Is Lyme Disease taken seriously in the UK?
Some doctors argue that there is really no scientific evidence, particularly about the long-term treatment of Lyme Disease. One of the reasons for that; It’s very difficult to arrange the sort of evidence that they would like, which is the randomised double- blind controlled trial which would take very many years. Also there is a problem of patient selection because of the problems of diagnosis. There are financial pressures too.
Why aren’t there more publications in the journals? I’m suggesting that there is a bit of a vicious circle here, because Lyme Disease is controversial little is published.
Lack of interest.
Failure to keep up with the most difficult information on the condition
He may not have had paternalistic attitudes throughout his career and really can’t conceive of such huge changes in concepts that are needed for Lyme Disease.
Some think that you may have Lyme Disease but it’s not harmful anyway; we know that’s completely wrong as it can be highly incapacitating.
There may be a general atmosphere of mistrust in a litigious society.
Some of those are similar to those with doctors.
They may be afraid of the floodgate effect when suddenly everyone seems to have Lyme Disease. They can’t cope as it is let alone with some new disease which everyone seems to have. They may be afraid of the mass hysteria that that may cause.
Also they may be afraid of antibiotic resistance. The economic impact on trade and tourism is something else they may fear and may be that’s the reason for the state of denial in Australia.
Education problems are undoubtedly are a major cause for concern with Lyme Disease. I think the under-graduates are not getting their exposure, that’s certainly my experience. There are many reasons for that, particularly pressures on the curriculum and lack of suitable teachers.
At the post-graduate stage there are a couple of other reasons and one is that pharmaceutical companies may be setting the agenda more than we realise and I know there are some big court cases going on in Europe at the moment. I’m sure we are going to hear a lot about the things some of these companies have been up to.
Again, lack of suitable teachers and also we have already mentioned the problems about getting papers published.
Information problems: this is the age of information and there is so much around that perhaps we have drowned and we can’t see what’s relevant. Also there is probably a general atmosphere of mistrust of information because of disinformation and spin.
There is also wrong information in textbooks because most of them are advocating that six weeks (for antibiotics) is sufficient. Also there is misinformation in journals. The difference being that the latter is really in bad faith, and perhaps politically driven, whereas misinformation in textbooks is given in good faith.
Article by Stanek et al published in The Lancet in 2003:
I actually wrote a response to this article which wasn’t published and was responded to many weeks later, supposedly by the author. In fact the response I got was from a different author about a different paper.
The article argues against itself, it’s very easy to criticise:
“Other features of diagnostic value earlobe lymphocytoma, meningoradiculoneuritis
(Garin-Bujadoux-Bannwarth syndrome), and acrodematitis chronica atrophicans (ACA) The many other symptoms or signs have little or no diagnostic value.”
It reminds me of the days, perhaps, when doctors wrote in Latin and were surrounded in mystery, the bad old days, I think. It says that, “ many other symptoms or signs have little diagnostic value”. A little later on they say, “Lyme Borreliosis presents diverse clinical signs and symptoms and with several variations in course of the disease”.
This seems to contradict what they said previously.
They have another contradiction; “Microbal or serological confirmation of Borrelia infection is needed for all manifestations of the disease except for typical early skin lesions.” But then they say; “Serological tests cannot prove Lyme Borreliosis.”
They obviously don’t want you to have this sort of information!
Another little quotation: “It is tempting to assess and interpret European Lyme Borreliosis with ‘American eyes’.” Perhaps the Americans here today can tell us what these eyes are, because I would be interested to know.
Lyme Disease Action, Registered Charity Number 1100448, Registered Company Number 4839410
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