Author Archive

California’s First CDC-Confirmed Case of Borrelia Miyamotoi

https://www.lymedisease.org/californias-first-cdc-confirmed-case-of-borrelia-miyamotoi/

California’s first CDC-confirmed case of Borrelia miyamotoi

By Lonnie Marcum

May 4, 2023

A recent case reminds us that Lyme disease isn’t the only tick-borne disease we need to worry about.

Last year, the CDC confirmed California’s first known case of Borrelia miyamotoi—a tick-borne pathogen that causes a relapsing-fever illness in humans.

This discovery highlights the need for increased awareness and surveillance of emerging tick-borne illnesses across the United States.

In this case, a man from Marin County, California, sought care at a neurology clinic in San Francisco. His symptoms included recurring fever, night sweats, mild vision changes and nausea. The fevers typically lasted one day and would recur every 10-14 days. At the time, he was also undergoing monoclonal antibody therapy for multiple sclerosis.

His standard blood work was negative for fungi, Lyme disease, brucellosis and leptospirosis. Chest x-rays and abdominal CT scans were negative as well.

The only notable blood findings were a positive antigen for Epstein-Barr virus, a low platelet count (thrombocytopenia), an elevated C-reactive protein (an inflammatory marker), and an elevated procalcitonin—a biomarker that is released in response to bacterial infections.

Specialty lab testing

Considering the patient’s immunocompromised status and continued relapsing fevers, his blood was sent to a specialty lab for next-generation DNA sequencing. The specialty lab, Karius,  says it can identify over 1000 clinically relevant pathogens including bacteria, DNA viruses, fungi, and parasites from a single blood sample.

The DNA test results came back positive for Borrelia miyamotoi and were sent to the CDC for confirmation. The CDC confirmed the patient’s blood was positive for Borrelia miyamotoi and 100% identical to an isolate that had been previously collected from an Ixodes pacificus tick in Marin County. This indicates the patient acquired the infection in California.

Borrelia miyamotoi, first identified in Japan in 1995, is considered an emerging infectious disease in Asia, Europe and the United States.

A recent study found widespread evidence of Borrelia miyamotoi in human blood samples of people living in the northeastern United States. An earlier study found evidence of tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) Borrelia, including Borrelia miyamotoi in the blood of 26 out of 101 samples of residents of Mendocino County, California in the 1980s.

Another study found multiple species of relapsing fever Borrelia in blood samples drawn from patients in 16 out of 24 California counties. And a 13-year-long study found Borrelia miyamotoi in ticks found in 24 out of 48 counties in California (see map below).

Borrelia miyamotoi is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. These are the same  hardbodied ticks (Ixodes scapularis, Ixodes pacificus) that transmit Lyme disease to humans and animals. Other types of North American tick-borne relapsing fever Borrelia (B. hermsii, B. turicatae, B. parkeri), are transmitted by soft-bodied ticks.

The symptoms of Borrelia miyamotoi disease are similar to those of other tick-borne illnesses, such as Lyme disease. But standard Lyme tests will be negative, making the diagnosis challenging.

TBRF

According to the CDC, the main symptoms of TBRF are high fever, headache, muscle and joint pain. Fewer than 1 in 10 patients will develop a rash. Left untreated, the symptoms typically repeat, producing a telltale pattern of relapsing fever lasting 1-3 days, followed by 7-10 days without a fever, followed by another 1-3 days of fever.

The CDC website says: “Confirmation of a diagnosis relies on 1) the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that detect DNA from the organism or 2) antibody-based tests. Both types of tests are under development and not widely commercially available but can be ordered from a limited number of CLIA-approved laboratories.”

Treatment for TBRF involves the use of antibiotics, such as doxycycline, amoxicillin or cefuroxime . In this case the man was given a 4-week course of doxycycline and achieved complete resolution of his symptoms. One month after completing antibiotics ,follow-up laboratory testing showed complete resolution of thrombocytopenia and normalization of inflammatory markers.

All tick-borne diseases are a significant health concern worldwide, particularly in areas where ticks are prevalent. These illnesses can present with a range of symptoms, some of which can be mysterious and difficult to diagnose.

While relapsing fever Borrelia has been detected in California before, this is the first CDC-confirmed case of Borrelia miyamotoi in California.  This case highlights the need for continued education and awareness of tick-borne diseases.

As with all tick-borne illnesses, prevention is key. To reduce the risk of tick bites, take precautions when spending time outdoors, such as pre-treating shoes and clothing with permethrin, using insect repellant on yourself, your children and your pets, and performing thorough tick checks after being outdoors.

LymeSci is written by Lonnie Marcum, a Licensed Physical Therapist and mother of a daughter with Lyme. She served two terms on a subcommittee of the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. Follow her on Twitter: @LonnieRhea  Email her at: lmarcum@lymedisease.org.

