https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-lyme-vaccine-coming-soon-caveat-emptorbuyer-lori-dennis-ma-rp

In the Tech and Science section of Newsweek, July 25, 2017, the headline reads: “Lyme disease vaccine on fast track for FDA approval.”http://www.newsweek.com/lyme-disease-vaccine-valneva-fda-approva-641796

Those of us in the Lyme world know that this is anything but good news. In fact, for those of us ‘in the know’, it’s absolutely terrifying.

Why? you may ask. Why wouldn’t we want a vaccine to prevent this illness? After all, we’ve been hearing just how life-altering and debilitating this disease can be. Wouldn’t a vaccine protect us from this potential fate?

I will give you five key reasons to consider why a Lyme vaccine is something to stay very far away from. I urge you to do your own homework and give it great consideration before you or your loved ones choose to let your doctor provide you this now ‘fast-tracked’, soon to be available Lyme vaccine.

And please – when you do your homework, do NOT fall for the long-held, propaganda-driven ‘Lyme loonies’, anti-vaxxer’, ‘anti-science’ argument. This is nothing more than a false and desperate, shall we say childish, position that the powers that be continue to mount for their own personal benefit driven by profit and greed, and certainly not public good. Please don’t fall for these victim blaming, gas lighting, insidious behaviours. Be smarter than that. It may be too late for the millions suffering from this life altering illness … but it’s not too late for you.

Here are the five key reasons why you should NOT get the new Lyme vaccine:

  1. YOU CANNOT TRUST THE ‘LYME CABAL’

We in the Lyme world have a long list of reasons not to trust that the medical ‘powers-that-be’ on the subject of Lyme disease. For forty years, they have been telling us that ‘there is no such thing as chronic Lyme, that there are no ticks here, that you couldn’t be this sick, we don’t know what’s wrong with you but it isn’t Lyme, it’s probably just ‘all in your head’. Around the world, in 80 countries and on every continent, people are chronically ill with Lyme disease and most cannot get treatment. It’s a do-it-yourself disease. Sufferers have to search far and wide for any type of relief. Most cannot afford to get out-of-the-box treatments, even if they can find them. Many die from this disease, too many by their own hand. YET … for decades now, the Lyme Cabal has been preaching that Lyme disease is ‘difficult to catch, easy to diagnose and easy to treat’. Tell the sick and infirm that this is true and see what happens.

Here is an example of the victim blaming – even worse, federally-funded victim blaming, using taxpayers hard-earned dollars:

“Advocacy for Lyme disease has become an increasingly important part of an antiscience movement that denies both the viral cause of AIDS and the benefits of vaccines and that supports unproven (sometimes dangerous) alternative medical treatments. Some activists portray Lyme disease, a geographically limited tick-borne infection, as a disease that is insidious, ubiquitous, difficult to diagnose, and almost incurable; they also propose that the disease causes mainly non-specific symptoms that can be treated only with long-term antibiotics and other unorthodox and unvalidated treatments. Similar to other antiscience groups, these advocates have created a pseudoscientific and alternative selection of practitioners, research, and publications and have coordinated public protests, accused opponents of both corruption and conspiracy, and spurred legislative efforts to subvert evidence-based medicine and peer-reviewed science. The relations and actions of some activists, medical practitioners, and commercial bodies involved in Lyme disease advocacy pose a threat to public health.”  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(11)70034-2/abstract

When I had the chance to ask one of the co-authors, Dr. Raymond Dattwyler why he and his colleagues would write such an article, his response was “They were bothering us.” Enough said!

So, if in fact as these authors would like you to believe, Lyme disease is NOT insidious, ubiquitous, difficult to diagnose and incurable, then why are they bothering to create a vaccine at all. If Lyme disease is nothing more than a nuisance condition as some have misclassified it, then why bother? Why inoculate? Why fast track it? What’s the point? Why the hype? What’s the rush?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — a federal agency that conducts and supports health promotion, prevention and preparedness activities in the United States – along with the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) have been the leading deniers of Lyme disease. 

In 2012, when the CDC revised the official case number of new Lyme disease infections per year from 30,000 to over 300,000 new Lyme––overnight, those of us in the know understood that they were getting the public ready to accept this upcoming vaccine with open arms and a sense of relief. In other words, scare the public just enough to make them open to wanting this product without causing mass panic nationwide or worldwide. And without having to explain their denial to date.

