And so the deception continues year after year after year……
---------- Original Message ----------
From: CARL TUTTLE <runagain@comcast.net>
To: tickbornedisease@hhs.gov
Cc: (99 Undisclosed recipients)
Date: June 18, 2019 at 9:50 AM
Subject: Borrelia burgdorferi peptidoglycan is a persistent antigen in patients with Lyme arthritis
To: the Tick-Borne-Disease Working Group,
Please see the letter below addressed to the Editor-in-Chief of PANS regarding the recent Steere publication.......
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Borrelia burgdorferi peptidoglycan is a persistent antigen in patients with Lyme arthritis
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/06/11/1904170116
Excerpt:
“Although antibiotics are generally effective at all stages of the disease, arthritis may persist in some patients for months to several years despite oral and intravenous antibiotic treatment.”
June 18, 2019
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
500 Fifth Street NW
NAS 338
Washington, DC 20001 USA
Attn: May R. Berenbaum, Editor-in-Chief
Dear Dr. Berenbaum,
It should be recognized that as a rheumatologist, Dr. Allen Steere has had a fascination with the swollen knee presentation of Lyme disease however that does not represent the entire Lyme patient population.
The absence of a bulls-eye rash after tick bite allows patients to progress to severe neurological disease instead of obtaining a prompt diagnosis and early treatment and it is well established that up to two-thirds of individuals infected with B. burgdorferi will fail conventional 30-year-old antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease.[i] In fact, there are more scientific references highlighting treatment failure than success.[ii][iii] Stating that “antibiotics are generally effective in all stages of disease” is exceptionally misleading to the reader.
With accumulating evidence that the bacteria persist, and can be antibiotic tolerant, those observations make a powerful case that the continuing symptoms are due to continuing infection, not any post-treatment sequelae.[iv]
The sooner we acknowledge that current thirty-year-old antimicrobials are ineffective in eradicating all forms of Borrelia [v] the sooner we will have a solution to this runaway“most common vector-borne disease in North America.”
Respectfully Submitted,
Carl Tuttle
Lyme Endemic Hudson, NH
Cc:Reviewers Bernhardt and Radolf
References:
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[i] Lyme disease: the promise of Big Data, companion diagnostics and precision medicine
Published 16 July 2016
[ii] References for persistence of Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis) are listed alphabetically and chronologically
Compiled by: John D. Scott, Research Division Lyme Disease Association of Ontario
April 2013 (My personal Dropbox storage area)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/reiown7v732av00/Persistence%20of%20Lyme%20Disease.doc?dl=0
[iii] Persistent Borrelia Infection in Patients with Ongoing Symptoms of Lyme Disease
Published: 14 April 2018
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6023324/
[iv] Stationary Phase Persister/Biofilm Microcolony of Borrelia burgdorferi Causes More Severe Disease in a Mouse Model of Lyme Arthritis: Implications for Understanding Persistence, Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), and Treatment Failure
Published on March 28, 2019
[v] Better drugs for Lyme disease: focus on the spirochete
Published online 2018 Sep 7
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6136917/
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WAKE UP AMERICA!