The letter below describes the actions of Dr Paul Auwaerter who has had a history of bullying Lyme patients and a career long bias against persistent Lyme disease. Feel free to write your own letter of concern to the Dean of the Medical Faculty outlining how Auwaerter’s “nuisance disease” has impacted your life. Letter to: Paul B. Rothman, MD, Dean of the Medical Faculty, CEO Johns Hopkins Medicine (Awaiting a response) ________________________________________ From: "Carl Tuttle" To: prothma1@jhmi.edu Cc: lsking@jhmi.edu, wbaumgar@jhmi.edu, jclement@jhmi.edu, dford@jhmi.edu, arosen@jhmi.edu,rziegel2@jhmi.edu Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 9:45:26 AM Subject: A Drug Combination Screen Identifies Drugs Active against Amoxicillin-Induced Round Bodies of In Vitro Borrelia burgdorferi Persisters from an FDA Drug Library June 16, 2016 The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MRB 100 733 North Broadway Baltimore, MD 21205 Attn: Paul B. Rothman, MD, Dean of the Medical Faculty, CEO Johns Hopkins Medicine Dear Dr Rothman, I would like to call attention to the actions of one of your faculty members regarding the bullying of Lyme disease patients. Dr Paul Auwaerter recently coauthored a study identifying antibiotic resistance/tolerance of Borrelia burgdorferi although he has had a career long bias against persistent infection. Please read the following email thread to gain an understanding of what has been discussed with the Chief Editor of Frontiers in Microbiology. Since Auwaerter is a representative of your reputable institution we would like to know if you condone his behavior outlined below. A response to this serious inquiry is requested. Sincerely, Carl Tuttle Hudson, NH Cc: The leadership of Johns Hopkins Medicine Communication with Prof Martin G Klotz, Field Chief Editor: ___________________________________________________________ On Jun 8, 2016, at 10:30, Carl Tuttle wrote: ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Front. Microbiol., 23 May 2016 |http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2016.00743 A Drug Combination Screen Identifies Drugs Active against Amoxicillin-Induced Round Bodies of In Vitro Borrelia burgdorferi Persisters from an FDA Drug Library Jie Feng, Wanliang Shi, Shuo Zhang, David Sullivan, Paul G. Auwaerter and Ying Zhang __________________ June 8, 2016 Frontiers in Microbiology EPFL Innovation Park, Building I CH – 1015 Lausanne Switzerland Attn: Martin G Klotz, Field Chief Editor Dear Prof Klotz, I would like to call attention to one of the coauthors in the Frontiers in Microbiology article identified above who was the lead author in the following previously published Lancet article: (Sept 2011) Antiscience and ethical concerns associated with advocacy of Lyme disease Dr Paul G Auwaerter, MD http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(11)70034-2/abstract Excerpt: “Some activists portray Lyme disease, a geographically limited tick-borne infection, as a disease that is insidious, ubiquitous, difficult to diagnose, and [almost incurable]; they also propose that the disease causes mainly non-specific symptoms that can be treated only with long-term antibiotics and other unorthodox and unvalidated treatments.” ____________________________ Excerpt from the Frontiers in Microbiology article: “Under experimental stress conditions such as starvation or antibiotic exposure,Borrelia burgdorferi can develop round body forms, which are a type of persister bacteria that appear resistant in vitro to customary first-line antibiotics for Lyme disease.” It would appear that Auwaerter is riding the fence here and clearly has a credibility issue. The Lancet article was financed with US taxpayer dollars to denounce the disabled Lyme patient population as apposed to finding treatment options for persistent Borrelia infection. Auwaerter is a discredit to the integrity of Frontiers in Microbiology. Sincerely, Carl Tuttle Hudson, NH ______________________________________________________________________ On Jun 15, 2016, at 10:19, Carl Tuttle wrote: Dear Prof Klontz, Please see the letter below which was sent to Senator Richard Blumenthal three years ago describing deplorable patient experiences with Dr Paul Auwaerter, Infectious Disease Department at Johns Hopkins. Sincerely, Carl Tuttle _____________________________________________________________ Jan 20, 2013 Dear Senator Blumenthal, Please take a moment to read the following letter addressed to the editor of the Lancet Infectious Diseases. John McConnell Editor The Lancet Infectious Diseases 32 Jamestown Road, London NW1 7BY , UK Dear Editor McConnell, I received the following deplorable patient experiences regarding Dr Paul Auwaerter who was interviewed on Dr Phil’s Chronic Lyme disease special and lead author of the Lancet article: Antiscience and ethical concerns associated with advocacy of Lyme disease These stories were sent to me from a Maryland Lyme support group. Please take a moment to read about these horrible experiences. Patient experiences: Fortunately, some patients who go to the Infectious Disease Department at Johns Hopkins find groups like ours. It is absolutely AMAZING to hear some of their stories. Case in point is my own niece, whose mother was asked to leave the room so Dr. Auwaerter could interrogate her, trying to get her to admit that her loving brother was secretly beating her and that was the cause for her abdominal and muscle pain (she had Lyme, Bartonella and Babesia). Needless to say, my sister made quite a "to do" over that one, and she never left her teenage daughter's room again. Or how about the mother of four who had two CDC-positive Western Blots, and had such terrible brain fog that she came up to a stop light one day while driving her four children and couldn't remember if red meant "go" or "stop". Dr. Auwaerter took her positive blood tests and tossed them aside saying, "Oh, we don't pay attention to those". His diagnosis?....Are you ready for this one?......He said this very intelligent, very "with it" mother was "stuck between being an adult and a child" and that all her problems would go away once she reached menopause. Or how about the guy with seven positive bands on a Western Blot test who showed me a letter from this office that said he should not be treated for Lyme disease as the test was definitely a "false positive" since "no one tests positive for seven bands". This latest report from this so-called "specialist" just makes me want to work harder and harder to reach more and more people with the truth. Congratulations to all the advocacy groups, scientists and researchers, and all the doctors willing to treat Lyme disease! We're truly making a difference in peoples' lives! Carl Tuttle’s comment: Auwaerter has absolutely no fear of being exposed and continues relentlessly to insist that Lyme patients are all delusional. How can hundreds of thousands of sick patients across the nation imagine a fictitious disease including Senator Chris Harris from Texas who was prescribed 17mo of antibiotics for his delusions? http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16308 Carl Tuttle Hudson, NH 03051 Letter to the Editor, The Lancet Infectious Diseases Published May 2012 http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(12)70054-3/fulltext The Tuttle family was featured on New Hampshire Chronicle’s “Living with Lyme” with the program archived on their site in six small segments for viewing on the computer Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 ________________________________________ From: "Carl Tuttle" To: "Martin Gunter Klotz" Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 7:45:59 AM Subject: Re: A Drug Combination Screen Identifies Drugs Active against Amoxicillin-Induced Round Bodies of In Vitro Borrelia burgdorferi Persisters from an FDA Drug Library Please see the following article…… Subject: Hopkins Physician Says Lyme Disease Patients Create Conspiracy Theories About Their Illnesses Hopkins Physician Says Lyme Disease Patients Create Conspiracy Theories About Their Illnesses http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=197392 Washington, DC – WEBWIRE – Tuesday, April 28, 2015 Johns Hopkins physician Paul G. Auwaerter, MD, has told the Allentown Morning Call that Lyme patients invent ideas about what ails them. According to the article, Auwaerter likened Lyme disease to issues, such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and global warming, issues that lend themselves to conspiracy theories. “When you don’t understand something,” said Dr. Auwaerter, “you try to insert a framework that makes sense to you.” Josh Cutler, co-founder of The Mayday Project, says the problem doesn’t lie with patients but rather with denialist physicians, such as Auwaerter, who refuse to take into consideration a large body of science-based evidence for the existence of chronic Lyme disease. “When is a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researcher no longer competent to conduct research and treat patients?” asks Cutler, who has been battling Lyme disease for more than nine years. “When he ceases to have an open, scientific mind and starts to sling mud at the patients he has sworn to care for.” According to Cutler, “Dr. Auwaerter and some of his IDSA colleagues don’t understand Lyme