Homeless and broke, dentist says insurance company to blame [Ventura County Star, Calif.]

May 22--Life was sweet for James Stathis.

His dental practice in Santa Barbara had mushroomed to a 2,000-patient clinic. Business was thriving. Along the way, Stathis met freelance journalist Cynthia Daddona-Stathis and the two married seven years ago.

"We got married on a Greek island," he said.

They lived in a comfortable, three-bedroom house in Santa Barbara. They traveled abroad. Stathis, a history and archaeology buff, continued to quietly pursue his goal of making a documentary about ancient Greece. He had plans to build a nest egg and retire when he turned 65.

Now, Stathis and his wife are broke and homeless. A career-related illness forced him to close his practice, he says, and his insurance company has denied his claims for disability payments.

The tremors began first, along with anxiety, fatigue, mood swings, depression and stress. Stathis thought they were work-related. He said he went to a psychologist, who treated him for two years before recommending that he leave dentistry. He did so in August 2008.

"What it really came down to was a fear in making mistakes in patient treatments. I had to take myself out," he said. "I was making my treatment times longer. I could do a crown in 45 minutes. When I had to leave, I was taking an hour and a half."

Yet a year after he closed his dental practice, the anxiety, depression and stress hadn't gone away, Stathis said. In 2010, he went to see Dr. Peter J. Muran, a holistic medical provider in San Luis Obispo, and in 2012, Dr. Robin Bernhoft, of Ojai, who also performed tests. Both concluded the same thing, he said.

Stored in his body fat were toxic levels of a heavy metal he had used many times in his dental clinic: mercury.

"It was off the charts," Stathis said.

In dentistry, mercury is used in liquid form and mixed with a powder of silver, tin and copper. It is used to fill cavities caused by tooth decay. For years, Stathis used mercury in his practice.

Stathis is now involved in a battle with his private disability insurance company, Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co. of Tennessee, which has refused to pay a $4,280 monthly disability check.

In January, Stathis filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in federal court against Provident alleging that the company breached its contract and isn't acting in good faith.

Stathis' lawyer Allen Ball, of the Ventura law firm Ball and Yorke, said Stathis purchased the insurance in 1986 and the insurance company has refused to pay disability benefits for more than three years. He said the terms of Stathis' policy say a disability can be but doesn't have to be work-related.

"This is not a workers' compensation case," he said. "Hence the disability need not arise from the claimant's employment, so long as the claimant is disabled."

Provident Life claims it paid Stathis $220,351 two days after the lawsuit was filed.

But in March, the insurance company filed a countersuit saying Stathis is not disabled and might not have been entitled to all or some of the insurance benefits he received.

In the 26-page lawsuit, Provident Life lawyers Daniel Maguire and Melissa Cowan, of Los Angeles, claim Stathis was dissatisfied in dentistry and sold his practice in July 2008. Cowan said this allowed him to spend more time on another business, making documentaries promoting the Greek culture.

"When he quit dentistry, he was not claiming disability, nor was he treating with any medical providers for any impairing medical condition," Cowan wrote.

Ball countered that the filmmaking was Stathis' hobby, from which he has made $3,000. Ball said Provident Life now wants its $220,351 returned.

Cynthia Daddona-Stathis said they have had to use much of the money for medical and legal expenses and to pay off a large credit card debt. Their debt is about $130,000, she said.

"We try to go into a motel, here and there," she said.

Ball said Provident Life's own doctors concluded that Stathis suffers from tremors, anxiety, depression and borderline dementia. The cause of the problems isn't the issue, he said.

"He is disabled, and they are attacking the ideology," Ball said. "It may not be mercury poisoning."

Calls and emails to Maguire and Cowan seeking comment weren't returned.

Bernhoft, the Ojai doctor, said Stathis' mercury levels were high.

"Twenty times higher than the reference range," he said. "It's a common problem with dentists."

He said he has recently treated five Ventura County dentists for mercury toxicity. He declined to provide details on the dentists, citing confidentiality.

Bernhoft, who is a board member of the nonprofit American Academy of Environmental Medicine, wrote an article on mercury toxicity and treatment last year for the Journal of Environmental and Public Health.

He noted that most people generally tend to get better, but it depends on how long and how much mercury has been in a person's system and whether any damage has been done to the brain, kidneys and tissues.

"So, the longer it sits there, the more trouble it causes," Bernhoft said, adding that most metallic mercury exposure comes from amalgam fillings.

The Food and Drug Administration considers silver fillings safe for adults and children 6 and older. These fillings, however, release low levels of mercury, and the FDA notes that high levels can have adverse effects on the brain or kidneys.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a federal public health agency in Atlanta, in a 1998 public statement said that people who frequently grind their teeth or often chew gum can add to the small amount of mercury normally released from fillings over time.

The Disease Registry also concluded there is no apparent health hazard to the general population but further study is needed.

Both the Disease Registry and the FDA recommend not removing silver fillings to replace them with non-mercury filling because of the possible exposure to mercury vapor.

Figures aren't collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on the number of people, including dentists, who have reported being exposed to mercury toxicity from silver fillings, spokesman Federico Feldstein said.

As their lawsuit winds its way through court, Stathis and his wife park their van in a lot that is part of Santa Barbara's safe parking program.

They receive food stamps, food donations from Catholic Charities and some help with food and gasoline from the Salvation Army, they say.

Before they moved into the van, they sold most of their furniture, had four yard sales and sold their car for $1,500, Cynthia Daddona-Stathis said.

To save on gasoline, they have to carefully plan their trips to the doctor, charities and the YMCA in Santa Barbara, where they go to shower.

"I literally have to plan how much downhills I have versus how many uphills and so forth," Stathis said. "It's gotten to be pure survival."

___

(c)2013 Ventura County Star (Camarillo, Calif.)

Visit Ventura County Star (Camarillo, Calif.) at www.vcstar.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services