posted
Here in the UK we are finally going to get a Lyme specialist clinic on the National Health Service. This is NOT a good thing, in my view. This will most likely be a clinic specialised in diagnosing "not Lyme", and declaring seropositive people "cured" prematurely.
People have been speculating about the new consultant who will be in charge of the clinic. He is most known as a microbiologist who researches and campaigns intensely on issues of MRSA, other superbugs, and antibiotic overuse in the health service.
Antibiotic resistance is a real problem, but it is not **our** problem, in the sense that you do not deny long-term treatment where it is clinically indicated because of "antibiotic resistance". No one would dream of denying a TB sufferer the long-term cocktails of antibiotics which they must take.
There are many truly unnecessary examples of antibiotic overuse that should be addressed rather than denying very sick people treatment. What about the truly massive use of ampicillin resistance genes by the biotech industry?
I recognised the name of the "specialist" immediately - Matthew Dryden - and I've even quoted him in a letter I had published in the BMJ years ago, which is here.
As you can see, the reason I quoted him is because he, along with Dr O'Connell (who was our resident Lyme "expert" for years until her lab was moved to Porton Down biowarfare centre in 2012 on her retirement, wrote a completely hypocritical paper calling attention to the issue of Lyme myelitis.
Hypocritical, because this appalling condition is probably going unnoticed every day as a result of O'Connell's diagnostic policies (now continued by Tim Brooks at Porton), and people are probably being diagnosed with "myelitis of unknown origin" and ending up disabled for life when they could have been cured with antibiotics.
One of our leading activists here became totally paralysed from the waist down in her thirties due to Lyme myelitis. She had been told that the early signs she noticed in her legs were probably psychosomatic, as she could not possibly still have Lyme as she had had her regulation short course of antibiotics.
Elena
-------------------- Justice will be ours. Posts: 786 | From UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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posted
This is crap, trying to control the 'lymies' by controlling the access to care. Elena, is there any doctors in the UK who are Harley Street type? Or, by making this a bio-warfare issue, the gov't. can limit access to even this outlet....
Posts: 482 | From Oregon | Registered: Feb 2011
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poppy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
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posted
Why is a microbiologist put in charge of a lyme clinic? Shouldn't this be a medical doctor?
A former lyme program manager for the NIH in the U.S. was a microbiologist too, and he set back progress on this disease decades, and is still, even after being removed from that position, doing his utmost to prevent sick people from being diagnosed and treated correctly. He has also committed other crimes against humanity and individual persons. Still a government employee.
Posts: 2888 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Otter, all we had was a tiny handful of private doctors, and after a recent witch-hunt, that number is tinier than ever. Moreover those that remain are afraid to use their medical judgment too freely. Poppy, I do know the NIH microbiologist you are referring to - only too well. I've been harassed by him on and off for the past ten years. He has sent me death threats, regularly libels me on his "Relative Risk" blog, and has even publicly threatened violence against Tincup on this forum. Yet he is never punished.
-------------------- Justice will be ours. Posts: 786 | From UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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Comment by British Lyme Campaigner > > I am concerned that the new clinic is mainly for show and will not improve diagnosis or treatment of patients in the UK. > > Patient campaigners recently exposed documentary evidence of what appears to be an international conspiracy to undermine their efforts. The Poughkeepsie Journal reported on the issues on May 20th 2013 (http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20130520/NEWS01/305190007/ICYMI-VIDE\ O-Chronic-Lyme-disease-real): > > "The so-called Lyme wars - one of the most vigorous and, both sides agree, vicious debates in medicine today - is a lopsided struggle to influence national policy on Lyme disease and, more specifically, to prevail on a single question. Can it be chronic?" And: > > "But an exclusive Journal review of government emails suggests battles have been won, and minds swayed, through a combination of behind-the-scenes maneuvers and long-standing connections between the scientists' group and government officials. These ties, some say, have served to keep competing ideas at bay." > > The emails in question include communications with Dr Sue O'Connell who until recently was in charge of the Lyme Borreliosis National Reference Laboratory in Southampton. (http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/Interactive/lyme_ties/mcsweegan.pdf) > > The key questions revolve around whether borrelia bacteria can survive treatment with antibiotics and continue to cause 'chronic Lyme borreliosis'. This question appears to have been settled by Embers et al in their experiments with macaques. (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0029914) The research showed that the infection can survive antibiotic treatment. Some have questioned why it took 10 years for this research to get published in a mainstream journal when the issue was of such vital importance to patients and scientists. > > Other sources have provided long lists of published evidence of the persistence of the infection, i.e.: http://lymerick.net/persistent-borreliosis.htm. > > Given that Health Protection England (HPE) still deny that chronic Lyme borreliosis exists - it seems unlikely that a clinic has been opened in England that will accept or address this dreadful illness. Which raises the question - if the HPE think the same as the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); i.e., that Lyme borreliosis is easy to detect and effectively treat - why do they need a special clinic? Any GP in the country can order tests and prescribe antibiotics. > > Therefore the clinic appears to be purely for show and an ongoing part of HPE's collaboration with others to deny the existence of chronic lyme borreliosis. > > Peter Kemp MA > Elena
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