and its co-infections, so they try to insert a framework that makes sense to them. Other IDSA members are protecting conflicts of interest and stand to gain financially by producing guidelines that deprive chronically ill patients access to medically necessary treatment. Rather than acknowledging the epidemic of chronic Lyme, these physicians denigrate patients who are suffering and speaking out for their rights.” “What’s even more disturbing,” says Cutler, “is that Dr. Auwaerter is one of the physicians sitting on the panel tasked with updating the IDSA guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease. IDSA continues to wage a campaign of denial about chronic Lyme in the face of growing scientific evidence that a very real problem exists. How many more people have to fall ill and die before IDSA wakes up and faces the epidemic at hand?” Cutler, and Mayday co-founder Allison Caruana, called for Dr. Auwaerter’s removal from the 2015 IDSA Guidelines panel, along with the removal of the panelists who co-authored or reviewed the 2006 guidelines; guidelines which deny the existence of persistent infection (chronic Lyme) after patients receive the IDSA recommended 2-4 week course of antibiotics. The Mayday Project is holding a protest and vigil at IDSA headquarters April 30 through May 1 to call for the removal of the panelists with the most serious conflicts of interest and for compliance with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) standards for trustworthy guidelines. About the Mayday Project The Mayday Project was formed by a group of volunteers who have been touched by Lyme disease. Mayday advocates for more accurate tests, better guidelines, improved access to treatment, increased education for physicians, and more funding for research. For more information, visit http://www.themaydayproject.org Carl Tuttle ________________________________________ From: "Carl Tuttle" To: "Martin Gunter Klotz" Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2016 12:25:57 PM Subject: Re: A Drug Combination Screen Identifies Drugs Active against Amoxicillin-Induced Round Bodies of In Vitro Borrelia burgdorferi Persisters from an FDA Drug Library Dear Prof Klontz, You may have misunderstood my concerns; I have no disagreement with the content of the study published in Frontiers in Microbiology (although it is thirty years overdue), it is with Auwaerter who has had a career long bias against persistent Borrelia infection and the bullying of Lyme patients that is of concern here. Auwaerter is someone who talks from both sides of their mouth and to see him coauthoring a study for persistent Borrelia infection without apology or retraction of his Lancet “Antiscience” article is disgraceful. Those who have controlled the Lyme disease narrative for the past thirty years have caused untold pain and suffering worldwide as Post Lyme Disease Syndrome is simply a fabricated medical condition disguising treatment failure. Auwaerter has played a large role in the disinformation campaign. The UK and Australia have launched Independent Lyme disease reviews as the growing number of horribly disabled Lyme patients worldwide are demanding answers. We are dealing with a life-altering/life-threatening disease misclassified as a simple nuisance disease where the focus here in the United States has been to discredit those who are disabled by the disease as apposed to finding a cure. Borreilia with its life-altering/life-threatening outcomes belongs in the same health threat category as AIDS, Ebola and Zika but has been misclassified as a simple nuisance disease; easily treated with a one-size-fits-all IDSA treatment approach. (See attachments) Lyme Disease Is Hard to Catch And Easy to Halt, Study Finds New York Times By GINA KOLATA Published: June 13, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/13/us/lyme-disease-is-hard-to-catch-and-easy-to-halt-study-finds.html Excerpt: “But some who have treated hundreds of patients with long-term antibiotics, like Dr. Sam L. Donta of Boston University Medical Center, were not convinced. The antibiotics in the studies were not given for a long enough time, Dr. Donta said, and he would have chosen different ones. Perhaps all that the studies show, he said, is ''that this particular treatment doesn't work.'' ___________________________ Since its discovery we have lost nearly forty years to find a cure for persistent Borrelia infection while millions remain debilitated worldwide. If Auwaerter wants to involve himself with finding answers to persistent infection then he should retract his “Antiscience” article otherwise how can he be trusted. Sincerely, Carl Tuttle Hudson, NH