CBC Radio: Why patients are caught in the battle over treating chronic Lyme disease
Medical experts and guidelines divided over chronic or post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome
“For much of her life, Jane Bailey was in peak physical condition. But that all changed in the summer of 2013, when a tick made a temporary home inside her ear canal.
“It was in there for three-and-a-half days,” she recalled. By the time she got it removed, “it was the size of a kidney bean.”
The 48-year-old Nova Scotian biology teacher with a military background is convinced she’s been suffering from persistent symptoms of Lyme disease ever since.
A month after her vacation, she began to experience fatigue, joint pains and heart palpitations. She couldn’t sleep and had trouble remembering names….”
“According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, there were 2025 cases of Lyme disease in 2017, up from 992 in 2016 and only 144 in 2009.”
However…
“One Canadian study from 2018, co-written by biology professor Vett Lloyd and Dr. Ralph Hawkins, suggested only 3.6 to 9.8 per cent of Lyme disease cases were being detected in New Brunswick.”
2025 cases confirmed = 20250+ possible cases in reality. This fits better with what we see at CanLyme which results in unnecessary disability, death, and, what is not spoken of is the cost to the employers who employ substantial numbers of outdoor workers who are infected. It is also affecting the outdoor tourism sports industry as fishers and hunters experience more and more disability among their members.
Contrast yesterdays CBC radio show, linked below, with the typical propaganda coming from the infectious disease community as seen in the very recent Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) opinion article (not a science-based article article). Todd Hatchette, president of the much maligned Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) sister organization in Canada, the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease of Canada (AMMI) is opining, without any scientific reference, “Another common misconception is that Lyme disease snowballs unless treated early, so it can be difficult to convince patients to wait several weeks to see if symptoms resolve before taking tests, says Hatchette. It can be reassuring to reiterate, however, that waiting doesn’t increase the low risk of post-Lyme disease syndrome. “There are no data I’m aware of that waiting for four weeks and treating at that time if the symptoms are positive means that antibiotics are any less effective.” This is perhaps the poorest information put forward by an alleged expert on any disease and yet the organization he heads has controlled the Lyme disease public and medical education for professionals for years in Canada with the full support of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Institute of Health Research while people die. All with no oversight allowed.
There is substantial evidence that the wait and see approach is the worst possible scenario for the patient as once the disease has disseminated it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to treat. This from Johns Hopkins University: “Without antibiotics, the infection in Lyme disease can more readily persist and disseminate.”
The evidence that treating Lyme disease early and effectively causes antibiotic resistance is non-existent yet is being put forward as a ‘greater good for public health’ argument by AMMI and IDSA. CanLyme and our experts have tried to have this debate with the Public Health Agency of Canada, their provincial counterparts, and AMMI for years but have been denied such open debate. They are all a very closely united group who now function under a well funded federal grant and controlled in a way that defies scientific ethic.
For science to become evidence it must be openly debated, independently replicated, independently peer-reviewed, and published. Open debate and replication are not allowed in Canada while millions of dollars are made providing drugs for all the needless symptoms of untreated or improperly treated Lyme disease. Disability insurers employ/hire AMMI members to effectively deny chronic Lyme disease exists as an insurable entity. Life insurance companies will not insure you if you have been diagnosed with Lyme disease (as in my case) so the wealthy for-profit medical money industry profit margins are protected from all sides.
Where are our political leaders!!! We need legislation as several USA states have enacted.