"A SYDNEY woman will launch a class action against NSW Health after autopsy results showed her husband had been riddled with a disease the Health Department says does not exist in Australia.
Karl McManus, 44, died in July after being bitten by a tick while filming the television show Home and Away in Sydney. The autopsy indicated he had bacteria from Lyme disease in his liver, heart, kidney and lungs.
Samples from his organs, which were tested at the Sydney laboratory Australian Biologics, will be sent to the University of Sydney and to laboratories in the United States for more testing. "If there is duplication of results, the government cannot dispute [that Lyme exists in Australia]," his wife, Mualla Akinci, said.
Mr McManus, from Turramurra, was diagnosed with multifocal neuropathy after testing negative at an Australian laboratory for Lyme disease, but tests carried out in the US and Germany returned positive results. NSW Health maintains that the organisms which cause Lyme disease - three species of the genus Borrelia - are not carried here by wildlife, livestock or their parasites.
It says that anyone suffering from the illness must have caught it overseas, but Ms Akinci is adamant Mr McManus was bitten by a Lyme-infested tick in Waratah Park, home of the TV show Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo.
Ms Akinci has the support of two sufferers, and hopes more people will join the class action.
She also plans to sue Hornsby Hospital where her husband was treated before his death, and will appeal a decision by the Health Care Complaints Commission not to investigate his treatment while at the hospital."
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- sending tissue " to laboratories in the United States for more testing."
Well, THAT's not a good thing if going to IDSA labs.
If they found spirochetes throughout, how is confirmation needed. Spirochetes were found throughout. Period. -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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posted
Thanks for posting the results.
Posts: 172 | From ohio | Registered: Feb 2010
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blinkie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 14470
posted
I think I read that the blood went to Igenex.
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blinkie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 14470
posted
I think I read that the test was done at Igenex.
Posts: 1104 | From N.California | Registered: Jan 2008
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nefferdun
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 20157
posted
I hope she wins! It would be about time.
-------------------- 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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RDaywillcome
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 21454
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