I'm doing some research and am interested to know which events people feel have been the most important, in terms of impact on the situation of Lyme patients, since 1975.

These could be anything - moments in Lyme history, published papers, discoveries, speeches by Lyme doctors, acts by CDC etc etc. They could be events that had either positive or negative impact (eg identification of the spirochete by Burgdorfer for the former; publication of Klempner's flawed paper for the latter).

Please note that I'm not looking for the "single event" you feel had most impact, but rather, several events from Lyme history (from Polly Murray era onwards). If you are able to list at least five, preferably ten, events that you personally feel have had the most impact, that would be very useful.

Thanks to anyone who feels they can help with this.

pages 159 - 173: events from 1883 - 1975
pages 173 - 185: events from 1975 (Polly Murray) through 1997
However, this may be a more detailed list than you want.

My copy is First Edition of her book.

2. The birth of Allen Steere (pre 1975)

3. The fact that Alan Barbour turned Polly Murray over to Allen Steere (Barbour was a little better, not much but a little)

4. The prosecution of Dr Natole in MI

5. The terrible article in the NY times sunday magaizine "Stalking Dr Steere" which portrayed Lyme patients as nuts and quoted a Lyme patient threatening Allen Steere

6. The awful nightline episode in which treating Lyme with long term antibiotics was compared by Ted Koppel to drinking urine as a therapy

7. The kiempner study and no real response from ILADS, LDF, LDA for several years

****** there's a limit to the smilies I can use*******

8. The klempner study discrediting the LUAT with no real response from Igenex in terms of a published article or a request for NIH office of research integrity investigation

9. Dearborn

10. The Lyme vaccine fiasco, including the support given by ldf to a bad vaccine

11. the CDC surveillance case definition revised over years which serves to deliberately undercount the incidence of Lyme

12. The recognition of coinfections and their potential significance but there has unfortunately been no reevaluation of what is Lyme and what is Lyme PLUS

13. LDF fights with NIH and McSweegan turned things personal and shouldn't have been, and there's wrong on both sides in my opinion

14. The infighting between ldf and lda very destructive and seems to involve egos of the leaders more than the interest of Lyme patients

15. The shutting down of the excellent Lyme alliance and their website! ;(

Well that's a start. Some of those are plusses (positive events) but most are minuses. The history is pretty sad.

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Originally posted by Lymerayja:
Dear fellow Lymenetters,

I'm doing some research and am interested to know which events people feel have been the most important, in terms of impact on the situation of Lyme patients, since 1975.

These could be anything - moments in Lyme history, published papers, discoveries, speeches by Lyme doctors, acts by CDC etc etc. They could be events that had either positive or negative impact (eg identification of the spirochete by Burgdorfer for the former; publication of Klempner's flawed paper for the latter).

Please note that I'm not looking for the "single event" you feel had most impact, but rather, several events from Lyme history (from Polly Murray era onwards). If you are able to list at least five, preferably ten, events that you personally feel have had the most impact, that would be very useful.

Thanks to anyone who feels they can help with this.

Lisa

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