Reference

Rubio LA, Kjemtrup AM, Marx GE, Cronan S, Kilonzo C, Saunders MEM, et al. Borrelia miyamotoi infection in immunocompromised man, California, USA, 2021. Emerg Infect Dis. 2023 May https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2905.221638 DOI: 10.3201/eid2905.221638

Padgett K, Bonilla D, Kjemtrup A, Vilcins I-M, Yoshimizu MH, Hui L, et al. (2014) Large Scale Spatial Risk and Comparative Prevalence of Borrelia miyamotoi and Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato in Ixodes pacificus. PLoS ONE 9(10): e110853. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110853

Additional Resources

Stanford: Tick-borne disease risk high in SF Bay Area

Yale: Tick-borne Borrelia miyamotoi widespread in northeastern US

LYME SCI: Infected ticks in California? It’s complicated.

LYME SCI: B. miyamotoi has been in California ticks for a long time

LYME SCI: Lyme-carrying ticks in West differ from their Eastern cousins

LYME SCI: How many “negative” Lyme tests are due to B. miyamotoi?

LYME SCI: Tick infection rates as high as 31% in some coastal areas of California

BALF: New interactive maps show where citizen scientists found infected ticks

For more:

And the question begging to be asked is: how many people with B. miyamotoi are falling through the cracks?  It isn’t even reportable to the CDC yet (which notoriously undercounts all things tick-borne-related).

For more:  https://igenex.com/tick-talk/what-you-need-to-know-about-borrelia-miyamotoi/

This article points out the confusion with B. miyamotoi: 

  • many separate it from other tick-borne relapsing fevers
  • while it can cause relapsing fevers, it sometimes doesn’t
  • it appears to be the only TBRF transmitted from a hard bodied tick, unlike TBRF which is mainly transmitted from a soft bodied tick (I remain skeptical of this as ticks have repeatedly been found to transmit things they shouldn’t – just like they are found in places they shouldn’t be.)
  • symptoms often resemble Lyme disease
  • you can be infected with BOTH B. miyamotoi AND Lyme disease (as well as numerous other coinfections) which will complicate symptom presentation
  • testing for B. miyamotoi is just as abysmal as it is for Lyme/MSIDS:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/01/study-cdcs-2-tier-lyme-testing-inaccurate-in-more-than-70-of-cases/

Category:

Borrelia Miyamotoi (Relapsing Fever Group), research, Testing, Ticks, Treatment

Hacking Lyme Disease Book Review

https://www.lymedisease.org/this-easy-to-read-guide-is-packed-with-useful-information/

This easy-to-read guide is packed with useful information

By Dorothy Kupcha Leland
April 25, 2023

Hacking Lyme Disease: An Action Guide to Wellness is a compilation of articles from Dr. Marty Ross’s informative website “treatlyme.net.”

It covers a wide range of topics, including what he considers the best herbal and prescription antibiotic treatments, what to do if your previous treatments have failed to get you well, and a discussion of many alternative therapies (both pro and con).

It is not a guide to treating yourself. Dr. Ross strongly advises you to discuss these matters with your Lyme-literate practitioner. But it answers a lot of questions that Lyme patients may have, including about many alternative treatments.

The Ross Lyme Support Protocol

He outlines his own treatment guidelines for chronic Lyme and related infections, which he calls The Ross Lyme Support Protocol. He says it’s designed to:

  • Boost the immune system,
  • Improve detoxification,
  • Speed recovery,
  • Kill the infections, and
  • protect and repair from the harmful effects of the infections and the herbal and prescription antibiotics.

Dr. Ross emphasizes that treating Lyme disease is complicated. “The infection triggers an immune system cytokine reaction that affects most organs and systems of the body,” he writes. “In my experience, the great majority of people can recover if they address each of the steps in The Ross Lyme Support Protocol.”

He refers to anything that kills Lyme and related infections as “antigerms.”  These herbal and prescription antigerms include:

  • Antibiotics for bacteria like Borrelia (Lyme), Bartonella, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and Clostridium difficile;
  • Antifungals for intestinal yeast overgrowth;
  • Antiparasitic agents for Babesia and hidden intestinal parasites, and
  • Antivirals for chronic infections like mononucleosis and human herpesvirus 6.

However, his action steps encompass much more than just trying to eliminate bacteria. He includes recommendations regarding sleep, diet, controlling inflammation, hormones, exercise, detoxification and more.

He also discusses complicating factors such as yeast infections, mold toxin illness, and mast call activation syndrome.

A unique aspect of Hacking Lyme Disease is how it incorporates information from LymeDisease.org’s MyLymeData research project. More than 17,000 Lyme patients participate in MyLymeData, providing feedback about their treatment experiences.

Dr. Ross includes MyLymeData findings in his discussion of prescription antibiotic use as well as a wide variety of alternative medical treatments.

