Uptick in B.C. Lyme disease cases attributed to new test, increased awareness

[CanLyme Note: We have had many meetings with the BC CDC over the years pointing out the problems with their testing but were completely ignored.  Even this more sensitive test will miss many cases. Meanwhile mothers were being accused of having Munchausen by proxy syndrome by doctors at the BC Children’s Hospital simply because they were not accepting the infectious disease doctor’s denial of Lyme disease as a possible cause for their child’s serious problems. Hundreds of other lives were needlessly destroyed, people lost their homes, their jobs, their lives, all the while the BC CDC and infectious disease doctors, members of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease of Canada (AMMI) claim Lyme disease is rare in BC. Millions of BC tax dollars are wasted funding the Complex Chronic Disease clinic at the BC Women’s Hospital by denying effective diagnosis and treatment of people with chronic Lyme disease. AMMI members are the behind the scenes operators of this clinic via their control on policy decisions. To this date, not one person with chronic Lyme disease has received the only effective treatment (antibiotics) at the clinic to our knowledge.  Instead they offer mindful meditation, group therapy and other methodology’s that are not based in science and have no place in treating an active bacterial infection.  It is pseudo-science.]

Published May 2, 2018 Pamela Fayerman  – Vancouver Sun

Confirmed and reported cases of Lyme disease in B.C. have at least doubled in just a few years, largely because of more sensitive diagnostic testing being used as well as greater awareness on the part of doctors.

“When we saw the increase we were surprised and concerned so we spent time looking at it to try to determine if it’s due to a real increase or to a change in the methods and we concluded that it is mostly due to a change at the provincial lab with a test we’re using, a test known to be more sensitive,” said B.C. Centre for Disease Control expert Dr. Eleni Galanis.

The BCCDC says there were 40 lab and clinical-confirmed cases reported in 2016 (the last year for which data has been published), nearly double the 22 cases in 2015. But since only one in eight to 10 cases are reported to public health authorities, there may be hundreds of actual, additional cases, according to Galanis.

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