Archive for June, 2019

BBC Video ‘My Life is Dominated by Lyme Disease’

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-48636858/my-life-is-dominated-by-lyme-disease  (Video Here)

June 17, 2109

‘My life is dominated by Lyme Disease’

One tiny tick under the skin can cause chronic illness but GPs can be slow to diagnose and to give treatment for Lyme Disease.

“Disclosure: Under The Skin” meets sufferers who feel let down by the health service and asks what more can be done to combat this debilitating disease.

The programme was aired on BBC One Scotland on Monday 17 June, 2019.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing, Ticks

Steere Publications the Past & Today

https://www.change.org/p/the-us-senate-calling-for-a-congressional-investigation-of-the-cdc-idsa-and-aldf/u/24727806?

Steere publications the past and today

JUN 20, 2019 —

Today’s letter to Dr. Fauci as a follow-up to an earlier letter found here:

https://www.change.org/p/the-us-senate-calling-for-a-congressional-investigation-of-the-cdc-idsa-and-aldf/u/24713888
——— Original Message ———-
From: CARL TUTTLE <runagain@comcast.net>
To: afauci@niaid.nih.gov
Cc: tickbornedisease@hhs.gov, (98 Undisclosed Recipients)
Date: June 20, 2019 at 7:05 AM
Subject: Antibiotics are generally effective at all stages of the disease

June 20, 2019

Office of the Director,
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20892
Attn: Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director

Dr. Fauci,

As a follow-up to my previous email dated June 17, 2019 I would like to call attention to the following Steere publications. The first dated 1977 and the latest published just this week.

1. Lyme arthritis: an epidemic of oligoarticular arthritis in children and adults in three connecticut communities. (1977)

Steere AC, Malawista SE, Snydman DR, Shope RE, Andiman WA, Ross MR, Steele FM.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/836338

Excerpt:

“The best treatment for this illness is not clear. Some physicians have reported that penicillin or tetracycline results in disappearance of the skin lesion (41,42), but others find antibiotics ineffective. Four of the patients with expanding skin lesions received penicillin but still developed arthritis.”

Carl Tuttle’s comment: Forty two years ago Allen Steere knew that antibiotics used to treat Lyme disease were not working.

2. Borrelia burgdorferi peptidoglycan is a persistent antigen in patients with Lyme arthritis (2019)

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/06/11/1904170116

Excerpt:

“Although antibiotics are generally effective at all stages of the disease, arthritis may persist in some patients for months to several years despite oral and intravenous antibiotic treatment.”

What happened over the past decades that suddenly made 30-year-old antibiotic therapy effective for treating Lyme disease in all stages especially when there are more scientific references highlighting treatment failure than success? [i]

Might I remind you Dr. Fauci that Allen Steere has been named in a racketeering lawsuit [ii] that alleges he and six other co-defendants colluded to deny persistent infection through an elaborate racketeering scheme. This scheme has been financed through tax payer dollars in the form of NIH grants. Steere’s latest study was funded through NIH Grant # AI101175 and AI144365.

Patient testimony is describing a disease that is ruining lives, ending careers while leaving its victim in financial ruin. Patients who fail 30-year-old antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease are left to fend for themselves. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions worldwide) have been harmed by these actions bought and paid for by US taxpayer dollars. Public health officials globally are blindly following what has been deceitfully established here in America. We lost forty years to this racketeering scheme when we should have been developing more effective antimicrobials.

The mishandling of Lyme disease can be traced back to vaccine development when at that time, the infection was classified as “easily diagnosed and treated.” Publications prior to Dearborn (1994) painted an entirely different picture. The 1977 Steere publication listed above is just one of those publications.

So why do we need a Lyme disease vaccine (now on fast track with the FDA) if “antibiotics are generally effective at all stages of the disease?”

The National Institutes of Health continues to finance this racketeering scheme under your watch Dr. Fauci.

