Please accept may thanks and deep gratitude for all the kind expressions of encouragement and support which you have sent to me. I have drafted and sent via e mail a letter to Andy Count the editor or whatever of 60 minutes which contains the ideas that I ran by the members of the list and incorporates certain of your suggestions.

I herewith submit portions of the letter which are the juicier parts in which I take the CDC etc to task for their multitudinous sins of omission and comission. I have taken a verbal claymore to them. I was, however, amazingly polite and restrained. Even the noble cbb-a Southern Lady if ever there were one-did not disapprove. To my deep regret I deleted the terms pig headed stupidity and idiots.

What, you may ask, is a claymore. It is a kind of Scottish broad sword. However it is quite a bit more than that. Think of a two edged ax in the shape of a three or four foot sword. Somewhat narrower but very sharp with a handle on it like a sword about a foot and a half or more long. It could easily be used cut a man in two from the shoulder on down. The Scots used to go out and do just that. Do read paragraphs six and seven. Cheers.

So without further ado:

Dear Mr. Counts....

Further, if you are interested in reporting a major national medical scandal on your news hour, may I suggest your investigate the current situation with the epidemic of lyme disease. It is a clear case of massive medical abuse and medical malpractice involving thousands of people. It is the same thing that happened during the AIDS epidemic all over again. The medical establishment, the politicians, the medical bureaucracies have all buried their heads in the sand and are in a state of massive denial. The corruption of the insurance industry and established medical practice in this area is a scandal. Doctors who try to treat patients suffering, disabled and dying with this awful illness are having their licenses revoked. I submit that in comparison the case of Dr. Shortt, however tragic and indeed very sad for the persons involved, is small potatoes indeed.

Lyme disease is an horrendous illness. The suffering it causes can be enormous. It can attack the heart, brain, neurological system, connective tissue, joints, muscles and just about any other part of the body. A hideously painful illness, it can disable and even kill you. It can cause arthritis, disabling fatigue, fibromyalgia, heart disease, depression, severe neurological problems and gastrointestinal problems, among other things. It is a bizarre, Rube Goldberg kind of disease, something straight out of science fiction. A literary genius in his wildest imagination could hardly have concocted such a disease. It does not behave like other 'normal' or common bacterial infections. It is precisely for this reason that medical science has had such a hard time understanding, diagnosing and treating it. A leading medical authority on the disease has told me that we are decades away from a complete understanding of this disease.

I note that your report referred to the Center for Disease Control. As you must understand that agency does not treat disease. It monitors and tracks diseases. It has made clear that the criteria that it uses for those purposes are not to be used in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of disease. Yet that is precisely what many doctors are doing. The CDC has asserted that Lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis where serological tests can assist a physician in making a correct diagnosis. But these tests are often unreliable and should not be the sole basis of that diagnosis. Rather, a clinical diagnosis is based upon history, clinical symptoms, and response to therapy.

...... Lyme disease is itself a difficult and complex subject which does not easily lend itself to clear-cut answers....

Sadly, the whole issue has become embroiled in politics. The understanding of established medical practice of this disease is at least ten to twenty years out of date. Many medical practitioners insist that there is no such thing as late stage lyme disease or that it is easily curable with a short treatment of antibiotics. These positions fly in the face of a large and growing body of evidence clearly to the contrary.

Matters have been made much worse by the bungling, incompetence and intransigent dogmatism of the Center for Disease Control. One has only to read their report in May 7 of 2004 to see that in the face of the spreading epidemic of a crippling and potentially fatal disease they, in typical bureaucratic fashion, do not have a clue as to what is going on.

In that report they state: ``Surveillance for LD is subject to several limitations. Studies from the early 1990s suggested that LD cases were underreported by six to 12-fold in some areas where LD is endemic (2,3); the current degree of underreporting for national data is unknown. In addition, differences in the demographics of reported cases among states with above- and below-average incidence suggest variation in diagnostic and reporting practices among states. Clinicians are reminded that the LD case definition was developed for surveillance purposes and might not be appropriate for clinical management of individual patients.''

Thus, as of 2004 they have admitted they did not know how much the current cases of LD were under-reported. They do not know how many cases of Lyme Disease there actually are. They have thus openly admitted they do not know what they are talking about, yet they are clearly accepted by conventional medical practice and the medical state bureacracies as authoritative. Yet their methodology, the methods of diagnosis and reporting are clearly revealed as so defective as to be useless. As a result nobody has a clue as to what is actually going on. Further as a result of their dogmatism and that of the state health departments and medical establishments, doctors are being bullied into refusing to even recognize the disease, much less diagnose or treat it.

