Archive for the ‘Lyme’ Category

New Maps Show Where Citizen Scientists Found Infected Ticks

https://www.lymedisease.org/balf-interactive-tick-maps/

New maps show where citizen scientists found infected ticks

Want an easy way to see where disease-carrying ticks have been found throughout the United States?

Check out the new interactive tick maps recently launched by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

The maps are based on data published in mSphere, a multidisciplinary open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The information came from ticks submitted by citizen scientists as part of BALF’s Free Tick Testing Program, which ran from 2016 to 2019.

The study found infected Ixodes ticks in 116 counties which were not previously identified by the Centers for Disease Control as having them.

The testing program collected more than 20,400 ticks. 8,954 were Ixodes ticks, capable of carrying the most common tick-borne pathogens.

The research was conducted through a partnership between Bay Area Lyme Foundation, Northern Arizona University, Colorado State University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

The study evaluated the distribution and prevalence of the four most common tick–borne pathogens:

  • Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, the group which causes Lyme disease
  • Borrelia miyamotoi, which causes tick-borne relapsing fever
  • Anaplasma phagocytophilum, which causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis
  • protozoan pathogen, Babesia microti.

The program tested two types of ticks:

  • Ixodes scapularis, also known as the blacklegged tick or the deer tick, which are found in the Northeast, Midwest and South;
  • Ixodes pacificus, also known as the western blacklegged tick, which lives in the West
The interactive maps only represent data from this citizen science study. They do not represent the total risk of tick-borne infections in the US.

An eye-opening look

“These maps will be eye-opening for many Americans as it makes it easy to see that ticks carrying disease-causing bacteria can be commonly found across the US,” stated Tanner Porter, MS, a research associate at TGen and the lead author on the study.

“If you aren’t aware of the possibility of ticks, either in your backyard or whilst traveling, you are unlikely to look for them – but an unseen tick can still transmit a pathogen and cause disease. It is important for everyone to know to look for ticks, be aware of the pathogens that they carry, and takes steps to mitigate their risk.”

This new study expands on previous research identifying ticks capable of carrying Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in 83 counties (in 24 states) where these ticks had not been previously recorded.  These included:  Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The study builds on recently released CDC data that added 100 counties to the list of those with disease-carrying ticks.

PRESS RELEASE SOURCE: Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Category:

Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Borrelia Miyamotoi (Relapsing Fever Group), Lyme, Ticks

The Promise of a Targeted Drug For Lyme Disease

https://www.lymedisease.org/flightpath-targeted-lyme-drug/

TOUCHED BY LYME: The promise of a targeted drug for Lyme disease

An exciting announcement rippled through the Lyme community recently. Well-known Lyme researcher Dr. Kim Lewis of Northeastern University has identified an antibiotic that appears to selectively kill Lyme spirochetes while leaving gut microbes alone.

This is highly significant because there hasn’t been a drug developed specifically to treat Lyme disease in…well, forever.

Let’s walk through what we know about this promising discovery—and what we still need to find out.

Antibiotics from soil

Did you know that most antibiotics are produced in nature by bacteria and fungi in the soil?

Professor Lewis and his research team recently screened soil samples looking for compounds that could be used specifically against Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen that causes Lyme disease, but that would not kill a broad array of other important bacteria.

The team identified a substance called hygromycin-A, a naturally formed antibiotic that was originally discovered back in the 1950s but was never studied in humans or brought to market.

Back then, researchers looked for powerful broad-spectrum drugs that could target many kinds of microbes. The more diseases a drug could treat, the more revenue it could generate. This strategy was the hallmark of Big Pharma’s “one-size-fits-all” approach to drug development. Narrow-spectrum antibiotics such as hygromycin-A were dismissed because their profit potential was smaller.

But here’s the deal about broad-spectrum antibiotics and Lyme disease. While the drugs kill Borrelia, they also wipe out a lot of other stuff. This includes “good bacteria” in the body’s sensitive gut microbiome, as well as other important local microbiomes (skin, mouth, reproductive organs, lungs, etc). Reducing the bacterial diversity in these local areas or microbiomes is now known to increase the risk of developing chronic diseases, cause serious symptoms in patients, and contribute to the global antibiotic resistance problem.