Carl Tuttle

Lyme Endemic Hudson, NH

References
[i] References for persistence of Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis) are listed alphabetically and chronologically

Compiled by: John D. Scott, Research Division Lyme Disease Association of  Ontario

April 2013 (My personal Dropbox storage area)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/reiown7v732av00/Persistence%20of%20Lyme%20Disease.doc?dl=0
[ii] Racketeering lawsuit court document

https://www.dropbox.com/s/18uyrli878ug51m/LymeDisease%20RICO%20Lawsuit.pdf?dl=0

Anti-vaxxers stopped the last Lyme disease vaccine. The FDA has just fast-tracked a new one
Anti-vaxxers stopped the last Lyme disease vaccine. The FDA has just fast-tracked a new one
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week announced plans to expedite approval of a vaccine for Lyme disease. Valneva…
https://www.newsweek.com

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Treatment

Legal Defense Fund For Dr. Kenneth Stoller

https://gogetfunding.com/legal-defense-fund-stoller/

Legal Defense Fund For Dr. Kenneth Stoller

Sacramento, US | Legal

Category:

Activism, Uncategorized, vaccines

Lyme Disease Transmission: Can It Spread From Person to Person?

https://www.healthline.com/health/is-lyme-disease-contagious?

Written by Marjorie Hecht

Medically reviewed by Gerhard Whitworth, RNon

June 11, 2019

Lyme Disease Transmission: Can It Spread from Person to Person?

Can you catch Lyme disease from someone else? The short answer is no. There’s no direct evidence that Lyme disease is contagious. The exception is pregnant women, who can transmit it to their fetus.

Lyme disease is a systemic infection caused by spirochete bacteria transmitted by black-legged deer ticks. The corkscrew-shaped bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, are similar to the spirochete bacteria that cause syphilis.

Lyme disease can become debilitating for some people and life-threatening if it isn’t treated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Trusted Source estimates that 300,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Lyme each year. But many cases may go unreported. Other studies suggest that the incidence of Lyme may be as high as 1 million cases per year.

Diagnosis is challenging because Lyme symptoms mimic those of many other diseases.

Historical facts about Lyme

  • Lyme takes its name from the Connecticut town where several children developed what looked like rheumatoid arthritis in the 1970s. The culprit was thought to be a tick bite.
  • In 1982, scientist Willy Burgdorfer identified the bacterial causeTrusted Source of the illness. The tick-borne bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, is named after him.
  • Lyme isn’t a new disease. Lyme-type spirochetes were found in the Tyrolean IcemanTrusted Source, a 5,300-year-old well-preserved body discovered in the Alps in 1991.

What’s the most common way to get Lyme?

Blacklegged deer ticks infected with Borrelia burgdorferi transmit the Lyme bacteria when they bite. The ticks, Ixodes scapularis (Ixodes pacificus on the West Coast), can also transmit other disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and parasites. These are called coinfections.

A tick requires a blood meal at each stage of its life — as larvae, nymphs, and adults. Ticks normally feed on animals, ground-feeding birds, or reptiles. Humans are a secondary blood source.

Most bites to humans are from tick nymphs, which are the size of poppy seeds. It’s hard to spot them, even on open skin. The prime seasons for human tick bites are late spring and summer.

As an infected tick feeds on you, it injects spirochetes into your blood. Animal researchTrusted Source has shown that the severity (virulence) of infection varies, depending on whether the spirochetes are from the tick’s salivary glands or the tick’s midgut. In this animal research, infection required 14 times more midgut spirochetes than saliva spirochetes.

Depending on the tick’s bacterial virulence, you could be infected with Lyme within 24 hoursTrusted Sourceof the tick bite.

Can you get Lyme from bodily fluids?

Lyme bacteria may be found in bodily fluids, such as:

  • saliva
  • urine
  • breast milk

But there’s no hard evidence that Lyme spreads from person to person via contact with bodily fluids. So don’t worry about kissing someone with Lyme.

Can you get Lyme from sexual transmission?

There’s no direct evidence that Lyme is sexually transmitted by humans. Lyme experts are divided about the possibility.

“The evidence for sexual transmission that I’ve seen is very weak and certainly not conclusive in any scientific sense,” Dr. Elizabeth Maloney told Healthline. Maloney is president of the Partnership for Tick-Borne Diseases Education.

Dr. Sam Donta, another Lyme researcher, agreed.

On the other hand, Lyme researcher Dr. Raphael Stricker told Healthline,

“There’s no reason why the Lyme spirochete can’t be sexually transmitted by human beings. How commonly it occurs, or how difficult it is, we don’t know.”

Stricker has called for a “Manhattan Project” approach to Lyme, including more research.

