Archive for the ‘Testing’ Category

Reducing the Burden of Lyme Disease

https://lymediseaseassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MFP-Spring-Lyme-Disease-Article.pdf  (Full article here)

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD Publishes on Reducing the Burden of Lyme Disease

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD, President, Partnership for Tick-Borne Diseases Education Family Medicine Physician, Wyoming, MN
Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD, President, Partnership for Tick-Borne Diseases Education Family Medicine Physician, Wyoming, MN

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD, President of the Partnership for Tick-Borne Diseases Education and Family Medicine Physician in Wyoming, MN published a paper titled “Reducing the Burden of Lyme Disease” in Minnesota Family Physician. It includes discussion of tick bite management, early treatment, and shared decision-making.

In the article, Dr. Maloney highlights the expensive cost of Lyme disease, stating that, “Nationwide, the annual direct medical costs could reach 1.3 billion dollars” and calls attention to the disadvantages in research the illness has suffered, as well as clinical trial evidence that is “generally scant and/or of low quality”.

The author advises that, “Blacklegged tick bites acquired in Minnesota carry a significant risk of Lyme disease,” and offers guidance for making decisions regarding antibiotic prophylaxis of asymptomatic bites.

Maloney stresses the importance of early treatment and writes,

“Early Lyme disease, when promptly diagnosed and appropriately treated with antibiotics, is curable.” Above all, she states, “the risks and benefits of all options should be discussed with patients in the setting of shared decision-making in order to arrive at a therapeutic plan that fits both the clinical circumstances and the patient’s goals and values.”

(See top link for full article)

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**Comment**

Early treatment is imperative; however, doctors still take a “wait and see” approach after patients get bitten by a tick. This approach is maiming thousands of people and needs to change. ILADS recommends 20 days of doxycycline for an acute tick bite, but it’s important to keep track of any symptoms as many coinfections will not be covered under that particular mono-therapy.  Also, remember that testing is wrong half the time.

For a great resource:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/04/21/help-i-got-bit-by-a-tick-what-do-i-do/  (Put this somewhere safe so you can access it if you need to)

This is what appropriate Lyme disease treatment looks like:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/13/lyme-disease-treatment/

Category:

Lyme, Testing, Ticks, Treatment

Testing for COVID-19: Neither Necessary Nor Effective & COVID-19 On It’s Way Out

Testing for COVID-19 is Neither Necessary Nor Effective

May 24, 2020

Recently the CDC admitted that antibody testing is right about half the time. So why test at all?  Professor Knut Wittkowski, an epidemiologist, explains how antibody testing could be useful in showing how close we are to herd immunity.  But using antibody testing to determine infectiousness, he bluntly states,

“Testing for respiratory disease is neither necessary nor effective.”

Approx. 30 Min

Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford

In her first major interview since the Oxford study was published, she goes further by arguing that Covid-19 has already passed through the population and is now on its way out.

She said:

On antibodies:

  • Many of the antibody tests are “extremely unreliable”
  • They do not indicate the true level of exposure or level of immunity
  • “Different countries have had different lockdown policies, and yet what we’ve observed is almost a uniform pattern of behaviour”
  • “Much of the driving force was due to the build-up of immunity”

On IFR:

  •  “Infection Fatality Rate is less than 1 in 1000 and probably closer to 1 in 10,000.”
  • That would be somewhere between 0.1% and 0.01%

On lockdown policy:

  • Referring to the Imperial model: “Should we act on a possible worst case scenario, given the costs of lockdown? It seems to me that given that the costs of lockdown are mounting that case is becoming more and more fragile”
  • Recommends “a more rapid exit from lockdown based more on certain heuristics, like who is dying and what is happening to the death rates”

On the UK Government response:

  • “We might have done better by doing nothing at all, or at least by doing something different, which would have been to pay attention to protecting the vulnerable”

On the R rate:

  • It is “principally dependent on how many people are immune” and we don’t have that information. • Deaths are the only reliable measure.

On New York:

  • “When you have pockets of vulnerable people it might rip through those pockets in a way that it wouldn’t if the vulnerable people were more scattered within the general population.”

On social distancing:

  • “Remaining in a state of lockdown is extremely dangerous”
  • “We used to live in a state approximating lockdown 100 years ago, and that was what created the conditions for the Spanish Flu to come in and kill 50m people.”