Protecting friendly bacteria

The researchers first tested hygromycin-A in a lab dish and found it highly effective against Borrelia and then later against various Treponemes (found in adult and congenital syphilis as well as in periodontal disease). These are all types of spirochetal bacteria, a dangerous category of human pathogen.

They also tested the substance against various friendly bacteria typically found in the gut and demonstrated that it pretty much left them alone. These “symbiont” bacteria are responsible for regulating our metabolism, balancing immune system function and protecting against pathogen invasion. So, we should try to keep them!

Next, Lewis and his collaborators tried hygromycin-A on Lyme-infected mice. Once again, it cleared the Lyme infection in the treated mice, while leaving their gut bacteria intact. They then tested the drug for use in the environmental eradication of Lyme in field mice, with similar results.

Professor Lewis et al recently published these findings in the scientific journal Cell, sparking hope and excitement in the Lyme community. Is this the breakthrough for which we’ve been waiting for decades–a targeted treatment for Lyme disease?

Could be. But we’re not there yet.

What’s the next step?

A scientist who has identified a new antibiotic in soil can’t just hand a patient a cup of dirt and say, “Take this and be well.” A new drug must be developed and tested, first in animal models and then in people. And the regulatory approval process required to bring any human drug to market doesn’t happen overnight.

A small, private biotechnology company named Flightpath Biosciences, Inc., has obtained an exclusive license to develop hygromycin-A into an antibiotic they now call FP-100.

Building on the work of Professor Lewis, who is on Flightpath’s scientific advisory board, the company needs to complete formal animal studies. Thus far, FP-100 looks very promising. Early results in laboratory mice, field mice and rats indicate that the drug is orally bioavailable (can be made into a pill) and does not appear to have any major safety or toxicity concerns. (The latter can bring novel drug development programs to a screeching halt.)

At the completion of these required animal studies, Flightpath will submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for FP-100 to the Food and Drug Administration. After approval of the IND application, the company will be ready to initiate a phase I study with healthy volunteers.

What are Phase I, Phase II and Phase III studies?

Determining the true benefit of a drug in a clinical trial is a difficult and lengthy process. Once a drug has been developed, there are three additional phases to obtaining FDA approval of the drug:

  • The phase I study determines the safety of a drug candidate and its “maximum tolerated dose” that does not produce unacceptable side effects. Phase I studies offer little or no benefit to the volunteer subjects, who are typically healthy people who do not have Lyme disease. This phase takes approximately six to nine months to complete.
  • The phase II study involves a drug candidate whose dose and side effects have been established in Phase 1. This phase will determine the drug’s effectiveness. Does it help patients with Lyme disease get better? This phase will offer opportunities for Lyme patients to volunteer to participate if they meet study inclusion criteria. The timeline for this phase is roughly 18-24 months.
  • The phase III study compares the new drug candidate against a commonly used drug, like doxycycline. Some volunteer subjects are given the new drug and some the commonly used drug. This phase will also offer opportunities for eligible Lyme patients to volunteer to participate. The timeline for this phase is roughly 12-24 months including time required for statistical analysis and submission of materials for FDA review.

Flightpath CEO Matt Tindall tells me that, ideally, Phase II studies for FP-100 could begin in two to three years. And if all goes well, he predicts the drug could be approved by 2028.

That’s not the quick turnaround that Lyme patients might wish for. But in the world of drug development, and with no similar products in the pipeline, that’s moving at a pretty good clip.

All oars in the water

“At this point, we have a full-stack team of experienced life sciences drug developers and all our oars in the water,” says Tindall. However, Flightpath’s process of securing funding continues.

He points out that historically, investors were not interested in supporting the development of new Lyme therapeutics. Overall, he says, this was due to poor diagnostic tests and a standard of care which started and ended with cheap, generic, broad-spectrum drugs.

But he tells me that’s starting to change, with the advent of genomic sequencing and a deepening knowledge of long-haul syndromes, thanks to COVID-19.

“We are seeing more interest in novel ways to diagnose acute and chronic Lyme disease, more targeted approaches to treat acute Lyme, and now significant advances in our understanding of what happens to patients in the chronic phase of the disease,” he says.