Let it be known that 300,000 cases per year makes Lyme disease almost twice as common as breast cancer and six times more common than HIV/AIDS. So why is it that Lyme sufferers receive far more support and guidance from their fellow Lyme sufferers on Facebook than in any doctor’s office? Where are the Public Service Announcements that have not been issued by the government, the CDC, the IDSA? Why are infectious disease doctors most notorious for their denial of chronic Lyme disease?

Policy drivers have remained fixated on surveillance of ticks and the early, non-disseminated, acute stage of Lyme disease, rather than the millions of Lyme patients who have become disabled from prolonged exposure to infection and have become incapacitated. This class of patients have been widely ignored causing sufferers to have to go it alone, fight the medical system, experiencing denial of their illness and complete medical abandonment. Those in the know will tell you that Lyme disease can and often does become a life altering infection if not treated immediately. Just ask Duke University Professor Neil Spector, who required a heart transplant after experiencing four years of undiagnosed-untreated Lyme disease. Or Dr. Alfred Miller, a retired Mayo Clinic rheumatologist whose daughter-in-law was diagnosed with ALS at age 43 which spurred him to discover links between Lyme and ALS.  https://on-lyme.org/nl/investigators/research/miller

2. THE CRIMINAL ACTS THAT LANDED US HERE

In 1993, the ‘Lyme Cabal’ were in Phase I and II of their OspA LYMErix vaccine trials.

What is OspA? Outer surface protein A transmitted by two types of dirty needles––the shed blebs of the spirochete (aka tick phylum) and the vaccine LYmerix. OspA detonates the immune system creating the same disease outcome regardless of which way it’s transmitted.

Make no mistake! The Lyme Cabal knew as early as Phase I trials that their OspA vaccine would cause the same disease as the tick-borne illness.

Ergo—their master plan … to create a definition of Lyme disease that would fit their upcoming vaccine model and thereby get the vaccine approved and to market.

So …in 1994, the CDC hosted a consensus conference in Dearborn, MI, along with a dozen labs across the country and together they falsified the very definition of Lyme disease by eliminating the neurological, immunosuppressive type which account for 85% of the cases.

If they conveniently ‘determined’ that the 85% group – those with an immunosuppression neurological outcome––simply did NOT exist, then they could claim that their vaccine was 85% effective. With no immunosuppressive, neurological disease to find, then the vaccine would be a hit with the remaining 15% who presented with an arthritic, bad-knee type only. A brilliant marketing scheme at the expense of millions worldwide for the years to come.

You see, you CANNOT create a vaccine for an OspA fungal antigen — the TRUE definition of chronic Lyme. It can’t be done. And the OspA vaccination known as LYMErix caused the same disease from a syringe as it does when you get Lyme disease from a tick bite. LYMErix victim’s immune systems were destroyed by the vaccine because OspA is an endotoxin that causes immunosuppression and subsequent severe neurologic multi-system disease.

So by narrowing the definition and by claiming that only one type of the disease (the bad knee arthritic type) exists, then they could sell a vaccine. Not only that. They were also able to profit by limiting the number of labs that were sanctioned and thereby cornering the market on the patents of a variety of tick borne diseases.

3. THE FIRST LYME VACCINE WAS A COMPLETE BUST

In 1998, the FDA approved a new recombinant Lyme vaccine, LYMErix™.

This OspA vaccine was in the end the very thing, the very fungal antigen, the very TLR2-agonist (structure equaling function), that caused the New Great Imitator outcomes of MS, ALS, Lupus, Chronic Fatigue, Cancer, and more.

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.

The LYMErix vaccine caused the same disease that us tick bite sepsis victims know as “Chronic Lyme disease”. It was not taken off the market due to low sales. The manufacturer SmithKline Beecham was given an ultimatum in 2002 by the FDA to take it off the market or they would. 