On next steps:

  • “It is very dangerous to talk about lockdown without recognising the enormous costs that it has on other vulnerable sectors in the population”
  • It is a “strong possibility” that if we return to full normal tomorrow — pubs, nightclubs, festivals — we would be fine.

On the politics of Covid:

  • “There is a sort of libertarian argument for the release of lockdown, and I think it is unfortunate that those of us who feel we should think differently about lockdown”
  • “The truth is that lockdown is a luxury, and it’s a luxury that the middle classes are enjoying and higher income countries are enjoying at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable and less developed countries.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Testing, Viruses

COVID-19 Patients No Longer Infectious After 11 Days, Study Claims

https://www.theepochtimes.com/covid-19-patients-no-longer-infectious-after-11-days-study_

COVID-19 Patients No Longer Infectious After 11 Days, Study Claims

BY TOM OZIMEK
May 25, 2020 Updated: May 25, 2020

Most COVID-19 patients are no longer infectious 11 days after developing symptoms of the deadly disease, according to a new study by infectious disease experts in Singapore, findings that may affect patient discharge policies.

After examining the “viral load” in 73 COVID-19 patients, experts from Singapore’s National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and the Academy of Medicine found that the virus “could not be isolated or cultured after day 11 of illness,” they said in a joint statement (pdf).(See Link for Article)

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Testing, Viruses

CDC Recommends Newborns Be Tested For Coronavirus Twice & Separated From Mothers With Confirmed Or Suspected COVID-19

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/05/26/some-newborns-to-be-tested-for-coronavirus/? News Video Here

CDC Recommends Newborns Be Tested For Coronavirus Twice And Separated From Mothers With Confirmed Or Suspected COVID-19

By Dr. Maria Simbra

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — The CDC has new guidelines for newborns of mothers with or suspected of having coronavirus.

“The recommendation is the baby be tested sometime around 24 hours after birth. And if the test is negative, they’re recommending a second test at 48 hours,” says Dr. Paul Weinbaum, an obstetrician at the Allegheny Health Network.

(See link for article)

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**Comment**

This is an example of how policy IS being made utilizing flawed antibody tests that the CDC states shouldn’t be used to set policy:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/05/29/antibody-tests-for-covid-19-wrong-up-to-half-the-time-cdc-says/

Testing is also being used in ‘contact tracing’ to monitor people and quarantine them:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/05/15/us-states-rush-recruiting-covid-19-contact-tracers-are-overcompensating-for-their-incompetence-with-authoritarianism/

  • NY Contact Tracers are paid $65,000 and given unrestrained power to punish“violators” with civil and criminal penalties. 

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/05/28/health-passport-scandal-uk/

Right here in Wisconsin, Governor Evers is pushing ‘contact tracing’ as part of the Badger Bounce-Back Program:  http://www.great98.net/2020/05/05/5-5-20-governor-evers-releases-more-information-on-contact-tracing/  DHS is coordinating the amount of tracers with the number of projected tests and positive cases with the goal of having 1,000 statewide tracers.

 

Category:

Activism, Testing, Viruses

Antibody Tests for COVID-19 Wrong Up To Half the Time, CDC Says

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/health/antibody-tests-cdc-coronavirus-wrong/i

Antibody tests for Covid-19 wrong up to half the time, CDC says

(CNN) Antibody tests used to determine if people have been infected in the past with Covid-19 might be wrong up to half the time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidance posted on its website.

Antibody tests, often called serologic tests, look for evidence of an immune response to infection. “Antibodies in some persons can be detected within the first week of illness onset,” the CDC says.

They are not accurate enough to use to make important policy decisions, the CDC said.

“Serologic test results should not be used to make decisions about grouping persons residing in or being admitted to congregate settings, such as schools, dormitories, or correctional facilities,” the CDC says.

(See link for article)

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**Comment**
This should ring a bell with Lyme/MSIDS patients.
Remember testing for tick-borne illness?  Well, COVID-19 testing is just as bad, yet is being used to set policy. Contact Governor Evers and our representatives and senators and let them know you don’t want to be confined to your home based on a faulty test that is wrong half the time.
For more on COVID-19 testing:  

Category:

Activism, Testing, Viruses