Yet there are more and more reports of cases of this disease all over the nation. . In the year 2002 there was an increase of forty percent in the number of cases of this disease nationally. At that rate the number of cases is almost doubling every two years. From 1996 to 2000 the number of cases of Lyme disease reported from hospitals in South Carolina more than doubled. At one time the CDC itself stated that the cases it reports represent something in the range of ten percent of the actual cases. These facts in light of the growing body of anecdotal reports would indicate that there is a growing and increasingly serious problem which is being largely ignored.

The medical profession all across the nation is largely in a state of denial. It has buried its head in the sand and refused to respond to the needs of a growing number of very sick people. Here in South Carolina many people have to go out of state to get the treatment that they cannot get here. There are countless reports of actual patient abuse. Thus people turn to doctors whom they hope can be of help to them. They turn to alternative forms of treatment because conventional medicine can or will do nothing for them. In a great many cases in late stage Lyme disease standard antibiotic therapies do not work. The standard medical practice does not even recognize that such a condition exists.

The blunt truth is that we are at some point in an epidemic here in the United States. The members of the medical profession have a moral obligation and professional duty to face the facts of the present situation and provide medical care to those suffering from this disease and to do so on the basis of science and human compassion. The people who are sick and are suffering so greatly from this terrible disease deserve nothing less.

With respect, sir, may I suggest that you have a moral obligation and responsibility to report these matters to the American people as well.

Sincerely,

Thomas M. Parkman

Exceptionally well-written letter!!

Simply put, an outstanding letter!

Especially loved this description:

I think Julie Gerberding ought to receive a copy as well. Several of us have written her and received some unbelieveable replies.
"There is absolutely NO evidence that lyme can be passed through the placenta to the unborn fetus"...is but one of her bits of wisdom. She needs to talk to Dr. Jones, I think!

Her address:
Dr. Julie Gerberding
Director of Centers for Disease Control
1600 Clifton Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30333

A researcher with the CDC was quoted as being alarmed at the 40% rise in lyme cases.
She may be just a voice in the wilderness.

Bless you, and thank you for your work on behalf of all of us. You have a wonderful gift of writing.

I agree, nan. Julie's CDC needs to hear. Note Dr. G's resume: Univ of San Fran. American Coll of Physicians. Annals of Internal Medicine. IDSA.

Also with Annals of Intern Med, CDC &c is http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Browse&link2=Results&id=2090

Govt attorny ATM is HARD at work opposing my Federal District court case, asking court for dismissal or summary judgement.

If Dr.G. had lyme from her garden, she would follow the party line to the public of 10 days, or one, prophylactic tablet of doxy., whilst hiding the rocephin line under the clothing at a public address, delusionally thinking she just might be the exception to a permenant brain infection, and would be doing abx in perpetuity; because, being the exception she herself would deem herself to be,she needs the perpetuitiously extended abx Tx; as, she IS, after all, an 'alpha-and-omega' ID.

I'm not sure which section this belongs in, but here goes anyway.

Although I didn't know Deanice Hinton, I had so many mixed emotions when I read the post of her passing. Mostly, I felt angry and helpless. The absurdities of this disease baffle me every single day.

Anyhow, one of the thoughts that popped into my mind was: isn't it too bad that we don't have a big brother watching out for all of us. Then it occurred to me that we do, they're just not doing their jobs. At least that seems to be the impression when it comes to lyme disease.

For example, the CDC were the ones who diagnosed my illness in '85. It had been sent there because the hospital I had been admitted into didn't know what I had.

Doesn't it stand to reason that knowing what they know about LD that they know I'm still sick? Isn't there any responsibility on the part of the CDC to inform me sometime in the past twenty 20 years of the complexities of lyme? Am I missing something? And, not just me. How many others do the CDC know about? What exactly is their role and their responsibilities? DISEASE CONTROL? What am I missing?

Any chance of class action suit for this kind scenario?

I had a blood transfusion in the '80's and had received a letter in the late 90's stating that the blood may have been infected with Hepatitis C and that I should have myself tested for it. Why haven't I received a similar letter regarding Lyme from the CDC?

A year ago when I was diagnosed with lyme I called red cross (I had no idea that lyme was contiversial). anyway, I use to give blood all the time.

I called red cross and they pretty much blew me off. I asked, "shouldn't the people who got my blood be told I have lyme disease? Shouldn't you just tell them?" They told me no--that when they processed the blood that was removed or something. I was even a lot spacier then, than I am now, and I knew that was total BS.

Twin and I use to count on each other as blood donars when we had surgery or something--told her last time she had surgery I wasn't her girl.

This is your class action suit. But who wants to sue the red cross? That's like sueing santa claus.

But seriously, shouldn't the people who got my blood know I have ld?

Was going to tell you something else but I forgot--