Response to Columnist Katy Burns of the Concord Monitor

CDC MEDICAL PROPAGANDA + INFECTIOUS DISEASE GUIDELINES = LYME CRYMES
Tina J. Garcia

Background Article:
Concord Monitor – At the Dangerous Intersection of Politics, Medicine
Legislators Setting Standards of Care (03-07-2010) by Katy Burns, Monitor Columnist
http://concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100307/OPINION/3070330

Ms. Burns, although you presented your assertions about Lyme disease as factual, your article contains little truth about this infectious disease and fails to address the real underlying issues that have led to the pending New Hampshire legislation.  The content of your article appears to me as possibly having been scripted by those who are determined to deny treatment to patients suffering from chronic Lyme disease infection, such as, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), its minion organization, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and/or through insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists. 

Ms. Burns, you failed to include pertinent information and published harsh criticism of Lyme disease patients, who are suffering and dying at this very moment due to willful medical neglect.  Although not exhaustive, the Lyme Memorial site has a long list of those who have lost their lives to this disease.

I have concluded that you are either misinformed and allowing yourself to be manipulated by a deceitfully-clever group of medical con artists or you are willfully participating in the same medical neglect by deliberately disseminating incorrect medical and scientific information to the public.

You have inaccurately portrayed the content and purpose of New Hampshire House Bill 1326 by making the statement that the Bill will “set medical standards for the diagnosis and treatment of what some call chronic Lyme disease.”  HB 1326 does not set any standard of care.  What the Bill does is ensure that physicians can practice medicine in the best interests of their Lyme disease patients and not be subjected to prosecution by the New Hampshire Medical Society for treating Lyme patients with long term antibiotics.  The Bill does not instruct physicians to use long term antibiotic therapy; it allows those physicians who choose to utilize that therapy for their Lyme patients to do so without fear of reprisal, including steep fines and loss of their licenses.

I respect your right to object to HB 1326; however, a more responsible objection would be based upon fact.  After all, I’m sure the residents of New Hampshire value honesty and transparency and would agree that is the best policy.

For any Granite Staters, including legislators, of course, who may read my comments, please remember -- if you have not yet been affected by this dreadful infectious disease, you or a family member may some day face the same inhumane opposition to diagnosis and treatment that is at the root of this pending legislation.  Would you not want to avail yourselves of all available treatment options to improve your quality of life or that of your loved ones?  What is at stake here is FREEDOM of CHOICE, and in the “Live Free or Die” state, residents must surely hold reverence for FREEDOM of CHOICE in healthcare treatment options.

When a cancer patient faces treatment choices, they do not have any guarantee of cure.  However, deadly radiation and chemotherapy are still provided as prolonged treatment for cancer.  Such prolonged treatment “may itself cause serious health issues, even death.”  Yet, cancer patients and their physicians are allowed to make those choices themselves.  Not so for Lyme patients.  The CDC, IDSA and Katy Burns have publicly expressed that they do not think Lyme patients should be able to choose prolonged antibiotic therapy as part of their FREEDOM of CHOICE when it comes to their own healthcare.

Quite significantly, medical research has shown that Lyme disease can cause certain types of cancer.

Ms. Burns, you wrote, “People who believe they suffer from chronic Lyme want to defy the medical establishment and to protect the doctors who treat them from being disciplined for providing treatment that falls outside of normal medical guidelines.” (emphasis added)

What a ludicrous inference on your part to state that “people believe they suffer from chronic Lyme”, as though an infectious disease is a religion.  (emphasis added)

As for defying the medical establishment, I say that the medical propaganda about Lyme disease that is disseminated by the CDC and IDSA constitutes HEALTHCARE WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.  It is past the time for the CDC and IDSA to listen to the patients whose health and lives they hold in their dictatorial hands.

You also wrote, “The Lyme sufferers have begun campaigns in various states to legislate legal protection for the doctors they believe help them.” (emphasis added)

Ms. Burns, would you dare to publicly question the diagnoses of patients suffering with cancer, AIDS, syphilis, hepatitis, leprosy or tuberculosis?  These are all diseases that require prolonged and difficult-to-withstand treatment protocols.  In particular, syphilis, hepatitis, leprosy, tuberculosis, and even acne, are infections that are acceptably treated with long-term antibiotic therapy.  Such long term antibiotic therapy is not denied to those patients based upon fear mongering that "prolonged treatment with strong antibiotics is not appropriate, may well stand in the way of correct diagnosis and may itself cause serious illness, even death."  Yes, such treatment carries some risk, but let me make it perfectly clear -- Lyme disease patients CHOOSE to accept that risk in lieu of the risk of losing their lives to a virulent pathogen that infects the brain and every other tissue of the body, morphs into various forms through antigenic variation, encases itself in a biofilm and evades detection by the immune system!

Lyme disease patients and their treating physicians are not a cult of believers – we are well-educated about the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, a pathogen that is persistent and does evade detection by the immune system.  Ms. Burns, I highly suggest you do some journalistic research and read the 2006 published scientific research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This CDC research states the following:

“Furthermore, B. burgdorferi may cross the blood–brain barrier and enter the CNS as a means to circumvent the adaptive immune response of the host….