Indirect studies of human transmission are suggestiveTrusted Source, but not definitive. A few animal studiesof sexual transmission of the Lyme spirochete have shown that it does occur in some cases.

It’s not ethical to test sexual transmission by deliberately infecting humans, as was done with syphilis in the past. (The syphilis spirochete is transmitted sexually.)

A 2014 studyTrusted Source found live Lyme spirochetes in semen and vaginal secretions of people with documented Lyme. But this doesn’t necessarily mean there are enough spirochetes to spread infection.

Can you get Lyme from a blood transfusion?

There are no documented cases of Lyme transmission via a blood transfusion.

But the Lyme spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi has been isolated from human blood, and an older 1990 research studyTrusted Source found that Lyme spirochetes could survive the normal blood bank storage procedures. For this reason, the CDCTrusted Source recommends that people being treated for Lyme shouldn’t donate blood.

On the other hand, there have been more than 30 cases of transfusion-transmitted babesiosis, a parasite coinfection of the same black-legged tick that transmits Lyme.

Can Lyme be transmitted during pregnancy?

A pregnant woman with untreated Lyme can transmit the infectionTrusted Source to the fetus. But if they receive adequate treatment for Lyme, adverse effects are unlikely.

A 2009 studyTrusted Source of 66 pregnant women found that untreated women had a significantly higher risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Infection from the mother to the fetus can occur within the first three months of pregnancy, according to Donta. If the mother is untreated, the infection would result in congenital abnormalities or miscarriage.

There’s no credible evidence, Donta said, that maternal-to-fetal transmission manifests itself months to years later in the child.

Lyme treatment for pregnant women is the same as for others with Lyme, except that antibiotics in the tetracycline family shouldn’t be used.

Can you get Lyme from your pets?

There’s no evidence of direct transmission of Lyme from pets to humans. But dogs and other domestic animals can bring Lyme-carrying ticks into your home. These ticks could attach to you and cause infection.

It’s a good practice to check your pets for ticks after they’ve been in tall grass, underbrush, or wooded areas where ticks are common.

Symptoms to watch for if you’ve been around ticks

The symptoms of Lyme vary widely and mimic those of many other diseases. Here are some common symptoms:

  • flat red rash, shaped like an oval or bull’s-eye (but note that you can still have Lyme without this rash)
  • fatigue
  • flu symptoms such as headache, fever, and general malaise
  • joint pain or swelling
  • light sensitivity
  • emotional or cognitive changes
  • neurological problems such as loss of balance
  • heart problems

Again, there’s no direct evidence of person-to-person transmission of Lyme. If someone you live with has Lyme and you develop symptoms, it’s most likely because you’re both exposed to the same tick population around you.

Preventative measures

Take preventive measures if you’re in an area where there are ticks (and deer):

  • Wear long pants and long sleeves.
  • Spray yourself with an effective insect repellent.
  • Check yourself and your pets for ticks if you’ve been in an area where there are ticks.

The takeaway

Lyme is an underreported epidemic in the United States. Diagnosis is challenging because Lyme symptoms are like those of many other diseases.

There’s no evidence that Lyme is contagious. The one documented exception is that pregnant women can transmit the infection to their fetus.

Lyme and its treatment are controversial topics. More research and research funding are needed.

If you suspect you have Lyme, see a doctor, preferably one who has Lyme experience. The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) can provide a list of Lyme-aware doctors in your area.

**Please see link at top of page for Sources**

_______________

**Comment**

Sigh…..here we go again.

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!”

Since borrelia is extremely evasive and difficult to culture and observe due to its affinity to sequester in tissues, & organs including the brain, prudence would err on the side of caution – which has not been the case historically.

Please understand that both Donta and Maloney (I respect them both) are highly vested in mainstream medicine due to their current roles. Donta is on the tick-borne disease working group and Maloney offers continuing medical education to doctors. Both feel the acute pressure of mainstream medicine and it’s emphasis on peer-reviewed, double blind placebo studies.  Problem is – those things don’t exist for Lyme/MSIDS. This monster just doesn’t fit into that paradigm at present and nobody’s doing the required work, which is:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/04/13/chronic-lyme-post-mortem-study-needed-to-end-the-lyme-wars/

Since Lyme/MSIDS is such a controversial subject, those in the spotlight, such as Donta and Maloney have taken a rigid stand that unless science has proven it, it’s unlikely.