This easy-to-read guide is packed with lots of useful information.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, President of LymeDisease.org. She is co-author of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org .

http://

Hacking Lyme Disease

Dr. Marty Ross

April 29, 2023

Transcript: http://lymedisease.org.au/wp-content/…

For more:

Category:

Activism, Detoxing, Lyme, Treatment

Long Term COVID Injection Data: Evidence of Sustained Vascular Injury & Thrombosis at 2 Years

https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/long-term-covid-19-vaccine-data-evidence?

Long Term COVID-19 Vaccine Data–Evidence of Sustained Vascular Injury and Thrombosis at 2 Years

Direct Observation of Retinal Blood Vessels Reveals Anticipated Disaster

MAY 5, 2023

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

Early in 2020 I published with former US FDA physician Dr. Zhang that the SARS-CoV-2 viral Spike protein was damaging blood vessels and causing blood clotting. Our observations were this was occurring at the level at the vascular endothelium. This means capillaries would be systemically injured if exposed high concentrations of the Spike protein. Dr. Bruce Patterson has demonstrated the Spike protein is long-lasting (months to years) in the human body after both severe COVID-19 infection and vaccination. This leads us to a concern, that the vaccinated would have sustained vascular damage over the long-term. Now the first two-year data report in and the news could not be worse.  (See link for article)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00661-7

Risk assessment of retinal vascular occlusion after COVID-19 vaccination

Jing-Xing Li, Yu-Hsun Wang, Henry Bair, Shu-Bai Hsu, Connie Chen, James Cheng-Chung Wei & Chun-Ju Lin

npj Vaccines volume 8, Article number: 64 (2023) Cite this article

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are associated with several ocular manifestations. Emerging evidence has been reported; however, the causality between the two is debatable. We aimed to investigate the risk of retinal vascular occlusion after COVID-19 vaccination. This retrospective cohort study used the TriNetX global network and included individuals vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines between January 2020 and December 2022. We excluded individuals with a history of retinal vascular occlusion or those who used any systemic medication that could potentially affect blood coagulation prior to vaccination. To compare the risk of retinal vascular occlusion, we employed multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models after performing a 1:1 propensity score matching between the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts. Individuals with COVID-19 vaccination had a higher risk of all forms of retinal vascular occlusion in 2 years after vaccination, with an overall hazard ratio of 2.19 (95% confidence interval 2.00–2.39). The cumulative incidence of retinal vascular occlusion was significantly higher in the vaccinated cohort compared to the unvaccinated cohort, 2 years and 12 weeks after vaccination. The risk of retinal vascular occlusion significantly increased during the first 2 weeks after vaccination and persisted for 12 weeks. Additionally, individuals with first and second dose of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 had significantly increased risk of retinal vascular occlusion 2 years following vaccination, while no disparity was detected between brand and dose of vaccines. This large multicenter study strengthens the findings of previous cases. Retinal vascular occlusion may not be a coincidental finding after COVID-19 vaccination.

_______________

**Comment**

Not being a paid-subscriber, I could not access the study McCullough mentions; however, there have been case reports showing long post-COVID “vaccination” syndrome (LPCVS).

  • In this one, a 39 year old male with an uneventful medical history developed severe adverse reactions immediately after the third dose of Moderna.  Symptoms included brief fever, headache, flickering eyes, skin rashes, tiredness, insomnia, disorientation, dizziness (brain fog), tiredness, impaired thinking and concentration, emotional disorders, neck swelling, pulling/shaking/pulsating feeling inside the head, white light after eye closure, whole body vibration, panic attacks, pain in left ear, word finding disorders, various skin reactions, and non-specific white matter lesions in a frontotemporal distribution.
  • This retrospective analysis of clinically confirmed LPCVS states it is an “increasingly recognized disease that occurs after SARS-CoV-s vaccination and lasts for more than 4 weeks.  Important excerpt:

Although LPCVS leads to long-term disability, it is not widely recognized and not always accepted by manufacturers, health authorities, and even scientists. LPCVS should not be dismissed as a functional disorder and patients with LPCVS should be taken seriously.

