Lyme Disease: Symptom of a Dysfunctional Public Sphere

[kickysnana]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/01/981225/-Lyme-Disease:Symptom-of-a-Dysfunctional-Public-Sphere?detail=hide

My hope is to convince people that the Lyme controversy is political more than it is medical, and that political activism is a highly appropriate response. This is not a side controversy only for sick people—it is more the canary in the mine of the body politic, making plain the extent to which money and elitism have compromised our ability to respond to crises. The issue is distinctly different from the vaccination controversy, in which a corrupt doctor began a movement which persisted in the face of mountains of contrary evidence. In the case of Lyme Disease, a small number of powerful doctors are attempting to control the response of the entire medical community to a disease about which much remains to be learned. In the process, they have selectively ignored research, misrepresented their own conflicts of interest as well as the varied opinions of the wider medical community, and in other ways behaved in a biased fashion not befitting the gravity of the duty entrusted them.

[still_one]

1. There is a documentary, "Under the Skin", which exposes this /nt

[barbtries]

6. it's actually

Under Our Skin, is available for instant watching on Netflix, and i highly recommend it. if enough people watch it and get educated about the issue, the guidelines will have to be recalled. and some doctors may even get their lives back.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1202579/

[still_one]

2. There is a documentary, "Under the Skin", which exposes this /nt

[villager]

3. While doubtless true, it's also a symptom of dysfunctional ecological practices:

too much overhunting of predators (and destruction of their habitat) = explosion in deer populations = spread of deer ticks...

[Warpy]

4. That plus sprawl, developing habitat

and, while Bambi in the garden might make for a lovely photo op, Bambi goes through it like a lawn mower and leaves his ticks behind. Not good.

[villager]

5. Good point -- we build into the habitat of the predators we've killed

...and the ecosystems we've ransacked.

To appease the banks. I suppose the "good news" is that many of those ex-urbs are going to eventually be abandoned, as no one can afford to live there, and may "revert" to some semblance of the semi-wild?

[Warpy]

7. Either that or they'll be turned back into farming communities

after 3/4 of the houses have been razed.

[chowder66]

8. A friend of mine came over just once to the states...

he went to visit some friends in northern california and one day he went hiking. He went back to Dublin and was diagnosed with Lyme a year or so later and has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars traveling to Germany, England and Spain working with specialists to no avail. Thanks for posting. I will let him know about this if he doesn't already. He's been suffering for about 15 years or more now.