There has been no response to my May 4th inquiry from Dr. Barbara Alexander, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America so a second request was sent on May 14th which included yet another post-mortem study identifying chronic Lyme disease in a patient with a history of Lyme disease.
Feel free to send your personal note to Dr. Alexander to remind her to answer my three original questions.
alexa011@mc.duke.edu
First letter sent to Dr. Alexander:
PETITION UPDATE MAY 4, 2021
Inquiry to IDSA President Barbara D. Alexander, MD
--------- Original Message ----------
From: CARL TUTTLE runagain@comcast.net
To: "alexa011@mc.duke.edu" alexa011@mc.duke.edu
Cc: "governorsununu@nh.gov" governorsununu@nh.gov
All Members of the NH Lyme Study Commission
Date: 05/14/2021 8:57 AM
Subject: Re: Inquiry to IDSA President Barbara D. Alexander, MD (SECOND REQUEST!)
Second Request
Dr. Alexander,
Please respond to my email below dated May 2nd
While you contemplate a response, you may want to review the recent publication below identifying a chronic Lyme infection in a post-mortem donor from the brain repository of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
It would appear that the Lyme patient must die before obtaining a diagnosis of CHRONIC LYME DISEASE.
Detecting Borrelia Spirochetes: A Case Study With Validation Among Autopsy Specimens
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2021.628045/full
Frontiers in Neurology, 10 May 2021, published a study examining multiple molecular detection techniques to effectively identify Borrelia burgdorferi in the autopsy specimens of a patient with a history of neurocognitive disease. The individual was a post-mortem donor from the brain repository of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
The patient had a history of Lyme disease, including a well-documented erythema migrans rash with severe headache, joint pains, and a fever of 104° that seemed to have been treated successfully with antibiotics. Four years later the individual developed a neurodegenerative disorder resulting in a Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis.
The researchers describe the use of multiple overlapping techniques, such as immunofluorescence assay (IFA), RNA in situ hybridization (RNAscope), and PCR for detection of Borrelia spirochetes in post-mortem tissues.
Continued...
Carl Tuttle
Hudson, NH
Member of Governor Chris Sununu’s Lyme Disease Study Commission
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/statstudcomm/details.aspx?id=1515&rbl=1&txtbillnumber=hb490
Cc: All members of the Lyme Study Commission