Study: Lyme disease prevalent

From: JWissmille (jwissmille_at_aol.com)
Date: 07/29/04 

Date: 29 Jul 2004 23:06:37 GMT

http://www.dailylocal.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12386551&BRD=1671&PAG=461&d
ept_id=17782&rfi=6

http://tinyurl.com/5wzmj

Study: Lyme disease prevalent

JILL NAWROCKI , Staff Writer 07/18/2004

POCOPSON -- Numbers from a recently released mail-in survey estimate
some 46 percent of responding township residents have experienced one or
more cases of Lyme disease in their home.

Admittedly unscientific, representatives of the surveying
organization, the Lyme Disease Association of Southern Pennsylvania, said
the purpose was only to show evidence of a problem, hopefully resulting in
further funding for a more accurate future survey.

The volunteer organization mailed out pre-paid return cards to all 848
households in Pocopson. Vice President Doug Fearn said 301 cards were
returned to the association, just more than 35 percent of the total
population.

"Statistically, it's not a real solid survey because people could
choose whether or not they wanted to respond," Fearn said. "But we had a
pretty good return."

Association President Harvey Kliman said the group chose to survey
Pocopson because of both its size and location. It believes the township
adequately represented the general area and was a perfect size for its level
of manpower and amount of funding.

Were it any other disease, Kliman said, it might be called an epidemic
because of the high level of incidents in not only Pocopson, but also in the
county. He said he hoped the newly released numbers will generate awareness
of the devastating problem and lead to a larger and more accurate study of
the issue.

"We'd like to look at this region, but the size and the area we cover
is dependent on the funding," he said. "A general cost estimate would be
anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000 for a bigger survey."

Typical symptoms of the disease are similar to the flu: feelings of
extreme fatigue, drowsiness and sensitivity to light and sound. A "bull'
s-eye" rash appears in less than half of all cases, usually within a month
of the initial bite by an infected tick.

Fearn, who has the disease, said it was possible some residents were
mistaking the symptoms of Lyme disease with those of the flu, resulting in
higher incident numbers on the survey.

Betsy Walls, director of personal health at the Chester County Health
Department, did not have exact information for local incidents of the
disease, but said she was certain there was a lot of it in the county.

"I know that being in a rural area that had a lot of wildlife at one
point, there will be a big tick population," she said. "But not all ticks
have Lyme disease. Not all cases fit the mold, but that does not mean a
patient wasn't treated for the disease."

According to Walls, physicians are required to enter any case they
believe could be Lyme disease into an electronic state data system, where
statistical information is then filtered into a national log.

Fearn, who has lived with the disease for more than six years, said
doctors generally treat patients with a series of antibiotics for a period
of months, even years. While initial symptoms frequently mimic the flu, if
left untreated, issues may escalate to more serious symptoms.

"If it's inadequately treated, more neurological symptoms can occur,"
Fearn said. "Sometimes there's burning or tingling in the feet and hands,
other times profound fatigue."

Fearn, first diagnosed with the disease in 1994, said he was treated
with a series of antibiotics, but after a month of improvements, he still
felt uncertain whether he was truly over the disease. Although symptoms from
his initial bite subsided, Fearn said after several more bites, fatigue and
pain came back in full force. In 1999, he was treated with oral antibiotics,
followed by six weeks of intravenous medication. Then he was treated later
with two years of antibiotic shots, twice each week.

"It's making progress, but it's still not gone overall," he said.

Dr. Peter Fabulian has been treating Lyme disease patients at his
Kennett Square practice for six years and said the problem is bigger than
most people believe. According to his data, Chester County has the third-
most cases of recorded Lyme disease in the country. The top two, he said,
are in Connecticut, where the disease was initially discovered.

"I see at least 200 Lyme patients a month here, probably 15 new
patients a week," he said. "This diagnosis is the most-missed diagnosis at
this point because it mimics so many other diseases. It's not a blood test
because it doesn't show up in all blood tests. It changes over time."

Dr. Ann Corson, who has a practice in Kennett Township that treats
only patients with tick-borne diseases, agreed with Fabulian and said the
problem is larger than everyone originally anticipated.

Over the past year she said her clientele has skyrocketed to roughly
400 patients, so many, she said, that she had to shut her doors to new
clients until at least September.

Corson said she believes the disease has become more prevalent in the
past few years. Many of the people who come into her office have been
previously misdiagnosed by other physicians who misjudged the flu-like
symptoms.

"I find people who have been mistreated for years, some people who
have had Lyme disease for 20 or 30 years before they come to my office," she
said.

Both Corson and Fabulian agree that risk is not limited to rural parts
of the county. Corson said the problem is increasing in the suburbs as well.
Because increased development has removed predators for animals that carry
ticks, Corson said anyone with mice or deer in their yard or surrounding
area could be at risk.

"If we get rid of the ticks, we can get back to enjoying our land,
back to enjoying the outdoors," said Corson.

İDaily Local News 2004

=====

Reader Opinions

Name: Tom McCaffrey
Date: Jul, 18 2004

Lyme Disease is just one in a growing number of examples
of why the government should not just be funding medical research, but
picking and choosing the topics and goals of some of it. In addition all
such Government research funding should come with the express condition that
the patent rights will remain with the people of the United States, who
donated the money, not the company that reaches the final goal. In that way
the ability to produce drugs and vaccines could be leased to many companies
and the costs would be kept far lower. It also means that lower profit
items, like a vaccine for Lyme Disease, could be guaranteed some attention.

The sad truth of the situation is that my dog can or horse
can be vaccinated and protected from Lyme Disease, but my children cannot.
Personally, I see the reason for this contained in two properties of medical
research today. The first is the time and cost to go through all the hoops
required for Food and Drug Administration approval. The second is the total
surrender of America's corporate drug producers to greed and profit. While
the first may be necessary, to some degree, in protecting public safety it
has the ability to be modified. (FDA measures are not required for
veterinary uses.) The second reason is unfortunately out of control, grows
in severity over time and spreads like an unchecked cancer through our
current corporate based or assisted medical research facilities. It can only
be cured by government intervention and perhaps the funding of
not-for-profit research institutions which produce drugs and vaccines with
the liability protection of afforded government agencies and the express
purpose of government retained patent rights. Perhaps then important drugs
would have a new primary purpose, to heal the sick, not line the pockets of
investors by threatening life or death to the infirm and debilitated who
have no choice but to pay.

It is also a sad truth today that the severity of
suffering must be pointed out through surveys and questionnaires so a larger
dollar sign may be associated with the commercial production of an already
known solution to end it. I hope the work of Mr. Fearn's group and the Daily
Local's article has helped to illustrate the profit margin has grown and may
now be high enough, that my children may be provided with the same medical
protection from disease that has been afforded our family dog for many
years.

 

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