Prof. Holly Ahern’s Lyme Disease Comments to Australian Senate

February 20, 2025

https://www.lymedisease.org/holly-ahern-australian-senate/

Prof. Holly Ahern’s Lyme disease comments to Australian Senate

2/5/25

The Australian Senate has launched an inquiry into the access to diagnosis and treatment for people in Australia with tick-borne diseases. Professor Holly Ahern of the United States recently submitted the following written comments and was also asked to give verbal remarks. (See video at end of this article.)

Dear Committee Members:

I am a scientist, professor of microbiology, and co-founder of a Lyme disease advocacy organization in New York State. I am also the Scientific Advisor for the Focus on Lyme Foundation in Arizona, which has funded research on several projects directed at improving the state of diagnostic testing for Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.

I have served on several state and federal committees convened to address the growing problem of tick-borne diseases in the United States, most recently the 2022 Dept. of Health and Human Services, Tick Borne Disease Working Group (TBDWG).

But most of all, I am mother of a daughter who went from a record setting collegiate All American swimmer to bed bound and disabled over the course of only a few weeks. She lost years of her life as a result of flawed medical guidelines that prioritize care for patients early in the infection, while providing only minimal guidance for the diagnosis and care of patients in later stages of the disease.

In my daughter’s case, we saw the tick bite but she developed no rash. Fever, profound fatigue, widespread pain, and other symptoms began months later, and were attributed to a viral illness. The difficulties we faced in getting her illness diagnosed and appropriately treated in 2010 match those of hundreds of thousands of other people with Lyme disease in the United States and Europe, and also in Australia.

Biologically complex organism

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by a microbe with global distribution. They are transmitted to humans by several species of tick. The bacteria are biologically complex. They adapt and survive in environments that would kill most other bacteria.

During human infection, some subgroups (genospecies) of these bacteria linger in the bloodstream, while others disseminate to connective tissue-rich areas of the body. Regardless, infection triggers profound immune system and other physiological events, leading to a wide range of symptoms that vary significantly among patients and can be quite severe.

The standard medical definition implies that the overwhelming majority of Lyme borreliosis (Lyme disease) patients are infected with the same bacteria and have the same uniform disease presentation, which is straightforward to diagnose and treat. As defined, Lyme disease is caused by only a few specific genospecies of Borrelia (now named Borreliella). Several other genospecies of Borrelia are associated with diseases collectively referred to as “Relapsing Fever borreliosis.”

Differences between the two diseases are subtle. Relapsing Fever Borrelia fail to produce the skin manifestation (erythema migrans or “bull’s-eye” rash) that is noted in Lyme disease; however, other symptoms are very similar. Existing diagnostic tests for Lyme disease don’t detect infections caused by Relapsing Fever Borrelia.

Thus, a patient may be bitten by a tick and infected with a Relapsing Fever Borrelia, such as B. miyamatoi, show all the symptoms that a patient with Lyme disease would have, but may not be diagnosed or treated for the infection because the EM rash did not appear and/or the standard lab tests for Lyme disease were negative.  (See link for article)

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Category:

Lyme, research, Testing, Ticks, Transmission, Treatment

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