Archive for the ‘Testing’ Category

Study of a Potential Test for Persistent Lyme Disease

https://flightpath.bio

FLIGHTPATH BIOSCIENCES’

Study of a Potential Test for Persistent Lyme Disease

Thanks to the enthusiastic response from the Lyme community, this study has met its current enrollment goal. Therefore, Flightpath Biosciences’ Study of a Potential Test for Persistent Lyme Disease will not be accepting any more applications at this time.

We’ll keep you posted as the project proceeds or if we reopen the study for further enrollment.

For questions related to this study, please contact: FlightpathLymeStudy@gmail.com

https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/09/29/intestinal-bacteria-could-give-doctors-an-objective-test-for-chronic-lyme-disease

Excerpt:

Fatigue, muscles aches, brain fog—are these symptoms of chronic Lyme disease, or merely side effects of the daily grind of human existence? It’s hard to tell. 

Chronic Lyme disease, also known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or PTLDS, is incredibly hard to diagnose because symptoms vary greatly, and there is currently no biological test to detect the disease.

Now, Kim Lewis, University Distinguished Professor of biology and director of the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern, has proposed a new way to objectively diagnose this elusive disease by analyzing the microbes in a patient’s gut. 

(Go to link for article)

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**Comment**

Lewis states there are about 800,000 people in America living with PTLDS.  I have written before about this confusing moniker that it means different things to different people.  For instance, microbiologist Holly Ahern states there are two groups of patients: those diagnosed and treated early and those diagnosed and treated late.  The PTLDS label only concerns the first group and only represents about 10-20% of people going on with persistent symptoms.  These low percentages are typically what researchers are referring to.  The label leaves out a much larger group (30-40%) that is diagnosed and treated late.  

This second group represents nearly all the patients I work with that never gets addressed by research because their cases are sticky, hard to define, and by nature don’t fit well into a research study design.

According to Lewis, people with PTLDS have an abundance of a type of bacteria called Blautia and a suppression of a type of bacteria called Bacteroides (which explains why Lyme/MSIDS patients suffer with inflammation, digestion, improper immune responses, depression and anxiety).

Unfortunately, this bacterial disregulation is also seen in many other diseases.

Flightpath is also working on making an oral form of the antibiotic azlollicin available, which has demonstrated in vivo efficacy in mice by significantly inhibiting the growth of drug-tolerant Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) bacteria better than doxycycline (the standard of care), and reducing inflammation.

 

Category:

Gut Health, Inflammation, Lyme, research, Testing

COVID Long Haulers & Lyme Disease

https://globallymealliance.org/long-haul-covid-19-brings-attention-to-persistent-lyme/

by Jennifer Crystal

This past January, the New York Times published an article entitled “What if You Never Get Better From Covid-19?”. Many Lyme patients sent it to me in frustration. “This is just like Lyme disease!” they exclaimed. “We haven’t gotten better, either. Why is everyone talking about COVID long-haulers when we’ve been suffering for years?”

I hear that frustration. I also think it’s precisely this attention on long-haul COVID that will finally shed light on, and bring credibility to, persistent Lyme disease.

In fact, the article itself draws comparisons between COVID-19 and Lyme disease, as well as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). As with Lyme disease, the cause of ongoing COVID-19 symptoms is now under investigation: is it ongoing infection? Is it a post-acute syndrome? Is it an immune response? These are questions that have echoed in the Lyme world for years, causing polarizing debate that leaves some patients fighting for validation, diagnosis, and treatment.

Now, that struggle is coming out of the echo chamber and into the limelight—pun intended—in a world that has newfound understanding of long-term illness and its effects. Words like “immunocompromised” and “long-hauler” were not part of the general lexicon before COVID-19, even though they’ve been part of Lyme patients’ vocabulary for years. Now these words are vernacular, and that’s good news for Lyme patients, ME/CFS patients, and anyone else struggling with a complex illness that strikes different patients in different ways. As the article states, “The Lyme problem is underrecognized but immense.” One silver lining of a horrific pandemic that has killed half a million Americans and left countless others still struggling is that it’s bringing recognition to illnesses that have long caused long haul suffering.

Indeed, just a few weeks after the aforementioned article was published, New York Times Opinion Columnist Ross Douthat wrote “Long-Haul Covid and the Chronic Illness Debate: What persistent Covid cases might have in common with chronic fatigue syndrome and Lyme disease, and why it matters”. A Lyme patient himself, Douthat wrote, “Living through the coronavirus era after spending so many years in the world of Lyme disease is a strange experience because you can see all kinds of different pieces of the tick-borne epidemic refracted strangely in the Covid pandemic—disputes over testing, mysterious and shifting symptomatology, expert failures and medical populism, and controversies around what it means when the disease just hangs around indefinitely.”

Even back in spring 2020, when COVID-19 testing difficulties were at their height, people were taking notice of the similarities to Lyme disease. I was interviewed on this topic for an article on Undark.org called “In the Uncertainties of Lyme Testing, Lessons for COVID-19”.

One important distinction that Douthat notes between long-haul COVID and Lyme, ME/CFS and other illnesses is that “we’re taking the lived experience of long-haul [COVID] patients seriously—probably because we have so many of them all at once—instead of treating them as weaklings or hypochondriacs.”

To that, I can speak personally. For years before I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis, I fought just for people to believe that I was sick; that my flu-like fatigue, insomnia, hallucinogenic nightmares, trembling hands, difficulty concentrating, systemic hives, and fevers were not psychosomatic. Then, once I was properly diagnosed, I fought for understanding from people who literally did not believe in my illness—as if a documented physical disease is simply an opinion or mystical power one can choose to believe in or not.

Conversely, when I first developed COVID-19 symptoms in March 2020, not one person questioned whether I actually had COVID-19, even though I had a (false) negative test. No one said, “Oh, you must have something else” or, “It must just all be in your head.” They knew that my shortness of breath, dry cough, low-grade fever, and loss of taste and smell meant COVID-19. When the positive antibody test came back in June, it was simply validation of what everyone already knew to be true.

When I had COVID-19, I only had to fight to get well, not to be believed.

What a difference that validation meant, as I discussed in my “Comfort in Solidarity” post. I want that type of understanding for all Lyme patients, in all stages of illness. I believe the COVID-19 pandemic will help get us there.

GLA is offering a free webinar, “COVID-19 Vaccines and Lyme Patients: What You Need to Know” on March 3rd at 6:00 p.m. You can register here.

For more blogs, click here

jennifer crystal_2

Opinions expressed by contributors are their own.

Jennifer Crystal is a writer and educator in Boston. Her memoir about her medical journey is forthcoming. Contact her at lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com.

 

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**Comment**

She was ill with something, but it is uncertain if she truly had COVID based on two things: it’s never been isolated and proven to cause disease, as well as the fact antibody as well as PCR testing is as bad if not worse than Lyme.  How can you have something that hasn’t been proven to exist and cause illness?  

This is truly the foundational issue that most are bypassing.  Our public ‘authorities’ have been getting away with this forever.

There is an inaccuracy in the Times article which states there are 329,000 people infected with Lyme per year. The CDC just upped that number to 476,000.

There were; however, important issues exposed by the Times article, but I don’t hold the same optimism Crystal does. If our public ‘authorities’ can bamboozle nearly the entire American populace with a ‘virus mania’ dating back decades, and convince them to take the jab on an experimental, fast-tracked injection that hasn’t been proven to be safe or effective, doesn’t stop transmission or infection, changes your DNA, can monitor and track you, and is said by whistleblowers to cause sterility, has caused 40 times more deaths in Israeli elderly and 240 times more deaths in the younger ages in the 5 week vaccination period than the virus itself, and the death of 25% of German nursing home residents, I highly doubt this same populace will embrace the complexity of Lyme/MSIDS.

I’d love to be proven wrong.