Why would the Lyme cabal purposely create a Lyme vaccine that is harmful. Well, first and foremost, there is a matter of patents and profits. Secondly, in order to get the vaccine to market, they have to show that the vaccine will create antibodies to produce a certain level of protection. And it is only when these lipids are exposed (OspA) that the immune system will see them and cause an immune response. “Falsify some data, throw out those volunteers, and do whatever you have to to make the data fit the scientific narrative.” says Truthcures activist Beaux Reliosis. Here is a relatively new scientific report confirming that this is the case. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372817/

The falsified definition of Lyme disease created by the Lyme Cabal in 1994 followed by the driving force of this criminal act – their precious LYMErix vaccine – is the entire reason that millions world-over are suffering from this holy hell and why infectious disease doctors everywhere will tell you that ‘there is no such thing as chronic Lyme, it’s no more than a nuisance disease, it’s all in your head, it’s the celebrities creating hype and drama that is really the root of the problem.’ Those celebrities. Shame.

In case you’re interested, here are just a few of the LYMErix victims’ stories. https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/briefing/3680b2_17.pdf

And this: “A wide range of neurological complications have been reported via the medical literature and the VAERS system after vaccination with recombinant outer surface protein A (OspA) of Borrelia. To explore this issue, 24 patients reporting neurological adverse events (AE) after vaccination with Lymerix, out of a group of 94 patients reporting adverse events after Lymerix vaccination, were examined for causation. Five reports of cerebral ischemia, two transient Ischemic attacks, five demyelinating events, two optic neuritis, two reports of transverse myelitis, and one non-specific demyelinating condition are evaluated in this paper.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21673416

Bottom line: OspA is Pam3Cys. TLR2/1 fungal endotoxins cannot be a vaccine.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/term(pam3cys%20or%20pam3*%20or%20p3c)%20and%20(immune%20suppression%20or%20tolerance)

4. AND NOW … A NEW LYME VACCINE IS ABOUT TO BE LAUNCHED

And NOW, The French company Valneva is starting their phase 1 trials here in the United States and in Belgium this year.

Another version of the very same Osp vaccine.

What they fail to mention is that OspA is Pam3Cys. Which leads to immunosuppression and immune tolerance, reactivated viruses (EBV and CMV, Herpes) and opportunistic infections, multiple severe neurologic diseases occurring simultaneously, post-sepsis syndrome. A B-Cell AIDS destroying the lives of millions. 

This new ‘fast-tracked” Lyme vaccine will represent just one more chapter in this global medical holocaust we know as chronic Lyme. We’re all doing our best to warn YOU––the unsuspecting public––that you can’t vaccinate against an OspA fungal antigen. It can’t be done.

It will do nothing more than make you sick with permanent immunosuppression … and a life of hell.

Why would BigPharma want to ‘sell’ yet another OspA vaccine and risk making people sick? Your guess is as good as mine but we always know that our best bet is to follow the money. Enough time has passed since LYMErix. They’ve worked very hard to blame the victims for the last fiasco and take no responsibility. They’ve created just enough public concern about this so-called ‘nuisance disease’ that people will be lining up to get it. They are in a good space right now to bring a new vaccine to market and make a fortune. As long as they figure out how to mitigate some of the damage this time, they will walk away with a huge money-maker, and––yes––with casualties that they can once again blame on anti-vaxxers, Lyme loonies, and the media.

5. YOU’RE SMARTER THAN THIS!

For the most part, the medical powers that be do NOT have your best interests at heart. Certainly not when it comes to chronic Lyme disease. They have too much to hide and nothing to gain by allowing it to come out from behind the well-placed forty year shadows. The medical-industrial complex is designed to make money. Period. It is not designed to make people well or to be concerned about public good.

Remember this. Do your research. Listen to those suffering. And think about whether it makes any sense that millions of people would be faking their illness for some personal gain and allow their lives to be destroyed for what?

Above all, read, research, ask questions, challenge your doctors, and think long and hard before you allow yourself or your loved ones to be forever destroyed by this up-and-coming Lyme vaccine.

Lori Dennis, MA, RP is a Registered Psychotherapist and the author of LYME MADNESS, named #1 NEW RELEASE in Immune System Health on Amazon. LYME MADNESS is available on Amazon. For more information on Lyme Madness, go to loridennisonline.com. 

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**Comment**

Ms. Dennis has hit the nail squarely on the head with this one.  The OspA vaccine causes the same illness as the tick.  Buyer beware!