Another project–the search for a chronic Lyme biomarker

Flightpath has another ongoing project of high interest to our community—the search for a biomarker for chronic Lyme disease. (Biomarkers are objective biological signals related to a particular condition.) Many folks with chronic Lyme have participated in this study, which the company hopes will result in one or more definitive diagnostic tests for chronic Lyme disease. [See: The quest for a chronic Lyme disease diagnostic kicks into high gear.]

If the company verifies the gut microbiome signature, originally shown by Lewis et al in patients with persistent Lyme symptoms, that will open more avenues to help people with chronic Lyme.

Tindall says the company is also committed to developing a first-of-a-kind live biotherapeutic product aimed at repairing the gut microbiome. This could potentially have a positive impact on the immune system in these patients. But, as with FP-100, there’s more work to be done.

FP-100 is exciting because it is the first novel treatment being developed specifically to treat Lyme disease. Flightpath’s initial goal is to determine whether the drug would prevent patients with acute Lyme disease from developing chronic Lyme. If a patient with chronic Lyme has active infection with Borrelia, the drug may prove useful to these patients as well.

But it’s important to remember that the development and timeline for FDA approval of a drug takes years. The process requires playing the long game, one step at a time. Stay tuned.

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

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Category:

Lyme, Treatment

Lyme – The Human Torture Chamber

http://truthbetoldx81.blogspot.com/2017/06/human-torture-chamber.html

Human Torture Chamber

Isabella MacLeo

By Kelly Merriman

June 24, 2017 Published by a truth be told

“If you want to torture someone, give them Lyme disease.” — Dr. Sam Donta

Nobody ever imagines getting sick and never recovering, you can’t even begin to imagine never-ending torture until you’re living it, “You don’t get it until you get it” couldn’t be more true. The suffering a Lyme victims go through is barbaric and not just the disease itself, but the atrocious crimes that surrounds it. People are afraid to speak the truth because of the rejection they already face in this world living with such a controversial disease. It’s a worldwide pandemic, people need to know the truth. Everyone says don’t let your illness dictate your life, truth is, Lyme controls every aspect of your life, every waking second, there’s no way around it. 

Victims are told by the establishment and every doctor they see it’s all in their heads. It is, literally. They’re living with a permanent brain infection, encephalopathy, hydrocephalus, demyelination or lesions. Your brain becomes hijacked. Your mind becomes it’s own entity that you don’t even recognize anymore. Progressive cognitive dysfunction and memory loss as if every brain cell is being destroyed one by one. Thoughts disconnected from your speech. Auditory and visual hallucinations as if you’ve been drugged. It will drag you through the deepest darkest levels of hell you’ve never imagined existed. Rage and anxiety out of nowhere, like the incredible Hulk. You cry yourself to sleep, you cry alone staring hopelessly at your 4 walls day in, day out. Begging to be saved or begging just to be put out of the misery. Help me please. Make it stop. Sorrow, defeat, hopelessness. Are you dying or fighting to survive?

It’s as if your body has an internal circuit breaker malfunctioning each circuit one by one. Pain ripping through and ravaging through every organ system. Crushing every bone, mutilating every joint, suffocating every muscle until strangulation, head pressure as if your brain is imploding, sand paper scraping your brain, razor blades ripping through your intestines and stomach, trying to breathe as if something is squeezing your lungs, blood turned to acid, burning you from the inside out like a pressure cooker, railroad spikes into your skeletal system, lesions as if you were burned, pain that throws you to the ground. 

Central nervous system as if it were hooked up to a high voltage power line, like being tortured to death with a slow steady constant electrocution running through every vein, penetrating the brain to insanity. Electrifying, zapping, burning, tingling, stabbing, vibrating like an internal short circuited exposed live wire backfiring, your core is made of an electrical circuit while your outer surface feels dead. As you helplessly you feel seizures coming on or restless leg syndrome spreading throughout your entire body, sudden jerks and spasms. Stiffness or spasticity as if you just woke up from a coma. Passing out or falling as if you’ve become allergic to sitting upright or standing. Balance and coordination circuit has malfunctioned.

Body or limbs disconnected from the brain to paralysis or complete immobility. You’re trying to move through cement or turned to stone, can’t lift your head, your limbs bearing weights, no energy to blink or breathe, as if every cell and organ system is shutting down. A permanent vaccum installed to your cells, slowly sucking every ounce of life. Your hanging on by a threads, every day another thread breaks. Everyday a new weight is added to your bucket. Everything is resistance pulling you the other way. Blood pressure, sugar and heart rate circuit shortage.