Dr. Stricker, on the other hand, is still treating patients and sees a different reality.

That’s an important distinction. Notice the two viewpoints:

  1. Donta & Maloney: The evidence is weak and inconclusive and therefore unlikely.
  2. Stricker: There’s no reason why Lyme can’t be spread sexually….

In sum, while there is no DIRECT evidence, there’s plenty of indirect evidence and studies showing transmission by numerous means:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/05/24/microbiology-professor-im-convinced-lyme-disease-is-transmittable-from-person-to-person/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/02/transmission-of-lyme-disease-lida-mattman-phd/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/14/lab-acquired-infections-lyme/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/24/pcos-lyme-my-story/

Genital lesions (By Dr. MacDonald who states he predicted Lyme transmission in the bedroom in 1986)

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/11/07/are-mosquitoes-transmitting-lyme-disease/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26631488/  Excerpt:

…results show that DNA of Borrelia afzelii, Borrelia bavariensis and Borrelia garinii could be detected in ten Culicidae species comprising four distinct genera (Aedes, Culiseta, Culex, and Ochlerotatus). Positive samples also include adult specimens raised in the laboratory from wild-caught larvae indicating that transstadial and/or transovarial transmission might occur within a given mosquito population.

BTW: the last study on the potential of other bugs transmitting Lyme (minus the German study on mosquitos) was done over 30 years ago.  And, while no spirochetes were isolated from the hamsters, antibodies were found – even back then.

All I can say is I wished I knew about the potential of sexual transmission. This knowledge could have potentially spared me from disease which has been life-changing to say the least.

One thing’s for sure – the research is screaming to be done, yet The Cabal prefers to sit on their ivory tower and just proclaim the only way for you to become infected with Lyme is solely through the bite of the black-legged tick.

Sorry.  I just don’t believe people who have patents on the organism, test kits, and vaccines.

ConflictReport

Category:

Lyme, Transmission

Michigan Lawmakers Who Want More Regulations Around Lyme Disease Face Pushback

https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/06/michigan-lawmakers-who-want-more-regulations-around-lyme-disease-face-pushback.html

Michigan lawmakers who want more regulations around Lyme disease face pushback

390650 07: A Close Up Of An Adult Female Deer Tick, Dog Tick, And A Lone Star Tick Are Shown June 15, 2001 On The Palm Of A Hand. Ticks Cause An Acute Inflammatory Disease Characterized By Skin Changes, Joint Inflammation, And Flu-Like Symptoms Called Lyme Disease. (Photo By Getty Images)

Getty Images

A Close Up Of An Adult Female Deer Tick, Dog Tick, And A Lone Star Tick Are Shown June 15, 2001 On The Palm Of A Hand. Ticks Cause An Acute Inflammatory Disease Characterized By Skin Changes, Joint Inflammation, And Flu-Like Symptoms Called Lyme Disease. (Photo By Getty Images)

By Lauren Gibbons | lgibbon2@mlive.com

A group of lawmakers and survivors are pushing for stricter regulations for testing, diagnosing and reporting Lyme disease cases in Michigan – but critics of the bills say the legislation would further confuse how the cases are handled.

On Thursday, the Michigan House Health Policy Committee took testimony on eight bills and one resolution supporters said would help those who suffer from the tick-borne illness get correctly diagnosed and treated sooner.

Reps. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit, and Gary Eisen, R-St. Clair Township, who both sponsored bills in the package, told lawmakers they suffered from Lyme disease and struggled getting a straight answer and treatment from doctors for years. Whitsett showed the committee a stack of stuffed binders she said were only a portion of her medical records while she sought diagnosis and treatment for her illness.

“It took me months to find a doctor willing to test me,” she said. “You cannot get the help that you really need and deserve.”

Lyme disease is transmitted to humans through blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, and if left untreated can spread to joints, the heart or the nervous system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully with a few weeks of antibiotics, and warns against prolonged use of antibiotics to treat Lyme disease symptoms.

The resolution in the package would urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update its definition of Lyme disease symptoms and reconsider standards for diagnosing and treating the disease.
House Bills 4603 through 4609 would require additional testing for and reporting of Lyme disease cases, require health insurers to cover Lyme disease testing and prohibit any disciplinary action for doctors who opt to treat Lyme disease patients with long-term antibiotic use.

