Just in: Largest ever study shows no geo correlation b/w Lyme and neurodegenerative disorders

Lyme Disease isn't being reported properly. So, the studies are flawed IMO.

Since I tested negative with the standard test - my case isn't reported...along with many others. Where I am, very few people that I have talked with LD have tested CDC positive with the standard testing.

Girlie said...
Lyme Disease isn't being reported properly. So, the studies are flawed IMO.

Since I tested negative with the standard test - my case isn't reported...along with many others. Where I am, very few people that I have talked with LD have tested CDC positive with the standard testing.

Same here, 3 negative stock ELISA tests

I am in the same boat as you guys, just pointing out where research is going. Something is really wrong.

Even if the lyme tests are bad, they still register OFFICIALLY 30,000 cases per year. Not even these are following the pattern of ALS/AD/Parkinson...

So i just don't understand whats going on. I'll read the whole paper...

happyjo said...

1) CDC doctors
2) Samples based on death certificates
3) Where's the true pathology?
4) MSIDS-Deny previous studies that show correlation?
5) And... "the study did not account for persons who may have acquired Lyme disease in 1 state and subsequently moved to another part of the country before receiving a diagnosis of and dying from a neurodegenerative disorder"
6). Tax payer $ wasted. How about not wasting hard earned tax payer $ on tainted, biased pretend studies?

It's pretty odd they have not found any correlation, i would expect at least with MS, since i know of several people misdiagnosed with MS instead of Lyme. Anyway, very odd.

Even if you take into account people moving, you wont move all the patients from one state to the other, still out of 30k cases per year you should see some correlation, at least with the MS which we know it's a common misdiagnosis.

Girlie, NotQuiteAntonio, happyjo, you all have great points! Some of my thoughts exactly. We could go on and on about the discrepancies in this "study."

There are so many holes in this one it's laughable. They are trying really hard to discredit the evidence that is starting to come out.

The fundamental basis for this study is flawed. This is not science. This is either a really lazy group of scientists that didn't feel like rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty, or funding from another corrupt institution (insurance company funding?). Follow the money, and we'll probably get to the source.

.... ah, ha:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (J.D. Forrester, K.J. Kugeler, A.E. Perea, D.M. Pastula, P.S. Mead);
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (J.D. Forrester, D.M. Pastula)
corresponding authorCorresponding author.
Address for correspondence: Joseph D. Forrester, Stanford University, Department of Surgery, 300 Pasteur Dr, H3591, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; email: [email protected]

.....

How can they say there's an "inverse correlation" between alz and lyme? If you look at the map provided, it looks like there's actually a direct "correlation" between alz and lyme. That doesn't make sense. Does this make sense to anyone else here? I wonder if we need to call them out on this publication. It seems erroneous.

Post Edited (gfields) : 11/12/2015 9:24:48 AM (GMT-7)

Project, have you compared the alz map to the lyme map? I'm seeing a correlation there.

Also, I think the lyme map is inaccurate. We know lyme has been reported in every state.

It has also been confirmed by "real" scientific studies that borrelia DNA is found in tissue samples of Alzheimer brains. Looking at some map provided by the CDC (a historically questionable source of information) is not conclusive proof that there's no correlation between alz and lyme.

Post Edited (gfields) : 11/12/2015 9:37:27 AM (GMT-7)

Traveler said...
I saw this too and was immediately disgusted!
I had 2 positive Western Blots. One in 2008 and one in 2009 - and do you know that neither one shows up for my state? Not one!!! I know that my LLMD reported it in 2008 and my regular MD at the time reported the one in 2009 - yet the CDC never added them in!!

Seriously Traveler, if you still have those results, you should write to Emerging Infections Diseases journal and point out that the study data is flawed and your results do not show up. I mean if the results were reported and were official CDC then their dataset is crap and the peer reviewers need to know.

This sad excuse for a scientific study was rushed into print by CDC in response to the fact that millions of people in Britain were exposed via the mass media to the incredible recent discoveries Dr Alan MacDonald has made with his Molecular Beacon DNA probes, after billionaire John Caudwell went public about his whole family having Lyme missed by our National Health Service.

The argument in this paper is laughable, not only because the geographic incidence for Lyme is so inaccurate, but because many of the diseases listed are routinely NOT put as the cause of death on a death certificate.

Moreover those with Alzheimer's may never receive a diagnosis. Alzheimer's specialists are very familiar with the fact that diagnosis varies massively from region to region within a country.

For example, leading UK dementia researcher Prof June Andrews has written:

"There is huge variation across the UK....In some parts of England [ the number of those with Alzheimer's who receive a diagnosis] is as few as 20%."

Also during the period they have surveyed , the criteria used for diagnosis of Alzheimers were fairly inaccurate -that's why there is a process going on right now internationally to update them.

Why has this anti-science paper been written?

Here's your answer, in the lead author's write-up:

"Dr. Forrester completed this work while serving as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado. "

For more info on the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) and Captain Paul Mead, please see my article www.elenacook.org/bwsept06.html



Elena

Traveler you bring up a good point. When I went to my first LLND appointment back in April my Dr. said he had about a dozen CDC positive cases from his office in 2014. We were talking about this very thing of how the CDC doesn't even acknowledge the known cases. On the CDC's website they have 8 probable and 5 confirmed for the entire state. Clearly something funny is going on here.

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but there are also cases where you will have CDC positive Lyme tests, but the doctor doesn't believe the patient has Lyme (not sure why) so doc will not report it because doc thinks it is a false positive.


As far as "serious journal"-- I always like to refer to the paper "Why Most Published Research Findings are False" by Ioannidis. :)

Post Edited (WinonaLyme) : 11/12/2015 3:36:41 PM (GMT-7)

gfields > You have to take into account that when you eyeball it the population density of the eastern seaboard will make it look like the Alzheimers density is greater, the mathematical analysis will adjust for this though.

To me this paper is a bit of a shocking result but honestly these are the types of results that need to be paid attention to in science. Even with massive underreporting of Lyme there is an enormous difference across states in prevalence. To have no correlation found with these other diseases shouldn't be ignored by us just because Lyme is so central to our minds.

One thing I have wondered about is that Alzheimer's is affecting a lot of elderly people who probably wouldn't have been exposed to Lyme realistically. Lyme has really only become widespread over the last 20 years and so they probably wouldn't have been as likely to catch in their younger more active years.

I get frustrated with the medical denial of Lyme but I also get equally frustrated with the paranoid conspiracy theories in the Lyme community. In all likelihood neurodegenerative diseases are complex multi-factorial conditions and this is why we have not made much progress in understanding them to date. Assuming Lyme will be found to be the culprit for all conditions will probably be proven to be false, even as its actual chronic difficult to treat nature becomes more recognized.

In reality this is great news for Lyme patients as it means we don't have to also fear a much higher chance of getting these diseases.

Post Edited (project) : 11/12/2015 8:59:18 PM (GMT-7)

Project, I'm afraid you have a lot to learn about both Alzheimer's and Lyme if you think this pitiful EIS article is worth even the paper it's printed on.

Project wrote: "To me this paper is a bit of a shocking result but honestly these are the types of results that need to be paid attention to in science."

No one in the Alzheimer research community will pay attention to it because it is so obviously flawed.

Alzheimer's researchers are fully aware of the enormous problems with wide variability in diagnosis of Alzheimer cases from place to place, as well as inaccurate diagnosis (which is why the actual diagnostic criteria are now being revised).

Not to mention the many, many other confounding factors in this pathetic paper.

I expect Alzheimers experts will laugh at this paper.

"One thing I have wondered about is that Alzheimer's is affecting a lot of elderly people who probably wouldn't have been exposed to Lyme realistically. Lyme has really only become widespread over the last 20 years and so they probably wouldn't have been as likely to catch in their younger more active years."

Absolutely not true.

Alzheimer's mostly hits the over 65s. A person of say, 70, would have been approx 50 years of age 20 years ago.

Millions of fifty year olds are active and even work in sectors where they are outdoors much of the time.

Those who are older and retired may spend a lot of time in the open gardening, or may retire to areas with more greenery than where they live when they were younger.

I know people in their 70s, 80s and even 90s who do things that potentially put them at risk of Lyme very day.

Moreover, the fact that it was realised that Lyme was epidemic in the 1990s does not mean that substantial numbers were not getting infected - and being misdiagnsoed - before that date.

Project wrote:
"... I also get equally frustrated with the paranoid conspiracy theories in the Lyme community."

Project, before you dismiss the work of Dr Alan MacDonald and Dr Juduth Miklossy as "paranoid conspiracy features", I invite you to VIEW it, and particularly the many micrographs of Borrelia FILLING ENTIRE ALZHEIMER'S PLAQUES as demonstrated by Molecular Beacon DNA probes specific for Borrelia miyamotoi - incontrovertible proof that Borreliosis is a cause of Alzheimer's.


www.spirodementia.wordpress.com
http://durayresearch.wordpress.com/our-work/alzheimers-disease-and-borrelia/


Elena