Journalism or Sensationalism? Compilation of Responses to Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune’s medical reporter, Trine Tsouderos, in her article Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis, has spurred many, not for producing a well-written, evidence-based, diverse, and thorough work of journalism but for an article that, in my opinion, belongs in some type of newsprint that is based on pure indignity and not integrity. The Tribune decided to write this one-sided story even when they were supplied with evidence refuting many of its so-called key points. I am not the only one that is dumbfounded over this piece of work being classified as journalism. There are several others that pretty much have a similar opinion. You will also see that Lyme Disease is not as easily cured as the IDSA has led many to believe and can cause much more harm than just flu-like symptoms and achy joints.
Pamela Weintraub’s comment states:
“Whenever a diagnosis enters the wild west of contested disease, charlatans may prey on the sick –many of whom do not have the disease at all. But to profile this disordered fringe as representative of those on one side of a medical debate while presenting university scientists as representative of the other is biased reporting. In its failure to research the essence of the debate over Lyme disease symptoms that persist after short-term antibiotic treatment, and especially in its failure to interview scientists from mainstream academia to present an alternate viewpoint, this article represents a low in science reporting. This agenda-driven piece rides roughshod over complexities and nuances –and the core ethics of journalism– by implying it has relied on predators for information because legitimate scientists with alternate viewpoints do not exist. I assure you they do, and would have to be quoted to make this a real work of journalism instead of a sensationalistic hatchet job. “ Pamela Weintraub is the Features Editor, Discover Magazine, Author, Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic (Winner of the American Medical Writers Association Book Award, 2009).
Connie Strasheim comments: “I am the author of two books on Lyme, including “Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: Thirteen Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies.”I have fully recovered from Lyme infections, after having suffered from disabling symptoms for over eight years. My recovery required several years of antibiotics and herbs, and while the unreliable ELISA and Western Blot tests didn’t diagnose the multiple infections in my body, PCR-antigen tests did.Antigen tests detect the actual presence of the infectious proteins in the blood, when antibody tests fail to do so. Just because routine tests don’t detect this disease doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and that it can’t be detected by more refined tests and a clinical diagnosis. It is real and it is an epidemic. My case is not unique. I have spoken to hundreds of people with Lyme and the doctors who treat them, and patients improve by leaps and bounds when given the proper treatment and diagnosis, which, by the way, isn’t two weeks of antibiotics. I have never seen such an unprofessional, biased presentation of medical science. For every study that refutes the existence of chronic Lyme, I can think of ten others that prove its existence. For every bizarre story that implicates a doctor or patient, I can think of a hundred more that prove the ILADS doctors and patients right.”
She continues, “As a medical researcher and the best-selling author of two books on Lyme, including “Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment” I have never seen such a biased presentation of science. For every study that refutes the existence of chronic Lyme, I can think of ten others that prove its existence. For every random story that implicates a doctor or patient, I can think of a hundred more that prove the ILADS doctors and patients right. To elaborate on my post below, the flaws in this article include the fact that: 1) dozens of studies proving the existence of chronic Lyme and its successful treatment with long term antibiotics were ignored; 2) the limitations of current routine tests and better methods of diagnosis were ignored, 3) random misrepresented stories of doctors and patients were mentioned, instead of presenting the thousands of stories which are based on truth 4) the article was based largely on exaggerated storytelling instead of medical truth. There were so many wrongs in this article that I can’t help but wonder whether a strong political agenda influenced its writing. If you want the truth about the fastest-growing infectious disease in the USA read the Senior Editor of Discover magazine, P. Weintraub’s book, “Cure Unknown”, or watch the award-winning documentary, “Under Our Skin.” Or research the disease for years, as I have, not days.”
LYMEPOLICYWONK: Chicago Tribune article. Is it journalism? Call it what you will—
If you are a journalist, is it sufficient to talk with a number of people and then disregard half of what you hear? How about if you only disregard all of the science supporting one side of a scientific debate? If you replace the opposing side’s science with ad hominem attacks? Are journalists supposed to “choose sides” in a debate? Read more.
