of compassionate, individualized care in this evolving area of medicine, that is often missing from larger practices.

As a reward for a lifetime of low fees and dedicated service, the “thanks” he is receiving of late is coming from a different arena. “Country doc” Hoffmann, is in the process of being investigated by the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing (and ultimately) the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board for alleged complaints that seem a pretext for attacking Dr. Hoffmann’s treatment of patients with Lyme disease.

The investigation is all the more confounding when you consider that just weeks ago, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed a proclamation declaring the month of May, “Lyme Disease Awareness Month” for the state. The prosecuting attorney in the case against Hoffmann is Arthur Thexton, known for prosecuting “alternative” medicine practitioners.

The pretext involves Hoffmann’s decision to deny a former patient a prescription for controlled substances upon concluding that the patient was abusing narcotics. Apparently the former patient, through an attorney, contacted Thexton saying, “We’re going to get him.” Either unaware or in spite of this motivation, Thexton decided to try and make a case out of the allegation. Thexton began his investigation by demanding Hofmann’s patient records, including the personal medical files of many of his Lyme patients. Thexton stated during a phone call to Hoffmann, “It has come to my attention you have very many Lyme patients,” alerting Hoffmann to the likely motivation behind the case. “This case is really about treating Lyme patients, not the fact that I wouldn’t give a patient narcotics,” says Hoffmann.

Hoffmann is one of a growing number of “Lyme-literate” physicians in the country, who do not follow the Infectious Disease Society of America’s (IDSA) recently published “guidelines,” drafted by fourteen IDSA members, in a process which is currently under investigation by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office for possible anti-trust violations. Hoffmann instead follows evidence-based guidelines published by the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), a group of Lymetreating physicians with diverse backgrounds, whose guidelines, (both research and clinically-proven as beneficial), have saved the lives of countless Lyme patients abandoned by the IDSA’s treatment philosophy, especially its apparent viewpoint that “chronic” Lyme disease does not exist, and that long-term treatments are unnecessary.

Lyme patients who have been sick for years disagree with this philosophy, and seek out physicians more knowledgeable than most and who are not afraid to treat what are often a blend of complex, systemic infections—a combination of Lyme disease and “coinfections”, which are other infectious diseases making treatment and recovery much more difficult.

Thexton’s office appears to be rushing the Hoffmann case, delivering the doctor a demand to respond by Tuesday, May 15th—just 6 days after Hoffmann received notice of the investigation. Before any real fact finding in the case, (much less a hearing scheduled), Thexton already presented Hoffmann with a “Final Decision and Order” containing “Findings of Fact” that Thexton drafted. Hoffmann feels the stipulations offered by Thexton are more an effort to scare him into settling and have nothing to do with the sound practice of medicine.

For example, Thexton states Hoffmann would be ordered to pay nearly $4,000.00 in “fees” for Thexton’s investigation of allegations which are not clearly defined. The idea of prosecuting a physician for failing to prescribe narcotics to a patient who was evaluated and concluded as drug-seeking, and then to demand patient records and be disciplined for those practices, or for treating a select group of patients is “astonishing,” relayed Hoffmann in a recent interview. “This investigation was about one issue, but now seems to be targeting my Lyme patients,” said Hoffmann.

Word of the investigation traveled quickly as sympathetic patients’ contacted Lyme advocacy groups and key officials, overwhelming Thexton’s office with their concerns. The prosecutor responded to this activity in a letter dated May 11, addressed to Hoffmann. “I have been barraged by communications, almost entirely from lay people outside Wisconsin, which allege that you are being investigated because you treat Lyme disease, and are going to lose your license because of this,” said Thexton’s letter. “I wish to make clear that this is not the reason for this investigation. This investigation was opened because of your prescribing of controlled substances. It had nothing to do with Lyme disease,” wrote Thexton, contrary to Hoffmann’s statements.

The issue of course, is not what caused the investigation to be opened, but what is motivating Thexton to continue the case, given Thexton’s own words to Dr. Hoffmann about Lyme disease treatment and treatment methods which follow a “respectable school of medical thought.” Hoffmann’s patients are speculating as to what that “respectable school of medical thought” might be, as Thexton has previously been connected to “Quackbuster” Stephen Barrett, and Robert Baratz through DLR cases against Wisconsin Physicians Eleazor Kadile (Green Bay), Richard (Rick) Vander Heyden DDS (Green Bay) and Stuart Suster, MD (Milwaukee).

Stephen Barrett operates the web site, Quackwatch.com, where Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) associate Edward McSweegan posts a Lyme disease web page criticizing [ILADS] Lyme treatment guidelines. Hoffmann follows ILADS treatment recommendations, which are contrary to the IDSA treatment guidelines under investigation.

“The allegations of this investigation have no basis, and if these proceedings are allowed to continue, this will be the end of the private practice physician, and probably Lyme physicians,” Hoffmann said when referencing the apparent trend by Thexton to attack small-town physicians like Hoffmann who have very limited means of mounting a legal defense.

Hoffmann’s clinic is the last privately-owned and operated clinic in northern Wisconsin, and he is one of only a handful of “Lyme-literate” physicians in the state. A legal defense fund is being established to help fight the allegations lobbied against Dr. Hoffmann, who has tremendous support rallying behind him from patients, especially from the Lyme community. “What is the point of having a proclamation raising awareness of Lyme disease if the only purpose it serves is to spotlight the removal of our treating physicians by someone in the Governor’s office,” said a concerned Wisconsin Lyme patient, “why doesn’t Thexton leave the good physicians alone, and take to task those who are failing to diagnose Lyme patients in the first place.” Perhaps the Governor’s proclamation has served to raise more than just awareness about Lyme disease—it is underscoring to patients the importance of fighting to keep the relatively few Lyme-treating physicians we have, who oppose guidelines that seem to define the disease out of existence.

To respond to this article or for information on contributing to Dr. Hoffmann’s legal defense fund, please contact PJ Langhoff at