Lyme Aware

20 Reasons Why Lyme Disease Is Underdiagnosed

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(Excerpts of the full article.)

moneytree“In 1993, Allen Steere MD, a rheumatologist, wrote a paper titled “The Overdiagnosis of Lyme Disease.” His conclusions were based on a sampling of the serum of patients run through his laboratory. Most of these patients’ serum samples were negative in his laboratory while positive in other laboratories….

Below are some of the reasons Lyme disease is, in reality, vastly underdiagnosed.

  • Extremely poor “screening” test
  • Doctors who are not knowledgeable about Lyme disease follow the Lyme disease guidelines issued by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).
  • No standard presentation of Lyme disease
  • Lyme disease can have a variety of presentations that can confuse doctors. The result is that Lyme disease is commonly misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia, MS, Parkinson’s, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig’s, arthritis, cardiac problems, Alzheimer’s, ADD, and other conditions. When doctors are baffled, they may diagnose Lyme disease complaints as a psychiatric disorder and place the blame for their incompetence on the patient.
  • Highly restrictive CDC surveillance criteria
  • Since Lyme disease can have multiple presentations, the CDC designed the two-tier serologic testing procedure described above. The purpose was to make the criteria so stringent that only those with “certain” Lyme disease would be counted. Very few with proven Lyme disease, perhaps in the order of 10%, can meet these criteria.
  • Misleading implications of low “reported” cases
  • The very low number of reported cases in most regions misleads doctors into believing that Lyme disease is rare or nonexistent in their area.
  • Lack of reliable tick and tick borne disease studies
  • The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)
  • “The authors were found to have gross conflicts of interest which were not disclosed. These included financial interests in test kits and vaccines, ownership interests in private companies that are present or future beneficiaries of Lyme disease products and services, income from HMO’s and insurers, ties to companies that benefit from the guidelines, including pharmaceutical companies and laboratories, and patent interests in the Lyme organisms themselves. Their unfounded and unscientific claim that chronic Lyme disease does not exist is a windfall for HMO’s and insurers to justify refusal to pay for appropriate, and possibly expensive, long-term treatment. Symptomatic treatment of Lyme disease is a gold mine for pharmaceutical companies who create and sell drugs to mask and alleviate the symptoms.”
  • The Centers for Disease Control
  • The conflicts of interest made possible by the Bayh-Dole Act, enabling patent interests by government employees, and the revolving door between the CDC and pharmaceutical companies has compromised the CDC’s previously deserved fine reputation. The latest example…
  • The virtual control of the press and the dissemination of CDC information by mass media is the main reason why the CDC/IDSA misinformation on Lyme disease is so widely accepted and believed.
  • Potential expense to HMO’s and insurers
  • Medical conformance enforcement and licensure threats
  • The media’s role in promoting public and medical ignorance
  • The mainstream media have been instrumental in promoting the IDSA Lyme disease guidelines. Reporters associated with large media sites parrot the IDSA guidelines and do no research. Part of this is due to the influence and now undeserved credibility of the CDC and their support of the IDSA Lyme disease guidelines.
  • Pharmaceutical windfalls
  • The research racket
  • Allocations of Lyme disease research grants by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) appear to be clearly biased. Many of these were awarded by the former Lyme disease program manager, Phillip Baker, who is now heading the American Lyme Disease Foundation (ALDF), an IDSA ally.
  • Test and vaccine patents
  • Medical testing laboratories
  • Potential impact on disease charities
  • Potential impact on specialty diseases doctors
  • Potential impact on disability payments
  • Potential impact on tourism and real estate prices
  • Potential employer liabilities
  • Biowarfare aspects
  • At least two Lyme experts, Alan Barbour and Mark Klempner (an IDSA Lyme guideline author) have been placed in charged of BSL-4 laboratories, the highest level of bioterror laboratory security. This also supports the suspicion of Lyme disease as a bioweapon. “

Read the entire article.

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