  • This study asks if adverse events are being missed and then goes on to state that adverse events occurring with the COVID injections have never happened with other previously administered vaccines and are mainly vascular side effects that have occurred in the brain, vascular system of the limbs, abdomen, and heart, including CVST/CVT, VITT, DIC, DVT, PTE, CLS, AHA, ITP, SVT, cardiac arrest, HF, MI, pericarditis, and myocarditis, respectively. Ocular involvement includes uveitis, bilateral retinal detachment, central serous retinopathy, acute macular retinopathy, AAION and AZOOR, and paracentral acute middle maculopathy. The thyroid gland can also cause thyroiditis. Neurological side effects such as GBS, Bell’s palsy, stroke, and transverse myelitis have also been observed. It causes filler on the face. In addition to facial involvement, skin infections such as erythema multiforme, chilblains, and cutaneous vasculitis have also been reported. It causes autoimmune hepatitis in the liver and has caused many complications for the kidneys. Symptoms of immune rheumatologic events have also been observed in some patients. Lymphadenitis is one of the immune complications in the lymph nodes. In addition to the above, it also causes spontaneous abortion and menstrual problems in women. CVST/CVT, Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis/Cerebral venous thrombosis; VITT, Vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia; DIC, Disseminated intravascular coagulation; DVT, Deep vein thrombosis; PTE, Pulmonary thromboendarterectomy; CLS, Capillary leak syndrome; AHA, Acquired hemophilia A; ITP, Immune thrombocytopenic purpura; SVT, Supraventricular tachycardia; HF, Heart failure; MI, Myocardial infarction; AAION, Arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy; AZOOR, Acute zonal occult outer retinopathy; GBS, Guillain-Barré syndrome.

I think reality is beginning to come home to roost.  It’s going to be pretty hard to continue to sweep these devastating injuries and sudden deaths under the rug as they have been doing; however, until people decide to speak up and be willing to connect the dots, ‘the powers that be’ will continue to ignore what’s happening before their very eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist.

For more:

Category:

research, vaccines, Viruses

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Resigns As Federal COVID Policies End

Proclaiming that the PSYOP, I mean COVID ‘pandemic’, is is a “different phase,” the White House announced that May 11 is the end of most shot mandates for federal employees, international contractors, Head Start employees, and health care workers at many hospitals.  Health insurance coverage for virus testing and injections as well as mandatory lab reporting of COVID data will also come to an end.  There will likely be changes in policy for public gatherings such as sporting events.  Source

https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/cdc-director-rochelle-walensky-resigns

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Resigns

Petition filed at US Attorney’s Office court alleges that Walensky was never lawfully sworn into office to begin with.

 
MAY 5, 2023

By JOHN LEAKE

Who is that masked woman? De facto CDC Director Walensky was sworn in as a Senior Advisor.

AP is reporting that Director Rochelle Walensky just resigned from her office as CDC Director. For many readers of this Substack, Walensky is perhaps best remembered for her August 5, 2021 admission that the so-called COVID-19 “vaccines” do not prevent infection or transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

Given that the RNA virus initially replicates in the nose, it was already evident to many when the new shots were rolled out that these products—designed to induce the production of antibodies in the blood— would NOT prevent infection and transmission. This is because antibodies in the blood have limited interaction with a pathogen replicating in the nose.  

For some reason it seems the CDC was slow to recognize this. After Walensky entered office in early 2021, she assured the public that the new vaccines did indeed prevent infection and transmission.

According to the AP report, Walensky did not, in her resignation letter, explain why she was stepping down, though she apparently referenced today’s WHO declaration that the COVID-19 state of emergency is no longer in effect. This comes just six days prior to the pre-announced expiration of the HHS declared state of COVID-19 emergency.

To be sure, many Americans have not perceived COVID-19 to be a public emergency for some time. However, as readers of this Substack are aware, the PREP Act provides innumerable benefits to those engaged in the great business of “Emergency Countermeasures.” As one might say here in my great state of Texas, the Countermeasures business has been damn good to a lot of folks where were positioned to benefit from the emergency.

Walensky’s resignation comes just three weeks after an intriguing petition was submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia, pointing out that she did not—as required by 5 U.S. Code § 3332—adhere to the following requirement:

An officer, within 30 days after the effective date of his appointment, shall file with the oath of office required by section 3331 of this title an affidavit that neither he nor anyone acting in his behalf has given, transferred, promised, or paid any consideration for or in the expectation or hope of receiving assistance in securing the appointment.

(See link for article)

_________________

This is seriously more interesting than anything on TV.

It will be interesting to see whether she lands on her feet working for Big Pharma or industry where she can powerfully guide these companies due to her experience working for the CDC.  

For more:

http://  Approx. 11 Min

Walenskys’s Advice Mutates More Than COVID

http://  Approx. 24 Min

Walensky Lies Repeatedly

 

The continued revolving door between government and the very industries it regulates must end.

 

Category:

Activism, vaccines, Viruses

Lyme Times Open Assess For May – Lyme Awareness Month

https://www.lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/2023-summer-lymetimes/#articles

In honor of Lyme Disease Awareness Month, the latest issue of the Lyme Times is open-access–freely available to all.

This special issue offers articles from 10 prominent Lyme-treating physicians on such topics as:
  • New treatments for chronic Lyme
  • An overview of Lyme testing
  • Lyme carditis
  • Brain inflammation
  • Lyme in young children

Category:

Activism, Heart Issues, Lyme, Testing, Treatment