For more on the Lyme vaccine:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/01/pbs-lyme-vaccine/

On vaccines in general:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/04/06/video-how-vaccines-are-made/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/06/19/a-word-on-vaccines/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/08/dark-ages-of-immunization-medicine-are-now/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/30/ty-bollinger-the-truth-about-vaccines-series/  (I highlight a 9 part series by Dr. Gentempo)

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/21/class-and-race-profiling-in-the-vaccine-culture-war/

For more on the Lyme Cabal:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/13/lyme-science-owned-by-good-ol-boys/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/19/cdc-denies-to-downplay-lyme-epidemic/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/07/cdc-sabotages-state-laws-protecting-lyme-patients/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/28/metlife-discrimination-against-chronic-lyme-patient/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/28/human-rights-violations-of-relapsing-fever-and-lyme-disease-patients-under-internal-investigation/

Science being hijacked in general:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/04/science-for-sale/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/11/29/spider-attacks-cdc/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/28/sit-down-science/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/02/fake-science/

 

 

http://www.ibtimes.com/woman-contracts-spinal-meningitis-deer-tick-bite-2584949  

BY  ON 08/31/17 AT 1:41 PM

A Staten Island woman contracted spinal meningitis from a tick bite, making her one of seven people diagnosed with tick-borne diseases this summer. Lawmakers renewed attempts to acquire state and federal resources for disease prevention, reported WABC Wednesday.

Dee Vandenburg was bitten by a deer tick and unknowingly contracted Lyme disease, which went undiagnosed for four months and developed into spinal meningitis, reported WCBSWednesday.

Vandenburg spent about two weeks in the hospital and had an IV port inserted in her arm to provide her with her daily doses of antibiotics.

“It’s the most excruciating pain I’ve ever had in my life,” Vandenburg said to WCBS.

The deer population in Staten Island increased 9,000 percent in 9 years, according to silive.comin April. Deer have heavily populated Wolfe’s Pond Park, a wooded area near Vandenburg’s place of residence where deer live and breed. Last year, the city began a $2 million sterilization program.

“We have deer that walk down our street like they own it. They’re beautiful, but they’re not so pretty anymore,” Vandenburg said.

Republican Representative Dan Donovan of Staten Island introduced a new bill Wednesday for an initiative to track deer ticks nationwide. It would allow people to send photos of ticks they pull off their bodies to experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His plan shared similarities with one proposed by the New York State Health Department, a public website to provide people access to tick collection and testing results.

“It will allow individuals to send images and basic information to a disease professional, and that professional would respond within 72 hours with information about the type of tick and the risk of what they may incur from that tick bite,” Donovan said.

The professional would also tell you what questions to ask a doctor regarding the suspected tick exposure.

“This is an issue that’s become a bigger public health problem and it’s the type of issue that is so important to be proactive for our community,” Donovan said. “We are known as the borough of parks, but just be aware of the risks and take precautions. Check yourself for ticks.”

**Comment**

The video found on the same page as this article is a completely different story about a fungal meningitis outbreak caused by contaminated steroids.  The two stories have nothing to do with each other other than they are both saddening.  https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2017-06-26/pharmacy-head-to-be-sentenced-in-deadly-meningitis-outbreak

  Approx. 10 Min

Reaching a Consensus in Lyme Disease

Panelists Peter L. Salgo, MD; Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA; Leonard Sigal, MD; Samuel Shor, MD, FACP; and Patricia V. Smith share their thoughts on what needs to happen before a consensus can be reached in Lyme disease.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: Moving to consensus: yes or no? The first step, if you’re going to make the diagnosis and treat it, is 2 to 4 weeks of antibiotics to kill the spirochete. Yes, no, what?

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: No.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: No. Bob, why not?

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: Well, I think I’ve seen some people for whom that works, but I think there’s always the outlier in the bell curve. There are some people where a few weeks do not work for some reason. Maybe they have a complex infection. There’s more than one pathogen.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: I said first step, would that be the first step for most people?

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: Yes, I think that would be.

Leonard Sigal, MD: That would depend on the manifestation though. If somebody comes to you with meningitis, you’re not going to give them 2 weeks of doxycycline.

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: No.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: No, but you’re not going to give them more than 8 weeks probably.

Leonard Sigal, MD: But my point being is that it depends.

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: You’re right, it depends.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Yes.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: OK. Consensus or not—my guess is going to be no, by the way—what do we do for the subset of patients who continue to experience symptoms after this 2 to 4 to 6 weeks of antibiotics?

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Careful differential diagnosis and careful empathetic review of their clinical picture.

