Re: The Overdiagnosis of Lyme Disease ????????????????? And responses thereto

First...I swore I wasn't going to get involved in this...but Chuck
please keep your nonsense on your own threads. If we actually talk
about Lyme, unless you have something constructive to add, please keep
your *** in your own litterbox. Feel free to continue your childish
behavior in your own threads if you choose.

I'd love to see this place recover, and Bart isn't the troll, you are.
He's holding a conversation, and a good one at that. On topic. You are
just spewing nonsense. I don't want to be involved in the flaming or
the insults or any of the crap, but I'm tired already of having to
scroll through you snoozing and being disruptive in order to follow a
conversation.

Phew, I feel better now.

Now,

Bart...


They accomplish this be narrowing the definition of "lyme disease" to
include only the most obvious symptoms. They arbitrarily eliminated
other known signs and symptoms of Lyme, in particular many cases of
arthritis, myalgias and fatigue.

Was it really done arbitrarily? Or did he do this for a reason? I am
pretty sure that he did this in response to ILADS docs (not sure if
they were called that yet back then) dx'ing clinically. After reading
that "Oh poor me" interview Steere did, where he kept saying, "This is
not Lyme, my patients aren't this sick"...I have to think this is a
reply to that mindset.

It started out as this awful disease they felt they needed a vaccine
for and ended up being THIS. Which is sad.


One hundred fifty-six patients (20%) had previous Lyme disease and another current illness, most commonly
chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia;

They replace the diagnosis of Lyme disease with some undefined post
infectious syndrome of uknown cause such as CFS or FMS. Fine, maye
Lyme does cause these syndromes post infection. Problem with their
analysis is that they do nothing reliable to eliminate the possibility
of lingering infection. In fact they do a lot to ignore signs of
continuing infection both in this study and subsequently in their
practices. Suddenly no proof of continuing infection is good enough--
they have now created out of whole cloth "Post Lyme Syndrome."

I still do not understand what they are trying to accomplish by doing
this. I also believe the immune system can possibly keep on trucking
post-infection and possibly be one of many causes for the syndromes
mentioned. However, there have been plenty of studies they themselves
have done that have shown persistent infection and refractory problems
and treatment failure. The same people who talk about how bad it is,
say now how it isn't. The very first steere papers from the 70's say
that short term antibiotics did NOTHING and therefore it must not be
bacterial. Later, after they find out its bacterial, its bad enough to
warrant a vaccine. Suddenly, that whole thing bites the dust and
suddenly the same people change their tune again and it is easily
cured with short term antibiotics. Makes one wonder what the heck is
in the man's head. Maybe he was bit by a tick and is delusional.


and in 49 patients, these symptoms began soon after objective manifestations of Lyme disease. The remaining 452 patients
(57%) did not have Lyme disease. The majority of these patients also had the chronic
fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia; the others usually had rheumatic or neurological
diseases.

Lyme disease is dismissed but on what basis?

Of the patients who did not have Lyme disease, 45% had had positive serological test results for Lyme disease in other laboratories, but
all were seronegative in our laboratory.

Assinine assumption: All previous testing was wrong only the testing
in their own lab is reliable. Right.

Agreed. Asinine. His lab? By what criteria? He never says. It's a
matter, as it seems it has always been, of finding what you want to
find when it comes to Lyme.



Prior to referral, 409 of the 788 patients had been treated with antibiotic therapy. In 322 (79%) of these patients,
the reason for lack of response was incorrect diagnosis.

Circular reasoning permits this conclusion not good logic good
medicine or good science.


He doesn't say WHAT antibiotic therapy, either. Could have been a week
of keflex or e-myacin. Who knows?

Conclusions: Only a minority of the patients referred to the clinic met diagnostic criteria for Lyme disease. The most common reason for lack
of response to antibiotic therapy was misdiagnosis.

assinine assumption next: Based on their suddenly narrowed diagnostic
criteria (if you look at steere's prior work and that of his
colleagues at yale and elsewhere they had spent almost 20 years
widening the documentation for an ever widening array of clinical
manifestations of Lyme disease, and even titled some of their papers
in almost exactly those words. Now they narrow the definition and
suddenly Lyme is overdiagnosed.


Part of the problem, I think, is an effort by Steere, et al, to limit
WHO gets to dx Lyme (its HIS baby. I can see him sitting there going ...
mine mine mine! What RIGHT do they have!??!...) whether or not he
wants to admit it. Another issue here, aside from ego which I think is
a big part, is them truly thinking that they have to regulate how many
quacks get to mistreat people and take advantage of people with lyme
or similar problems. Lyme DID become quack fodder, and I think they
lie to themselves that they are being altruistic in protecting us from
ourselves and doctors who would exploit us. When, in fact, all of it
comes not from a true desire to make things better, but from human ego
and selfishness.

I think Kathleen's mistake in thinking this is some dark conspiracy is
understandable if you read too much into it, and allow yourself to get
emotional and paranoid about it, but I truly believe the truth behind
the whole thing comes from much more shallow roots than a deep dark
conspiracy. I see ego and self-pity or misplaced self-importance as
the problem...very surface and not very deep or well-thought-out at all.
I've met doctors with God complexes before, I have to assume this is
no different.


This "study" is much more of an editorial than a study. In fact
subsequent to this almost all of steere's papers are editorial rather
than medical or scientific studies.


That's the problem. He wrote amazing things about this...once.


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