Webmaster
08-10-2007, 09:20 AM
by Lorraine Hart
It was with great interest I read the story of Bush being treated for Lyme disease last year. He's a lucky man to have the money and medical attention to respond immediately with treatment, following the discovery of a bullseye rash. The Bb (Borrelia burgdorferi) bacterium, when caught early, can often be successfully treated with a course of antibiotics. This is the "no speed-bumps," happy ending experience with Lyme. I do, however, note that Bush is still experiencing dizziness and disorientation from a "flu virus" he had months ago...classic symptoms of a viral co-infection possible with the same tick bite, called Babesia.
There's another story about Lyme though, and it affects hundreds of thousands of North Americans. Unlike the West Nile Virus that has everyone afraid of a coming disaster, Lyme disease is a plague decimating the population now (at an estimated rate of two-hundred-thousand new cases each year) and largely being ignored in its chronic form because of inadequate testing and money being made, keeping things as they are.
The Bb spirochete is related to the Syphilis spirochete...like the Stealth Bomber is related to the Sopwith Camel. Left unchecked it can enter every system of the body and cause havoc. Lyme left untreated becomes a crippling disease, physically and mentally and is only one of the infections possible (both bacterial and viral) in one tick bite.
In November of 2006 the Infectious Disease Society of America (a powerful Bloc) used only their own 400 studies to make guidelines for Lyme, insisting that chronic Lyme does not exist. There were over 18,000 research studies and many of them agree that chronic Lyme certainly does exist but these were not accepted, hence the IDSA is now under investigation by the Connecticut State Attorney General's Office, for exclusionary data-collecting. There's a lot of money to be made from pharmaceutical companies in medical studies and a lifetime of maintenance medications for those suffering.
My daughter is in her ninth year of this disease. Our family has been to hell and not yet back, nearly losing her, while having to fight with doctors for the legitimacy of her illness. Can you imagine how surreal it was to have a neurologist at Harborview explain an EEG as showing Lyme bacteria activity interrupting brain waves...and then have the family practice primary care doctor, downstairs in the same hospital, deny the disease's existence...actually telling my daughter she should, "will herself out of that wheelchair," before he fired her as a patient.
There are hundreds of Lyme patients in the Puget Sound area, suffering and being abused by a medical system unfamiliar with a real and present plague. Had the Key Peninsula doctor we took my daughter to in 1999 been educated, I wouldn't be writing to you today. I don't hold it against him personally but I DO want to see local doctors receiving more education, so that other families can be saved from this agony. Out of necessity, we have researched Lyme for nearly nine years and can claim to be more educated about the disease than over 95% of American General Practitioners.
There's a tremendous story here that I've tried to interest local journalists in, asking them to go beyond Infectious Disease doctors who insist there is no story, while people are suffering and dying from Lyme disease. There's plenty of scientific research that supports the claims of the families who are banding together to be heard. Sites for information on Lyme are:
www.lymediseaseassociation.org
www.ilads.org
http://www.lymenet.org/
http://www.lymeinfo.net/
http://www.columbia-lyme.org Columbia Lyme Research Centre
http://home.swbell.net/dsny1fan/LymeDisease.html -- Lyme Disease: The West Coast Connection
from: http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/neighborhood?title=time_to_talk_lyme_again&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
It was with great interest I read the story of Bush being treated for Lyme disease last year. He's a lucky man to have the money and medical attention to respond immediately with treatment, following the discovery of a bullseye rash. The Bb (Borrelia burgdorferi) bacterium, when caught early, can often be successfully treated with a course of antibiotics. This is the "no speed-bumps," happy ending experience with Lyme. I do, however, note that Bush is still experiencing dizziness and disorientation from a "flu virus" he had months ago...classic symptoms of a viral co-infection possible with the same tick bite, called Babesia.
There's another story about Lyme though, and it affects hundreds of thousands of North Americans. Unlike the West Nile Virus that has everyone afraid of a coming disaster, Lyme disease is a plague decimating the population now (at an estimated rate of two-hundred-thousand new cases each year) and largely being ignored in its chronic form because of inadequate testing and money being made, keeping things as they are.
The Bb spirochete is related to the Syphilis spirochete...like the Stealth Bomber is related to the Sopwith Camel. Left unchecked it can enter every system of the body and cause havoc. Lyme left untreated becomes a crippling disease, physically and mentally and is only one of the infections possible (both bacterial and viral) in one tick bite.
In November of 2006 the Infectious Disease Society of America (a powerful Bloc) used only their own 400 studies to make guidelines for Lyme, insisting that chronic Lyme does not exist. There were over 18,000 research studies and many of them agree that chronic Lyme certainly does exist but these were not accepted, hence the IDSA is now under investigation by the Connecticut State Attorney General's Office, for exclusionary data-collecting. There's a lot of money to be made from pharmaceutical companies in medical studies and a lifetime of maintenance medications for those suffering.
My daughter is in her ninth year of this disease. Our family has been to hell and not yet back, nearly losing her, while having to fight with doctors for the legitimacy of her illness. Can you imagine how surreal it was to have a neurologist at Harborview explain an EEG as showing Lyme bacteria activity interrupting brain waves...and then have the family practice primary care doctor, downstairs in the same hospital, deny the disease's existence...actually telling my daughter she should, "will herself out of that wheelchair," before he fired her as a patient.
There are hundreds of Lyme patients in the Puget Sound area, suffering and being abused by a medical system unfamiliar with a real and present plague. Had the Key Peninsula doctor we took my daughter to in 1999 been educated, I wouldn't be writing to you today. I don't hold it against him personally but I DO want to see local doctors receiving more education, so that other families can be saved from this agony. Out of necessity, we have researched Lyme for nearly nine years and can claim to be more educated about the disease than over 95% of American General Practitioners.
There's a tremendous story here that I've tried to interest local journalists in, asking them to go beyond Infectious Disease doctors who insist there is no story, while people are suffering and dying from Lyme disease. There's plenty of scientific research that supports the claims of the families who are banding together to be heard. Sites for information on Lyme are:
www.lymediseaseassociation.org
www.ilads.org
http://www.lymenet.org/
http://www.lymeinfo.net/
http://www.columbia-lyme.org Columbia Lyme Research Centre
http://home.swbell.net/dsny1fan/LymeDisease.html -- Lyme Disease: The West Coast Connection
from: http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/neighborhood?title=time_to_talk_lyme_again&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1