Leonard Sigal, MD: And not telling them that it’s all in their head.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Right, and being supportive.

Leonard Sigal, MD: Absolutely.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: With the recognition that there are going to be those of us who feel a greater percentage of patients probably have active infection as opposed to another group of people who do not, such that the recommendations coming out of that review is going to be different.

Leonard Sigal, MD: And to reiterate, looking for other potential explanations.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Differential diagnosis.

Leonard Sigal, MD: Absolutely.

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: And don’t just give antibiotics to treat the symptoms as well. We need to do both.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: Let’s boil it down. I’m trying to get at least some clarity, here, for the rationale for or against using a longer course of antibiotics in patients who have persistent symptoms.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: If you feel that there is a threshold that you’ve achieved and that there is active infection—and we’ve all discussed what that means, and that threshold is different for individuals. If you feel that’s the case, then by not doing that, you potentially run the risk of not having adequate therapeutic gains. The other component—and this goes to the MS patients. A number of them, actually all 3 of them, were recommended by the neurologists to be on immune-suppressive drugs, which could have made their conditions worse had they not been identified as having an infection.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: Now, we’ve had an awful lot of bomb-throwing here today. There’s an awful lot of grenades flying through the air out there. What do we need to reach a better consensus on the issues that we’ve discussed?

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Better testing.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: Better testing. What kind of testing are we looking for?

Leonard Sigal, MD: Let’s back up for a second. We need better science, looking at clinical markers, biomarkers as you were saying; looking at better testing; and looking at what the sensitive questions are that we can ask. I don’t mean sensitive in the sense of, “I’m caring for you,” that’s important, too, but sensitive in the sense of statistics. I think what we need to do is put down the grenades, put down the bombs, stop accusing each other of somehow having nefarious interest, and let’s have a civil conversation. I realize this is the United States in the year 2017, so the word civil has been thrown out the door. But maybe in this microcosm, we can be civil, have a conversation about this, and make the best of everybody’s talents and experiences.

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: One solution is having more programs like this. This is great. I think when it’s face-to-face and collegial, we can help to reconcile these differences and iron them out. We’re coming at it from very different angles.

Leonard Sigal, MD: Yes.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Right.

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: I think this is very useful and I think better disease definition is critical.

Patricia V. Smith: I was just going to say that, over the years, many times, we have asked to have more dialogue. We’ve contacted the IDSA, we’ve tried to sit down with them. We actually had them at our LDA Columbia CME Conference several years ago. It was the first time they were on the same stage. Believe it or not, we’ve advocated for that for decades, to get people together to have a discussion. But, unfortunately, there’s been unwillingness, and I was very happy that Dr. Sigal agreed to come in today and sit at the same table as us, because it doesn’t happen very often.

Leonard Sigal, MD: But it goes the other way around, you know. I’ve invited people.

Patricia V. Smith: Excuse me, but who?

Leonard Sigal, MD: I’ve invited clinicians in New Jersey, who see hundreds of patients with Lyme disease, to sit down with me to come up with research studies that would allow us to understand what’s going on in those people, understand how they respond to antibiotics, and understand what biomarkers might be useful. And the last time I saw them was when they walked out the door. They didn’t follow through on their interest.

Patricia V. Smith: The reason for that may be because, for a number of decades, our physicians have been gone after by medical boards just for treatment, long-term, of patients with Lyme disease. That has been very problematic, and we have a number of physicians who have had sanctions and so on, so a climate of fear has existed. If they’re really the practicing physicians, they don’t want to put themselves out there, because they are brought up on charges.

Leonard Sigal, MD: Well, I’m not sure that’s the explanation. The BME, the Board of Medical Examiners in the state of New Jersey, has looked at many, many clinicians.

Patricia V. Smith: I know what they look at.

Leonard Sigal, MD: Yes, you know, unfortunately. But what I was asking was, “If you see these patients, let’s do a clinical study so we can understand what’s going on with these patients,” and they were never forthcoming. All I can do is invite and, in a civil manner, try to encourage them to be part of a scientific trial.

Patricia V. Smith: I think part of the problem is also that when there have been clinical trials—and sometimes the treating physicians have supported those trials, and they have said to patients, “Maybe you should enter those trials”—those trials always end up that the patients are basically not being helped by antibiotics. Again, broad brush conclusions. And so, those physicians and those patients don’t want to even participate in those trials.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: Let me see if I understand that point. There are trials that are undergoing, that are underway, and patients get enrolled in these trials, but the results are that antibiotics may not be the right answer. They didn’t give you the answer you wanted. Does that mean that the trial was bad?

