Friends,
There is the speculation the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) plans to release their new Lyme Guidelines during the 2018 Christmas holiday season.
A Christmas release of the new IDSA Lyme Guidelines would mark a 12 year passage since the 2006 IDSA Lyme Guidelines were unleashed and spread misinformation, propaganda and unnecessary pain, suffering, bankruptcy, disability and death across the globe.
The 2006 Lyme Guidelines ignored the scientific evidence regarding persistent or chronic borrelia infection, serology-seronegative infection, flawed prophylaxis recommendation and the immunosuppressive nature of the infection. The Guidelines’ authors and related committees did not fully reveal their conflicts of interest, nor acknowledge that ‘optimal diagnostic and therapeutic modalities’ were still undefined, nor address the misuse of the Lyme ‘surveillance definition’.
The world has changed a great deal since 2006.
IDSA Fouls Itself
Since 2006, IDSA’s own non-science-based actions, policies and practices regarding the global Lyme and relapsing fever borreliosis epidemic have become very evident. This evidence has fouled the IDSA brand and the reputations of certain members and close affiliates.
This evidence and related harm have resulted in long overdue corrective measures. It should be noted that the US Government has taken no initiative in these corrective measures.
In fact, the US Government is deeply invested in supporting the IDSA’s propaganda and practices. The US government benefits financially from uniting with IDSA Lyme opinions and policies. For example, the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs can continue to throw out Lyme infected military personnel with no benefits by claiming they are malingerers and hypochondriacs because they failed to respond to the restricted IDSA Lyme protocol.
Corrective Measures
As with other historical cases of deeply institutionalized and government-condoned discrimination and human rights abuse, these corrective measures are being undertaken by average folk. Some examples follow.
- In June 2019, a major lawsuit will go forward that has documented IDSA’s many years of promoting fraudulent science in collusion with many actors— all for financial gain at the cost of patients’ health and lives.
- Lawsuits in both France and Norway have succeeded in proving the unreliability of the two-tiered serology tests long promoted by IDSA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the disastrous results when these serology tests are relied upon for Lyme diagnosis. In the French case, the patient sent her blood to a veterinary laboratory in order to access a direct detection test based on finding genetic material of Lyme borreliosis. The two-tiered test showed a negative result whereas the direct detection test gave a positive result. Following a positive direct detection test result, the patient had long-term antibiotic treatment, left her wheelchair, and resumed an active life that includes skiing.
- Microbiologist and clinician Dr. Sin Hang Lee has also succeeded in securing a lawsuit against the CDC for their unfounded slander, libel and obstruction against patient access to the Lyme direct detection test he developed.
- Two comprehensive Reports were put into record with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) via Special Rapporteurs. [1][2] These Reports documented how IDSA has actively promoted human rights abuses against Lyme and relapsing fever borreliosis patients.
- The IDSA is documented as instrumental in causing human rights abuses across 11 international and regional human rights treaties. Their abuses include obstruction to diagnostic technologies that meet state, national and/or international standards and treatment options from Guidelines that meet internationally accepted standards for evidence-based medicine.
Other documented abuses include:
—torture and homicide by the withholding of validated treatment options from patients with proven persistent infection
—supporting the seizing of infected children from parents who are protecting their human right to medical care.
These abuses include IDSA’s:
—unfounded attacks on clinicians who treat borreliosis patients with valid treatment options
—false testimony intended to strip the clinicians of their livelihoods and medical licenses.
Certain members of IDSA, including a former president of IDSA, and certain IDSA affiliates, have their public statements, articles and PowerPoint presentations documented in two the Reports that were entered into UN record. These Reports are also registered with the US Library of Congress.
Their statements include bizarre, unprofessional name-calling of clinicians —where certain IDSA members and certain affiliates falsely claim these clinicians are terrorists, gurus, quacks, practice ‘off license’ medicine and make death threats against ‘true’ doctors and scientists.
Certain IDSA member and certain affiliates have habitually slandered and libeled legitimate Lyme-related technologies and therapies for which they gain no royalties and are proven superior to the decades-old technologies and therapies hawked by IDSA and their affiliates.