Everything makes you sick. Sound, heat, humidity, lights, chemicals, physical and mental exertion, foods. Intense sweating, dehydration, tremors, twitching, vomiting, chills, fever as if you were going into septic shock. Insomnia to hypersomnia are now permanent. You feel drugged, hungover, toxic. A 365 day flu, every year. You cant eat, sleep, talk, think, shower, move, walk, without climbing Mount Everest. Millions bedridden, others wheelchair bound with nowhere to turn.

But wait….there’s no help anywhere? What do you do? Where do you go? How are you supposed to live like this? In a human torture chamber…..

“This is the Worst Historical Medical Holocaust of our Lifetime.” — Karen Bailey, RN (cared & coded the very first Aids baby in the Boston Nicu)

“Lyme disease is absolute torture physically, mentally & emotionally where you scream & scream for help but nobody hears. It is a hell on earth. We live on a different earth, one where no one cares, no one hears, no one helps. It’s like being a toddler in an adult body, you can’t take care of yourself with a broken brain & broken body but there are only doors slammed in your faceat every turn.”— Marcie Evanosky Nichols

“It’s like being undead. You’re too sick to ever participate in life. All things that make life worth living have been stolen from you, leaving you a ghost of your former self, forever doomed to haunt the world, but you can never participate in it. And if you dare try, you are given a payback of such severe pain and a flare up of symptoms that make it never, ever worth trying. Everything you used to enjoy makes you severely physically ill. Everyday is a never ending struggle just to survive the most basic of needs. And sometimes, you can’t even do that. You are stuck in a world you are not well enough to live in. And no one will help you. There is no help coming. There is no future. There is only now, and never ending pain, and disappointment, and a loneliness only the undead can feel. This is the reality of severely advanced Lyme Disease.”  — Julie Carrigon

“Lyme steals Everything. You become a complete and total stranger to your entire family and even to yourself. The physical manifestation is literally the king of all nightmares. You feel so ill, deathly ill, but no one can see it. It’s dark, lonely and evil on every level. Every Dr you see tells you there’s nothing wrong with you and it’s all in your head. Insidious symptoms from skin crawling fire ants burning your brain to bone crushing pain and the feeling that your flesh is being ripped from your bones. While the nervous system is so badly affected you feel electrical shocks through out your body.” -Rachel Brendel

“Chronic Lyme is like every nerve in your body is on fire while someone is pouring acid on your brain. At the same time something is twisting your muscles, then hitting your bones with a hammer.”— Tera Banks

“It’s being too tired to even cry. Starving yourself because you can’t stand up to even make a PB&J. Hurting so bad you can’t force yourself to move your eyes. Being accused of being a drug addict, or that somehow you are bringing your suffering on yourself. Lying to medical professionals about being in pain because you don’t want to lose your credibility as a sick person. I firmly believe a Mother’s love is the most powerful thing this Earth can provide. Having Lyme disease challenges that in a deadly serious way. When you become so despondent that you truly don’t give a shit whether you live or die. Death can seem like the only comfort left in your life, an end point is all you can think about. You just want it to stop”— Jena Blair

“There is not an ounce of cellular energy left after forcing food and chugging fluids like my life depends on it. For what seems like an eternity, I have been stuck, floating, in a bathtub of darkness and urgency, while my children tell me about their lives through the door.”— Heather Scott Hetler

“I’m truly just barely hanging on buy a thread. To have to live in this pain ever second of every minute of every day, week, month, year of 12 years and counting, and for my pride, my vanity, for not letting people, my friends see me like this, then we have my four walls? It’s all I can do to watch everything that I was, everything I love, and now my love of my life leave me. I can count on one thing, more of the same Pain? Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, I don’t think this is what Hunter S. Thompson meant when he wrote that. I don’t think I can bare to hear another doctor tell me agian, and I Quote, “We can tell you what it isn’t, but we can’t tell you what it is.” And they’re getting paid for this ground breaking news, and oh by the way, send me home in the same shape as I walked in.”-– Nick C. Baker