ILADS releases statement in response to the Chicago Tribune article on Lyme disease
“The evidence continues to mount that Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD) exists and must be addressed by the medical community if solutions are to be found. Four National Institutes of Health (NIH) trials validated the existence and severity of CLD. Despite the evidence, there are physicians who continue to deny the existence and severity of CLD, which can hinder efforts to find a solution. Recognizing CLD could facilitate efforts to avoid diagnostic delays of two years and durations of illness of 4.7 to 9 years described in the NIH trials. Read more.
L.E.A.P. Arizona: Response to December 2010 Chicago Tribune Article
Dear Mr. Kern:
I am a chronic Lyme disease patient and advocate who has struggled with Borrelia burgdorferi infection for twelve years, since 1998. The bacteria ravaged my body for six years before I was finally diagnosed and began antibiotic treatment at the end of 2004. At one point I could barely walk and could not effectively communicate due to encephalopathy, neurological and musculoskeletal involvement. I became disabled from the disease and lost my job and my home.
To this day, it has been a devastating journey, and this debilitating chronic infection caused by the bite of a tick in Arizona has profoundly altered my life. I could not find one doctor on my insurance plan who would provide treatment. Therefore, my insurance denied coverage, and my family had to pay for it. We were never able to afford the intravenous antibiotics that were recommended by my Lyme-treating physicians. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease – Lymenaide
Ashley van Tol: “I was recently quoted in an article from the Chicago Tribune entitled, Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis. The following is my response: …
Would 10-28 days of oral antibiotics have gotten me to where I am now after nearly two solid years of treatment? No. There is no way that the IDSA treatment protocol for Lyme disease would have made me healthy. How do I know? I know because the actually Lyme part of my illness was never my biggest problem. Without having addressed my entire illness, I would not be on the doorstep to health like I am today. How could I be?
The IDSA guidelines state-
When Lyme disease is diagnosed and treated quickly, 95 percent of people are cured within a few weeks of treatment.
About the other five percent they say this-
The number of people who continue to have problems is very small. Most likely, their symptoms are related to one of the following:
• They never had Lyme disease at all and received the wrong treatment for their illness
• They had Lyme disease and another infection simultaneously and were only treated for Lyme disease
• They contracted a new illness unrelated to Lyme disease but with similar symptoms
• They have again been bitten by the tick that causes Lyme disease
Exactly! The reality is Lyme disease is not just borrelia burgdorferi.” Read more.
My Lyme Disease Is Not The IDSA Lyme Disease – Molly
I am writing this in response to an article from the Chicago Tribune titled “Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis”. You may have read it, if not you can find it here.
After reading this article I was speechless. I wasn’t fuming, or shaking in anger. I wasn’t outraged. I was sad. Sad, because the disease that I suffer from is being called “dubious”; because I saw the errors, the biased misrepresentation of people that I respect. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease – sixgoofykids
Recently the Chicago Tribune published a disappointing article titled “Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis.” From the beginning of the article you can tell that the writer is biased. It is not a balanced piece of investigative reporting at all. Not only that, many facts are entirely wrong, or irrelevant. Read more.
My Mom’s Lyme disease was not IDSA Lyme Disease – sixgoofykids’ daughter
This post is in response to an article posted by the Chicago Tribune. I am the daughter of a Chronic Lyme victim. This is what I have to say. Yesterday morning the Chicago Tribune printed an article titled, “Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis.” …That is what I hear when I read the Infectious Disease Society of America’s (IDSA) Lyme treatment guidelines. If the patient just keeps getting worse, then why assume that they are misdiagnosed? Why not face the fact that 10 to 28 days of antibiotics isn’t enough?… Maybe the reason patients are still sick after a month of antibiotics isn’t because they are misdiagnosed. Maybe it’s because, first, a month of treatment isn’t enough. And second, Lyme disease now comes in a package deal. Patients aren’t misdiagnosed with Lyme, they are just missing the diagnoses of co-infections that came with their Lyme. Read more.
My Lyme Disease Is Not The IDSA Lyme Disease – Eric Rutulante
In the 1800’s, a Hungarian physician by the name of Ignaz Phillip Semmelweiss, who was later described as the “savior of mothers”, realized that many women were dying due to infection after childbirth. 5 women in 1,000 died in deliveries at home or by midwives, while those delivered by doctors in the best maternity hospitals had a death rate 10 to 20 times higher. By 1847 he had discovered that the incidence of infection was drastically reduced by the simple use of hand disinfection in obstetrics. Many of these doctors were performing autopsies on women who had died, and then going to deliver children without washing their hands, thus spreading the infection. (1) Read more.
