This is important to everyone.. especially if you live in one of the states listed below... or are having negative tests anywhere.. or are being told there is no Lyme in your area...

Blah blah blah...

This abstract talks about Borellia lonestari being found in ticks in these areas...

I will add more "explanation" below on the next post so folks will understand the importance of this finding...

J Clin Microbiol. 2003 Dec;41(12):5557-62.

Evidence of Borrelia lonestari DNA in Amblyomma americanum
(Acari: Ixodidae) removed from humans.

Stromdahl EY, Williamson PC, Kollars TM Jr, Evans SR, Barry RK, Vince MA,
Dobbs NA.

Entomological Sciences Program, U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and
Preventive Medicine, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland 21010-5403, USA.
[email protected]

We used a nested PCR with Borrelia flagellin gene (flaB) primers and DNA
sequencing to determine if Borrelia lonestari was present in Amblyomma
americanum ticks removed from military personnel and sent to the Tick-Borne
Disease Laboratory of the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive
Medicine.

In our preliminary investigation, we detected Borrelia sequences in 19 of
510 A. americanum adults and nymphs from Ft. A. P. Hill, Va.

During the 2001 tick
season, the flaB primers were used to test all A. americanum samples as they were
received, and 29 of 2,358 A. americanum samples tested individually or in small
pools were positive.

PCRs with 2,146 A. americanum samples in 2002 yielded 26
more Borrelia-positive samples.

The positive ticks in 2001 and 2002 were from
Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina,
Tennessee, and Virginia.

The last positive sample of the 2001 season was a pool of larvae.

To further investigate larval infection, we collected and tested questing A.
americanum larvae from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.; 4 of 33 pools (40 larvae per
pool) were positive.

Infection of unfed larvae provides evidence of the maintenance of B. lonestari by means of transovarial transmission. Sequence analysis revealed that
the amplicons were identical to sequences of the B. lonestari flaB gene in GenBank.

Despite the low prevalence of infection, the risk of B. lonestari transmission may be
magnified because A. americanum is often abundant and aggressive, and many tick
bite victims receive multiple bites.

PMID: 14662940 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Thank you to the US Army!!

Especially the folks there at Aberdeen who ARE paying attention!!!

Here is what is so exciting. Yes.. I am jumping up and down.

The CDC has "described" a tick borne illness that is NEGATIVE on the Lyme tests but they didn't have much info to go by at the time.. and it has been called "STARI" for lack of a better term.

This disease IS caused by a spirochete..

And it IS found in another tick species (the Lonestar tick which is aggressive and nasty and actually searches out victims).

If you have it... it can show a rash kinda LIKE the Lyme rash.

It responds to treatment for Lyme according to the CDC.

Now drum roll... Here is the good part...

It is NOT showing positive on the current LYME TESTS!

The ducks theory of having to have a positive test to HAVE Lyme.. or before treating Lyme... just fell in the crapper.

Not that we DIDN'T KNOW IT ALREADY HAD fallen there.. BUT NOW THE CDC ADMITS IT..

And the US Army has confirmed it IS found in various states in these ticks!

Soooooo... you goony infectious disease IDIOTS...

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!

This is only one quote from the article..

Sooooo... see the link to read the entire thang!

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/stari/

Epidemiology and Risk:

In 2001, a patient with evidence of B. lonestari infection was reported
in the medial literature.

This patient had exposure to ticks in Maryland and North Carolina and
developed a rash indistinguishable from erythema migrans after an A. Americanum tick bite.

DNA analysis indicated the presence of B. lonestari in a skin biopsy taken at the leading edge of the rash and
in the tick removed by the physician.

Serologic testing for Lyme disease was negative.

The second was on my shoulder, developed a bulls eye type rash and more breaking out of the bumps extending to my thighs down to knee.

I went through the local health dept to get the tick tested and it was sent to the CDC. I talked with a person from the CDC in Colorado. It seems they only tests ticks when a doctor has documented the exposure and has requested it tested and a bullseye rash is present greater than two cm.

She said they were able to class it as ammblyoma but could not tell what species because it was too engorged?? It was the less the size of a poppy seed.

She was trying to have me beleive that lonestari could not be transmitted by a nymphal tick, Igenex was unreliable on burreliosis testing, if I ever traveled to a northeastern state and became symptomatic they would be glad to include me in further research....on and on...have all this documented somewhere.

One comment was ...it was JUST discovered eight years ago, not alot of research has been done...told her maybe the parameters for research were a bit too restrictive since they were unwilling to test the tick.

Or perhaps they did test the tick??? Makes me wonder. Makes no sense.....

Cheryl

Maybe while you are doing all that jumping, why not smash a couple of hundred of those silly little Lone Star ticks?

AS you know, I am just kidding.

I will surely have Amanda take this information with her to my PCP when her husbands sees him on Monday for his WB blood draw. But, then again, when I give him these things, I am really preaching to the choir, because he BELIEVES.

Wow, having a PCP that believes that there is LD in Arkansas, even when my vet actually told me that there is none, is great in and of itself.

As I was leaving his office the other day, he said to me, "It would not surprise me that all my Fibromyalgia patients and some of the chronic fatigue ones, actually have a spirochete infection, or LD." Can you believe that?

Thanks, for the heads up and the CDC agrees? Wow!!!