Archive for the ‘Testing’ Category

AONM Newsletter: Long COVID, Mitochondrial Test, PANS Conference, Book Reviews, Upcoming Events

AONM-Newsletter-January-2022 (1)

Please read in it entirety.  A few teasers:

  • University of Washington reports that almost a third go onto suffer persistent COVID symptoms.  They found that the S1 segment of the spike protein is recoverable from human monocytes in PASC patients up to 15 months after an acute infection compared to controls.
  • The Royal Society’s SET-C group describe a wide range of symptoms that overlap with M.E.
  • Since its introduction in 2006, Seahorse XF technology has been used in over 7,000 peer-reviewed publications and AONM now offers a range of tests of mitochondrial and cellular performance using Seahorse as well as extracellular flux analysis with luciferase assays. AONM will be holding a series of webinars in the first quarter of 2022 explaining the tests.
  • Virtual conference on autoimmune encephalopathy (PANDS/PANDAS) takes place on Feb. 9-11.
  • Early bird tickets if you do not wish to be awarded CPD points are available here hopehealingknowledge.com for $69 for all three days, until January 17th, after which the price rises to $99. For medical professionals (with CPD included), the early bird until Jan. 17th is $325, and $375 afterwards:  https://inevent.com/en/FoundationforTotalRecovery-1625240794/94-FoundationforTotalRecovery-1639074062/purchase.php  You can view the complete agenda and lineup of  incredible speakers by clicking here.
  • The books Toxic Legacy and Chronic are reviewed.
  • A list of upcoming events is at the end of the newsletter.

Category:

Activism, PANS, research, Testing, Viruses

Answers Still Needed About Possible Biowarfare Connection To Lyme Disease

https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-biowarfare-pat-smith-lda/

Jan. 10, 2022

Answers still needed about possible biowarfare connection to Lyme disease

By Pat Smith

Forty-six years after a mother alerted public health about an unknown disease affecting her Connecticut neighborhood, patients still await answers about Lyme disease and help from the federal government− little has been forthcoming.

It’s been 37 years since I first saw Lyme as a board of education member in New Jersey, and 29 years since I first contacted New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith for help regarding Lyme disease.

I approached him because my school district had many seriously ill students and staff members who could find little medical help and no assistance for disrupted educations. Congressman Smith set up a Washington DC meeting for me with CDC and NIH officials to present a report on nine Monmouth/Ocean NJ school districts in the same situation, yet no public health authorities were involved to help the districts.

Shocking devastation

Officials were shocked and could not believe the devastation I described to them. They subsequently came to NJ and did their own study of five of the school districts, which confirmed the effects on the districts and these children. Congressman Smith held a Congressional meeting in Wall Township which overflowed the room. The CDC presented its study, and I spoke at this meeting as did my daughter who was then suffering seizures from Lyme.

The CDC refused to publish its school study, continuing to tell me they would, so the LDA asked the Lyme Times [published by LymeDisease.org] to publish it a few years ago for all to read, as it had been presented publicly by CDC.

Patients and advocates have been benefiting from Mr. Smith’s efforts to help us change that situation. Working with Congressman Smith, the Lyme Disease Association has been able to get bills introduced and passed over decades; educate federal & state legislators; help set up a federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group under the Department of Health and Human Services; help parents threatened with Munchausen-by-proxy [an accusation that the parents have made the child sick] whose children were going to be removed because of long-term treatment with antibiotics; and help doctors whose licenses were threatened for treating with antibiotics. Sadly, some parents still have had their children removed and Lyme-treating physicians continue to be harassed.

Unanswered questions

Uncomprehendingly, we are left with many asked but unanswered questions. There continues to be government resistance to solving even the most basic issues. One is the continued use of tests discussed during a 1994 meeting where dissenting researchers were refused the right to present a minority report—tests which studies have shown are less than 50% accurate, whereby a person can test negative and still have the disease. Scientists have come forth over time with tests to be examined, but CDC has appeared to have neither considered them nor recommended them for further study to our knowledge.

Why do CDC and NIH continue to rely on one set of treatment guidelines for Lyme disease which recommend (read: allow) only a few weeks of doxycycline for a complex organism such as Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria that causes Lyme disease, when there is another set of guidelines that permit doctor discretion?

Why are patients still told: it’s in your head; you need a psychiatrist; you’re cured because you had two weeks of treatment; you have to learn to live with it; don’t use alternative therapies; it’s not Lyme? (When you ask what is it, the response is a shrug.)

