Category Archives: For Physicians

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Lyme Disease Frontiers: Reconciling Borrelia Biology and Clinical Conundrums

Abstract Lyme disease is a complex tick-borne zoonosis that poses an escalating public health threat in several parts of the world, despite sophisticated healthcare infrastructure and decades of effort to address the problem. Concepts like the true burden of the illness, from incidence rates to longstanding consequences of infection, and optimal case management, also remain shrouded in controversy. At the Continues →

How do infections like the coronavirus jump from animals to people?

National Geographic “Zoonotic diseases, which pass from animals to humans, kill millions of people every year. Where do they come from and how can we avoid them?” ” Some zoonotic diseases are relatively benign, but many—for example, Lyme disease—are quite harmful. Some, such as the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, can be deadly. “ Read full article

Monitoring of Nesting Songbirds Detects Established Population of Blacklegged Ticks and Associated Lyme Disease Endemic Area in Canada

Abstract This study provides a novel method of documenting established populations of bird-feeding ticks. Single populations of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, and the rabbit tick, Haemaphysalis leporispalustris, were revealed in southwestern Québec, Canada. Blacklegged tick nymphs and, similarly, larval and nymphal rabbit ticks were tested for the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Bbsl), using PCR and the flagellin (flaB) gene, and Continues →

Dr. Ralph G. Hawkins: Bridging Differences

Dr. Ralph Hawkins gave an excellent talk at the Bridgewater, N.S. conference where he delved into the many problems with diagnostics, treatment and surveillance of Lyme disease. He also broached the topic from a legal perspective discussing the legal principles pertaining to Standard of Care. Watch presentation

Canadian MP Len Webber addresses Minister of Health on Lyme disease

Minister of Health Patty Hajdu readily admits there is “still lots to learn” about treatment of Lyme disease but as typical opts to keep sick people sick without options of extended antibiotic treatment that has helped hundreds of thousands of people who had to leave Canada for help. Instead she wants more research, none of which is going to help Continues →

Potential treatment for Lyme disease kills bacteria that may cause lingering symptoms, study finds

March 12, 2020 “For decades, the routine treatment for Lyme disease has been standard antibiotics, which usually kill off the infection. But for up to 20% of people with the tick-borne illness, the antibiotics don’t work, and lingering symptoms of muscle pain, fatigue and cognitive impairment can continue for years — sometimes indefinitely. A new Stanford Medicine study …” Read Continues →

Post-treatment Lyme Disease as a Model for Persistent Symptoms in Lyme Disease

[CanLyme Note: The term post treatment Lyme disease syndrome is controversial and excludes those not effectively treated following the current treatment guidelines imposed upon physicians and patients.] “It has long been observed in clinical practice that a subset of patients with Lyme disease report a constellation of symptoms such as fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and musculoskeletal pain, which may last for Continues →

A Mystery Illness That Changed My Life

“As I was getting my body ready for my 1st pregnancy, my doctor at the time was running blood work, and I was told I had a low white blood cell count. This ended up being chronic, and I went through my first and second pregnancy not making anything much of it. I had seen an immunologist and hematologist, and Continues →

Borrelia burgdorferi hijacks cellular metabolism of immune cells: Consequences for host defense

Abstract Changes in cellular metabolism have proven to be important factors in driving cell behavior. It has been shown that cellular metabolism of immune cells changes when exposed to or infected by several pathogens: while this is often an adaptation of the host cells to the infection, sometimes it represents a mechanism through which the pathogens evade immune activation. Borrelia burgdorferi sensu Continues →

Tipping Point: The Resistance Is Gaining In The Lyme Wars

By Mary Beth Pfeiffer ” Government and medicine have systematically failed to diagnose, treat or prevent a spreading plague of ticks. And they know it. “ For two decades, Lyme disease has had dueling identities.   A burgeoning epidemic wrought by ticks. A raging controversy over why patients stay sick — and what to do for them.   Now, however, the medical Continues →

Canada loses a great Lyme disease defender, Paul Haefling author of Oh Canada: The “Politicks” of Lyme Disease

Obituary Haefling, Paul M.A. (English), LL.B – Passed away surrounded by his loving wife Catherine of 54 years and family members at the Wellington Terrace Nursing Home in Fergus on Monday, January 13, 2020. Paul Haefling, in his 79th year, was the husband of Catherine (Lipton) Haefling. Predeceased by his parents Jerome and Irene (Sullivan) Haefling and by his sister Continues →

Genetic Manipulation of Borrelia Spp

Abstract The spirochetes Borrelia (Borreliella) burgdorferi and Borrelia hermsii, the etiologic agents of Lyme disease and relapsing fever, respectively, cycle in nature between an arthropod vector and a vertebrate host. They have extraordinarily unusual genomes that are highly segmented and predominantly linear. The genetic analyses of Lyme disease spirochetes have become increasingly more sophisticated, while the age of genetic investigation in the relapsing fever spirochetes Continues →