Today's letter.......
---------- Original Message ----------
From: CARL TUTTLE <runagain@comcast.net>
To: tickbornedisease@hhs.gov, jaucott2@jhmi.edu
Cc: (98 Undisclosed recipients)
Date: February 26, 2020 at 9:44 AM
Subject: Post-treatment Lyme Disease as a Model for Persistent Symptoms in Lyme Disease
Frontiers in Medicine
Post-treatment Lyme Disease as a Model for Persistent Symptoms in Lyme Disease
Alison W. Rebman and John N. Aucott*
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00057/full
Feb 26, 2019
Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center
At Greenspring Station Joppa Concourse
2360 W. Joppa Rd, Suite 320
Lutherville, MD 21093
Attn: John N. Aucott, M.D.
Dr. Aucott,
The content of this letter should not be misconstrued as disrespectful.
As someone whose entire family with firsthand experience of the late stage disabling effects of Lyme, it becomes crystal clear when reading your manuscript that we don’t know how to treat Lyme disease. And yet, state medical boards will go after those clinicians who are attempting to help these patients: (Past IDSA president Paul Auwaerter testified against this doctor)
Before the Virginia Board of Medicine
In RE: Leila Haddad Zackrison, M.D.
Order of Summary Suspension
http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/Notices/Medicine/0101045689/0101045689Order09122019.pdf
I stopped reading your publication at page three simply because it’s the same information that we have seen over and over and over and over again for the past four decades.
The suppression of a mountain of evidence identifying persistent infection after extensive antibiotic treatment has misclassified this disease as a low-risk and non-urgent health threat.
The deliberate avoidance of the horribly disabled allows the CDC to ignore public outcry:
From your publication:
“….the CDC does not track disease outcomes or cases of persistent symptoms (34). Estimating the population-level prevalence of persistent symptoms following Lyme disease is challenging due to this lack of standardization or consensus in operationalizing a case definition.”
If we’re not counting the number of lives ruined by the disease we can continue the well-established racketeering scheme indefinitely.
Until those responsible for this health disaster are removed from positions of authority we will have another decade of unimaginable pain and suffering.
We have a public health emergency that requires a response on the level of a Manhattan Project [1] as patient testimony all across America (and the globe) is describing a disease that is destroying lives, ending careers while leaving its victim in financial ruin.
We are dealing with a life-altering/life-threatening infection with faulty/misleading antibody tests, inadequate treatment, no medical training and absolutely no disease control whatsoever; a public health disaster misclassified as a simple nuisance disease.
Lyme disease is a 21st Century incurable plague hidden in plain site as we are dealing with an antibiotic resistant/tolerant superbug and it is time to acknowledge the severity of this crippling disease.
Respectfully Submitted,
Carl Tuttle
Lyme Endemic Hudson, NH
Reference:
1. Lyme Disease: Call for a “Manhattan Project” to Combat the Epidemic
Raphael B. Stricker, Lorraine Johnson
Published: January 02, 2014 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.100379
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1003796
In summary, preliminary studies from the CDC indicate that the Lyme disease epidemic has reached an unprecedented level with at least 300,000 people and as many as one million people, a majority of them women and children, diagnosed with Lyme disease each year in the United States. The staggering magnitude of the epidemic should prompt the CDC to show leadership in developing new guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. A coordinated “Manhattan project” similar to the attack mounted against the HIV/AIDS epidemic is urgently needed to address the serious worldwide threat of Lyme disease.