My Lyme Disease is Not The IDSA Lyme Disease- Infectiously Optimistic
du·bi·ousadj\ˈdü-bē-əs\: Questionable or suspect as to true nature or quality.
My diagnosis of Late Stage Lyme Disease is a lot of things, but I’ve never considered “dubious” to be one of them. When I first came across Patricia Callahan’s article about Lyme Disease in The Chicago Tribune, I got hung up by the provoking title and bold subheading. In fact, the title was so provoking that it brought me back to a time when I did receive a slew of dubious diagnoses, ones that had “little good evidence of existing”, before I was properly diagnosed with the late stage of an infectious disease. It was the summer of 2007. I was 17 years old, and I was laying in a hospital bed. Read more.
My Lyme Disease Is Not The IDSA Lyme Disease- Kenneth Mercure
Recently an article was written about Chronic Lyme Disease by two reporters at the Chicago Tribune newspaper. After reading it I left disgusted and angry. Titled, “Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis”, it is essentially a smear campaign, that paints a portrait of Lyme patients and our doctors as criminals and lunatics. The entire piece relies on the “expert” opinion of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, playing them off as saints of honesty, who are merely trying to protect the public from the “misinformed” Lyme junkie fringe. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease – Kim
I am writing this post in response to an article the Chicago Tribune posted yesterday entitled “Lyme Disease: A Dubious Diagnosis”, by Patricia Callahan and Trine Tsouderos. I recommend you read the article first, to understand the perspective from which I write this post…Our medical system needs to put more credence in our personal experiences. No one is as capable of telling me how I feel better than me. Only I can tell my doctor the symptoms that Lyme has caused, and the ways I’m feeling better since starting treatment. Sharing these personal experiences are vital for anyone dealing with Lyme, because testing is simply too unreliable. Unfortunately, most doctors do not know how to properly assess Lyme symptoms, and do not catch it, leaving people to suffer for years with no diagnosis or incorrect diagnoses. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease – Brooke
My Lyme disease is not the IDSA Lyme disease. But it could have been. On November 6, 2008, I woke up in a foreign place, not knowing that the landscape of my life was about to dramatically change (again). My house had already burned down while I was eight months pregnant, and my son was six weeks old. I had just returned to work as a special ed teacher. I loved my work, and I loved understanding the research behind my teaching. I was smart, engaged, resilient. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is Not the IDSA Lyme Disease: Alix
Dear Patricia Callahan and Trine Tsouderos, You quoted one our authors, Ashley Van Tol, in your article disparaging Lyme Disease patients and their treatments. I want to let you know that my Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease. This is my story. Eighteen years ago, I found a raised pink rash on my ankle under my hiking sock. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is Not The IDSA Lyme Disease – Andrew Peterson
According to the Infectious Diseases Society of America, I can’t possibly have Lyme disease. That doesn’t change the fact that in the Fall of 2008 my health went to hell. It started with weakness. I was a marathon runner, but suddenly it became difficult to bike up the small hill where I picked up my sons from school. Then I started having muscle twitches and spasms, all over my body, all of the time. Parts of my body started going numb. Other parts were intermittently tingly, or would have sudden shooting pains, like electric shocks running through my muscles. I became heavily fatigued so that most afternoons I needed to spend several hours napping. It became harder to think clearly. I lost thirty pounds in a couple of months, for no clear reason. One winter morning I spent a half hour shoveling snow – something I ordinarily enjoy – when I suddenly went dramatically weak, pale, shaky. It took me several hours to recover. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease ~ Dawn
This week, an article was written in the Chicago Tribune about Lyme Disease. Below is my response…
I am writing today as a response to the article that was printed Monday in the Chicago Tribune titled “Chronic Lyme Disease: A Dubious Diagnosis”. You can access the article via this link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-chronic-lyme-disease-20101207,0,5671843.story. This article is completely bias skewing scientific research, slandering Lyme Disease physicians who put their lives at risk to help very ill patients, and even personally attacking patients who are currently suffering from the disease. I am appalled that a news reporter would go at such great lengths to destroy the Lyme Disease community. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is Not the IDSA’s Lyme Disease – Kim T
Last week The Chicago Tribune published a piece entitled “Chronic Lyme Disease: Dubious Diagnosis.” I interrupt today’s regularly scheduled programming (and it was a good one – a story about my new love affair with curry!) to take a quick moment to respond. You guys have read my reasons for writing this blog. I didn’t need to get into the nitty gritty for you to know it’s true. But there are a lot of things that I left unsaid for the sake of time, for the sake of my own pride (seriously… do you really want to know what life with chronic illness was like?), and for the sake of simplicity. This blog is about feeling better, not about how I fell apart. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease: Alyson
What do you do with your own personal story about your battle with chronic Lyme Disease after reading the article recently published by the Chicago Tribune, flatly denying the very existence of your illness? After all, the truth is right there in the article for all to see: chronic Lyme Disease doesn’t exist.
