Testimony from the Aug 23rd meeting of the New Hampshire Lyme Disease Study Commission...

--------- Original Message ----------
From: CARL TUTTLE <runagain@comcast.net>
To: Leah Cushman <Leah.Cushman@leg.state.nh.us>, Jerry Knirk <Jerry.Knirk@leg.state.nh.us>
Cc: All members of the Lyme Disease Study Commission
Date: 08/25/2021 9:58 AM
Subject: Aug 23rd Testimony from Carl Tuttle

To members of the Lyme Disease Study Commission,

Please see my testimony below for those who were not present in Monday's meeting. As I mentioned on Monday I had not seen any of the other testimonies prior to the meeting.

I am going to insist that I have a response to the highlighted questions at the end of my testimony which actually refer to the evidence Laura Hovind presented.

It should be noted that the FDA has fast tracked Valneva's Lyme 
disease vaccine in July of 2017.

Valneva Receives FDA Fast Track Designation for its Lyme Disease Vaccine Candidate VLA15
https://valneva.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017_07_24_VLA_Lyme_FDA_Fast_track_PR_EN.pdf

These vaccine trials will be validated using current serology designed to detect only the rare arthritis cases while excluding the majority whose illness is driven by immunosuppression. Serology was deliberately manipulated to facilitate vaccine development while the sickest of the patient population does not test positive.

____________________________________

Carl Tuttle  Hudson, NH

Thank you for the opportunity to share my family’s experience with late-stage Lyme disease.

In 2009 the Tuttle family was featured on New Hampshire Chronicle’s “Living with Lyme” along with two other families. (One hour special)

All Tuttle family members advanced to late-stage Lyme before obtaining a diagnosis after years of deteriorating health. If we hadn’t met Dr. Sam Donta who spent a career studying Lyme disease at BU School of Medicine, none of us would have been treated. None of us tested positive for Lyme disease under the current FDA approved two-tier testing algorithm as we did not meet the strict CDC Western blot criteria for positive results. (2 out of 3 IgM bands and 5 out of 10 IgG bands)

Our daughter developed an attention deficit disorder so severe that she could no longer read a chapter and retain what was read. A stroke-like episode landed her in the hospital and an MRI revealed white matter lesions but an astute neurologist recognized that these lesions did not resemble the lesions found in MS patients.

My wife could barely walk up a flight of stairs without excruciating knee pain and we thought for certain that she would require knee replacement surgery.

In the fall of 2008 I was bedridden, on oxygen and near death after chasing an unresolved fatigue for twelve years. I was ping-ponged through the medical community with deteriorating health and told that I had chronic fatigue syndrome, mitochondrial disease etc. never screened for Lyme disease. I was forgetting the names of my coworkers of twenty-five years and often did not recognize where I was on my commute home. I was being tested for early Alzheimer's disease. Similar to Kris Kristofferson:

“A Slow Slipping Away”— Kris Kristofferson’s Long-Undiagnosed Battle with Lyme Disease
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-slow-slipping-away-kris-kristoffersons-long_b_577c047be4b00a3ae4ce6609

My suppressed immune system allowed a reactivation of Epstein Barr virus (chronic Epstein Barr) progressing to lymphoma. I have been treated for cancer four times now, had my right kidney removed and my medical claims in 2018 exceeded $600,000 and I have prostate cancer.

Lyme disease ended my 25yr career in High Tech with six figure income and private pilot’s license.

I would like to call attention to Dr. Kenneth Liegner’s book “In the Crucible of Chronic Lyme Disease” The patient on the front cover is Vicki Logan
https://www.amazon.com/Crucible-Chronic-Lyme-Disease-Associated/dp/1503587371

The following is a quote from Dr. Kenneth Liegner:

“In 1991 the Lyme disease organism, Borrelia burgdorferi, was grown from the cerebrospinal fluid of my patient Vicki Logan at the Centers for Disease Control in Fort Collins, Colorado despite prior treatment with intravenous antibiotics.  Her case made the front page of the New York Times Science Times in August of 1993.” -Kenneth Liegner, MD

Here is a copy of Vicki Logan’s positive culture test:

Logan CDC Fort Collins Positive CSF Culture Report
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vthfdpn7gv8bne2/Logan%20CDC%20Fort%20Collins%20Positive%20CSF%20%20Culture%20Report.JPG?dl=0

Lyme patient Vicki Logan’s 1991 positive culture test performed by the Centers for Disease Control should have set off a red flag but was ignored while the focus remained on discrediting the sick and disabled Lyme patient population.

I have the seven-page autopsy results of patient Vicky Logan showing histopathologic findings consistent with neurologic manifestations of chronic Lyme disease.

(Vicky Logan’s Autopsy results Page #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
 
The destructive nature of Borrelia is evident in Vicky Logan’s liver (nutmeg liver), kidneys, heart, lungs and brain. The patient died after the insurer refused additional IV antibiotic therapy.

The 2020 IDSA Lyme treatment guidelines strongly recommend against “routine” testing for disease in patients with:

-Typical amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),
-Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS),
-Parkinson’s disease,
-Dementia, or cognitive decline,
-New-onset seizures,
-Psychiatric illness, and
-Children with developmental disorders.

Clinical Practice Guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America
https://www.idsociety.org/practice-guideline/lyme-disease/

Under Recommendations (Abridged) Line items X, XI, XII

Who in their right mind would not want to make sure that these patients are not suffering from an untreated Lyme infection; especially in a state with one of the highest rates of Lyme in the country?

Last month my next-door neighbor told me that his lifelong friend was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). When I told him to watch the 5min extended trailer to “Under our Skin” he saw patients were misdiagnosed with MS, Parkinson’s disease, lupus, ALS, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia etc. I referred him (ALS patient) to a front-line treating clinician here in New Hampshire and he has tested positive for Lyme disease and co-infections.

Under Our Skin - Extended Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxWgS0XLVqw

A recent study detected tick borne illness in in 9 out of 10 randomly selected teens hospitalized for depression.

Study detects tick-borne illness in teens hospitalized for depression
https://www.lymedisease.org/hospitalized-teens-lyme-depression/

For three decades now the disabling stage of Lyme disease has gone largely unrecognized. Stage three or “late stage” is a swollen joint and arthritis as dictated by the IDSA and reiterated by Dr. Ben Chan in a review of the guidelines in one of our previous Zoom sessions. What are the long- term consequences of untreated Lyme and why don't we know how Lyme disables its victim after 30yrs? The late stage disabled Lyme patient population has been avoided at all costs because finding these answers would derail/expose the false narrative.

If during the course of a state ordered study commission evidence surfaces indicating a crime, do we turn a blind eye to that evidence? Do we separate the documents/evidence in an area of the committee’s website and call it “Documents ~ Not Discussed in Commission” so it’s conveniently swept under the rug?

What has been deceitfully established on a federal level decades ago, (well before Dr. Chan’s time as State Epidemiologist) is now propagated by those who are not front-line treating physicians; those who are actually witnessing the devastation of Lyme disease first hand.

We have a public health crisis with faulty/misleading antibody tests as the root cause of unimaginable pain and suffering.

Carl Tuttle
Hudson, NH