IDSA Endorsement Strategy Will Fail
The IDSA appears to believe that a strategy of ‘Guidelines endorsement’ by other medical societies will somehow the erase their scientific fraud and human rights abuse. The global awareness regarding the true nature of Lyme as a life-threatening, persistent and immunosuppressive infection, however, dooms their strategy to failure.
This global awareness extends to politicians in the many countries where campaign contributions from pharmaceutical and insurance companies, private medical societies, and other corrupting influences are illegal.
The awareness encompasses government officials who are exposed to Lyme and other tickborne illnesses by their responsibility to manage parks, recreation areas and infrastructure. Members of farmers associations, foresters, telecommunications lineman, golfers, football and rugby players, gardeners and dog walkers know the epidemic has escalated and the IDSA-influenced public health and medical response has failed many.
Across the globe, the public and elected officials have been informed that the Lyme opinions, practices and policies promoted from the CDC and IDSA are deeply compromised by conflicts of interest and related corruptions, e.g.:
— US federal agencies and government officials are allowed to earn money off patents and in partnership with private enterprises
— there are CDC and National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials who hold Lyme patents
— these officials have the power to repudiate and dismiss patent products that compete with their own, or patents held by their agencies.
The global community is being educated as to how IDSA has made a practice of introducing ‘research terminology’ that is quickly morphed for predetermined objectives. For example, to offload the cost of medical care by predatory private insurers and unscrupulous national health systems onto the vulnerable ill patient community.
Many have quickly understood how Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS) has been used to falsely claim a person is a hypochondriac or malingerer, when in fact severe and disabling symptoms are usually due to the IDSA protocols’ treatment failure. This treatment failure is tied to the discriminatory practices of restricted care for Lyme patients, discrimination that stands in contrast to the extended antimicrobials provided to many patient groups suffering from other infectious agents.
On November 15, 2018, the European Parliament unanimously endorsed a resolution for a series of actions based on the following facts:
“Lyme borreliosis is the most common zoonotic disease in Europe, with an estimated 650 000 – 850 000 cases and a higher incidence in Central Europe …… many Europeans are constantly exposed to Lyme borreliosis through their professional activities (farmers, forestry workers, researchers and students carrying out field research such as biologists, geologists, surveyors or archaeologists) …
… infected ticks and the disease seem to be expanding geographically … a bite by an infected tick and the symptoms of Lyme disease can go unnoticed or even in some cases be asymptomatic, which can sometimes lead to severe complications and permanent damage similar to that of a chronic disease, in particular when the patient is not promptly diagnosed …
… Lyme disease is still underdiagnosed, in particular because of the difficulties encountered in the detection of symptoms and the absence of appropriate diagnostic tests … many patients are neither promptly diagnosed nor have access to suitable treatment …… more reliable early diagnosis of Lyme disease will significantly reduce the number of later-stage cases, thus improving the quality of life of patients; whereas it will also reduce the financial burden of the disease…
… the ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society) treatment practice guidelines differ from those of IDSA and these differences between the two approaches to the disease also have an impact on treatment practices in the EU … the medical profession often follows outdated recommendations on Lyme disease that do not take sufficient account of research developments … health professionals have been sounding the alarm about this health issue for nearly a decade, as have patients’ associations and whistle-blowers …”
World Health Organization
The IDSA and their affiliates were apparently blindsided by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new International Classification of Diseases codes or ICD11 codes for Lyme borreliosis. Remarks by certain members of the IDSA and certain affiliates included (paraphrased):
— ‘the ICD is just a dictionary and has nothing to do with diagnosis and clinical care’
— ‘the ICD11 codes for Lyme still have to be decided’
— ‘our country doesn’t use the ICD codes’
— ‘WHO has nothing to do with our surveillance system’
— ‘ICD codes don’t represent validated conditions’
Every one of the above remarks are entirely inaccurate and simply another example of the deliberate misinformation disseminated by certain members of IDSA and certain affiliates. Apparently, they do not yet understand their misinformation are being documented, disseminated globally and put into record with various authorities.