Yet for some reason, more and more people just like me are falling ill from a complex form of Lyme Disease, complicated by multiple co-infections (also transmitted by tick bites), which not only cause their own set of symptoms, Read more.
My Lyme Disease is Not the IDSA Lyme Disease: A Sinking Titanic – Brandi
My lyme disease is not the IDSA lyme disease. Well, thank GOD. Cause you know what, I would either be severely disabled or dead if I had Lyme Disease according to the IDSA. They believe that 2 to 4 weeks of antibiotics cures you, even for someone like me, who got bit 10 years ago and only started correct treatment last year with a proper diagnosis. That means, according to the IDSA, that a disease I’ve had in my body for TEN years is going to be easily cured with 2 weeks of drugs. Whew, what a relief. That means…that all those random antibiotics I took for sinus infections over the years…should have cleared up the lyme. Read more.
my lyme disease is not the IDSA lyme disease – fivelymiesandababy
My lyme isn’t IDSA’s lyme disease……..or is it? … I have… “lyme disease”… what ever DOES that mean anyways.. To the average person, unaware about ”lyme disease”, it is simply Bb. If they even know that much… and honestly, that was me a year ago… what did I KNOW about it all? nada… zip… zero. Last year, in early Autumn my mother phoned me excited to share that she had been listening to a radio talk show program on the topic of “lyme disease”. After listening to the program, she HAD to share what she thought about it. My mother was like that, she told you like she saw it. She felt very strongly, after learning the details about Lyme Disease, that I had it.. I frankly thought she was nuts! NOT me.. I have oooodles of health issues.. Read more.
My Lyme Disease Is Not the IDSA Lyme Disease – Jenna
When I first read the article that’s caused so much outrage, I wasn’t at all surprised. Anger and sadness flooded my mind but I have been dealing with this kind of misinformation for the duration of my illness. This is just another feeble attempt to discredit, deflect, and disarm those of us who are fighting back against the politics that try to render our attempts to spread the truth about Lyme Disease impotent. As if one extremely biased, unprofessional article could accomplish that, against people who are fighting for their very existence and as a community for each other. Of course damage has been done. The article has spread more misinformation across the web like a plague…Read more.
My Lyme disease is not the IDSA Lyme disease – Joanne
I started suffering with arthritis in mainly my large joints especially my knees 6 years ago. The symptoms varied and I remember saying that every joint was affected except my elbows to one doctor. I was told it would be hormonal and to take the usual supplements cod liver oil or glucosamine ( I would certainly recommend buying shares in the companies producing these supplements) They had no noticeable affect. All my symptoms deteriorated significantly over a few weeks. Read more.
My Lyme Disease Is Not the IDSA Lyme Disease – Sharon
The article’s central claim supports the stance of the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) that chronic Lyme doesn’t exist. [The IDSA concluded that there is] “no convincing biologic evidence” for a Lyme infection that persists and continues to sicken despite the recommended treatment, usually a few weeks of antibiotics. My experience, and the medical evidence that is part of my experience, contradict this dangerous and preposterous notion. Read more.
