Re: Which witch? Who's a "heretic", anyway?

On Aug 9, 3:45 pm, the 3rd Man <sir_de...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As if Lymeland weren't already crazy enough...

Instead of casting aspersions about imaginary "trolls" and
"sockpuppets" on the internet...

...perhaps the thing to do would be to address the implications of
this recent study, which strongly suggests that what we call "Lyme
disease" arrived here from Europe less than two hundred years ago...

... more than a hundred years AFTER the Salem witch trials.

I would have to assume that means that unless there is some flaw in
the research...then the author's "theory" is pretty much refuted in
its entirety. If the research is to be taken at face value, it would
seem as though the author's major premise is simply incorrect and not
possible.

The odd thing, of course, is that the episode is usually (and
correctly) held out to us as a prime example of the dangers of mass
delusion, hysteria, cult-like behavior...as well as the dangers of the
simple-minded  rigidity of religious belief and its branding of
"heretics"...and the need to think INDEPENDENTLY of the popular
majority.

Regardless, the author would do well to address the substantive
issues, rather than launching yet another tired ad hominem, cultlike
attack.

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http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/14/7/pdfs/07-0880.pdf

"Therefore, the trans-oceanic migration of clone A likely occurred
more recently than 200 years
ago. More realistic estimates would depend on studies of the neutral
mutation rate and generation
time of B. burgdorferi in the wild".
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Pathogens and People:  The Accidental Witch
By M.M. Drymon
August 8, 2008

As a Lyme patient and an author, I fully expected that my hypothesis
that both the
bewitched and those accused of being witches in the past suffered
from
Lyme disease
would be controversial. Little did I know that in association with my
book Disguised
as the Devil, I would get to experience an actual witch-hunt when I
became the subject
of disapproval of a medical columnist. As has happened to others in
the past, I
was accused, insulted, harassed, and found guilty of “silliness”
without any form
of due process.

In what became a crash course in the ways of the modern world, I
learned during
the past week that there is a small set of scientific ‘professionals’
who put on
their white coats to help run the NIH, administer its grants, and
further the policies
of the United States Government by day. They then go home and by
night, they transform
themselves into anonymous internet “trolls,” who inhabit Lyme support
groups [that
are set up to actually help Lyme patients]. A troll, an internet
savvy
teenager
informed me, is a person who participates in a group solely to
disrupt
it. Sometimes
these folks become what one activist has called “sock puppets” where
they clog up
the forum arguing with and insulting themselves. Presumably, if there
was a forum
that had sound, they would be working on their ventriloquist skills
so
that we could
hear them  talking to themselves convincingly. Their insulting
newspaper columns
are also featured online.

They issue e-mail threats. These might be sloughed off but for the
fact that the
harassment of Lyme patients has become so extreme and they have
gotten
away with
so much for so long that they feel that they can do or say just about
anything with
impunity. Because many Lyme activists are female, one of the
harassment techniques
used has been the anonymous complaint to child welfare agencies.
Several mothers
have been placed in this embarrassing position and two well-known
Lyme
activists
have had the heartbreaking experience of having their children taken
away from them.
Because I am working on the final, dissertation phase of my PHD, my
academic reputation
was threatened. Doctors who treat patients outside the narrow
confines
of the Infectious
Disease Society of America guidelines [which are currently under
review due to conflicts
of interest involved in their creation in the first place] have been
hauled before
their state medical boards. The legal fees involved in this process
become prohibitive,
another form of harassment, deleting the ranks of doctors who will
treat Lyme patients.
And the ranks of dissatisfied and extremely sick Lyme patients grow
larger every
day. We are at a crisis point.

The medical establishment seems to be  hyper-focusing on vaccines.
Perhaps, if modern
medicine had properly tended to this disease properly in the first
place and been
less niggardly with its antibiotics and other treatments, there would
be no need
for people to be begging their veterinarians for antibiotics [ that
are allowed
for dogs]. They would have no need to desperately seek a cauldron
full
of eye of
newt or coffee enemas or silver treatments or anything else. It is
infuriating that
the forest floors of America may soon be dumped full of antibiotic
laced mouse bait
when these same antibiotics are being denied to many humans. People
are desperate.
Lyme disease is a disease that the FDA re-defined to accommodate the
drug companies
and their vaccines [that are not currently being used]. Lyme patients
want the Western
Blot blood test to go back to testing for all Outer Surface Proteins,
including
those that were removed at the Dearborn Conference of 1994. They want
the chronic,
persistent, debilitating, immunosuppressant form of this disease to
be
acknowledged
in addition to the arthritic inflammatory form, that may actually be
a
less prevalent
symptom.

The behavior that I have observed this week reminds me of the words
of
William Faulkner:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” A new inquisition has
been formed
and it has targeted Lyme patients who have opinions. These
inquisitors
have found
and  opened up the full box of tools left over from the ‘burning
times’ in Europe
and Salem of 1692 and let loose. They may use the internet, but their
techniques
are straight out of a sixteenth century torture chamber. They have
prevailed in
this way for over fifteen years. The tide, however, may be changing
as
more and
more patients find their voices.

