Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
A NIAID (a division of the NIH) study needs participants who have had Lyme disease to sign up for this study. I personally don't recommend it.
Title: Searching for Persistence of Infection in Lyme Disease
Quotes- "- For the first study visit, researchers will place a strip of filter paper or a small plastic container with 20 to 30 disease-free ticks on the participant's skin.
If possible, the ticks will be placed at the site of a Lyme disease rash or another suspicious area, or on the nondominant forearm.
Participants will be asked to keep the ticks in place, and will keep a diary card at home to record any symptoms or problems.
- The ticks will be collected 4 to 6 days after placement. At that visit, participants will have a skin biopsy taken of the area tested, a blood sample will be collected, and participants will receive a new diary card to keep until the next clinic visit.
- After 1 month, participants will provide a final blood sample, and will receive a follow-up phone call 2 months afterward."
Pinelady
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 18524
posted
Thats insane and after reading this you can understand why....
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21175079 Abstract 2010 Nov During spring and fall 2009, 60 wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) harvested by Tennessee hunters were surveyed for Borrelia spp. by
sampling their blood, tissue, ...and attached ticks. In both seasons, 70% of turkeys were infested with juvenile Amblyomma americanum;
one spring turkey hosted an adult female Ixodes brunneus.
Polymerase chain reaction assays followed by DNA sequencing indicated that
58% of the turkeys were positive for the spirochete Borrelia miyamotoi,
with tissue testing positive more frequently than blood (P = 0.015).
Sequencing of the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer indicated > or = 99% similarity to previously published sequences of the North American strain of this spirochete.
Positive turkeys were present in both seasons and from all seven middle Tennessee counties sampled. ************************ No ticks from the turkeys tested positive for any Borrelia spp. ************************ This is the first report of B. miyamotoi in birds; the transmission pathways and epidemiological significance of this high-prevalence spirochetal infection remain uncertain.
But hey if they offered me 15 yrs of treatment I might consider it....
-------------------- Suspected Lyme 07 Test neg One band migrating in IgG region unable to identify.Igenex Jan.09IFA titer 1:40 IND IgM neg pos 31 +++ 34 IND 39 IND 41 IND 83-93 + DX:Neuroborreliosis Posts: 5850 | From Kentucky | Registered: Dec 2008
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onbam
Unregistered
posted
Wanna make any bets on how many of these poor souls lose their ticks and wind up giving family members lyme? Or get reinfected by their "disease-free" ticks (which will then test negative, of course?)
posted
Oh my goodness, not for all the money in the world would I consent to this! How bizarre. I'm all for Lyme Disease research, but who in their right mind would subject themselves to this??
Posts: 33 | From Texas | Registered: May 2010
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Pine said.. "But hey if they offered me 15 yrs of treatment I might consider it...."
You're too easy, you know. I'm afraid they would have to tie me down to make me do something that stupid.
Onbam... so I guess you are not interested in purchasing a set of live tick earrings to wear around for a few days??
HA!
I agree hho.... not my kind of fun either.
I'd have to burn my bed afterwards ... IF I could even sleep for the several days they were attached.
METALLlC BLUE
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6628
posted
Absurd. They haven't even fully come to understand the full repertoire of infectious diseases that ticks carry. To call these ticks "Disease Free." is outrageous and dangerous.
-------------------- I am not a physician, so do your own research to confirm any ideas given and then speak with a health care provider you trust.
posted
Could be some ulterior motive, like infecting people with more diseases/strains they're experimenting with.
Posts: 13116 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
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posted
I'm not so swift to call it anything malicious, but I do think it is such an extreme level of stupidity that nobody should even think of signing up.
This reminds me of experiments in the last century where people were exposed to volatiles, often radioactive or chemical, to show how "safe" they were. It was a real mystery to find late that their cancer rates were through the roof, there were birth defects etc...
