Archive for the ‘Lyme’ Category

The Lyme Vaccine That Got Away (And Good Riddance)

https://newrepublic.com/article/163658/what-happened-lyme-disease-vaccine

The Lyme Vaccine That Got Away

Twenty years ago, you could get a vaccine for Lyme disease. Now you can’t. What happened?

Illustration by Julie Benbassat

How does a vaccine get developed, studied, approved, distributed, and administered, and then just … disappear? On Episode 34 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene explore what happened to LYMErix, a vaccine for Lyme disease that has been called the only safe and effective vaccine ever to have been voluntarily withdrawn from the market in the United States. What does the story of LYMErix tell us about vaccine hesitancy, liability, and how pharmaceutical companies decide what to sell? And can we expect another Lyme vaccine anytime soon? Guests include Rebecca Onion, who wrote about LYMErix for Slate, and Andrew Zaleski, who wrote about new prophylactic treatments for Lyme for Outside magazine.


(See link for article or listen to the story)

**Comment**

The article states that “LYMErix was the only effective, FDA-approved vaccine in the U.S. ever to have been voluntarily withdrawn from the market.”

Ha, ha, ha, that’s a good one.
  • If by “effective” you mean it caused many patients to have Lyme-like symptoms, then I agree but most people don’t expect a vaccine to maim them for life, so “effective” would be the wrong word.
  • Hopefully by now you are aware that the FDA has a long sordid history of “approving” very harmful and dangerous drugs and “vaccines.” Just because something is “approved” doesn’t mean it’s safe, needed, or even effective. Recently the FDA deceptively “approved” the Pfizer COVID injection despite massive fraud in reporting “vaccine” injuries which is maiming and killing thousands, and despite misleading the public on efficacy.  Doctors for COVID Ethics also state it is “needless, ineffective, and dangerous.”  The corrupt FDA is not to be trusted.
  • Further, as pointed out by Dr. Flemming, making an antibody isn’t always a good thing. He gives the example of how antibodies created to fight strep can result in Rheumatic fever due to antibodies attacking the body’s own tissues, beginning with the joints and then moving on to the heart and surrounding tissues. Making the wrong type of antibody can enhance infection. Antibodies are just not that simple, but vaccine zealots continue with the “vaccines are safe and effective mantra despite thousands suffering with severe reactions and even death.  Flemming  explained the antibody issue in his groundbreaking book, “Is COVID-19 a Bioweapon? A Scientific and Forensic Investigation.”
  • It’s interesting that Rebecca calls persistent infection with Lyme, so-called chronic Lyme.” She also states that people “believed” the vaccine injured them.  This should be a clear “heads-up” on her flagrant bias and lack of knowledge.  Of course an FDA study “contradicted” patient experience just like it is currently contradicting science on effective, safe COVID treatments.  The FDA has a long history of monopolizing medicine. Would you expect anything else?  They’ve been contradicting patients for over 40 years and aren’t about to change now.  Again the FDA is corrupt, has conflicts of interests and can not be trusted.
  • Lymerix was not covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program so SmithKline Beecham, now GlaxoSmithKline was liable.  They yanked Lymerix not out of concern for patients, but because they were concerned about lawsuits, and rightly so.  We would not be living through the current COVID injection nightmare if manufacturers were actually liable for damage.  Big Pharma should always be held liable if their products cause damage and death.  Losing money is the only thing that will keep these companies honest.  Right now they are accountable to no one and can do as they wish without fear of repercussions.  Circling back to Lymerix, please know that due to vaccine development, they took the most specific band for Lyme out of serology testing, which is labeled by many as a crime.  We can thank Lymerix for not only debilitating people physically but for stymieing testing for over 40 years – testing which is still used to this day despite its utter and complete failure. One expert accuses public health officials of setting an arbitrary level of antibodies for testing. Another expert has sued the CDC over monopolizing Lyme testing.  This same expert has filed a “stay of action” against FDA to stop approval of COVID injections for using faulty PCR tests in the trials.  The CDC, with FDA involvement, has a long history of monopolizing testing so they can control the narrative.
  • The people in this article obviously are not aware of the severe conflicts of interest regarding our government and Big Pharma. They also believe that the government should be the one to “nationalize” vaccines and manufacture them.  I couldn’t disagree more strongly.  Government and Big Pharma needs to cease and desist from interfering with medicine. Even a group within the CDC has stepped forward to reveal inter agency corruptionmuch revolving around vaccines.
  • They also erroneously state Lyme used to be a “weird regional infection,” when Lyme has been found all over for a long, long time – it’s just the very corrupt government they want to control everything denies it “Nothing to see here!”  These poor people have been denied diagnosis and treatment for decades because according to our government, Lyme doesn’t exist there.
  • The article then glorifies Klempner’s Lyme PrEP, which we keep being told isn’t a vaccine but a monoclonal antibody “preventative treatment,” that directly gives you the antibody.  What they fail to mention is Lymerix as well as Lyme PrEP both use OspA  – the very antigen of Lyme disease that is blamed for causing devastating Lyme-like symptoms. They erroneously state it’s “just antibodies.”  If only it were that simple.  Antibodies, as stated previously, are not always harmless. Watch this brief video to understand the interplay between antigens and antibodies.
  • Klempner was also the trial administrator of the Connaught OspA Lyme vaccine in the 1990s, and is quite aware of the adverse effects of injecting OspA into people.  He also was an author of the 2006 IDSA guidelines that were the subject of an investigation by Senator Richard Blumenthal which exposed undisclosed financial conflicts in many of the panelists as well as the fact they simply ignored alternative medical opinion (which is happening again with COVID). Those guidelines relied heavily on his 2001 “retreatment” study in which most of the participants had not been treated in the first place. 
  • To state that Lyme patients and advocates do not trust Klempner would be the understatement of the year and further, I’m with Lyme advocate Carl Tuttle: we don’t want any Lyme vaccines until the issue of chronic/persistent infection is acknowledged. As you can see from this article, there are those who still believe what we are suffering from is a “scam that should be condemned”.
  • The authors then regurgitate that since COVID is a “public health issue” it’s important that EVERYONE get the vaccine because of person to person spread of infection, but that Lyme is different because it’s solely spread by ticks, even though experts have disputed this oft repeated dogma.  This “for the greater good” narrative is continually used by vaccine zealots but ignores individual freedoms as well as individual medical/health status, including the very real issue of natural immunity which is currently being ignored, not to mention the elephant in the room which is effective, safe treatments which have been proven to be successful.
  • They then mention Sam Telford, also part of the Lyme Cabal, who blames the spread of deer, and suburbanization in America, never once mentioning experimentation on ticks by infecting them with numerous pathogens and releasing them, in fact dropping them, from airplanes.  Telford, a professor of infectious disease and global health at Tufts University, helped discover the mechanism that led to the development of Lymerix and ran one of the clinical trials that tested it. He is now part of a group of biotech professionals who have formed an alliance and want to bring back the vaccine. This article, written by a doctor, methodically records the devastation Lymerix caused but which is completely ignored by Cabalists like Telford who continue to state Lymerix was “effective.” Telford, a Chronic Lyme denialist, teaches biosecurity, specializes in the bioweapon Tularemia, and was the director of a bio-level 3 lab in Groton, Massachusetts that works on dangerous, tickborne diseases on the government’s select agent list.  He’s funded by the NIH and the military-industrial complex.
  • They then wrap it up by stating the conversation parallels everything else going on: climate change, sociological issues and economics, drug company treatment choices, and marketing.
Again, articles like this one give me gray hair and make me want to swear – a lot.

Single Tick Bite Leads to 3 Diseases in Elderly Woman

https://danielcameronmd.com/tick-bite-causes-3-diseases-elderly-woman/

Single tick bite leads to 3 diseases in elderly woman

Health aid helping old woman in bed who had a tick bite and Lyme disease.

In their article “Triple Tick Attack,” doctors describe the case of a 74-year-old woman living in Connecticut who developed three tick-borne diseases as the result of a single tick bite. While Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne illness, ticks can transmit other bacterium, causing various “co-infections,” which can be difficult to diagnose.

The woman was an avid gardener, who had a history of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and high blood pressure. She was admitted to the hospital with dyspnea, fatigue, and a cough productive of yellowish mucoid sputum.

The patient also had significant altered mental status, pallor, and peripheral edema. A lung examination revealed bibasilar crackles, Kumar explains. [1]

She was treated empirically for community-acquired pneumonia, and was prescribed ceftriaxone and azithromycin.

The woman no history of a rash or tick bite. However, lab tests later revealed the presence of 3 tick-borne pathogens.

“We present a case of triple infection with babesiosis, Lyme disease, and anaplasmosis treated with antibiotics and red blood cell (RBC) exchange (erythrocytapheresis).”¹

1) Babesia − This tick-borne disease is caused by a tiny parasite that infects the red blood cells.

“A peripheral blood smear revealed the presence of intracytoplasmic parasites consistent with Babesia,” writes Kumar. Consequently, the woman was started on azithromycin and atovaquone.

Further testing revealed that she had severe babesiosis. Her parasitic load was so high (9.04%) that she required a red blood cell (RBC) exchange (erythrocytapheresis).

Repeat testing, however, found the parasitic load remained high (6.54%), which required a second round of RBC exchange.

“Antimicrobials were changed to clindamycin, quinine, and doxycycline for a total of 14 days,” writes Kumar.

2) Borrelia burgdorferi − The bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Serologic tests were positive. The patient was prescribed doxycycline.

3) Anaplasma − The bacteria that causes anaplasmosis, formerly known as human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE). The patient’s anaplasma titers were positive.

“Patients presenting with an atypical clinical picture of a single pathogen or a lack of improvement with antibiotics after 48 hours require further testing for the presence of other infections,” the authors suggest. “A delay in the diagnosis can lead to an increased risk of complications and disease duration.”

In another case report, Grant and colleagues describe a 70-year-old man who presented to the emergency room with “fevers, ankle edema and nausea following a presumed insect bite on his ankle 1 month prior.”²

Test results revealed the man was positive for Lyme disease, Babesia microti, and Anaplasmosis.

His symptoms resolved completely following treatment with doxycycline, atovaquone and azithromycin.

The authors suggest, “Co-infection with Lyme disease and another tick-borne illness is common, and testing for co-infection should be performed in patients with >24 hours of symptoms despite appropriate treatment, as well as unexplained laboratory abnormalities.”

Why is Lyme Difficult to Treat & What About Dormant Spirochetes?

https://www.globallymealliance.org/blog/dear-lyme-warrior…help-1

Every few months, Jennifer Crystal devotes a column to answering your questions. Do you have a question for Jennifer? If so, email her at lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com.
Why is Lyme disease so difficult to treat?

Lyme disease is not always difficult to treat. If it is caught early and treated effectively, the infection can be cleared with a few weeks of antibiotics. Some 10-20% of people treated for Stage 1 Early Localized Lyme Disease do go on to experience persistent symptoms, sometimes referred to as Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS). For some patients, this may be due to persistent infection that requires further treatment. Researchers are also studying the role of immune dysregulation, debris left over from Lyme disease, and ongoing inflammation as potential causes (not necessarily mutually exclusive) for ongoing symptoms. GLA-funded research has also identified biofilms, which form a protective layer around Lyme disease bacteria so that antibiotics can’t kill them, as a reason for persistent disease.

PTLDS refers to patients whose Lyme disease was caught and treated early but whose symptoms persist. Due to nebulous symptoms and faulty diagnostic tests, many patients are not diagnosed until Stage 2 (Early Disseminated Lyme Disease) or Stage 3 (Late Disseminated Lyme Disease). Those infections are more difficult to treat because they have spread to other parts of the body and, in Stage 3, have crossed the blood-brain barrier. Lyme disease bacteria, called a spirochete, coils into cells, bones, and joints, and away from antibiotics. Lyme infections can also be more difficult to treat when a person is co-infected with another tick-borne disease. Some co-infections, like babesiosis, require different treatment than Lyme disease; if a person doesn’t know they’re co-infected, they may only be fighting half the battle.

The other tricky part about tick-borne disease is that no two cases are alike. In addition to factors like how long it took for someone to get diagnosed and whether they’re co-infected, each person reacts differently to treatment. The protocol that works for one person might not work for another. Individual immune response, as well as other underlying conditions (for example, I also have chronic active Epstein-Barr virus), can make Lyme disease more difficult to treat. The most important thing is to make sure you’re in the hands of a good Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) who can create a treatment plan tailored for your specific case.

Do Lyme bacteria lie dormant, waiting to interfere with healing from surgery or other medical conditions?

Lyme bacteria (spirochetes) can go into a dormant state and flare during periods of stress, including acute medical issues. Spirochetes love scar tissue, so surgery can particularly have the potential to rile them up. This does not mean this will be the case for all Lyme disease patients, however. As I mentioned in response to the previous question, if your Lyme disease was caught early and treated effectively, the infection could be completely cleared. Lyme disease that isn’t caught for months or years—called Stage 3 or Late Disseminated Lyme Disease—is much more difficult to treat, especially if complicated by co-infections. In these cases, the infection can be battled into remission, with bacteria going into a dormant state but relapsing from time to time.

My own flare-ups have tended to happen during stressful transitions such as starting a new job, moving, or going through a breakup. Pushing myself too hard physically or neurologically can cause setbacks, too. When I had knee surgery that took much longer than expected to heal, I’d unknowingly been harboring Lyme disease, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, and possible bartonella for three years, but hadn’t yet been diagnosed or treated. Because the infections were running unchecked in my body, they interfered with healing. Had I already been treated for tick-borne disease, my recovery from that surgery probably would have been much faster.

Since being treated for tick-borne disease, recovery from other surgeries has been appropriate. I’ve had a breast excision and wisdom teeth removal with no Lyme disease flares. My doctor prescribed additional antibiotics for a week or two pre-and-post operations. You might talk to your LLMD about taking this precautionary measure if you are facing surgery. It’s also important to give yourself enough time to heal, to nourish your body before and after surgery with anti-inflammatory foods, and to get adequate rest. Your LLMD may also want you to start or to increase immune-building supplements before surgery. I’ve taken these measures when dealing with other acute medical issues, including COVID-19, and they have helped me to heal without interference from flaring tick-borne disease.

Jennifer Crystal

Opinions expressed by contributors are their own. Jennifer Crystal is a writer and educator in Boston. Her work has appeared in local and national publications including Harvard Health Publishing and The Boston Globe. As a GLA columnist for over six years, her work on GLA.org has received mention in publications such as The New Yorker, weatherchannel.com, CQ Researcher, and ProHealth.com. Jennifer is a patient advocate who has dealt with chronic illness, including Lyme and other tick-borne infections. Her memoir about her medical journey is forthcoming. Contact her via email below.

Email: lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com

_________________

**Comment**

A few points:

  • Microbiologist Holly Ahern has written a marvelous piece that exposes that the oft repeated dogma that only 10-20% go on to have symptoms is false.  This percentage only includes those diagnosed and treated early.  There is a larger group of 30-40% that are diagnosed and treated late.  When you simply add the two groups you discover that up to 60% or more struggle with persistent symptoms.  This is important to clarify for many reasons.
  • People can jump from stage to stage in any random order.  People try and put this into a nice containable box when there is much that is unknown.  I wrote about the little girl who went out to play in the morning, got a tick bite above her eye, and in the total time of 4-6 hours lost the ability to walk or talk.  The idea that a tick must be attached for 48-72 hours before transmission is ludicrous, yet is also repeated ad nauseum as if it is established fact.
  • We need to drop the PTLDS moniker like a bad habit.  This acronym allows everyone to believe that persistent infection is a myth.  It also enables “experts” to say ludicrous things like Lyme patients just need to choose to be better, as if this complex disease(s) was simply an issue of mind over matter.
  • This article is a perfect example of how much still needs to be done to properly educate patients.

For more:

The Case of An Untreated Babesia Infection

https://danielcameronmd.com/untreated-babesia-infection/

The case of an untreated Babesia infection

Woman with untreated Babesia infection holding her head.

Babesia can be a severe and life-threatening tick-borne illness. In a recent article, Dr. Gary Wormser described a 61-year-old female with an untreated Babesia microti infection.¹ The woman’s IgM test for Lyme disease was positive, but it was dismissed as a false positive test.

In his article, Wormser discusses the case of a 61-year-old woman who went untreated for a Babesia infection, despite positive test results. The patient, who lives in Westchester, NY, a highly endemic area for Lyme disease, reportedly removed an unidentified tick from her left wrist at the end of March 2020, wrote Wormser.

In June, she developed intermittent fevers, joint pain, anorexia, and fatigue and was evaluated at the Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center (LDDC) in New York State.

Unfortunately, the patient did not have an erythema migrans rash. And, as a result was not treated for a tick-borne infection.

On July 30, 2020, the woman tested positive by PCR for Babesia but was not treated.

Two weeks later, she had a positive Lyme disease EIA and one IgM Western blot band. But she was still not treated for either Lyme disease or Babesia.

On August 26, 2020, her Lyme disease tests were positive by the CDC’s two-tier diagnostic criteria. She had a positive EIA and positive IgM Western blot test. Still, she was not treated for either Lyme disease or Babesia.

On December 11, 2020, the woman’s PCR test for Babesia and IgM Western blot test for Lyme disease were negative.  Her Lyme EIA remained positive.

I. scapularis ticks recovered from the environment that are infected with B. microti may be co-infected with B. burgdorferi.

The woman never developed more than two IgM Western blot bands for Lyme disease. And she never exhibited an erythema migrans (or Bull’s-eye) rash. If she had, it would have allowed Dr. Wormser to make the diagnosis of Lyme disease in a patient with Babesia.

As he states, “Diagnosing Lyme disease co-infection in patients with active babesiosis, as in patients with human granulocytic anaplasmosis, is more convincingly accomplished if objective clinical features of Lyme disease are present, such as an erythema migrans skin lesion.”

The woman’s fever resolved without treatment. But Dr. Wormser did not state whether the patient’s joint pains, anorexia, or fatigue had resolved. Neither did Dr. Wormser report whether there were any long-term sequelae from an untreated tick-borne illness.

Editor’s perspective:

I would have been uncomfortable leaving the woman untreated particularly since she had evidence of at least one tick-borne infection – Babesia.

References:
  1. Wormser GP. Documentation of a false positive Lyme disease serologic test in a patient with untreated Babesia microti infection carries implications for accurately determining the frequency of Lyme disease coinfections. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. May 16 2021;101(1):115429. doi:10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2021.115429

__________________

I’m too angry to comment.  Wormser needs to retire.

For more:

Weaponized Ticks? House Passes Smith Amendment Seeking Answers (But Will Get None)

https://www.lymedisease.org/ticks-weaponized-amendment/

Weaponized ticks? House passes Smith amendment seeking answers

Sept. 24, 2021

The House of Representatives this week passed an amendment offered by New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith, directing the federal government’s “watchdog” agency to investigate the Department of Defense’s (DOD) possible weaponization of ticks and other insects with Lyme disease during its consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (H.R. 4350).

“In the spirit of transparency and accountability, my amendment directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to probe whether the Department of Defense ever weaponized ticks with Lyme disease or any other dangerous pathogen,” said Rep. Smith, the founding co-chair of the House Lyme Disease Caucus.

“Americans deserve the truth,” Smith said.

Millions with Lyme have a right to know

“The millions of Americans suffering from Lyme disease have a right to know whether any of this is true, and if any old research documents could be applied by current-day scientists to finding a better diagnostic or treatment—something that’s desperately needed,” said Smith, who has been advocating for Lyme patients and a more robust government response to the devastating disease since 1992.

Smith’s amendment requires the GAO to report findings to Congress of any DOD experiments on ticks or other insects for use as biological weapons from 1950 to 1977, including the experiment’s scope and whether any insects may have been “released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design.”
Similar amendments authored by Smith passed the House in 2019 and 2020, but did not make it through the Senate.

Questions raised by the book “Bitten”

The legislation comes in the wake of credible assertions made in numerous books and articles that significant research was conducted at Fort Detrick, Plum Island and elsewhere by the DOD to turn ticks into bioweapons causing severe disability, disease and even death to potential enemies.

One book—Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby—includes interviews with Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, the researcher credited with discovering Lyme disease who also worked as a bioweapons specialist.

Combined with access to Burgdorfer’s lab files, the interviews suggest that he and other bioweapons specialists stuffed ticks with dangerous pathogens.

“To stop the spread of these horrific tick-borne diseases, we must first understand their origins and how they came to be so pervasive,” Smith said.

“If the investigation concludes our government’s bioweapons program did not contribute to the proliferation of Lyme, we turn the page. And if it did, hopefully this investigation and research will contribute to a cure,” he said.

Smith’s amendment now moves to the Senate for consideration as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

PRESS RELEASE SOURCE: The Office of Congressman Chris Smith

https://lymediseaseassociation.org/government/federal-government/comptroller-general-investigation-of-ticks-vectors-biowarfare-passes-house/

Some things author Newby revealed for the first time in the book were: that ticks were developed and deployed as stealth biological weapons during the Cold War, and that Willy Burgdorfer, the scientist the Lyme bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, was named after, was at the center of this program. According to Newby, specific revelations she makes in book include:

  • A 1962 pilot study where infected ticks were dropped on Cuba sugar workers.
  • Releases of hundreds of thousands of radioactive, aggressive Lone Star ticks on the Atlantic coastal bird flyway.
  • Omissions of other microbes transmitted with Lyme-carrying ticks during the original outbreak (“Swiss Agent”).
  • Documentation of military studies where live disease-causing bacteria, some which can be spread by ticks, were sprayed from planes, boats and vehicles on the unsuspecting American public.

The Lyme Disease Association (LDA) encourages Lyme advocates, patients, and the public across the country to contact both of their US Senators to champion and support this amendment. After 45 years of Lyme disease, the truth must be uncovered.

Out of the 860 amendments offered for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), only 476 were made in order, and this one was included in the even smaller number actually passed. This shows a huge interest by government to explore this issue of Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Also, an amendment for a government investigation passed twice before in the House in 2019 and 2020. This time we all need to help persuade the Senate to keep this amendment when both Houses go to the conference committee to iron out Senate and House bill differences.

______________________
**Comment**
While it’s important to get answers, I won’t be holding my breath on this one.  This is like asking the pot to call the kettle black. All we have to do is look at the COVID debacle to determine that even with all the evidence in hand, the very people/organizations who created this ‘plandemic’ still have jobs, and are still “rock stars” to the general public.  Nothing to see here!  Lyme/MSIDS has an even longer history of corruption.
No, I don’t believe anything will come out of this investigation at all.  I pray I’m wrong.
Further, we need to stop raising money for The Cabal who has done absolutely nothing for the plight of Lyme/MSIDS patients except cause more suffering. We need to stop raising money for and working with abusers.