Archive for the ‘Activism’ Category

Silent Epidemic of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s

http://www.thevaccinereaction.org/2017/09/the-silent-epidemic-of-early-onset-alzheimers/

The “Silent Epidemic” of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s

by Marco Cáceres
Published September 11, 2017

young woman with hands on shoulders

 

An estimated 200,000 to 275,000 people in the United States alone are believed to have early-onset Alzheimer’s disease…

A study published in the journal Surgical Neurology International in 2015 highlighted a growing trend in the onset of dementia among people under 65 years of age. The study, authored by Colin Pritchard and Emily Rosenorn-Lanng of Bournemouth University in England, found that dementia and other neurological diseases among people in 21 Western countries between the ages of 55 and 74 had dramatically increased during 1989-2010. By 2010, the average age of people developing dementia was 10 years less than in 1989.1 2 3

Dementia is increasingly being diagnosed in people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. This phenomenon, known as “early-onset” (or “younger-onset”) dementia, has been referred to as a growing “silent epidemic” affecting younger people3 4—so much so that the media has begun to notice and report on individual cases.

People magazine recently highlighted the story of 32-year old ski instructor and photographer Becky Barletta who was diagnosed with early-onset dementia shortly after her marriage in 2015. There was the case of 29-year old mother-of-two Zoe Bottrill and the case of father-of-three Ken Dodson, also 29. The media is also reporting cases of childhood dementia, such as that of nine-year old Isobel Jeffery, two-year old Kade Gibbons, and one-year old Marian McGlocklin.5 6 7 8 9 10

An estimated 200,000 to 275,000 people in the United States alone are believed to have early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. (Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia.) This represents up to five percent of the estimated 5.5 million Americans with Alzheimer’s. Most people with early-onset dementia are diagnosed to have Alzheimer’s.11 12 13 14 15

The Alzheimer’s Association is projecting that by the year 2050 there will be 13.5 million Americans with Alzheimer’s.16 If the percentage of people in the U.S. with early-onset Alzheimer’s compared to the total number of people with Alzheimer’s remains constant, we may expect to have almost half a million Americans with early-onset Alzheimer’s in the next four decades. If growth trends in early-onset Alzheimer’s continue, however, we could have more than a million young to middle-aged Americans with this disease within two generations.

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, “The earlier the symptoms start, the more likely the disease is to be genetic.” This genetic form of the disease, known as “familial Alzheimer’s disease,” is caused by “rare mutations” in three genes—mutations found in 7-12 percent of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s.17 

So what accounts for the remaining roughly 90 percent of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s? The study by Pritchard and Rosenorn-Lanng suggests “environmental factors.”1 Although the study did not specify which environmental factors, some of these could include greater exposure to petrochemicals and toxic herbicides and insecticides.18 

Exposure to mercury could also be a contributing factor. In 2010, the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease published a study showing that long-term exposure to mercury may produce Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in people.19 Neuropharmacologist Richard Deth, PhD, one of the study’s authors, concluded, “Mercury is clearly contributing to neurological problems, whose rate is increasing in parallel with rising levels of mercury. It seems that the two are tied together.”

There have also been journal studies showing exposure to aluminum could be another factor in the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.20 21 22 An author of one of those studies, bioinorganic chemist Chris Exley, PhD, has observed that high levels of aluminum have been found in the brains of people with early-onset Alzheimer’s. “I don’t believe [aluminum] is the only factor, but I think it is an important one which should be considered very seriously,” says Dr. Exley.22

Mercury and aluminum are found in some foods, medications, personal care products, and other consumer goods like compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and cookware. Both mercury (in the form of thimerosal) and aluminum are also used in vaccines—the former as a preservative and the latter as an adjuvant.23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

 

**Comment**

There has been invaluable research in Lyme Land revealing that infections such as tick borne illness(es) including nematodes can be players in Alzheimer’s/dementia, antibiotics can often help these patients as well as anthelmintics, and due to the persistence of borrelia, we should prepare ourselves for an upcoming dementia pandemic.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/18/a-bug-for-alzheimers/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/06/09/alzheimers-byproduct-of-infection/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/06/03/borrelia-hiding-in-worms-causing-chronic-brain-diseases/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/08/09/dr-paul-duray-research-fellowship-foundation-some-great-research-being-done-on-lyme-disease/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/11/17/antibiotics-and-alzheimers/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/11/17/alzheimers-lyme/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/18/drexel-prof-lyme-persists/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/10/the-coming-pandemic-of-lyme-dementia/