Patricia V. Smith: No, that isn’t the situation. The conclusions that were drawn in some of these studies, in the 4 from the NIH—and Sam alluded to 2 of them before—were broad brush. It should have said that in this subset of patients who were in this trial, with these particular antibiotics for this duration of therapy, the antibiotics maybe did not help them—or in 2 cases antibiotics actually did, but they said that they didn’t. So, that is the broad brush.

Leonard Sigal, MD: One of the criticisms that I’ve heard of the “long-term” antibiotic trials is that the duration was insufficient, and had there been a longer trial of antibiotics, there might have been a better outcome. I’ve heard this from other people. I’m not putting words in your mouth, Sam. I just want to ask you about it.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: And that is a potential, but there are other confounding variables, such as in the Klempner study. Most people were sick for between 4-and-a-half and 5-and-a-half years, many of whom had gone through the very protocols that were used in the study, so you’re self-selecting failure. And it’s also a matter of not identifying treatment of co-infections.

Leonard Sigal, MD: See, you’re taking issue with the design of the study.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Yes.

Leonard Sigal, MD: Had the study been a little bit more real-world oriented…

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Right. The problem is that you’ve got to control your variables, and there are so many variables that you’ve got to control.

Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA: And PCR-positive patients were excluded from the study. They should have been the ones that were studied.

Leonard Sigal, MD: I agree with you.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: It sounds to me—not being involved in the creation of these studies, not being at the table—that if everybody got together and agreed a priori on the construction of the study and the goals and endpoints, everybody might agree better when they got the data.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: We’re in the process of actually doing that. There’s a work group of about 15 of us who are trying to put that together.

Leonard Sigal, MD: If I can be of assistance, let me know.

Peter L. Salgo, MD: I just want to point out, I haven’t seen this since the United Nations was formed.

Leonard Sigal, MD: In the pharmaceutical industry.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Both schools of thought are involved.

Leonard Sigal, MD: In the pharmaceutical industry—and that’s not a dirty word—when you have a study of say a drug for rheumatoid arthritis, you have to come up with entry criteria that bring in patients who are as homogenous as possible, because you’re going to be randomizing them. If you randomize them and they’re not homogenous, you stand a chance of asymmetric distribution of patients and your study goes up in smoke.

Samuel Shor, MD, FACP: Right.

Leonard Sigal, MD: I’m not defending anybody’s study design, by the way. I’m just saying that when you do a study, you have to be really rigorous about bringing in as homogenous a population as possible. Now, for some reason, they decided to exclude PCR-positive patients. I don’t know what the reasoning was there. But the idea is to not make the entry criteria so small that you can’t get the real world in, but not so broad as to make it a garbage study. There has got to be some middle ground.

https://www.dovepress.com/empirical-validation-of-the-horowitz-multiple-systemic-infectious-dise-peer-reviewed-article-IJGM

Empirical validation of the Horowitz Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome Questionnaire for suspected Lyme disease

Published 4 September 2017 Volume 2017:10 Pages 249—273

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S140224

Video abstract presented by Maryalice Citera.

Purpose: Lyme disease is spreading worldwide, with multiple Borrelia species causing a broad range of clinical symptoms that mimic other illnesses. A validated Lyme disease screening questionnaire would be clinically useful for both providers and patients. Three studies evaluated such a screening tool, namely the Horowitz Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome (MSIDS) Questionnaire. The purpose was to see if the questionnaire could accurately distinguish between Lyme patients and healthy individuals.

Methods: Study 1 examined the construct validity of the scale examining its factor structure and reliability of the questionnaire among 537 individuals being treated for Lyme disease. Study 2 involved an online sample of 999 participants, who self-identified as either healthy (N=217) or suffering from Lyme now (N=782) who completed the Horowitz MSIDS Questionnaire (HMQ) along with an outdoor activity survey. We examined convergent validity among components of the scale and evaluated discriminant validity with the Big Five personality characteristics. The third study compared a sample of 236 patients with confirmed Lyme disease with an online sample of 568 healthy individuals.