A separate bill, HB 4659, would require state parks, campgrounds and trails to post signage warning patrons about tick-borne diseases.

Supporters of the bill who survived Lyme disease told the committee it could prevent others from going through years of pain and illness before hitting on a treatment that worked, and keep them from paying thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for necessary treatment.

But health providers balked at some of the requirements the bills would impose, noting the CDC does not currently recognize Lyme disease as a chronic illness, meaning there are no set codes for insurers to use to cover it.

“In an emerging area of clinical medicine, we are concerned with a government mandate for treatment protocol that is not agreed upon by the medical community,” Kristen Kraft of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan wrote in provided testimony. “Blue Cross does recognize the appropriate use of antibiotics for extended treatment periods for certain disease indications, done in consultation with providers.”

The Michigan Lyme Disease Association also opposed the bills as introduced, taking the position that reform is needed, but that the bills are repetitive, loosely worded and would do little to help Lyme disease patients.

“In their current form the bills are not relevant in some cases, are not a top priority in others, are incomplete, lack funding to accomplish their goals and lack substance,” Carrie Nielsen, the association’s secretary, wrote in testimony to the committee.

The bills would have to be passed through the House and Senate and signed by the governor before becoming law.

_________________

**Comment**

I do believe Wisconsin’s legislators are getting their current ideas from Michigan. They have adopted many similar measures:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/time-to-bite-back-against-lyme-disease-05-23-19.pdfWhile WI bills 1-4 are all about prevention and certainly helpful, bill #5 is opening a can of worms that could potentially hurt patients and the doctors who dare treat them. The reason for this is it calls for a 16-member panel to propose legislation on the diagnostics and treatment of Lyme disease.  Since there is such disagreement in the medical community on these issues, the panel could be loaded with CDC/IDSA-types who espouse to the CDC antiquated and unscientific guidelines of essentially 21 days of doxycycline for everyone, despite length of illness, coinfections, and the persistence of the organism in the human body which can cause relapsing symptoms.

Please note the Michigan Lyme Disease Association is OPPOSED to the bills.

I’m certain they are concerned about the same issues.

Even if you staff the panel with well-meaning but uneducated Lyme/MSIDS patients, they very well could inadvertently go along with something that would be catastrophic to patients and Lyme treating doctors.  Many patients do not understand the diabolic back-story to all of this and the underhanded way it’s all been handled.  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/12/10/tuttles-letter-to-the-assistant-secretary-for-health-is-the-mishandling-of-lyme-a-result-of-incompetence-or-collusion/

These muddied politics take savvy and persistence that’s akin to borrelia itself. Many patients do not have the required education, health to handle stress, and healthy skepticism required.

After speaking with numerous Lyme treating physicians in Wisconsin, they too oppose WI bill #5 due to government overreach – telling them how to treat patients. They state to imagine the government telling doctors how to treat diabetes or cancer.…it just isn’t done.  Doctors attend medical school to be in the business of treating people. The government should stay out of that. If we allow this type of overreach in medicine, how long will it take before overreach happens in every facet of life?

Another comment by a WI LLMD is that they are in contact with ILADS-trained Lyme/MSIDS treating doctors in states that have adopted “Doctor protection” bills. These doctors are NOW under the Eye of Mordor and are now being persecuted. So while patients believe they are helping doctors, these protection measures have and often work against doctors by putting them in the spotlight. 

Politics is often counter intuitive.

After pondering this issue for some time, I’m in agreement with microbiologist Tom Grier who states the best way for the Lyme Wars to end is by doing the proper science. He points out that 40 years of attempting to change this politically hasn’t worked & has at times completely backfired.  His belief, and now mine, is we need to fund pathology work to end the Lyme Wars:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/04/13/chronic-lyme-post-mortem-study-needed-to-end-the-lyme-wars/

Back to Michigan’s proposed measures.

Similarly to the WI proposed bills, the signage at state parks, etc., is all good. Messing around with bills that could backfire against the few doctors in Michigan treating this appropriately is not good.

I stand with Michigan Lyme Disease Association.  STOP any and ALL bills that mess with treating physicians.

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme