https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29361971/

Multiflora rose invasion amplifies prevalence of Lyme disease pathogen, but not necessarily Lyme disease risk.

Adalsteinsson SA, et al. Parasit Vectors. 2018.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Forests in urban landscapes differ from their rural counterparts in ways that may alter vector-borne disease dynamics. In urban forest fragments, tick-borne pathogen prevalence is not well characterized; mitigating disease risk in densely-populated urban landscapes requires understanding ecological factors that affect pathogen prevalence. We trapped blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis) nymphs in urban forest fragments on the East Coast of the United States and used multiplex real-time PCR assays to quantify the prevalence of four zoonotic, tick-borne pathogens. We used Bayesian logistic regression and WAIC model selection to understand how vegetation, habitat, and landscape features of urban forests relate to the prevalence of B. burgdorferi (the causative agent of Lyme disease) among blacklegged ticks.

RESULTS: In the 258 nymphs tested, we detected Borrelia burgdorferi (11.2% of ticks), Borrelia miyamotoi (0.8%) and Anaplasma phagocytophilum (1.9%), but we did not find Babesia microti (0%). Ticks collected from forests invaded by non-native multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) had greater B. burgdorferi infection rates (mean = 15.9%) than ticks collected from uninvaded forests (mean = 7.9%). Overall, B. burgdorferi prevalence among ticks was positively related to habitat features (e.g. coarse woody debris and total understory cover) favorable for competent reservoir host species.

CONCLUSIONS: Understory structure provided by non-native, invasive shrubs appears to aggregate ticks and reservoir hosts, increasing opportunities for pathogen transmission. However, when we consider pathogen prevalence among nymphs in context with relative abundance of questing nymphs, invasive plants do not necessarily increase disease risk. Although pathogen prevalence is greater among ticks in invaded forests, the probability of encountering an infected tick remains greater in uninvaded forests characterized by thick litter layers, sparse understories, and relatively greater questing tick abundance in urban landscapes.

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The title makes me chuckle.  It’s like saying, “There’s a bus coming your direction but it may not hit you.”  

What I say, “Move now!”

More on Ticks & vegetation: 

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/20/manage-barberry-lower-ticks/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/09/30/barberry-friend-or-foe/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/27/lyme-wars-part-4/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/18/presentation-on-wisconsin-tick-control-dr-paskewitz/ Work by others has shown invasives such as honeysuckle (lone star), Japanese Barberry (I. scapulars), and unpublished data on Buckthorn (I. scapulars) are related to tick abundance.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/13/ticks-found-on-rocks/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/27/israeli-kids-get-lyme-disease-from-ticks-in-caves/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/19/how-ticks-find-you/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/11/28/rick-factors-for-tick-exposure/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/30/ticks-found-on-eyeball-buttocks-and-penis/

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.jimmunol.org/content/early/2018/01/12/jimmunol.1701248.long

IL-10 Deficiency Reveals a Role for TLR2-Dependent Bystander Activation of T Cells in Lyme Arthritis

Sarah K. Whiteside, Jeremy P. Snook, Ying Ma, F. Lynn Sonderegger, Colleen Fisher, Charisse Petersen, James F. Zachary, June L. Round, Matthew A. Williams and Janis J. Weis

T cells predominate the immune responses in the synovial fluid of patients with persistent Lyme arthritis; however, their role in Lyme disease remains poorly defined. Using a murine model of persistent Lyme arthritis, we observed that bystander activation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells leads to arthritis-promoting IFN-γ, similar to the inflammatory environment seen in the synovial tissue of patients with posttreatment Lyme disease. TCR transgenic mice containing monoclonal specificity toward non–Borrelia epitopes confirmed that bystander T cell activation was responsible for disease development. The microbial pattern recognition receptor TLR2 was upregulated on T cells following infection, implicating it as marker of bystander T cell activation. In fact, T cell–intrinsic expression of TLR2 contributed to IFN-γ production and arthritis, providing a mechanism for microbial-induced bystander T cell activation during infection. The IL-10–deficient mouse reveals a novel TLR2-intrinsic role for T cells in Lyme arthritis, with potentially broad application to immune pathogenesis.

Footnotes

  • S.K.W. was supported by National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease Research Training Grant T32 AI055434. J.P.S. was supported by the American Association of Immunologists Careers in Immunology Fellowship Program. J.L.R. was supported by the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts Scholars Program, National Science Foundation CAREER Award IOS-1253278, a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Grants K22 AI95375, AI107090, and AI109122, and by National Institutes of Health Directors Innovator Award DP2AT008746. J.J.W. and M.A.W. were supported by National Institutes of Health Grant R01 AI32223. J.J.W. was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R01 AR43521 and R21AI114462. Flow cytometry cell sorting was supported by National Center for Research Resources/National Institutes of Health Grant 1S10RR026802-01.

  • The online version of this article contains supplemental material.

winter-14

Our next support group meeting will be Saturday, February 17, from 2:30-4:30pm at the East Madison Police Station at 809 S Thompson Dr. Madison, WI 53716.

It will be a regular support meeting where we can share our progress and ask questions. Please bring whatever’s working, any books you’ve gleaned from, and all your questions.

See you there!

Recently there’s been some great info coming out on psychotherapy for Lyme/MSIDS patients.  Below is a current offer to pay what you can for a one hour educational session learning cognitive behavior therapy skills for Lyme/MSIDS patients.  

https://gumroad.com/l/CBT-Lyme  Ruschelle Khanna, LCSW, and a Lyme patient herself, is located in the New York area and is Lyme literate.  Click on link for info and to sign up.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Tools for Healing Lyme Related Anxiety

Join Ruschelle Khanna for a 1 hour educational session explaining the power of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques for managing Lyme related anxiety.

CBT is meant to be used both in a therapy office and as a self help tool. CBT is full of skills that we can learn and use for the rest of our lives.

She will offer three specific CBT skills you can start to implement today to find relief from anxiety and other disruptive thoughts associated with Lyme.

NOTE – This is not a therapy session. This is for educational purposes only.

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For more info:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/31/finding-the-right-psychotherapist-for-your-child-with-lyme-disease/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/03/treat-the-infection-psychiatric-symptoms-get-better/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/17/lymemsids-and-psychiatric-illness/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/10/18/psychiatric-lymemsids/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/20/suicide-lyme-and-associated-diseases/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/19/three-things-for-parents-to-watch-for-regarding-tbis/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/08/misdiagnosed-how-children-with-treatable-medical-issues-are-mistakenly-labeled-as-mentally-ill/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/30/child-with-lymemsidspans-told-by-doctors-she-made-it-all-up/

 

 

 

Scandalous CDC director RESIGNS after caught buying shares of vaccine maker Merck while heading the CDC

Image: Scandalous CDC director RESIGNS after caught buying shares of vaccine maker Merck while heading the CDC

(Natural News) As yet more proof that the CDC functions as little more than an extension of the corrupt vaccine industry, CDC director Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald was forced to resign yesterday following a that exposed her ownership of shares of Big Tobacco companies as well as Merck, a prominent vaccine manufacturer whose products are promoted by the CDC.

The gross conflict of interest didn’t stop there, either: Fitzgerald also purchased shares of junk food companies and a tobacco corporation, according to media reports, all while she was serving as director of the CDC. “Documents revealed Fitzgerald had holdings in Reynolds American, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Philip Morris International, and Altria Group,” reports CNBC.

“Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald had also invested money in food and pharmaceutical companies just one month after taking over the job,” reports the UK Daily Mail.

Yes, the head of the CDC bought tobacco stocks and Big Pharma stocks, even when her own decisions at the CDC were neck-deep in gross conflicts of interest related to public health.(The CDC studies and reports on death and disease related to smoking. The corrupt agency also promotes pro-vaccine propaganda while burying all science that reveals vaccine injuries or adverse events.)

The CDC is in bed with junk food companies, vaccine manufacturers and Big Tobacco

This pattern of corruption and collusion is no surprise, given that the director of the CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention was caught pushing pseudoscience nonsense that favored Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. The CDC, it turns out, is in bed with junk food companies, tobacco companies and vaccine manufacturers… all while claiming to be working in the interests of “public health.”