The excellent documentary, Under Our Skin, which was released earlier
this year
has given many of those same Lyme victims, whose voices had not yet
been heard,
a medium with which to tell their stories. It is a moving experience.
Film critics
should actually see the films that they are criticizing before they
spout off about
them or even worse, repeat the mindless criticisms of others. Book
critics should
also actually read the books they are criticizing. However, to an
inquisitor, it
is only the attack that matters not the facts or the techniques used.
The fate of this new Lyme Witch Hunt is still up in the air. It may,
however, one
day be decried as it was in the past. Witch hunting has come to be
recognized as
one of the lowest forms of human endeavors. Upon refection, a member
of the Salem
Village community wrote that they had been “deluded and could not see
our way.”
Within five years after 1692, one judge and twelve jurors had
formally
apologized
for their role in the affair and within two decades, the
Massachusetts
government
had formally apologized to the families of the accused witches. Let
us
hope that
eventually the same will happen with Lyme disease. Lyme patients are
beginning to
stand up together and have found and are using their voices. Those
who
are deluded
may still find a way to see a future where everyone works together,
the needs of
the afflicted will be met, the cycle of infection is broken, and the
spread of this
affliction is contained. Those who cannot understand this, should be
sent to some
little troll island somewhere far away where they can no longer
attack
Lyme patients
or their advocates.

About the Author:
M.M. Drymon is a historian who lives in South Portland, Maine.  The
author of the
recently published Disguised as the Devil: How Lyme disease created
Witches and
Changed History, she has dedicated her career to public history. She
worked for
over ten years as a museum curator, educator, and public historian.
She has had
articles published in a variety of places including the New York
Times. Although
affected by Lyme disease, she was able to obtain an MA and has
completed all course
work, passed both comprehensive and research exams, and is the
dissertation phase
of her PHD (ABD).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------------------------
Instead of casting aspersions about imaginary "trolls" and
"sockpuppets" on the internet...


...perhaps the thing to do would be to address the implications of
this recent study, which strongly suggests that what we call "Lyme
disease" arrived here from Europe less than two hundred years ago...


I do agree with this part about arrived here from europe less than two
hundred yrs ago-(It has been known in Europe for over 100 yrs ago)
shall I say - but also I feel that there is a strong possiblity it
was in US originallly like 100 yrs ago or so ago originally but the
doctors over here were too dumb to come up with discovering the
borrelia bacteria. That to me is a possibility. also too perhaps
it was more prominent in Europe a hundred or so yrs ago and like birds
etc. migrating - came over here but I lean more toward it was also
here over 100yrs ago too but these last several yrs. it is becoming
like an epidemic- I'll even use the word plaque. ( also the same with
certain european countries) Mostly becoming much more in the Balkans
like Croatia, Slovenia. Then germany, Hungary, Austria Norway and
Sweden and Poland.
I don't recall where I read this but it was said in NY in a museam
they biopsied (or autopsied whatever ) the remains of a tick and
found I guess the dna or whatever what they do a borrelia. Or else
think it would be pretty hard for the immigrants possibly when coming
over a tick or too could have been in their baggage--hmmm. It I
guess a two way st. which came first the chicken or the egg. But
then again one thinks it is so much more prominent on east coast.
PA was first in cases a couple of yrs ago.
to tell the truth I also feel perhaps it still would not be known over
here except for Polly Murray --and Willey Burgdorferi from Switzerland
originally... Again it took a Europeaner to discover the actual
spirochete on a slide......
My one late Aunt I know really doubted I had Lyme D. - she said about
my grandfather who farmed all his life that Oh he used to pick ticks
off himself all the time blah blah and he never got anything. I
guess yes it wasn't as notorious then and now practically all the
ticks carry the bacteria plus others.
But then again it is much more prominent now in US and Europe...
..
There is a very good interesting and informative book entitled
Borrelia ----Strains, Vectors, Human and Animal borreliosis by Oscar
Felsenfeld, M.Sc, MD. I believe originally written in the forties but
the copyright print I have is 1971. It's all european, different
strains, even goes into lice, pictures of blood cells etc. Nothing
in there is about US as when book was written it wasn't even known in
US. Seems like according to that book more was known about the
details etc of the actual bacteria - also treatments weren't much
different except they didn't have the big shot cephalosporins etc.
One part of a para. in the book I just noticed: The procedure used
in some laboratories varies principally according to the borrelia
strain and the availability of the live borreliae. We prefer 10
minutes incubation at 37o C with American Borrelia strains for routing
diagnostic tests?????? hmm....Other than that it mentions nothing at
all about Amer. strains or anything. Oh I see on a list of strains
it only mention B turicatae Central and So. Amer. Western US and
Canada. B. parkerii- Westdern US Canada, b hermsil Western US b
maxxottii Central, possibly also South America, Texas. If those
strains were known then way before why nothing published about them
hmmm.......
It is a very interesting book. Also has the nutrients the spirochete
needs to feed on one of which is glucose (sugar) and what it does not
need is OXYGEN......I don't know if any of these books are still in
print....L
.

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