There also has been great information coming out about the dangers of mercury and aluminum in vaccines:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/21/aluminum-flawed-assumptions-fueling-autoimmune-disease-and-lyme/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/08/mercury-and-autism/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/19/autism-aluminum-adjuvant-link-corroborated/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/30/ty-bollinger-the-truth-about-vaccines-series/

Info on the Lyme Vaccine: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/01/pbs-lyme-vaccine/
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/07/20268/ (This link has many more listed at the end of the article)

 

Category:

Activism, Alzheimer's, Lyme

Speaking of Fake Science: Fifty-Seven Million Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against CDC Lyme Tests

https://on-lyme.org/en/sufferers/lyme-stories/item/261-unprecedented-claim-against-the-cdc-over-lyme-tests  Aug. 2017

Unprecedented claim against the CDC over Lyme tests

Written by

In the USA an unprecedented anti-trust law suit of $57 million is being prepared against the CDC. They are accused of deliberately suppressing the use of an accurate DNA direct diagnostics for Lyme disease. You can read about the aim and potential impact of this lawsuit in this article.

“In the current situation, even in an endemic area like Connecticut, the first doctor a Lyme patient sees is an emergency room physician” – Dr. Sin Hang Lee at the 2017 ILADS conference in Paris, Europe

Introduction

Lyme disease belongs in the same health threat category as AIDS and cancer, while it is far more prevalent than Zika. With over 300,000 new cases annually in the USA alone, the incidence of Lyme is now six times the AIDS epidemic and it is twice as prevalent as breast cancer.  

Early detection and treatment of Lyme disease is of utmost importance, but it is well known that typical antibodies are not detectable for 4-6 weeks after infection. The lack of diagnostic tests for early Lyme disease has caused untold pain and suffering worldwide as delayed diagnosis and treatment often leads to “chronic Lyme disease” or “Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome”. The current situation has been framed as a human rights abuse on a global scale. 

For decades, the reliability of Lyme diagnostics has been subject to critique. A few doses of doxycycline prescribed will almost guarantee a negative two tier serology test. Historically an indirect way of proving the causative pathogen for Lyme Borreliose (LB) has been used, since direct diagnostics such as microscopy, PCR and DNA testing were lacking. The current two-tier serological test system (with ELISA and Western Blot) seem to have many false-negative results. A recent meta-analysis showed that the number of false-negatives are over 500 times higher than with the two-tier testing on HIV.

Recently Dr. Becker, director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, publicly admitted that “Lyme disease presently cannot be diagnosed based solely on a laboratory test because the tests still aren’t good enough.”

Fortunately, medical technology has evolved during the last three decades. DNA sequencing produces no false-positives and can measure the presence of the Borrelia beyond a reasonable doubt. This method works even with low bacterial density in the blood, provided that specific precautions are taken.

According to Dr. Lee, director of Milford Molecular Diagnostics, Connecticut, the CDC should launch a national competitive proficiency test program. The goal of this program should be to select the laboratory methods which can detect low density of borrelial spirochetes in whole blood samples for patient management. He had tried to work with them to achieve that goal.

Attempt at cooperation

On the Change.org petition of Carl Tuttle, the history of this effort is well described: Dr. Lee and David Shearer originally contacted the CDC for collaboration. Marty Schriefer of the CDC agreed to assist. Schriefer sent archived sera from the CDC’s Lyme disease repository for testing using Dr. Lee’s lab developed PCR/sequencing test in a CLIA-certified laboratory.

In 2013 the CDC provided 52 blind-coded archived serum samples – including 12 from post treatment and 20 pretreatment clinically suspect Lyme disease patients – and 20 negative serum samples to Milford Molecular Diagnostics.

These samples were provided for the purpose of evaluating the accuracy of a new diagnostic test for Lyme disease by Nested PCR and DNA Sequencing.

Dr. Lee’s technology uncovered a novel Borrelia in one of the serum samples tied to a patient in the Hudson Valley, who had been previously treated for neurologic Lyme disease (DNA sequence deposited in GenBank under accession number KM052618). Dr. Lee also found Borrelia miyamotoi in one of the CDC’s Lyme disease serum samples.

As a result, Dr. Lee informed the CDC that the nested PCR/16S rRNA sequence analysis has been shown to be an effective testing platform for accurate diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis at the spirochetemic stages of the infection, even for some chronic Lyme disease patients. 

This is a serious problem and clearly identifies that there is no accountability at the CDC. It would appear that the serum repository for Lyme disease has many problems and that samples may also be wrongly coded. 

Using these samples to determine the validity of future test kits is highly questionable, whereas nested PCR and Sequencing through Milford Molecular Diagnostics can detect different strains of bacteria causing Lyme borreliosis with as few as 25 bacteria per mL of blood.

According to Dr. Lee, at a Telecom conference on Friday October 25, 2013 among Dr. Schriefer and Dr. Molins of the CDC, Dr. Shearer and Dr. Lee, the CDC agreed to organize a national study program to further evaluate and promote new diagnostic tests and encouraged researchers to develop direct test methods, including the 16S rRNA sequence analysis technology.

Based on this agreement a research protocol was initially drafted by Dr. Lee and Dr. Shearer, and submitted on December 19, 2013 to Dr. Molins and Dr. Schriefer for their review. Dr. Schriefer indeed had reviewed, commented and edited the protocol and returned the edited copy to Dr. Shearer for revision on December 26, 2013. Dr. Lee and Dr. Shearer returned the protocol revised according to Dr. Schriefer’s recommendations in January 2014 to be finalized and implemented.

The CDC commitment to the national study abruptly stopped with no reasons given. However, it appears the CDC is focusing on developing their own newly patented test rather than supporting a group of innovators that compete with the CDC patents.

But not only the project itself was ended. When Dr. Lee published his findings, Detection of Borreliae in Archived Sera from Patients with Clinically Suspect Lyme Disease, all communication with the CDC suddenly stopped. In the meantime, CDC developed a novel test based on metabolite detection.

As with serology, such a test is an indirect test, and does not directly detect the bacterium. In an open PubMed comment Dr. Lee characterized the metabolite measurement as “an unproven technology” which “has deviated from the classic teachings of diagnostic microbiology”.

The current law suit

The current legal case is unprecedented and complex. Due to “sovereign anti-trust immunity” to protect the US government from claims by its own people, the current claim against the CDC is a long and difficult process. According to the Federal Tort Claims Act, one can only sue the government or its employees for damage by submitting an SF-95 form with supportive documents for money compensation only.

Through the law firm of Moore Leonhardt & Associates LLC, Dr. Sin Lee of Milford Molecular Diagnostics has now submitted the SF-95 form with documents to support the $57 million damage claimed, based on a complaint of 16 pages and a file of Exhibits of 376 pages. This amount of $57 million is 10% of the annual Lyme testing dollar volume charged to the insurance companies by 7 large commercial laboratories in the United States.

The CDC is accused of violation of the antitrust law in suppressing a direct testing method to diagnose an emerging infectious disease (Lyme borreliosis), which the CDC itself has called the ‘fastest growing vector borne disease in the USA’.

One of the purposes of the current lawsuit is to make the Exhibits public, so that Lyme disease patients can ask their lawyer to use the Exhibits to file their own SF-95 form for damages due to delayed diagnosis.

If he wins his case, Dr. Lee intends to donate the money to a non-profit organization to set up nested PCR/16S rRNA sequence diagnostic laboratories in hospitals located in Lyme disease-endemic areas so that all Lyme patients can be diagnosed early within a few days of first symptomatic presentation and receive timely and proper treatment. 

These diagnostic centers will further improve the sensitivity of the PCR procedure so that a very low density of spirochetemia in chronic Lyme patients can be diagnosed for further appropriate management. He also hopes that the insurance companies will pay for these tests, which should cost no more than the WB tests.

How to set up proper Lyme diagnostics?

In a letter to Jane Philpott, Federal Minister of Health of Canada, hand-delivered on August 22 2017, Dr. Lee explains how easy and cost-effective it would be to set up proper nationwide Lyme testing:

  1. Establish one National Lyme Disease Diagnostic Laboratory with Sanger sequencing facilities. The equipment costs less than US $300,000. This Lab also serves as an educational and training center.
  2. Set up 10 local PCR laboratories attached to the existent laboratories of regional hospitals located in Lyme disease endemic areas. Each of these laboratories will be equipped with one high speed micro-centrifuge to collect circulating spirochetes from platelet-rich plasma samples from suspected Lyme disease patients. The additional thermocycler, micro-centrifuge and PCR setup may cost about $15,000 at each site.
  3. The DNA extracted from the pellet of the platelet-rich plasma will be amplified with comprehensive genus-specific borrelial nested PCR primers for 16S rRNA gene detection at the local laboratories.
  4. The PCR results should be available within 2-3 working days after the patient’s visit. The PCR positive results are very accurate in the diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis for initiating timely treatment.
  5. The positive PCR amplicons will be sent to the national Lyme diagnostic laboratory for Sanger sequencing final validation.

In a reply to Dr. Becker, Dr. Lee also wrote that “the excuses commonly used to suppress using and development of direct DNA tests for the diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis include potential sample cross contamination, false identification of target DNA and lack of sensitivity. However, these are technical issues which can be overcome by good laboratory practices.”

He made this proposal for a national proficiency test project in the USA to advance the diagnostics in this area, which you can find here. However, he does not believe that anything will happen in the USA due to the financial stakes in keeping the current situation as it is.

A precedent?

Since Dr. Lee is not a Lyme patient nor a victim of delayed diagnosis himself, he cannot claim damage as a patient. So he can only sue the government for damage to his business (in terms of dollars).

Both American Lyme patients and Medical Doctors are also able to use a SF-95 claims form, within two years since the date when CDC’s suppression of using an available 16S rRNA sequence analysis as a reliable direct test method for diagnosis of early Lyme borreliosis was made public, namely on July 20, 2017. It could achieve two things: individual compensation and collective financial pressure to show that the CDC suppression of direct testing has led to delayed diagnosis of Lyme disease or missed diagnosis of Lyme disease, and the resulting devastating effects on public health, loss of income, expenses, general quality of life and a gross violation of basic human rights.

It is however not easy to sue the CDC, the European version ECDC or the Health Department of your national government, such as the RIVM in the Netherlands. You could be facing a long battle as – due to sovereign immunity protection – you may not be able to sue government employees. In the USA the exception is under Federal Tort Claims Act via the SF-95 form. You may need a lawyer to do this properly. 

One cannot file a case in court until the Complaint is cleared with the federal agency (CDC) and the OIG. This means waiting for six months, if they do not rule. This is called “exhausting administrative remedies”. This legal option has been used so little by either patients or doctors that there are hardly any lawyers who are specialised in filing these claims.

As history of social revolution has shown over and over again, all effective action once started with a single try. As Dr. Lee puts it: “We have tried everything: reasoning, petitions, complaining, pleading. It’s time to change course. However, I am a lone wolf with one meagre voice. If a thousand patients are filing 1000 SF-forms, each demanding $1 million damage due to suppression of early diagnostics, the judge may think differently. Even if I lose the case and the patients win $100,000 per case, the CDC would have to change its Lyme policy. Someone has to try and we are given the opportunity now.”  

About this On Lyme blog

We focus on sharing stories that matter. You can sign up for the On Lyme Newsletter to receive updates on new publications.

If you want to support our work, your donation is highly appreciated.

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing

Man Dies of Babesia

http://6abc.com/video/embed/?pid=2444383“>http://6abc.com/video/embed/?pid=2444383  (video here)

http://6abc.com/health/husband-dies-of-disease-caused-by-deer-tick-in-bucks-co/2440066/  By Ali Gorman, R.N.  

Husband dies of disease caused by deer tick in Bucks County

 A Bucks County woman is sharing the story of how she lost her husband to a disease she’d never heard of, and is spread by ticks.

Crissy Naticchia is still in shock. Her fun-loving husband Jeff died nearly two months ago from an infection spread by a tiny deer tick.

“It’s going to be a long, hard road ahead. I mean we had so much to do. He was only 50,” she said.

In late July, Jeff came down with a fever, sweating and fatigue. At the hospital, Crissy says it took several days for doctors to make the diagnosis. It was Babesiosis.

Doctor Neil Fishman with Penn Medicine didn’t treat Jeff, but he specializes in infectious diseases.

He says Babesiosis is transmitted by the same tick as Lyme disease.

Many people infected won’t have symptoms, but for others they will.

“The problem is the disease can get very severe if people don’t have a normal immune system,” Dr. Fishman said.

That includes people on chemotherapy, transplant recipients, elderly and anyone without a spleen.

Crissy says Jeff had his spleen removed as a child, but it never caused any problems.

“In 26 years, he’d been sick maybe twice,” she said.

Now she and their children Nicole and Max are hoping to raise awareness about Babesiosis.

It’s considered reportable, and tracked by many state health departments including, New Jersey and Delaware, but not Pennsylvania.

Doctor Fishman says it’s relatively rare in the state, but could be emerging.

“As you said we are seeing more and more Lyme disease in certain parts of the state, so we may start to see an increase in babesiosis,” he said.

Crissy added, “We live in Bucks County, across from a state park, there’s ticks everywhere. I want people to know, it’s not just Lyme. There’s other horrible diseases that are carried by ticks.”

The best prevention is insect repellent with DEET, long pants or sleeves, and to check your body for ticks after you’ve been outside in a park or in the
woods.

In the case of Babesiosis, if ticks are removed within 24 hours, they can’t transmit the disease. However, there are other tick-borne illnesses that can be spread faster. (Please read comment at end of article)

It’s always a good idea to consult with your physician if you have any concerns.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–
**Comment** 

A couple of things:  the lack of a spleen was this man’s undoing.Risk factors for severe disease include:

Do not have a spleen (up to 20% mortality)
Weak immune system (AIDS, corticosteroid therapy, malignancy with therapy, multiple stealth microbe infections at one time)
Elderly (>50 years old, especially with health problems)

As to removing a tick within 24 hours not transmitting Babesia – well that’s a crock of hooey.  Show me the studies and I will find a hundred people who defy them.
Rather,
The claims that removal of ticks within 24 hours or 48 hours of attachment will effectively prevent LB are not supported by the published data, and the minimum tick attachment time for transmission of LB in humans has never been established.
Additionally ticks carry many other diseases including tick-borne encephalitis, human granular ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, bartonellosis, and others. The attachment times for transmission of many of these are unknown, though there is evidence that some are transmitted very quickly.
The challenge with these studies, and there are many, is that most placed multiple ticks on multiple rodents. Multiple ticks may be transmitting different pathogens. It has also been shown that ticks feeding on mice coinfected with B. microti and B. burgdorferi were twice as likely to become infected with Bb compared to B. microti, suggesting that coinfection can amplify certain pathogens – which is another reason to only use one rodent and one pathogen to separate out multiplying factors that muddy the waters. Also, rarely do studies record the titer of both tick and host – again, making it nearly impossible to determine what’s what. It was also noted that transmission times are unknown for many pathogens.
**And as always: if you are the ONE person who contracted Lyme Disease in 10 minutes, all these numbers are essentially meaningless. The frightening truth is that these numbers, along with geographical information regarding tick habitats, are often used against patients. It is beyond time for doctors to listen, educate themselves, and treat patients with the respect they deserve – not to mention it’s time for them to treat patients clinically and not based on tests that are wrong over half the time and with the knowledge that ticks are spreading everywhere and bringing the pathogens with them. (In other words, throw the maps away!)
The review essentially gives the following transmission times for various pathogens. Again, please know these numbers are not definitive and many, many cases have proven this fact.
Take each and every tick bite seriously and don’t mess around and take a “wait and see approach.” There is too much at stake.
 There is so much we don’t know for certain and peoples’ lives are at stake.  To claim to be all knowing would be foolish.  Far better to plainly state, “Ticks are nature’s dirty needles.  The quicker you properly get that sucker off the better, as there is much we don’t know about transmission times!”  

Category:

Activism, Babesia, Ticks, Transmission

Trump Should Eliminate Fake Science

http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/11/trump-should-eliminate-fake-science/

OPINION
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 4: Plaque outside the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in downtown Washington, DC on May 4, 2015. (Shutterstock/Mark Van Scyoc) WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 4: Plaque outside the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in downtown Washington, DC on May 4, 2015. (Shutterstock/Mark Van Scyoc)

Trump Should Eliminate Fake Science

Photo of David Lewis

DAVID LEWIS
Research Director, Focus For Health Foundation
5:08 PM 09/11/2017

“What Lies Upstream” is a documentary by Hyrax Films that includes interviews with Professor Marc Edwards at Virginia Tech and me about data fabrication by the EPA and CDC. A review by IndieWire highlights comments Director Cullen Hoback made in which he stressed “the alarming implications for the future of science and reason in America under Donald Trump.”

What Lies Upstream Trailer Approx. 2 MinTheatrical and VOD release January 2018. Get your DVD or Blu-ray before anyone else at whatliesupstream.com

When I fielded questions for Hoback at theaters across Virginia last week, audiences didn’t voice concerns over Trump, who was not President when the data fabrication occurred. They mainly just wanted to know how to protect themselves and what could be done to stop federal agencies from faking science.

 Slamdance Spotlight – interviews director Collen Hoback  Approx. 3 Min

The public is largely unaware that federal agencies often engage in fabricating scientific data to support their policies and cover up any evidence whenever they screw up. And it’s not limited to EPA and the CDC by any means.

Last year, for example, Deputy Inspector General Mary L. Kenda reported widespread scientific misconduct at a U.S. Geological Survey lab in Lakewood, Colorado. According to Kenda, data manipulation at the laboratory had “serious and far ranging” impacts on the agency’s scientific integrity, and potentially undermined the USGS as a trusted scientific organization.

Similarly, in 2008, Judge Anthony Alaimo of the Southern District of Georgia threw out EPA’s scientific opinions in a case involving agricultural practices recommended by EPA and the USDA. Experts hired by dairy farmers discovered that EPA, the USDA and the University of Georgia had published fake environmental data to cover up cattle deaths linked to EPA and USDA policies. In his decision, Alaimo devoted several pages to discussing EPA having terminated me for exposing its fake data, and ruled that the Agency’s testimony could not be trusted.

In my experience, faking scientific data at federal agencies has become more the rule than the exception. The rule is that any scientific data published by federal scientists must support their agencies’ policies and protect their agencies’ reputations above all else.

Federal agencies will also go to bat for scientists at universities who fudge data to support their policies. For example, Dr. Rufus Chaney, the USDA’s top scientist, defended the publication of fabricated data. According to Chaney’s testimony in the case before Judge Alaimo, faking data is permissible as long as the data are “in general agreement with general patterns established in hundreds of papers.”

The hundreds of papers Chaney referenced were studies EPA funded under a cooperative agreement with the wastewater industry to publish data supporting the safety and efficacy of an EPA regulation concerning land application of sewage sludge. Despite Judge Alaimo’s ruling, and congressional hearings into the data fabrication Professor Edwards and I uncovered at the EPA, CDC and USDA, the agencies and universities they funded refuse to withdraw their bogus research from the scientific literature.

What Lies Upstream ends with a clip of President Trump speaking and the narrator explaining how his EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, plans to dismantle the Agency. Unfortunately, fudging scientific data to support government policies has become ingrained in the federal bureaucracy. It would take a wrecking ball to fix it.

Reversing this culture of corruption will require changing the dimensions and course of the river of federal funds flowing into pools of academic scientists willing to selectively publish data to support government policies and certain industry practices. So far, Donald Trump is the only President willing to take that first step. Under Pruitt, EPA’s Inspector General has already begun investigating EPA’s handling of the science at issue in the case involving the Georgia dairy farms.

In Charlottesville, someone attending the screening asked me whether the current budgets for scientific research at EPA and the NIH are adequate. I replied that more can be done with even less funding when the research is properly focused.

When I worked at EPA and served on the Graduate Faculty at the University of Georgia, I used my own personal funds to conduct studies on infection-control that I published in Lancet, Nature and Nature Medicine. The results my coauthors and I published revealed problems with decades of government-funded research. As a result, the CDC, FDA, EPA and public health organizations worldwide changed their policies.

Trump can eliminate federal funding of data fabrication. It just takes putting accomplished scientists in charge, who understand both science and the federal bureaucracy from top to bottom and will do whatever is necessary.

David L. Lewis, Ph.D., Research Director for the Focus for Health Foundation, is the author of Science for Sale: How the U.S. Government Uses Powerful Corporations and Leading Universities to Support government policies, Silence Top Scientists, Jeopardize our Health, and Protect Corporate Profits. https://www.westonaprice.org/science-for-sale-by-david-l-lewis-phd/

 

For more on fake science:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/02/fake-science/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/04/science-for-sale/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/28/sit-down-science/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/11/29/spider-attacks-cdc/

Fake Lyme/MSIDS science:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/13/lyme-science-owned-by-good-ol-boys/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/19/cdc-denies-to-downplay-lyme-epidemic/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/07/cdc-sabotages-state-laws-protecting-lyme-patients/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/28/metlife-discrimination-against-chronic-lyme-patient/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/28/human-rights-violations-of-relapsing-fever-and-lyme-disease-patients-under-internal-investigation/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/25/speaking-of-fake-science-fifty-seven-million-anti-trust-lawsuit-against-cdc-lyme-tests/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/07/20268/  Five reasons to avoid the Lyme vaccine

 

Category:

Activism, research

Calling All Wisconsinites

Dear Wisconsinites, would you please contact your US Representative and ask them to join the Lyme Caucus?