TO NOTE: WHO is the only global multi-governmental public health institution in the world. All code additions to the ICD11, including the new codes for Lyme, went through a strict evidence-based review process. Hundreds of peer-reviewed Lyme publications —many of them dismissed, suppressed or ignored by IDSA and affiliates— were validated by WHO by multiple reviews. The validation of this science can be used today to improve Lyme-related practices and policies.
ICD10 Codes for Lyme borreliosis were limited to: A69.2 Lyme Disease; M01.2 Arthritis due to Lyme; G01 Meningitis due to Lyme; G63.0 Polyneuropathy due to Lyme.
Many complications from Lyme still require codes, however, ICD11 is far more comprehensive than ICD10:
1C1G Lyme borreliosis
1C1G.0 Early cutaneous Lyme borreliosis
1C1G.1 Disseminated Lyme borreliosis
1C1G.10 Lyme Neuroborreliosis
1C1G.11 Lyme Carditis
1C1G.12 Ophthalmic Lyme borreliosis
1C1G.13 Lyme arthritis
1C1G.14 Late cutaneous Lyme borreliosis
1C1G.1Y Other specified disseminated Lyme borreliosis
1C1G.1Z Disseminated Lyme borreliosis, unspecified
1C1G.2 Congenital Lyme borreliosis
1C1GY Other specified Lyme borreliosis
6D85.Y Dementia due to Lyme Disease
9C20.1 Infectious panuveitis in Lyme disease
9B66.1 Infectious intermediate uveitis in Lyme disease
8A45.0Y Central Nervous System demyelination due to Lyme borreliosis
ICD11 is a 400 percent increase from ICD10 in the recognition of the complications from Lyme borreliosis. Five of the fifteen codes identify complications documented as life threatening: Lyme Neuroborreliosis, Lyme Carditis, Congenital Lyme borreliosis, Dementia due to Lyme Disease, and Central Nervous System demyelination due to Lyme borreliosis.
ICD11 codes for Lyme now describe a disease which may cause severe and potentially fatal central nervous system complications and is passed from pregnant mother to fetus.
Fourteen of the fifteen ICD11 codes can be applied to late stage, systemic complications and persistent forms of the illness. This underscores the unreliability of the recommended serology diagnostics —resulting in late stage, systemic and persistent illness.
The multiple codes for late stage and systemic complications also demonstrate widespread treatment failure following the standard IDSA protocol.
TO NOTE: Although PTLDS is widely abused to deny medical care, it is not recognized in ICD11 because this syndrome has never been validated as a diagnosis.
IDSA and Affiliates Need an Exit Strategy
On October 24, 2017, The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dainius Pūras presented his report on corruption to the UN General Assembly. He told his audience, “In many countries, health is among the most corrupt sectors, this has significant implications for equality and non-discrimination …”
He noted domestic and global root causes of corruption, including those related to the pharmaceutical industry, others from “institutional corruption”. He emphasized the “normalization” of corruption in healthcare which includes practices undermining medical ethics, social justice, transparency and effective healthcare provision, as well as illegal acts.
As stated, the world has changed since 2006.
The IDSA and affiliates are increasingly outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the escalating population of persons living with Lyme and tickborne diseases and those who understand the threat and true nature of the infection. This population includes many with significant skill sets, experience, resources, determination and ethics.
Healthcare sector corruption is being thoroughly documented and remedies are starting to be applied. The shift within this larger context is disabling the IDSA and affiliates’ Lyme propaganda machine. Their powerful allies are also under the microscope by many different organizing entities and authorities.
Globalization and the implementation of globalized corruption is becoming widely understood.
Under these circumstances, IDSA and affiliates need a viable exit strategy from their Lyme propaganda. They need help from sources that have experience taking a sad and bad situation and turning it into a helpful and positive situation.
Given the season and required experience, I recommend Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer!
[1] Updating ICD11 Borreliosis Diagnostic Codes: Edition One, March 29, 2017. ISBN-10: 1978091796, ISBN-13: 978-1978091795. Copyright © 2017
[2] The Situation of Human Rights Defenders of Lyme and Relapsing Fever Borreliosis Patients: Edition One, March 6, 2018 ISBN-10: 1722988061, ISBN-13: 978-1722988067. Copyright © 2018
Published on December 17, 2018