Results: Factor analysis results identified six underlying latent dimensions; four of these overlapped with critical symptoms identified by Horowitz – neuropathy, cognitive dysfunction, musculoskeletal pain, and fatigue. The HMQ showed acceptable levels of internal reliability using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha and exhibited evidence of convergent and divergent validity. Components of the HMQ correlated more highly with each other than with unrelated traits.

Discussion: The results consistently demonstrated that the HMQ accurately differentiated those with Lyme disease from healthy individuals. Three migratory pain survey items (persistent muscular pain, arthritic pain, and nerve pain/paresthesias) robustly identified individuals with verified Lyme disease. The results support the use of the HMQ as a valid, efficient, and low-cost screening tool for medical practitioners to decide if additional testing is warranted to distinguish between Lyme disease and other illnesses.

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For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/symptomlist.pdf

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/03/20/why-we-cant-get-better/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/12/14/closing-in-on-the-8/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/05/08/interview-with-dr-horowitz/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/10/09/mycobacterium-drugs-for-ld/

Photo Credit: UK Business Weekly

https://www.healthnutnews.com/this-scientist-is-on-the-verge-of-curing-multiple-sclerosis-for-2-3-million-patients/  by Erin Elizabeth, Health Nut News, Aug. 31, 2017

Multiple sclerosis is a terrible and debilitating disease where the body’s immune system is directed against the central nervous system. When that happens, according to the National MS Society:1

  • Within the CNS, the immune system attacks myelin — the fatty substance that surrounds and insulates the nerve fibers — as well as the nerve fibers themselves.
  • The damaged myelin forms scar tissue (sclerosis), which gives the disease its name.
  • When any part of the myelin sheath or nerve fiber is damaged or destroyed, nerve impulses traveling to and from the brain and spinal cord are distorted or interrupted, producing a wide variety of symptoms.

Currently, there is no cure. Medication can often help make symptoms like double vision, blindness, as well as psychological or muscle issues more bearable but ultimately it robs people of their lives and shortens life expectancies. But that may all be changing.

Dr. Su Metcalfe believes that the attack on the nerve cells can be stopped thanks to a new medical development her company LIFNano has created. 2

She said in an interview:

“Some people get progressive MS, so go straight to the severe form of the disease, but the majority have a relapsing or remitting version.

It can start from the age of 30, and there’s no cure, so all you can do is suppress the immune response, but the drugs that do that have side effects, and you can’t repair the brain. The cost of those drugs is very high, and in the UK there are a lot of people who don’t get treated at all.” 3

Using the stem cell particle LIF, which is a part of the immune cell and is able to control and confine the attack on our bodies, she found a “small binary switch” which is able to regulate itself INSIDE the immune cell to NOT attack our body. However, it can attack when it needs to.

She went on to say,

“That LIF, in addition to regulating and protecting us against attack, also plays a major role in keeping the brain and spinal cord healthy. In fact it plays a major role in tissue repair generally, turning on stem cells that are naturally occurring in the body, making it a natural regenerative medicine, but also plays a big part in repairing the brain when it’s been damaged.” 4

Much more research needs to be done but this breakthrough seems quite promising and the team has set their sights on having found the cure by 2020.

Dr. Metcalfe also believes she and her team might be able to tackle dementia as well because LIF is a “major health factor for the brain.”5 Therefore, if they can get into the brain and protect it, it serves that they could prevent dementia.

**Comment**

This is indeed great news for Lyme/MSIDS patients due to the fact many with MS, dementia, and Alzheimer’s are initially misdiagnosed with those labels but are actually infected and vice versa.  All in all, many autoimmune diseases will potentially benefit from this treatment.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/26/important-example-of-iv-antibiotics-for-lymemsids/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/04/10/bugs-causing-alzheimers/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/04/aluminum-alzheimers-ld/

Iowan, Jack Gordon, is a case discovery of 2 diseases NEVER found together before on 11.22.2015: Lewy Body Dementia, causing violent hallucinations, and Lyme Disease/MSIDS. Using his medical files, he was bitten by a tick 35 yrs. ago, but the doctors never acknowledged it by diagnosing or treating him.

You may recognize Lewy Body Dementia as what Robin Williams’ autopsy revealed:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/did-robin-williams-have-lyme/
https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-2094-8-90
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399390/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/controversial-new-push-to-tie-microbes-to-alzheimer-s-disease/