The lack of cytopathic effects suggests that these cells could serve as a site for B. burgdorferi to be sequestered from the host's immune defenses, and/or act as a locale for prolonged infection…”
 

It’s more than a shame – it’s a Lyme Cryme – that the CDC and the IDSA have deliberately ignored this research performed by CDC scientists, along with similar scientific articles and studies of Lyme disease treatment with various antibiotics, in favor of their “business model” of Lyme disease, that so conveniently allows the Lyme Medical Cartel to perpetually line their deep pockets, as was revealed by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in 2008.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal conducted a year-and-a-half antitrust investigation of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and its Lyme Disease Practice Guideline authors.  AG Blumenthal found egregious financial conflicts of interest held by those IDSA authors.  In addition, his investigation showed that former IDSA President, Dr. Martin Blaser, two other IDSA employees and the Chairman of the IDSA Lyme Guidelines Committee, Dr. Gary Wormser, were aware of requests to provide input for the Treatment Guidelines by other infectious disease physicians, some of whom were also members of the IDSA.  The requests for input were made to ensure that the IDSA Guidelines would encompass the worldwide body of scientific research related to Lyme infection.  Those requests for input were IGNORED by Dr. Blaser and Dr. Wormser, thereby perpetuating the so-called “controversy” surrounding chronic Lyme disease.

And by the way, the “controversy” is scientifically non-existent; it is MEDICAL PROPAGANDA created by the CDC and IDSA, medical propaganda that is being disseminated to clinicians in the guise of what the CDC and IDSA call “the best available scientific evidence.”  It is not evidence, either; it is a business model of Lyme disease, parameters of which have been defined in the IDSA Lyme Treatment Practice Guidelines by the IDSA Guideline authors (who were investigated for their financial conflicts of interest).  The business model enables the Lyme Medical Cartel to further their financial interests in the form of research grants, patents for test kits and Lyme disease vaccine development in close association with the CDC and pharmaceutical companies.

The IDSA Lyme Practice Guidelines act as the perfect business model enforcement tool, guidelines which you, Ms. Burns, referred to as “normal medical guidelines.”  If you think that flawed and biased medical guidelines written by doctors with financial conflicts of interest are “normal”, then I seriously question your value system.

Read what Attorney General Blumenthal had to say about the IDSA Guidelines and the IDSA Guideline authors in the following excerpts from his May 1, 2008 Press Release:

"The IDSA guidelines have sweeping and significant impacts on Lyme disease medical care. They are commonly applied by insurance companies in restricting coverage for long-term antibiotic treatment or other medical care and also strongly influence physician treatment decisions. Insurance companies have denied coverage for long-term antibiotic treatment relying on these guidelines as justification. The guidelines are also widely cited for conclusions that chronic Lyme disease is nonexistent. "

"This agreement vindicates my investigation -- finding undisclosed financial interests and forcing a reassessment of IDSA guidelines," Blumenthal said. "My office uncovered undisclosed financial interests held by several of the most powerful IDSA panelists. The IDSA's guideline panel improperly ignored or minimized consideration of alternative medical opinion and evidence regarding chronic Lyme disease, potentially raising serious questions about whether the recommendations reflected all relevant science."

Blumenthal added, "The IDSA's 2006 Lyme disease guideline panel undercut its credibility by allowing individuals with financial interests -- in drug companies, Lyme disease diagnostic tests, patents and consulting arrangements with insurance companies -- to exclude divergent medical evidence and opinion. In today's healthcare system, clinical practice guidelines have tremendous influence on the marketing of medical services and products, insurance reimbursements and treatment decisions. As a result, medical societies that publish such guidelines have a legal and moral duty to use exacting safeguards and scientific standards."

The “blue-ribbon outfits” you referred to in your article, such as the CDC and IDSA, have done little to address the pressing needs of Lyme disease patients.  I'm curious as to your motivation in so boldly attacking Lyme advocates, who are standing up against inhumane denial of diagnosis and treatment, and struggling, as sick as they are, to see justice served?  Why did you attempt to mitigate the seriousness of chronic Lyme disease, which most often results from years of misdiagnosis and denial of treatment, by referring to it merely as an “ailment!”

As a chronic Lyme disease patient and advocate, I was selected by Attorney General Blumenthal and the IDSA Review Panel to testify on behalf of the worldwide Lyme patient community at the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Lyme Disease Review Panel Hearing held on July 30, 2009 in Washington, DC.  The 2009 Hearing and the ongoing review of the IDSA Practice Guidelines for Lyme Disease were part of the Action Plan in the legal Agreement reached between AG Blumenthal and the IDSA.  Watch and listen to the webcast of my testimony and the testimonies of the other presenters online.

Having suffered from chronic Lyme disease since 1998 and having been contacted by patients across the U.S. and in Europe with tragic stories of medical neglect, it’s not only your lack of balanced journalism that I find so upsetting, Ms. Burns -- it’s what you have revealed about your character, as well.

Tina J. Garcia is Founder of Lyme Education Awareness Program (L.E.A.P. Arizona), a 501c(3) non-profit, public charity.  L.E.A.P.’s Mission is to provide education about tick-borne infections and to provide financial assistance to patients with Lyme disease, whose insurance coverage denials are based upon the IDSA Treatment Guidelines that are currently in question. 

Despite her own debilitating illness from Lyme disease, Tina has dedicated the past five years of her life to Lyme disease patient advocacy.  Her articles have been published in the Public Health Alert, a nationally-distributed Texas publication.

Did you know that Lyme disease infection can have many presentations and is misdiagnosed as other illnesses, such as, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, ALS and Alzheimer’s?  Many people who have been diagnosed with these illnesses have subsequently found out that they are infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.  If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with any of these illnesses, get more information, including a list of symptoms, at www.leaparizona.com.

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