Doctor ‘Experimented’ on Wife With ‘Alternative’ Treatments. She Died

A Washington state doctor was sentenced to prison for manslaughter after preventing his wife from seeking treatment for lupus, instead giving her unnecessary prescriptions, herbal supplements and poisonous levels of selenium. 

Jeffrey Harris, M.D., 59, was sentenced to as much as 15 years in state prison, the maximum sentence, in December. He was found guilty in October of “ignoring medical evidence and advice and experimenting on his wife, Tammy Harris, leading to her slow and painful death,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. 

An internal medicine specialist, Dr. Harris rejected the lupus diagnosis confirmed by several of his wife’s doctors in 2016, about nine years into their marriage. The pair met in 2003 when he was her doctor.

Dr. Harris diagnosed his wife with various unlikely illnesses like cat scratch fever and avian bird flu. He eventually landed on the diagnosis of mercury poisoning, which Bragg said had no medical basis. The high doses of selenium eventually killed her.

There is some evidence that selenium can treat mercury intoxication, but when Dr. Harris and his wife flew to New York City in 2018 to consult an alternative medicine specialist that he admired, they found no evidence of mercury poisoning in her bloodwork, but 10 times the normal range of selenium. 

Trial records show Dr. Harris’ bizarre treatment plan caused Tammy to get jaundice and lose unhealthy amounts of weight — she was only 80 lbs. at the time of her death. 

When Tammy would become so ill that she would go to the hospital, Dr. Harris would instruct his wife to spit out the medication doctors gave her and to take his recommended supplements instead. 

While still in New York, Tammy’s heart failed and she died six days later at 55 years old.

Lupus is an often treatable autoimmune disorder that can sometimes be helped with immunosuppressant drugs and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). The various symptoms include fatigue, fever, joint pain, chest pain, headaches and often a butterfly-shaped rash that appears on the bridge of the nose and cheeks, according to the Mayo Clinic.