The vast majority of medicine doesn't understand that a tick is basically a disease factory, with the possibility of many pathogens that we barely have names for much less diagnostics. They can't even reliably test ticks for Lyme alone due to flawed on-the-book standards, much less mycoplasma, BLO, and XMRV!
Stay far, far away. I'll do my best through colleagues and contacts to shut down this study, or at least bring the "You are playing with things you don't understand and here is why" part to light.
Posts: 690 | From East coast, USA | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I wonder if they have to provide a detailed risk analysis of such a study. And what will they do for any casualties from this study? A follow up phone call 2 months later? Completely insane!!!
Posts: 11 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Feb 2010
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nefferdun
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 20157
posted
What is the point? They are disease free ticks. It is just gross. Who wants a blood sucking parasite attached to them for 6 days!
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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posted
I have read this study over 10+ times, and everytime I read it, their claims become more ridiculous. HOW can they say the ticks are "disease free?"
And, if they really ARE disease free, what would be the point of the study?
I can't wrap my head around the notion that someone who has suffered through this horrendous disease would sign up to have it again.
And, what is the incentive? Are they going to provide the person they infected with LD ongoing treatment? How about lost wages for all the years that they are too sick to work after participating in this so- called study? Or will they give them 3 weeks of doxy and then say, "sorry, you're cured, you must be crazy if you still have symptoms???"
They write: "While most patients improve after taking antibiotics, some patients continue to have symptoms. It is currently unknown why some patients continue to have symptoms."
It is unknown why they still have symptoms? Really? It's because they still have Lyme, geniuses! Sheesh!!!
Posts: 33 | From Texas | Registered: May 2010
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posted
This is intended to use xenodiagnosis to prove or disprove chronic lyme disease. Koch's postulates. You have to be able to transmit the disease agent to another animal from a diseased animal to prove its existence. So if the tick feeds on the chronic lyme patient, does not pick up anything that can be transmitted to another animal, then chronic lyme does not exist.
But the institute that provided the grant is known to be interested in disproving lyme, and you would have to wonder if a tissue oriented disease agent will be found in blood. And the principal investigator in this study has published with Steere in the past, and was one of the authors of the infamous Klempner clinical trial article that concluded abx did not help chronic lyme patients. So, I see bias at the outset.
When NIH keeps giving big grants to people who will help them disprove chronic lyme, they are ensuring that point of view keeps getting published, and the people who get the grants will advance and be stars in their institutions, because they bring in grant money. That was Klempner's reward, and Wormser just got a really big grant too. The govt buys the results they want.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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But maybe they are not going to be trying to infect other animals? Here is a definition of xenodiagnosis, which suggests possibly they will just look in the fed tick for the disease agent.
xen�o�di�ag�no�sis (zn-dg-nss, zn-) n. pl. xen�o�di�ag�no�ses (-sz) Diagnosis of an infectious disease at an early stage by exposing a presumably infected individual or tissue to a clean, laboratory-bred mosquito, tick, or other vector and, following a suitable incubation period, examining the vector for the presence of the infective microorganism.
And how will the patient selection affect the outcome? They are using people with elevated C6 antibodies and lyme arthritis, when the most common feature of chronic lyme cases is neurological disease and no production of antibodies because of immune fatigue, antigen shifting, L forms, cysts, etc.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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Onbam, Of course they are trying to cover it up. Former Pres. Bush STILL has never released his Lyme tx to the public. God forbid he admit it takes more than a few weeks of doxy to "cure" Lyme, that would just cost the insurance companies waaay too much money.
I can't even begin to address all the subjects revolving around gov't money vs. Lyme Disease suffering, and how the almighty dollar is more important than the horrible pain we live with on a daily basis.
I have to keep telling myself that it is in God's hands. Although it would give me such pleasure to have each and every person who has benefitted financially from our suffering contract LD.
I always say I would never wish this disease on anyone, but sometimes I wonder....
Posts: 33 | From Texas | Registered: May 2010
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Completely insane!!!
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