Meanwhile, the CDC and establishment libels, mocks, slanders, ridicules us over power, greed and profit since commercializing Lyme disease in 1994 by changing the testing to a high antibody concentration and removing the most prominent antigens to deliberately miss all low antibody neurological immunosuppressed victims from testing positive. They have to preserve their biggest medical scandal in history knowing millions are disabled by the very same thing they injected their test subjects with, OspA, the Lymerix vaccine. OspA is a TLR2/1 agonist, a highly toxic post-sepsis causing fungal antigen injected via vaccine or shed off a Borrelia spirochete via tick bite. The vaccine trials are how the CDC knows it’s a disease of post-sepsis leading to neurological immunosuppression, a B-cell AIDS. OspA / Lyme via vaccine or tick bite are the same disease. Their fraudulent test was designed to miss all of these cases, the low to no antibody concentration victims otherwise, it would reveal their vaccine injuries. The same CDC criminals who falsified the case definition and testing own patents on the vaccine and fraudulent test kits.

Exposure to a TLR 2/1, causes immune paralysis and tolerance, the immune cells can no longer recognize or fight other pathogens. Latent viruses and opportunistic viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections take over creating the perfect stealth infection of permanent immunosuppression, mutated B-cells, encephalopathy, and “The Great Neuro-Degenerative Imitator”: ALS, MS, parkinson’s, lupus, dementia, huntington’s, alzheimer’s, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, cancer, autism, schizophrenia, stroke, etc. What the CDC calls post-Lyme syndrome is really post-sepsis syndrome and is why antibiotics can’t cure Lyme, it’s the immunosuppression and secondary infections doing all the damage.

25 years later, the CDC is still saying there’s no such thing as chronic Lyme disease, while publishing evidence of their crime and the real disease mechanism and outcomes in their own scientific research and patent documents. This past week, the CDC hit an all new low by counter-attacking and slandering chronic Lyme disease victims after Lymerix whistle-blower and TruthCures lobbied in Washington D.C overturning all evidence of the Lyme Cryme to Senators, demanding the USDOJ investigate and prosecute the CDC for their crimes.

http://www.health.com/lyme-disease/chronic-lyme-disease-treatment-is-risky-says-cdc

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/06/21/deaths-and-complications-due-to-treating-the-fake-disease-known-as-chronic-lyme-disease/

http://www.mvtimes.com/2017/06/21/cdc-study-slams-lyme-disease-treatment-long-term-antibiotics/

And, then we have ILADS, Lyme literate MD’s who only treat you if you’re rich, banking off of desperate half-dead sick people by selling books, their own protocol or supplement lines and those who can actually afford $2000 for an office visit and out of pocket treatments by going bankrupt and losing everything trying to get treatment, that fails in majority anyway by not treating the real disease mechanism by treating immunosuppression, b-cell mutation and re-activated viruses with antibiotics. And, many end up with pharmaceutical injuries, especially the deadly fluoroquinolone antibiotics, just speeding up the disability process if not outright killing you. Where else is anyone supposed to go? There’s no help anywhere for a disease deliberately made not to exist. Then there’s the majority who are too poor to see an LLMD trying to self treat or symptom management with everything under the sun at home, wondering if they’ll ever wake up again. Everyone making money off the severely sick and disabled, while they can’t even afford a roof over their heads or food in their bellies, and spending years fighting for social security disability.

To be so physically ill and disabled, with no help anywhere, to be told you need a psychiatrist, it’s all in your head, stop faking or attention seeking and to be told by the establishment Lyme doesn’t exist. Why would anyone go on years to decades faking a disease that was deliberately commercialized not to exist just to be libeled, slandered, shunned, lose everything and have your entire life ripped out from under you? If you were really going to fake a disease, it would be one that’s validated, not denied. Lyme is very real, the suffering is too real for any human to bare, its barbaric torture, not only the disease itself but the daily abuse by the establishment who have committed the most atrocious crimes to humanity as they leave them to suffer and die with a psychiatric or munchausen diagnosis.

The suicide rate is high among Lyme victims, we just had 2 Lyme suicides. Can you blame them?

Please click here to see how you can help. We are screaming for help as Lyme disease remains the worst medical scandal in history of medicine and, a silent pandemic.

