Physicians and patients weigh in on latest poorly designed study that raises the question, “Why?”, and, “Who is driving this spin?”

BySherwin Arnott

Randomized Trial of Longer-Term Therapy for Symptoms Attributed to Lyme Disease Comment “Persister research needs to account for morphological variability of Lyme The patient population studied was already a group that had shown persistence of disease. These would be “treatment failures” and more difficult cases. Even in this difficult population every group who received 2…

Chronic Lyme European PLEASE Trial—You know it’s spin when treatment “success” is called “failure”?

BySherwin Arnott

March 30th, 2016 Today a widely anticipated clinical trial on chronic Lyme disease from Europe called PLEASE was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).  The press has given the trial a twenty trumpet salute with a MedPage headline reading “Long-Term Antibiotics Fail Again in Lyme Disease–Focus on Lyme and antibiotics for persistent…

Cardiac Tropism of Borrelia burgdorferi: An Autopsy Study of Sudden Cardiac Death Associated with Lyme Carditis.

BySherwin Arnott

[ CanLyme note: “Although rare”, yet they state in the same breath that “sudden cardiac death caused by Lyme disease might be an under-recognized entity”.  In other words, they have no idea because in the past decades they have not been looking and nor was Lyme disease considered in similar sudden cardiac deaths. The standard…

CanLyme director responds to Canadian Medical Association Journal commentary.

BySherwin Arnott

Counter Points —  Robert G. Murray, Director, CanLyme.com The commentary from Dr. Dan Gregson et al. signals that there will be no change in the medical community in the treatment of Lyme disease and attitudes around it despite all the hopes of the public and politicians after the passage of Bill C-442. The Canadian testing…

Montreal Gazette newspaper trashes Lyme Disease victims and then refuses to allow evidence based rebuttal – they prefer scientific “opinion” over scientific fact..

BySherwin Arnott

Recently, the Montreal Gazette newspaper published this article …  According to the Montreal Gazette we are scaring people by telling them we have a serious and growing problem, a problem echoed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. https://montrealgazette.com/health/opinion-lyme-disease-is-very-real-but-its-no-epidemic We asked for equal print space to write a rebuttal.  We were refused because the editor…

Antibiotic Prophylaxis for Lyme Disease: How the Way of Reporting a Clinical Trial Can Alter the Perception of Effectiveness

BySherwin Arnott

Urba`Gonza´ lez, MD, PhD; Department of Dermatology, Clinica Plato´ , Barcelona, Spain “Comment I recommend the complementary reading of other commentaries about the applicability of this study. Shapiro, in an accompanying editorial,1 pointed out the difficulty in clinical practice to know the species, stage, degree of engorgement of the tick, and even the difficulty to…

IDSA mantra, ‘There is no such thing as chronic Lyme’, linked to most Lyme injuries and deaths: Mayday Project

BySherwin Arnott

April 16th, 2015 [IDSA= Infectious Disease Society of America] “Cutler says most injuries and deaths due to Lyme disease are a direct result of the IDSA group think leading to the ill-informed mantra: “There is no such thing as chronic Lyme.” Cutler called on the IDSA to pay strict attention to the IOM Standard #3…

Lyme Misdiagnosis Can Divert Patients From Correct Treatment

BySherwin Arnott

[CanLyme Note: We agree totally that a thorough diagnostic work-up should preclude any diagnosis.  Not everything is Lyme borreliosis.  What is so dismaying, however, is the focus of the US CDC MD’s on the few cases such as those listed in this article, while they ignore the tens of thousands of legitimate chronic Lyme disease cases….

More on Who’s Who and What’s What – NIH Dr. Phil Baker Responds to Blog on American Lyme Disease Foundation

BySherwin Arnott

LYMEPOLICYWONK:  Last week, I posted a blog regarding the IDSA stealth front organization, the American Lyme Disease Foundation (ALDF).  I pointed out that the organization masquerades as a patient organization or an independent source of information, but is really just the members of the IDSA Lyme guidelines panel and a couple of businessmen. I highlighted…

Lyme retreatment guidance may be flawed

BySherwin Arnott

Deer ticks, Lyme disease, and medical guidance Accepted medical practice discourages antibiotic retreatment in cases where Lyme disease symptoms persist. A new review of studies behind current medical advice says those studies prove nothing.        Photo credit: Centers for Disease Control           A new statistical review calls into question studies that have been  taken as proof that antibiotic retreatment…

The Klempner Article

BySherwin Arnott

The recent article in the NEJM, “Two Controlled Trials of Antibiotic Treatment in Patients with Persistent Symptoms and a History of Lyme Disease,” by Klempner, et. al., provides some interesting data, but the proper interpretation of this data is of little relevance to both clinical practice and guidelines related to chronic Lyme disease.