At the heart of the matter are these sheets of paper. Format A4. Twenty-five lines typed on the computer, then annotated by hand. The length of a shopping list. Except that instead of fruits and vegetables, we decipher the names of all kinds of pills. Four antibiotics, corticosteroids, antifungals, antivirals and hydroxychloroquine. To swallow or inject, morning, noon, evening. The molecules are powerful, they are usually given one by one and only against the most aggressive diseases.
When reading these documents, the pharmacists of Seine-Saint-Denis choke up. 25 medications per day, per person? They were the first to sound the alert, in 2018, about these orders. They ran across their counters, all stamped from the same firm. The pharmacies send them to the departmental council of the Order of Physicians, which finds them “delusional”. The disciplinary chamber, judges in white coats under their black robes, took it up. This jurisdiction, internal to the corporation, has just, on April 13, pronounced the removal of their author.
All were stamped with “Marc-Mickaël Bransten”. A GP who claimed to cure Lyme borreliosis, a disease that attacks the brain and nerves, transmitted by ticks. A real public health problem: 47,000 cases were recorded in 2021. However, with an element of mystery: medicine is struggling to respond to so-called “long-term” cases which are sometimes reported by patients. The general practitioner had made this enigma his “specialty”. Convinced of having solved it, he played the little chemist from his office in Drancy, north-east of Paris.
“The drugs fried my brain”
For months, Elodie Weaver swallowed everything. Capsules and sales pitches. Before Dr. Bransten handed her his prescriptions, in 2017, this forty-year-old, with jet black hair and eyes, had a series of unsuccessful consultations for diffuse pain. We explain to her that she is somatizing, that there is nothing to do. Relatives recommend that he knock at Bransten’s place. This one fills him with certainties. With such a cocktail, it’s impossible to stay sick, right? “The drugs fried my brain. It destroyed my life,” she says, limping in the basement of an administrative building of the Order in Paris, where the hearing was held. in February.
In his blood, the drugs mix and interact with each other. “One morning, I woke up half deaf. Another, almost blind,” testifies the young woman. His nerves and muscles are failing. She develops inflammation of the brain, suffers from confusion. Her thyroid, uterus and iris no longer work. Surgeons remove them. “I thought he knew what he was doing! He’s a doctor, not a naturopath,” she said, livid, on the stand. However, the side effects in the instructions were cause for concern: diarrhea, hallucinations, organ damage, etc. These treatments should never last more than 30 days. Elodie will follow them for six months.
The doctors at the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges hospital who took care of him after Dr. Bransten only see this soup of chemicals to explain his condition, a generalized deterioration close to poisoning. Like her, dozens of other patients received the same prescriptions, down to the medicine, as if Dr. Bransten was testing a recipe. “If I am here, it is so that this never happens again, so that no one takes advantage of the most fragile patients,” adds Élodie, with tears in her eyes in front of the court. She now hopes to send “(her) executioner” before the “real” justice system, the one that can put people in prison.
A forest of alternative opinions
In cases of Lyme disease, two antibiotics are indicated. No more. A procedure to follow which appears in a recommendation from the High Authority of Health. Issued in 2018, this document marks a form of recognition. Until this date, the very existence of this infection, including its short forms, was hotly debated. Fatigue, headaches… Its first symptoms are very common, which complicates the diagnosis. On this vagueness – “now dissipated”, recall the lawyers of the Order – a whole forest of alternative opinions has grown.
Dr. Bransten’s home treatment is one that has never been proven to work. It is based on his “readings”, research work drawn from scientific literature of course, but which cannot be used on patients. Community medicine and research are two distinct fields. He dug into it, like a cook in front of stalls. “Are you going to continue like this?” asked an assessor. “Yes,” he assures, slumping. Opposite him, Hippocrates watches, his bust clearly visible, in the middle of a library – it is by taking up the oath of this Greek scholar that medical students swear their integrity.
Asked by L’Express about his dismissal, Marc-Mickaël Bransten refers the court to “minuses”. In essence: stubborn people, incapable of understanding his work. Research, history itself, will prove him right, he is convinced. He even wrote a letter to the former Minister of Health (2017-2020) Agnès Buzyn, to share his “discoveries”. Why then not have launched proper studies? These could have proven the interest of his remedies. “I’m here to save people,” he says. He plans to appeal.
Saving the “bad doctor”
Its most loyal patients launched a petition to try to save their messiah from crucifixion. “One by one, the “Lyme Doctors” are banned from practicing, even though they are the only ones to make the correct diagnosis, listen to patients and offer treatment,” indicates its author on the platform. Change.org. The initiative has garnered the support of around a thousand signatories. Much less than one former, launched 6 years ago. This one, 100,000 people had signed it. So much support, even waning, isn’t this proof that he is right and that his risky approach is worth it?
The case brings to mind all those doctors betrayed by their ego, and from whom the Order has had difficulty letting go in recent years. These Luc Montagnier or these Christian Perronne, too, two renowned scientists, who have also become entangled, among other things, in controversial positions on Lyme disease. Dr. Bransten refers to them before the Council of the Order, even rehabilitates them, without going so far as to name them, aware that this would work against him. The practitioner thinks he is the victim of a settling of scores. It is well known: the spirit of initiative which motivates “field” doctors of his type would be disturbing in high places, where people would only swear by the procedures.
His lawyer stands up. He begins, loud and clear: “Today is the Lyme disease trial.” However, science is never done in the courts, he knows that well. Here, we only judge the practice of medicine, recalls one of the members of the court, asking him to abbreviate. Is the “bad doctor” – Marc-Mickaël Bransten himself uses this nickname – able to demonstrate the medical benefit of his cocktail? Did he mention that his prescriptions fell outside of indicated usage? Has he checked the interactions between the active ingredients?
“These doctors are running after their beliefs”
When it comes to responding, the person takes a different path. However, it is for these failings that he will be disbarred. “There can be debates on the merits, but in a scientific framework, with studies, in articles published in peer-reviewed journals. There, we have doctors who run after their beliefs,” believes the infectious disease specialist. Jean-Paul Stahl, committed against abuse of care. Victims of “Lyme doctors” parade at his office. “Some went to Germany, for tests costing 5,000 euros, no more effective than here. A young woman had lymphoma. They hadn’t even looked.”
Seeing these prescriptions, more detailed than a trifecta, Suzanne Ruhlmann also froze. It was in 2017. His son, Thomas, disabled by severe autism, had just cut ties. Worried, the mother searches the Internet and comes across “Bransten remedies”, shared on alternative medicine groups. Autism is linked to Lyme, the person explains to anyone who will listen. You would have to swallow antibiotic mixtures to cure it, even if the disorder is not infectious. Pushed by a lover, Thomas begins treatment, before, fortunately, abandoning it.
It was Suzanne who pushed Elodie to file a complaint. She holds a blog, where she lists the delusions of bad doctors. “This whole story is absurd,” sighs Éric Caumes, infectious disease specialist and author of “Lyme Disease, Reality or Imposture”. The specialist, one of the first critics of “Lyme doctors”, rails against the institutions, which he believes are too lax on these subjects. “Health Insurance, which sees these prescriptions passed, should block them. Doubt should benefit the patient, but here, we are beyond comprehension.” Dr Bransten’s prescriptions already appeared in his book, published in 2021. But these good sheets rarely end up in the hands of patients.
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