Why are some patients being misdiagnosed with MS, ALS, CFS, FM, lupus, ADD, RA, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s which turn out to be Lyme and other tick-borne diseases apparently causing these symptoms in a number of cases?

Why are doctors who help patients get better with long-term and combinations of antibiotics still called quacks, unable to be a part of insurance plans, and subject to medical board actions?

Why is research being privately funded in prestigious institutions investigating antibiotic treatment options while the government says research is done, and that long-term antibiotics don’t work and can be harmful?

Denial of chronic Lyme

Many doctors, scientists, patients, and advocates have known for decades it’s “chronic Lyme”—persisting symptoms after short-term treatment. This occurs in 20% or more of Lyme patients−often combined with other tick-borne diseases, almost 20 of which are now found in the US, and can be acquired singly or in combinations.

Those suffering or helping these patients have been ridiculed in media over the decades, with Lyme called a housewife’s disease, a yuppie disease, mass hysteria, conspiracy theory, hoax perpetrated by those anti science.  In 2021, the “long haulers” of COVID 19 have thankfully not been scorned or shamed, why are “chronic Lyme” sufferers singled out for this abuse?

Why investigate any biowarfare origins?

The origins of COVID19 have already been investigated and linked with the NIH having been shown to have funded “gain of function” research—modifying a biological agent to confer new or enhanced activity to that agent. Why is it then a conspiracy theory to investigate the murky origins of Lyme?

Biowarfare has been out there for hundreds of years.

“Man has used poisons for assassination purposes ever since the dawn of civilization, not only against individual enemies but also occasionally against armies. However, the foundation of microbiology by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch offered new prospects for those interested in biological weapons because it allowed agents to be chosen and designed on a rational basis.”  (F. Frischnecht, Pasteur Institute: 2003, EMBO, “The History of Biological Warfare”-see NIH website)

It’s time for government transparency. Provide whatever the truth is about tick releases and other tick-borne disease experiments that some US scientists have come forth with and that government documents appear to support

476,000 people are diagnosed and treated annually in the US according to CDC. They and the general public deserve to know what happened in the past, to aid in the search for prevention and cure of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.

Pat Smith is President of the Lyme Disease Association, which funds research, promotes education and jointly puts on an annual scientific conference with Columbia University. From 2017-2020, she served on the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group.

___________________

For more:

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing

Theranos Founder Convicted of Fraud While Our Own Government Goes ‘Scot-Free’

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-convicted-of-fraud-

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Convicted of Fraud

After a week of deliberation, a jury returned a guilty verdict on four charges related to wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Amanda Heidt
Jan 4, 2022

Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of the blood testing company Theranos, was found guilty yesterday (January 3) of fraud, the latest development in a headline-grabbing saga that has spanned nearly two decades and been the subject of a book, a podcast, and a documentary. Her trial, held over almost four months in San Jose, California, was seen as a referendum on Silicon Valley’s “fake it till you make it” ethos, as prosecutors alleged that Holmes solicited almost $1 billion from investors by touting a device that never lived up to the company’s claims. 

Of the 11 charges Holmes was facing at trial, she was found guilty of four: three counts of wire fraud and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. (See link for article)

___________________

Summary:

  • Holmes was given legitimacy and leverage to solicit capital due to a packed board of powerful figures including former secretaries of defense, former secretaries of state, and a former director for the CDC.
  • The device, first named the Edison but later called the miniLab, was touted as being able to run hundreds of tests on-site at each Walgreens location, but could in fact run only a few which often gave poor results.
  • Researchers and technicians testified of lax safety protocols including the mishandling of blood products.

PCR COVID-19 False Positives Will Continue in 2022 – Unless We Act Now

No, CDC Has Not Abandoned PCR Tests. What You Can Do About It
, 2022

CDC’s new advice for COVID-19 testing is “keep testing for Omicron if you’re negative”. And in spite of rumors, that still includes PCR testing.

This will come as a shock to people who thought CDC was abandoning PCR testing altogether. A careful read of communications from CDC, however, told me that CDC was only abandoning their own specific PCR test kit.

Now that Fauci has admitted that many children are hospitalized with COVID instead of from COVID, the public must understand that the same has been true all along with PCR testing in adults, too – not just for hospitalization, but also total numbers of cases and deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Now, the brainiacs at CDC say that if you’re sick, test “for Omicron” with antigen tests (that are not specific for Omicron SARS-CoV-2), and, if necessary, get a PCR test done. (See article at desert.com).