The Lyme Caucus is a bi-partisan group working together in Congress to take action on Lyme & tick-borne diseases. Under the leadership of Congressmen Chris Smith (NJ) and co-chair Colin Peterson (MN), it has initiated letters and actions to benefit Lyme patients, such as the inclusion of the monies for Lyme & tick-borne diseases into the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) and language and Lyme monies into Appropriations and to initiate favorable legislation. Additionally, it has queried government agencies over policies not favorable to patients. This has reminded the agencies that someone is looking over their shoulder. Many meetings have been held and educational sessions in DC for Congress.

If your US Representative or any US Representative who serves the state your group serves is not own the list below, contact him/her immediately and ask why not.

Remind them Wisconsin is 6th in the nation for LD and a hot spot for Anaplasmosis.  The Lyme disease tick is now found in 50% of US counties and there were almost 400,000 new cases in 2015, 30% of which are children between 0-19. There are about 20 tick-borne diseases now in the U.S. being spread by at least 8 different ticks, not just the blacklegged/deer tick.

Give them a simple task: Sign-on today to the House Lyme caucus! To sign on they can write:
Marisa.Kovacs@mail.house.gov Rep. C.Smith office OR
Tamir.Elnabarawy@mail.house.gov, Rep. Peterson office

Tell your Representative you will be calling back in a week to see if he/she signed up. Then do so!

List of Current House Lyme Disease Caucus:

Christopher H. Smith (NJ-4) Co-Chair

Collin C. Peterson (MN-7) Co-Chair

Lou Barletta (PA-11)

Michael E. Capuano (MA-7)

Steve Cohen (TN-9)

Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11)

Barbara Comstock (VA-10)

Ryan Costello (PA-6)

Joe Courtney (CT-2)

Diana DeGette (CO-1)

John Faso (NY-19)

Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)

William R. Keating (MA-9)

Joseph P. Kennedy III (MA-4)

Zoe Lofgren (CA-19)

Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18)

Congressman Tom Marino (PA-10)

James P. Mc Govern (MA-2)

Congressman Seth Moulton (MA-6)

Scott Peters (CA-52)

Chellie Pingree (ME-1)

Mark Pocan (WI-2)

Bill Posey (FL-8)

Tom Reed (NY-23)

Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1)

Glenn Thompson (PA-5)

Paul Tonko (NY-20)

Robert J. Wittman (VA-1)

To find your representative:  https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

More about the Caucus:
The bipartisan Congressional Lyme Disease Task Force, co-chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), is dedicated to educating Members of Congress and staff about Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, as well as advancing initiatives that are designed to help the estimated 400,000 Americans who develop Lyme disease each year and all of those living with the disease.
As co-chairs of the bipartisan Task Force, Rep. Smith and Rep. Peterson lead annual appropriations requests in support of Lyme disease research through the Department of Health and Human Services and for research funding at the Department of Defense. In 2015, the caucus secured for the first time ever, $5 million in funding in the House Appropriations Committee annual military spending legislation, which was adopted in the Fiscal Year 2016 funding bill which was signed into law, and will provide resources for Lyme disease research through DOD’s innovative, high-risk, high-reward program.
Recently, the caucus secured another major win for Lyme disease. In December of 2016, the United States House of Representatives passed, and former-President Obama signed, the 21st Century Cures Act. The Cures Act included language – similar to a bill that Rep. Smith introduced previously – which created the Interagency Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. Specifically, Working Group comprised of federal and non-federal members tasked with reporting to Congress on scientific advances, research questions, surveillance activities and emerging strains in species of pathogenic organisms.

Lyme Advocate, Bruce Fries and other advocates in the Washington, DC area, distributed awareness material to all members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, including a copy of Dr. Richard Horowitz’s book, How Can I Get Better?: An Action Plan for Treating Resistant Lyme & Chronic Disease, along with personal letter from Dr. Horowitz, and information about the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus.

Attached is a copy of Dr. Horowitz’s letter & Caucus info:

Horowitz+Congressional+Letterv4++May-2017 (3)

Lyme_Caucus

Sample letter to WI US Representative:

Sample Letter to WI US House Rep

 

Together we can make a difference

 

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Ticks