In my experience, the only forward progress we’ve made has been when we’ve done the work ourselves with independent researchers unaffiliated with government funding.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing, Viruses

60 Minutes: 1979 Swine Flu Investigation Has Uncanny Resemblance to COVID-19

https://thecovidblog.com/2021/02/26/60-minutes-1979-swine-flu-investigation-has-uncanny-resemblances-to-covid-2020-21/  Video Here (Approx 15 Min)

60 Minutes: 1979 Swine Flu investigation has uncanny resemblances to COVID 2020-21

TheCOVIDBlog.com
February 26, 2020

NEW YORK — “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Those powerful words were first written in the 1905 George Santayana book “Reason in Common Sense.” Winston Churchill changed it a bit in a 1948 House of Commons speech: “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Unfortunately neither version resonated with most Americans and others around the globe.

Once upon a time in the United States of America, a noble profession called “journalism” existed. Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite inspired a generation of young, ambitious journalists in the 1970s. Mike Wallace was one of their contemporaries. He was a 21-time Emmy Award winner for his work on the long-running CBS new magazine show 60 Minutes.

Millions of Americans watched the 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, November 4, 1979. Only about 20% of U.S. households had cable television at the time. Thus most only had five or six channels to choose from. Despite the large audience and powerful reporting, this episode was forgotten and buried. That is until now.  (See link for video and article)

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**Comment**

Please watch this “must see” 60 Minutes episode about the Swine Flu ‘epidemic’ that wasn’t.  The events are uncannily similar to the COVID ‘pandemic’ that isn’t.  Brazen scare-tactics have been used in both cases with a push to get the “vaccine,” at all costs.  If you are unfamiliar with the Swine Flu hoax, start by reading this:   https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/08/22/the-2009-swine-flu-scam-murderous-anthony-fauci-betrays-public-trust-again/

In 2009 the CDC claimed there were thousands of Swine Flu cases in the US., but secretly, they had stopped counting.

CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, discovered through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) that hardly any of the Swine Flu cases was Swine Flu, or any flu at all.  After her  findings were published on the CBS News website, the CDC doubled down by stating 22 million came down with H1N1 swine flu by Oct. 17 [2009].

In truth, one month before the H1N1 “pandemic,” the WHO declared H1N1 a Level-6 “pandemic” based on 20 cases.  It also changed the definition of “Level-6 Pandemic” so that severe destruction and widespread human death were no longer required. The origins of H1N1 were found in an industrial pig farm in Mexico where there was pig feces all over the property.  When workers became ill, unknown chemicals were sprayed causing more workers to become ill. People were diagnosed similarly to how people are being diagnosed with COVID – by either “eyeballing sick people with ‘flu symptoms’” and automatically claiming Swine Flu was the cause, OR by PCR.  Recently, COVID is down 62% due to lowering the cycles used for the PCR test. The CDC has also stopped counting seasonal flu.  Now, everything is labeled COVID. Hospitals were given money to label deaths as caused by COVID. CDC death statistics are not reliable in making public health decisions.

The experimental, fast-tracked mRNA injections, which aren’t vaccines are being given the credit, yet are causing thousands of adverse reactions and deaths.  Those damaged, often within hours or days, are nearly all told it can not be due to the injection. Many are also testing positive and becoming sick after the injection.  

For more: 

The CDC’s been lying about flu statistics for decades as well:  https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/annual-flu-deaths-scam-unwittingly-exposed-and-replaced-by-the-covid-deaths-scam/

Excerpts:

Only about 15-20 per cent of people who come down with flu-like symptoms have the influenza virus — the other 80-85 per cent actually caught rhinovirus or other germs that are indistinguishable from the true flu without laboratory tests, which are rarely done.

In 2001, a year in which death certificates listed 257 Americans as having died of flu, only 18 were positively identified as true flus. The other 239 were simply assumed to be flus and most likely had few true flus among them.

How does the CDC overestimate the number of flu deaths?  The CDC accomplishes this by reporting a combined pneumonia and influenza death rate.  Every time I try to analyze this data, I know I will have to spend at least an hour searching for the true number who died from influenza because the CDC tries to hide that data.

Why does the CDC do this?  The answer is easy:  The more people that receive the flu vaccine, the more money the CDC makes.  You see, the CDC holds patents on many vaccines including the flu vaccine. (1)

Perhaps I could tolerate the CDC combining pneumonia with flu deaths IF the flu vaccine prevented both.  However, the flu vaccine has never been shown to have any impact on the number of deaths from pneumonia.

In fact, for the vast majority who receive it, the flu vaccine has little impact on preventing the flu, but I digress. –  Dr. David Brownstein

For more: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/11/03/why-is-cdc-scaring-us-to-death/

Category:

Testing, vaccines, Viruses

Another Woman’s Brain Lining Punctured by COVID Test

https://foxsanantonio.com/news/local/san-antonio-woman-leaks-spinal-fluid-after-receiving-covid-nasal-swab  News Video Here

SAN ANTONIO (WOAI/KABB) — A San Antonio woman is still in shock after she says a Covid nasal swab test went horribly wrong.

“It hurt, it was an immediate instant migraine,” says Chari Timm. “I’ve never had a migraine ever in my life.”

 
Chari Timm says the swab was inserted in her nose and she instantly felt pain.  (See link for article and video)

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**Comment**

Excerpt:

Pneumocephalus is when there has been a rupture in the dural membrane, or the lining that’s around the brain, which allows air to enter the space that’s normally occupied by the head.

Experts say it’s rare, but they aren’t surprised it happened.

“Patients are asked to tilt their head back and the trajectory is more parallel to the nostril, the bridge of the nose and that’s what can bring the that swab further up and put you in a range of potentially having that Covid swab then rupture the dural membranes,” says ENT specialist Spencer Payne.

To read more frightening experiences with this test:  https://www.facebook.com/foxsanantonio/posts/10159319560986738

First, it’s a head scratcher why anyone is STILL getting COVID tests as they are horribly inaccurate and comparable to Lyme tests.

In December, it was reported that saliva tests for COVID are as accurate as nasal swabs – which again, isn’t accurate but safer than these brain-puncturing swabs!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Category:

Activism, Testing, Viruses

HEALED! COVID-19 Cases Down 62% (After WHO Lowers PCR Cycle Threshold)

https://thecovidblog.com/2021/02/28/follow-up-covid-19-cases-down-dramatically-since-world-health-organization-updated-pcr-guidance/

Follow up: COVID-19 positive cases down 62% since World Health Organization updated PCR guidance

TheCOVIDBlog.com
February 28, 2021

iu-18

Our January 26 article, “World Health Organization’s updated guidance for PCR COVID-19 testing will likely lower positive cases” is coming to fruition.  The WHO changed its policy for utilizing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique for COVID-19 testing. Make certain to read the foregoing article in its entirety for more context.

The following is a direct quote from the article:

The World Health Organization recently updated its guidance for utilizing PCR for COVID-19 testing. Some are calling it a politically-motivated move. The update came just hours after President Biden was inaugurated.

“The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load,” the January 20, 2021 Information Notice says. “Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.” In other words the WHO said that the more cycles in PCR, the less reliable the test (inversely proportional). The CDC was still recommending 40 cycles as recently as December 1, 2020.

(See link for article)

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**Comment**

Epidemiologist Dr. Mina, stated that upwards of 90% of positive tests with a 40 cycle threshold would have been negative at 30.  Fauci is on record stating anything over 36 is a false positive and “just dead nucleotides.”  The UK has used thresholds as high as 45.

The WHO changed the cycle threshold on Inauguration Day and positive cases have declined ever since, but the media is attributing this decline to the mRNA injections – yet Fauci, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and Moderna Chief officer Tal Zaks are all on record stating the injections to not stop the spread of COVID-19.

The article also rightly points out that if altruism was the goal, then the media would be reporting on the successful treatments of Ivermectin and HCQ (among many others) but have labeled these treatments “conspiracy theories,” despite peer reviewed studies and experts stating otherwise.

Please see:

IMG-20210506-WA0003

Category:

Activism, Testing, Viruses