This means PCR-based false positives will continue.

Still Hiding Ct Values

The general public is still not allowed to know a critical datapoint for their own PCR tests. Even if hospitalized, doctors deny patients and their families of the cycle threshold. Are Ct threshold values in use still different for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, leading to larger numbers of cases and deaths in the vaccinated? No evidence suggests otherwise. Are Ct threshold values in use still as high as 35? 40? Thresholds this high, according to my colleague Dr. Sin Han Lee, will lead to as high as 90% false positives (the percentage of PCR positive cases that don’t have anything to do with COVID-19).

We have reviewed this problem is podcasts, in peer-reviewed literature, in testimony in court-cases.

Yet the juggernaut continues.

In 2021, Dr. Lee and I and other colleagues created the NAATEC Consortium to sequence clinical samples to determine precisely how many PCR-positive cases might not have SAR-CoV-2 virus at all. Dr. Lee’s laboratory is located in Millford, CT. Our research has IRB approval (Institutional Review Board approval). That’s a huge accomplishment!

IPAK has received a proposal from Dr. Lee to conduct a study on 100-200 patients. Dr. Lee says,

“Right now these quick antigen home-tests are producing an unknown numbers of false positives and false negatives. It is a chaos. I know there are non-Covid viruses circulating, but they are probably all labeled as Covid or Omicron.

We need 100-200 well documented real-life cases, which have been tested positive by RT-qPCR, for publication. Every case must be supported by Sanger sequencing.”

What he means is that every diagnosis of COVID-19 should be confirmed via examination of the nucleotide sequence of the virus. Not the entire genome, just enough to know what has been amplified by the PCR machine.

Patients deserve an accurate diagnosis. And this is not a competitive move by Dr. Lee to own mass testing: every hospital can do their own Sanger sequencing.

Our Goal

We need $150,000 for this study. We tried in 2021, but only could reach 10% of our funding goal. This is where you can help.

Please help us end the tyranny of the false positive diagnoses that led to lockdowns, lost jobs, permanent business closures, and misdiagnoses of other respiratory ailments by visiting The NAATEC Consortium web page and making a one-time donation.

We’re hoping my substack community will be the answer. If everyone pitched in $20 right now, we’ll be able to start sequencing in 2022 – and shut down the madness that has been ruling our lives for two years.

If you can’t donate, perhaps you could pitch in for the general operations at IPAK via a small monthly donation to IPAK? Either way, please share this article with everyone via social media!

The truth shall set you free.

Fund objective research in 2022!

____________________

**Comment**

I’ve posted numerous articles about Dr. Sin Hang Lee who has been outspoken about faulty testing and lack of vaccine safety.  Similarly to Lyme/MSIDS, the only way we will move forward is to fund projects like these where independent research is done that isn’t funded by Big Pharma or the government.

For more:

Category:

Activism, Testing

Bartonella hensaelae Native Valve Endocarditis Presenting With Crescentic Glomerulonephritis

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221425092100322X

A case of Bartonella henselae native valve endocarditis presenting with crescentic glomerulonephritis

Received 8 June 2021, Revised 29 November 2021, Accepted 15 December 2021, Available online 16 December 2021.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idcr.2021.e01366Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Bartonella endocarditis is often an elusive diagnosis, usually derived from evaluating multiple laboratory tests and assessment of presenting symptoms. Herein we describe a case of Bartonella henselae native mitral valve endocarditis with an initial presentation of volume overload and renal failure. The Bartonella organism is tedious to isolate from culture medium, causing most diagnoses to be delayed. Due to the destructive nature of B. henselae endocarditis, the need for rapid identification remains prudent. This therefore creates an opportunity for Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to be used. We further summarize the varied presentations that may be associated with B. henselae endocarditis, and hope that this will heighten the clinicians’ awareness of this entity when presented with acute onset renal failure and culture negative vegetations.

For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/01/03/bartonella-treatment/

Category:

Bartonella, research, Testing

A Test to Find Many Infections at Once On Horizon

https://www.lymedisease.org/multiplex-test-on-horizon/

LYME SCI: A test to find many infections at once is on the horizon

Dec. 13, 2021

By Lonnie Marcum

What if you had access to a single test that could detect 3 different kinds of vector-borne bacteria all at the same time?  Well, it looks like researchers out of North Carolina State University and Galaxy Labs have done just that.

Research led by Ricardo Maggi, Ed Breitschwerdt, and colleagues has led to the development of a new test utilizing a multiplex droplet digital PCR “BBB ddPCR” that can simultaneously detect the three B’s—Babesia, Bartonella and Borrelia from both the Lyme and relapsing fever complex. (Maggi et al., 2021)

Once this combined test is clinically validated and available for clinical use, it will lead to improved diagnostics for patients with Lyme and other vector-borne diseases.

Humans and animals are greatly affected by tick-borne diseases. Currently, 75% of all vector-borne disease cases reported in the U.S. are caused by ticks. And 82% of the tick-borne cases are due to Lyme disease. (Rosenberg et al., 2018)

“Standard” tests fall short

Despite recent advancements for diagnostic testing for other illnesses, the CDC continues to recommend tests for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases that were designed more than three decades ago—and fall way short of what’s needed.

For example, the CDC-endorsed two-tier test for Lyme disease predates a full understanding of the immune response to Lyme disease. It has several technical limitations, including the inability to differentiate between active infection, past infection, and reinfection. (Branda et al., 2018; Schutzer et al., 2019)

The standard test combination also misses 89% of early infection (false-negatives), cannot detect all strains of disease-causing Borrelia, and suffers from cross-reactivity with other infectious diseases leading to false-positives. (Steere et al., 2008; Cook, Puri, 2016)

“The ability to co-amplify multiple vector-borne pathogens within a single sample with high sensitivity will greatly enhance the efficiency and efficacy of clinical diagnostic testing, particularly of volume-limited or otherwise hard to obtain sample matrices,” the authors state.

New approaches needed

New diagnostic approaches have been effectively applied to diseases such as Zika. And COVID-19, a disease discovered less than two years ago, already has better diagnostic tools available to it than tick-borne infections identified nearly a century ago.

Importantly, serology testing for COVID was deemed unreliable and unsuitable for diagnosis, yet serology remains the diagnostic standard of care for tick-borne diseases. (Serology tests look for antibodies in blood serum.)

All tick-borne diseases face major hurdles that prevent accurate early diagnosis and treatment. Serology as a diagnostic standard of care is problematic for all infections, but is especially problematic for immune-evasive, low-abundance infections.

Microbial testing techniques

Commonly used diagnostic techniques for tick-borne diseases include both direct and indirect detection methods, though some are only used in research studies. Both direct and indirect diagnostic methods are prone to false-negative and false-positive results.

For this reason, many experienced Lyme and tick-borne disease practitioners will recommend a combination of both direct and indirect tests, or a series of tests to confirm a diagnosis.

  • Direct detection methods directly confirm the presence of a pathogen. Direct methods for tick-borne diseases include: growing the pathogen in culture; microscopic examination of blood or tissue; polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which detects the DNA of one pathogen; quantitative PCR (qPCR) detects the quantity of a pathogen; multiplex PCR detects DNA of more than one pathogen; and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) “maps” the genetic material in cells.
  • Indirect detection  methods detect the host immune system’s response to infection, providing indirect evidence of infection. Indirect  methods are able to determine if there has been recent or prior exposure to a pathogen. These methods, however, cannot confirm if an infection is active, nor whether it has been cleared. The most frequently used indirect serologic tests for tick-borne diseases include ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay); IFA (immunofluorenscence antibody test); immunoblots like the Western blot; enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT); and lymphocyte transformation tests (LTTs). (Springer et al., 2021)

Looking for antibodies

Both direct and indirect detection techniques have their strengths and weaknesses. For example, the most common tests for Lyme disease, the ELISA and Western blot, both  look for antibodies generated as the immune system tries to fight the infection.

Immunocompromised patients who do not mount a proper immune response, or those who receive early treatment may not develop detectable antibodies.

In addition, intracellular, low-yield and stealth pathogens like Borrelia and Bartonella are notoriously difficult to find by direct detection techniques like PCR.

The main reason for this is that little DNA from “low abundance” pathogens is found in blood. If there’s not enough DNA in the blood sample, standard PCR  cannot detect it.

Because of this, blood has not been the preferred sample type for detecting Borrelia burgdorferi DNA by PCR. However, PCR has had more success detecting the relapsing fever species of Borrelia, due to the higher levels of spirochetes in the blood. Conventional PCR, however, can be useful for the detection of Borrelia DNA from skin biopsies of Lyme-associated rashes, the fluid or tissue from joints (synovial fluid and synovium.)

The new approach

The research team, led by Dr. Ricardo Maggi and Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt at NCSU and Dr. Jennifer Miller at Galaxy Diagnostics, based their new multiplex droplet digital PCR assay “BBB ddPCR” on a wealth of knowledge they’ve gained from developing better diagnostics for Bartonella.

They recently published a paper explaining how their “BAPGM enrichment” along with the ddPCR improves upon the standard qPCR for Bartonella. (Maggi et al., 2020)

The proprietary BAPGM™ liquid culture increases the number of bacteria in a blood sample, allowing easier detection by PCR. With the “ddPCR, instead of running one PCR on one sample, the extracted DNA gets generated into 10,000-20,000 droplets. We then run a PCR reaction on each droplet,” explains Amanda Elam, PhD. “Bartonella ddPCR alone is incredible, increasing sensitivity about 10 times over standard PCR.”

The new assay, called the “multiplex BBB ddPCR,” detected DNA from 24 species of Babesia, 31 Bartonella species, and 13 Borrelia species (from the Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and cluster of Borrelia associated with reptiles).

The assay also detected two Theileria species (T. equi and T. cervi), as well as Chlamydophila felis DNA from naturally infected animals.

The authors state, “The multiplex BBB ddPCR assay presented herein reliably detected single and co-infections involving vector-borne pathogens from the genera Babesia, Bartonella, Borrelia, and Theilaria, using a variety of animal and human clinical samples, vectors, and experimentally infected tissues and cell-lines.”

Bringing new tests to market takes time

As Amanda Elam, Phd, CEO & Co-founder of Galaxy Labs, explained during this year’s Invisible International conference, the development process for commercializing a new test, from prototype to clinical validation to FDA approval, can take 5-10 years.

Elam says it may be another two years before the multiplex BBB ddPCR test is available to the public. She anticipates the individual ddPCR tests for Bartonella, Babesia and Borrelia will be available sooner.

The researchers state they have future plans to add other vector-borne organisms such as Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and Rickettsia species to the existing multiplex ddPCR platform. In my opinion, a single assay able to detect multiple species of the most common tick-borne diseases would have profound effects on both animal and human medicine.

Early diagnosis is critical

Patients who receive early diagnosis and prompt treatment for tick-borne diseases tend to get better. But what about the huge percentage of patients who are not diagnosed quickly? In fact, fewer than 12% of the 14,000+ patients in LymeDisease.org’s patient-led research project, MyLymeData, received a diagnosis within the first month after the tick bite. (Johnson, 2019)

A delayed diagnosis is critical to understanding why so many patients are left with debilitating symptoms after standard treatment for Lyme. (Fallon et al., 2008; Fallon et al., 2012) During the months to years that patients suffer without a diagnosis, the untreated infection spreads throughout the body, embedding itself deeply into connective tissues where standard antibiotics have a hard time reaching. (Cabello et al., 2017; Caskey, Embers, 2015; Embers et al., 2012; Gadila et al., 2021)

One study demonstrated that delaying treatment by as little as 9-19 days is predictive of persistent Lyme symptoms. (Bouquet et al., 2016) During this time, infection can spread to the organs, brain, bone marrow, and heart. (Coughlin et al., 2018; Novak et al., 2019)

Early diagnosis of tick-borne diseases can save lives. Using advanced molecular detection techniques, these researchers have shown how an improved multiplex assay can more rapidly diagnose patients infected with multiple pathogens, speeding the delivery of life saving treatment.

Here’s what we need

We currently need better diagnostic tools for all tick-borne diseases including:

  • Anaplasmosis,
  • Babesiosis (Babesia duncani, Babesia microti),
  • Borrelia miyamotoi disease,
  • Bourbon virus disease,
  • Colorado tick fever,
  • Ehrlichiosis (E. chaffeensis, E. ewingii, E. muris),
  • Heartland virus disease,
  • Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi, B. mayonii)
  • Powassan virus disease,
  • Rocky Mountain spotted fever,
  • Rickettsiosis (R. parkeri, R 364D),
  • S.T.A.R.I. (Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness)
  • Tick-borne relapsing fever (B. hermsii, B. turicatae, B. parkerii)
  • Tularemia

I’ve written about several other types of advanced diagnostics on the horizon. I look forward to seeing promising tests like these become more widely available.

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

References

Bouquet J, et al (2016) Longitudinal Transcriptome Analysis Reveals a Sustained Differential Gene Expression Signature in Patients Treated for Acute Lyme Disease. Am Society Micro. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00100-16

Branda JA., et al. (2018) Advances in Serodiagnostic Testing for Lyme Disease Are at Hand, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 66, Issue 7, 1 April 2018, Pages 1133–1139, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cix943

Cabello FC, Godfrey HP, Bugrysheva JV, Newman SA. (2017) Sleeper cells: the stringent response and persistence in the Borreliella (Borrelia) burgdorferi enzootic cycle. Environ Microbiol 19(10):3846-3862, 2017. doi: 10.1111/1462-2920.13897

Caskey JR, Embers ME. (2015) Persister Development by Borrelia burgdorferi populations in vitro. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 59(10):6288-6295, 2015. DOI: 10.1128/AAC.00883-15

Cook, MJ., Puri BK. (2016) Commercial test kits for detection of Lyme borreliosis: a meta-analysis of test accuracy. Int’l J of Gen Med. DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S122313

Coughlin, J.M., Yang, T., Rebman, A.W. et al. (2018) Imaging glial activation in patients with post-treatment Lyme disease symptoms: a pilot study using [11C]DPA-713 PET. J Neuroinflammation 15, 346. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12974-018-1381-4

Embers ME, Barthold SW, Borda JT, Bowers L, Doyle L, Hodzic E, Jacobs MB, Hasenkampf NR, Martin DS, Narasimhan S, Phillippi-Falkenstein KM, Purcell JE, Ratterree MS, Philipp MT. (2012) Persistence of Borrelia burgdorferi in rhesus macaques following antibiotic treatment of disseminated infection. PLoS One 7(1):e29914, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029914

Fallon BA, Keilp JG, Corbera KM, Petkova E, Britton CB, Dwyer E, Slavov I, Cheng J, Dobkin J, Nelson DR, Sackeim HA. (2008) A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of repeated IV antibiotic therapy for Lyme encephalopathy. Neurology. 70(13):992-1003. doi: 10.1212/01.WNL.0000284604.61160.2d. Epub 2007 Oct 10. PMID: 17928580.

Fallon, Brian & Petkova, Eva & Keilp, John & Britton, Carolyn. (2012). A Reappraisal of the U.S. Clinical Trials of Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome. The open neurology journal. 6. 79-87. 10.2174/1874205X01206010079.

Gadila SKG, Rosoklija G, Dwork AJ, Fallon BA and Embers ME (2021) Detecting Borrelia Spirochetes: A Case Study With Validation Among Autopsy Specimens. Front. Neurol. 12:628045. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2021.628045

Johnson, Lorraine (2019): 2019 Chart Book — MyLymeData Registry. (Phase 1 April 27, 2017. Sample 3,903). figshare. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7849244

Maggi R, Breitschwerdt EB, Qurollo B, Miller JC. Development of a Multiplex Droplet Digital PCR Assay for the Detection of Babesia, Bartonella, and Borrelia Species. Pathogens. 2021; 10(11):1462. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10111462

Maggi RG, Richardson T, Breitschwerdt EB, Miller JC. Development and validation of a droplet digital PCR assay for the detection and quantification of Bartonella species within human clinical samples. J Microbiol Methods. 2020 Sep;176:106022. doi: 10.1016/j.mimet.2020.106022. Epub 2020 Aug 11. PMID: 32795640.

Novak P, Felsenstein D, Mao C, Octavien NR, Zubcevik N (2019) Association of small fiber neuropathy and post treatment Lyme disease syndrome. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0212222. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212222

Rosenberg R, Lindsey NP, Fischer M, et al. (2018) Vital Signs: Trends in Reported Vectorborne Disease Cases — United States and Territories, 2004–2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2018;67:496–501. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6717e1

Schutzer, S.E., et al. (2019) Direct Diagnostic Tests for Lyme Disease, Clinical Infectious Diseases. 3/15, 68 (6), 1052–1057. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciy614

Springer, A., Glass, A., Probst, J. et al. Tick-borne zoonoses and commonly used diagnostic methods in human and veterinary medicine. Parasitol Res 120, 4075–4090 (2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-020-07033-3

Steere, A. C., McHugh, G., Damle, N., & Sikand, V. K. (2008). Prospective study of serologic tests for lyme disease. Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 47(2), 188–195. https://doi.org/10.1086/589242

Category:

Babesia, Bartonella, Lyme, research, Testing