As further proof of that, CNBC reports:

Along with her Japan Tobacco purchases, documents confirm Fitzgerald also bought thousands of dollars of shares in several health-care companies, including Merck & Co, Bayer and Humana, which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deemed a conflict of interest…

In other words, the head of the CDC stood to profit from vaccines, medications, tobacco use and “disease profits” reaped by health care companies.

As the World Mercury Project explains:

Both Merck and Bayer have a pattern of wreaking havoc on human health while striving to bury the evidence. Merck, for example, manufactures the top-selling but devastating Gardasil vaccine and used statistical gimmicks and other deceptive tactics to conceal Gardasil’s risks. Whistleblowers also have accused Merck of falsifying its mumps vaccine data. Bayer, too, has a track record of “scandal and marketing fraud,” having once paid out millions to the U.S. government in a medical fraud settlement after admitting to overcharging for Bayer’s antibiotic Cipro. Bayer also settled tens of millions after having persisted in selling contaminated blood products to hemophiliacs. At present, Bayer is poised to close a “mega-deal” to merge with Monsanto, which manufactures the glyphosate-containing herbicide RoundUp—both glyphosate and RoundUp’s other ingredients have been shown to be highly toxic.

As this video explains, the CDC actually owns 56 vaccines and profits from pro-vaccine propaganda:

Natural News vindicated yet again for accurately claiming the CDC is tied to vaccine makers

The bombshell news confirms yet again that Natural News has been right all along in reporting the “corruption and collusion” of the CDC and vaccine makers. On January 26, 2017, Natural News published a story entitled CDC works in collusion with vaccine manufacturers… can you really trust their “fake science?”

As that story explains:

If you’ve ever wondered how the CDC can afford to do all that it does, look no further than the CDC Foundation. The organization describes itself as some kind of liaison between the CDC and the private sector, existing solely for public benefit, but a quick look at their list of corporate partners reveals a much more sordid story; a story of fake science that is being propagated for industry benefit. While studying the rather lengthy list of corporate donors — who also sometimes collaborate with the CDC on their project — one might notice that many of them are pharma companies, pesticide makers, and biotech firms.

When one considers the apparent ties the CDC has to Merck — and countless other corporations — it honestly raises doubts for just about anything the federal agency has put their stamp on.

The World Mercury Project adds:

The CDC has its own lengthy history of corruption and deceit and has routinely turned a blind eye to conflicts of interest while it works to “protect the private good.” Although the agency owns 56 patents applicable to vaccines, it has no problem shredding vaccine safety data it doesn’t like, while continuing to serve as the nation’s powerful (and ostensibly “independent”) arbiter of vaccine policy. Julie Gerberding, the doctor who led the CDC from 2002 to 2009 (the time period when the Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil without proper safety testing), left CDC to become president of Merck Vaccines and subsequently became Merck’s executive vice president for global strategic communications. Gerberding has benefited handsomely from her shares of Merck stock.

Thus, Brenda Fitzgerald’s personal financial stake in companies such as Merck and Bayer only illustrates, in microcosm, the CDC’s longstanding willingness to cozy up to Big Pharma and Big Health Care in defiance of ethics rules.

CDC corruption and collusion with death-causing corporations is now an established fact

With Dr. Fitzgerald’s sudden resignation and credibility implosion, we now have irrefutable proof that top CDC personnel have financial conflicts of interest with with vaccine companies, Big Pharma companies and even junk food companies.This is now an established fact, widely reported across most of the media. (Natural News told you this years ago…)

Watch the CDC lie to Congress about “vaccine safety” in this eye-opening video:

Follow more news on the corruption and criminality of the CDC at CDC.news. Stay informed about the lies and deceptions of the baby-murdering vaccine industry at Vaccines.news.

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**Comment**

And these are the very folks in power over all things Lyme/MSIDS.  Frightening indeed.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/11/29/spider-attacks-cdc/  CDC scientists expose agency corruption

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/25/speaking-of-fake-science-fifty-seven-million-anti-trust-lawsuit-against-cdc-lyme-tests/  An anti-trust law suit of $57 million is being prepared against the CDC. They are accused of deliberately suppressing the use of an accurate DNA direct diagnostics for Lyme disease.

