The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department confirmed June 5 that hepatitis C was transmitted to five patients treated at the office of Dr. Allen Thomashefsky. The department is continuing to investigate Dr. Thomashefsky to determine if anyone was infected because of unsafe medical practices at his clinic.
Working with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the department determined that five of seven new hepatitis C patients in Santa Barbara County had injection procedures at Dr. Thomashefsky’s office on the same day. According to the department, they “were not found to have any other common elements between them other than their treatment at Dr. Thomashefsky’s medical office.”
The CDC looked at the genetic material of the viruses found in the five patients. Through its analysis, the CDC determined that there was a “significant degree of relatedness” between the genomic signature of the hepatitis C virus found in each of the five patients.
The county’s health department investigated Dr. Thomashefsky’s clinic twice in November 2014 after reports that a patient with no known risk factors developed hepatitis C after receiving multiple injections there. Investigators found standard infection control procedures weren’t being practiced and that patients were at risk for blood and joint infections.
The department then forced Dr. Thomashefsky’s office in Santa Barbara to close. He’s also forbidden to take blood or tissue from patients and has agreed not to perform any more injections, save for immunizations approved by the CDC. According to the public health department, the Oregon Medical Board also placed tighter legal restrictions on his practice in Ashland, ordering him to stop injection procedures on April 14.
The county health department and CDC are continuing outreach efforts to contact more than 1,000 of Thomashefsky’s former patients, dating back seven years, and asking them to get tested for blood borne illnesses. So far, no cases of HIV or hepatitis B have been confirmed.
Dr. Thomashefsky couldn’t be reached for comment as of press time.
This article appears in Jun 11-18, 2015.
