More Objections to Chronic Lyme Patients

[duncan]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29706237?dopt=Abstract

The link above is to an abstract of an NIH-backed study that seems to bemoan the nature of patients who, for whatever reason, imagine they have chronic Lyme.

Please note the mention of MUS.

I find several aspects of this abstract concerning, but in particular the authors seem to readily concede some of this small cohort "declaring themselves to be affected by chronic Lyme disease" not only were in reality diagnosed as such by clinicians, but actually satisfy diagnostic criteria for Lyme.

So, positive serology = MUS.

This doesn't say much potentially for the 2 Tier or the C6, which together generate something around $500 Million annually, last I checked.

 

[Starlight]

Thank Duncan for your posts on Lyme disease. The mention of MUS definitely has alarm bells ringing. I don't have a science background but I do not find anything in the abstract what I would consider to be scientific. The conclusion is unadulterated wishful thinking with regard to bundling chronic Lyme into the MUS ragbag. And it is all very familiar, sickeningly familiar. A disgraceful waste of money, except for those with the agenda.

 

[chrisb]

The history of downplaying chronic idiopathic illness is interesting. I was recently looking around the subject of chronic brucellosis, as described by Imboden, and how it came to be dismissed. This led to the following paper from 1988 which seems to describe the views of the gainsayers. It describes the authors views of chronic EBV, the then current diagnosis for ME. It is worth reading for this description and understanding of the opposing viewpoint.

www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033291700001823
The social construction of mental illness. Eisenberg

EDIT I am not trying to be patronising in adding the bit about the diagnosis of ME. I know you all know that.

 

[duncan]

Thank Duncan for your posts on Lyme disease. The mention of MUS definitely has alarm bells ringing. I don't have a science background but I do not find anything in the abstract what I would consider to be scientific. The conclusion is unadulterated wishful thinking with regard to bundling chronic Lyme into the MUS ragbag. And it is all very familiar, sickeningly familiar. A disgraceful waste of money, except for those with the agenda.

Thank you, @Starlight . I used to post a lot about Lyme on a forum dedicated to Lyme, but as I grew more ill I gradually stopped. This is like coming home again.

Yes, disturbing stuff. One of the study team had a degree in socio-anthropology - to study Lyme patients some of whom apparently satisfy diagnostic criteria - even positive serology. Another WTF moment for 21st Century unscience.

 

[duncan]

Thank you, @chrisb , for the article. Mental disease as a social construct? This guy is interesting in an annoying way. It's a longish piece, so it may take me a bit, but I look forward to reading the whole thing today.

The thing about the idea of chronic Lyme, and patients who are sick and have symptoms, and who have their symptom constellation ascribed to Lyme - well, it isn't all that idiopathic as most narratives portray it to be.

During a concentrated decade or so, a group of prominent researchers were able to convince scientific establishment that Lyme is difficult to get, easy to cure. They were wrong(Lying?) on both counts.

They said annual cases were maybe 10,000, maybe 20,000, and only in a handful of regions. They said a handful of antibiotics would invariably eradicate Borrelia.

We now know that annual cases in the US alone probably fall somewhere in between 300,000 and 400,000. In recent years independent and respected scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that most standard antibiotics do NOT eradicate Borrelia in vitro. Moreover, multiple studies through autopsies in mice and dogs and various non-human primates - after antibiotics - have found, repeatedly, viable spirochetes. And of course, spirochetes have been found in humans, despite having received abx, sometimes multiple courses. Perhaps the most famous case involved Vicky Logan - the CDC was even involved with her before she died from Lyme, but that got kinda brushed under the rug.

So it's unsettling to people like me when we read these studies that have patients who actually satisfy the ridiculously stringent requirements for a Lyme diagnosis, and because they remain uncured after antibiotics, are proclaimed as neurotic, or ripe for a MUS label, or some such .

We find this unsettling if only because if you actually read pretty much all the studies from 1975 to, say, 2000, and familiarize yourself with all the machinations and all the patents and who gets what from which diagnostic $....you realize, hey, this isn't a done deal yet.

Like its cousin Syphilis, Lyme may be devilishly difficult to kill once it reaches priviledged sites and enters late stage. We just don't know - actually, it's worse that that: Research over the last 5 to 10 years suggests Lyme persists in stricken patients despite antibiotics.

We need meaningful research on a governmental level, and not the drivel they mostly indulge in.

 

[chrisb]

@duncan I agree about the man being interesting in an annoying way. He says some things with which one agrees, and others which horrify. In his favour is that he at least has the courage to articulate what others may merely think. It is a bit long though.

It always helps to understand the opposition!

 

[duncan]

@chrisb , I read the article. Good stuff. You were right: He says many things that I can agree with. But the major thrust of his message is just a nonstarter. I don't have to even bring in the false illness belief crap and his Brucellosis references. His fascination with the idea scientists (and by extension, nonscientists I would assume) are limited by what their "imagination" allows has been the topic of philosophers for hundreds and hundreds of years. So what he espousing is old hat, imo, but I'm not surprised if he didn't know that, or if he did, he simply did not care. I'd bet a bundle that a large portion of psychologists actually fancy themselves modern day philosophers.