After publishing the 2013 article ‘A simple method for the detection of live Borrelia spirochetes in human blood using classical microscopy techniques’, professor Laane was invited to give a lecture at the 2014 Norvect conference in Oslo. I was present at that conference and still remember how nervous he was. The reason was that several medical professors complained to his university. He was threatened with losing his job, if he would speak at the conference.  In fact, he did not literally speak – as you can see in the movie below – but used performing arts to show the slides of the spirochetes. Professor Laane was fired anyway and his laboratory was closed down.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/06/remembering-dr-masters-the-rebel-for-lyme-patients-who-took-on-the-cdc-single-handedly/  Masters went over the charts with a fine tooth comb and found huge CDC errors. Another contentious point was the arbitrary cut off date imposed by the CDC which did not pick up serious late-stage symptoms. Another was the CDC’s rejection of many positive blood tests performed in its own lab, as well as other lab work showing “motile spirochetes” in nearly 5% of lone star nymphs. Long story short, after numerous revisions, Masters could never sign onto the bastardized study. The CDC had purposely tossed out data and manipulated the results.

The CDC essentially tried blackmailing Masters into signing off on the study before they would let him see the final draft. Refusing the bait, he published a letter of objection in the Journal of Infectious Diseases as well as an article of his own in Missouri Medicine which showed Missouri patients met the CDC surveillance definition for LD and growing evidence that lone star ticks were infected with an unidentified spirochete causing identical symptoms of LD in patients. When the CDC study came out they unbelievably attributed the rashes they labeled STARI to an allergy to tick saliva! In the acknowledgment section of the paper where dozens of folks were thanked, they completely omitted the man who made it all possible – Dr. Ed Masters.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/01/31/when-als-is-lyme-letter-to-tbi-working-group/  The racketeering scheme to downplay the severity of Lyme disease as identified in the RICO lawsuit should be addressed and documented by the TBD Working Group and not ignored as if this crime does not exist otherwise it will be business as usual at the Centers for Disease Control and we’ll have another thirty years of failure to properly diagnose, treat and control this life-altering infection.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/12/09/25303/ 10 points – Suing the Architects of Lyme Policy as Task Force Meets to Review it

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/12/02/still-a-pig-with-lipstick-cdc-removes-link-to-idsa-guidelines/  And you’ll notice that for information about “chronic Lyme disease” and long-term treatment, the CDC page kicks you to the National Institutes of Health website. If you follow the link, you’ll find the same-old, same-old tripe about how long-term treatment doesn’t help, etc. (Based on three statistically puny studies of “chronic Lyme” the NIH funded years ago.)  Perhaps the CDC is trying to make its ties to the IDSA less glaringly obvious.

 

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/12/the-cdc-needs-a-good-dictionary/  The statement “this disease does not occur nationwide” is inaccurate.  According to CDC surveillance reports, Lyme disease has been reported in every U.S. state except Hawaii, and the black-legged tick that transmits Lyme disease has been found in 45 percent of U.S. counties.

“As a result of their speaking out, from 1997 to 2000, more than 50 physicians in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Texas were investigated, disciplined or had had their licenses removed. Many of these doctors were reported to their medical boards by the insurance defendants,” the complaint states.
The insurers also allegedly reported doctors who were treating chronic Lyme disease to state medical boards, leading many doctors to refuse to treat Lyme disease patients.”
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/09/07/20268/  LYMErix did not produce antibodies. It is a fungal antigen. It activates latent herpesviruses, which are basically the main drivers of the MS and Lupus outcomes. And OspA-induced tolerance to similar TLR2-agonists causing the ALS and Chronic Fatigue outcomes (mycoplasma bear OspA-like antigens). LYMErix vaccine (and the Tuberculosis vaccines) all failed because they caused immunosuppression, no antibodies, and they made the victims more susceptible to other infections.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/12/05/bought-documentary-on-pharma-vaccines-gmos/  “The goal of officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is to achieve a 90 percent health care worker vaccination rate by 2020, and a key strategy for meeting this goal is to tie a health care facility’s employee flu vaccination rate to the facility’s Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements from the federal government.”