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[kickysnana]

The IDSA Infectious Disease Society of America has lost its objectivity and is solely a mouthpiece for the Insurance companies of America. Their guidelines on Lyme Disease are being adopted by insurance companies leaving people with almost no treatment options for a very serious, debilitating disease.
Worse they have written to Governors and Legislators saying that patients having a say in their health care is "dangerous".

Please rate this article "poor" to send a message that our health care definitely should be managed by CPAs.

Thanks.

http://www.idsociety.org/newsArticle.aspx?id=4262

[Warpy]

1. It's aready being rated "poor."

Besides, I want to see how this one plays out in the court.

I would also have to see how they arrived at their conclusion.

If autopsied brains of chronic Lyme sufferers were negative for spirochetes, if CSF studies were negative for spirochetes, then clearly something else is at work besides a chronic infection. The PDF article refers to "CNS abnormalities" without defining them. Quite possibly, the damage done by a Lyme infection that is not caught early is irreversible. The article also suggests that for people with high antibody titers, treatment with oral doxycycline is preferable to IV ceftriaxone.

If this is the case, there are better treatments than useless antibiotics in patients with low antibody titers that must be explored.

This needs more work. The last paragraph of the article says exactly that.

Plus, accountants are the last people who need to run health care, and was not the case here.

[errorbells]

2. I have this journal from 1997

At the 1997 LDF conference, a study was presented using naïve beagles as subjects. In this study, three groups of six beagles were studied. One group of six was infected; using infected ticks, and treated with four weeks of amoxicillin. Another group was infected and treated with a double dose of doxycycline for four weeks.

The third group was the control. In the doxycycline treated group, at three months post-treatment, it appeared that 100% were cured. But, at two years at autopsy, five of the six (5/6) beagles were shown to have active infection, or complete relapse. The key to uncovering the high incidence of relapse was a long, two-year followup period. The current study cited by the ACP totally ignored this experience showing the necessity of long followup periods, and the fallibility of antibody serologies used as end points to treatment, or as a measure of affecting a cure.
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Take a look at this site and see what you think.
http://www.canlyme.com/tom.html