TruthCures

https://www.truthcures.org

Lyme Cryme whistle-blower and activists group on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/OccupyUSDOJ/

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The link to mental health shows how crucial appropriate treatment is.  It also shows how important support is.  If you suspect you are infected with Lyme/MSIDS, find a local support group to attend either in person or online.  For a starting point, go to the right side of the website and scroll down until you find the tab called “Lyme Resources.”  Under that is a tab “Find a Lyme Support Group.”  There are also Facebook and other online groups if you can’t attend in person. 

Patients need to be believed and validated.  This goes a long way toward recovery.  On top of this, they learn from others in the support group, which helps their own case.  They can get ideas to implement and just talk to someone who has “been there.” 

While you may feel depressed, hopeless, and in so much pain you want to end it all, DON’T!  Feelings are fickle.  Better days are coming, so chin up and press on.  This rotten, complex illness often takes a long, long time to get on top of and there might even be relapses, but you can wade through it all with the help of experienced practitioners, supportive people, and a mindful “line in the sand” you will not cross no matter how poorly you feel. 

Category:

Activism, Lyme

Burrascano Webinar on Borreliosis Testing (Lyme & TBRF)

https://www.lymedisease.org/burrascano-webinar-borreliosis/

Burrascano webinar on borreliosis testing (Lyme and TBRF)

The name “borreliosis” can refer to two distinct but similar infections: Lyme disease and tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF).

Both diseases result from different subspecies of Borrelia. They exhibit many of the same symptoms and both are spreading geographically.

According to world-renowned Lyme disease specialist Dr. Joseph Burrascano, these diseases present significant challenges to patients and healthcare practitioners alike.

Dr. Burrascano recently presented a webinar with IGeneX, Inc., about testing for both infections. Dr. Jyotsna Shah, president and laboratory director of IGeneX, joined him in the question and answer period.

Category:

Lyme, Testing

Read the Latest Documents From Lyme Lawsuit Against IDSA

https://www.lymedisease.org/latest-documents-torrey-lawsuit/

Read the latest documents from Lyme lawsuit against IDSA

From journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer on Facebook:

“I have posted the latest documents in the Torrey v. IDSA case on my website. As many know, the lawsuit was dismissed in federal court in Texas. More than 400 documents were filed in the case since 2017; I’ve posted the key filings.

“The dismissal will be appealed, I’m told. One good outcome is this: Eight insurance companies chose to settle the case. This development might help others to convince insurance companies that claims for care should be paid.

“This isn’t enough. But it says something about a medical system that fails to recognize the pain of many Lyme disease patients and their inability to get good care.”

Court filings

Here is background on the case from the latest court document. [Comments in brackets have been added for clarity.]

Plaintiffs sued Defendant in November 2017. Docket No. 1. Since filing their Original Complaint, Plaintiffs have maintained the allegation that Defendant [the Infectious Diseases Society of America], the Doctors [the authors of the IDSA Lyme guidelines] and the Insurance Defendants [eight insurance companies named in the original suit] have engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to deny the existence and prevent treatment of chronic Lyme disease.

Plaintiffs alleged that doctors have known for a long time that while many patients who contract Lyme disease may be cured with short-term antibiotics, up to 40 percent of patients do not respond to short-term antibiotic treatment.  

These patients require long-term antibiotic treatment until the symptoms are resolved. Though the Insurance Defendants initially provided coverage for long-term antibiotic treatment of Lyme disease, the health insurance industry made a concerted effort in the 1990’s to deny coverage because long-term treatment was too expensive. 

The Insurance Defendants enlisted the help of doctors who were researching Lyme disease—the IDSA panelists—and paid them large fees to develop arbitrary guidelines for testing Lyme disease. 

Once these guidelines were established, the Insurance Defendants denied coverage for patients who did not meet the new stringent Lyme disease testing protocols and prevented Plaintiffs from obtaining the antibiotics needed to treat their Lyme disease.

Click here to read the rest of this document.

The IDSA had also asked the court to impose legal sanctions (penalties) against the patients who brought the lawsuit. The court refused to do that.

Mary Beth Pfeiffer, author of “Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change,” maintains a website with information about this lawsuit. Click here to see court filings and other history of this case.

Category:

Activism, Lyme