My Lyme Disease is not the IDSA Lyme Disease – Marla
I have had Lyme disease for thirty years… at age 23 I suddenly developed severe upper back pain that could not be diagnosed. I do not remember a rash or tick bite…searched for answers and for relief from my pain, even undergoing two unnecessary surgeries. During this time I have been in constant pain, unable to work more than a couple of hours a day at a home-based business. The most common diagnosis I received during these years was Fibromyalgia, but I never responded to any possible treatments. I have been on medications for years to help me manage the…I was tested for Lyme disease in 1990 with an ELISA test, which was negative, and a Western Blot from Quest Labs in 2005, which was also negative. Most likely, I never would have realized that Lyme disease was responsible for my health problems if my daughter had not gotten very suddenly and extremely ill three years ago at the age of thirteen. Read more.
My Lyme disease is not the IDSA Lyme disease – Heather
My doctors and I believe I’ve been infected since I was very young, six or seven years old. I exhibited daily symptoms but learned to live with them, thought them normal; in my child’s mind I concluded that constant nausea, depression, anxiety, and visual disturbances were a ubiquitous experience, part and parcel of being alive, and since no one else was complaining about them I must, indeed, be weak, hypochondriacal, as the doctors to whom my mother brought me insisted. Read more.
My Lyme Disease Is Not The IDSA Lyme Disease – Lydia
6Within the six weeks of the initial treatment of 10 days, I was completely disabled and bedridden. There was no mistaking when my symptoms all began because I had the tick attached to me. My doctors used the standard “rubber stamp” “one size fits all” treatment, as outlined by the CDC guidelines, which the IDSA says is sufficient. It took me two years to recover not 10 or 28 days, I lost my job…had to be bathed and clothed by someone…all you can do is slur or stutter? (President George W. Bush is a good example of this…Read more.
Just Don’t Eat The Plums On Plum Island ~ Lies More Lies & More Denial From the Chicago Tribune
Recently there was a disturbing article written in the Chicago Tribune negating persistent Lyme disease. If you have nothing else to read while in the loo or are clean out of TP you might want to print out a copy of the article. Read more.
Trine Tsouderos: A case of modern dubious reporting
Today this article, by Trine Tsouderos was published in the Chicago Tribune, and claimed the existence of Lyme disease is dubious. In this post I will refute that claim with facts…Now, click here to see a compilation of peer-reviewed reports on the symptoms and characteristics of Lyme disease. ‘Peer review’ is a generic term for a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field in order to maintain standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. This document contains a slew of information from scientific, peer-reviewed studies and articles every one of which is evidence that Lyme disease exists. It even includes information on chronic Lyme borreliosis and it’s persistence after IDSA recommended treatment. Read more.
Facebook – Responses to Chronic Lyme: Dubious Diagnosis
Abbie’s letter- http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fhel2t9&h=dc5a3
Lyme South Africa’s letter- http://on.fb.me/i8d5Ap
Disgusted – I have had Lyme disease for 25 years, diagnosed as ankylosing spondelitis, arthritis, polymyalgia (whatever that is), migraines, TMJ, hypothyroidism, hyperparathyroidism, hyperaldosteronism, crazy and so on. Never could they explain how being crazy destroyed my knee cartilage and the nerves on the outside of my feet. The first doctor I saw in June of 1985 said “Lyme” but never gave it a second thought. He preferred the ankylosing spondelitis diagnosis even though I did not have the genetic marker. Read more.
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More on this article.
Letter to Editor Chicago Tribune–Chronic Lyme Dubious Diagnosis http://bit.ly/hCM5lA
Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-chronic-lyme-disease-20101207,0,5671843.story?page=4
Response to Chicago Tribune’s Misinformation Attempts, “fails to educate herself in the actual science or history of what she writes about” http://bit.ly/egAQdq
Honoring Those Great Doctors – LLMD’s http://bit.ly/e76AuO
Chronic Lyme Disease Is A Pseudo-Disease http://bit.ly/ey7Fsv
Chronic Lyme Disease Endures Propelled By Pseudo-Scientific Conspiracy Theory Claims http://bit.ly/e3Ivow
Chronic Lyme Disease Exemplifies What’s Wrong With Playing Doctor On The Web http://bit.ly/fxEkmi
Behind the curtain on our investigation into dubious medicine http://bit.ly/hVicM6
When faith and trust erode http://bit.ly/iiA58l
Rebuttals: