duncan said...
I used to say that same exact thing, ie, we don't need a conspiracy to prove anything. The word conspiracy makes anyone like me seem out of touch.
But I've seen first hand how governments can treat Lyme patients. I suspect we've read many of the same things over the years. I for one am convinced there was a deliberate attempt to A) weaponize ticks, and B) mischaracterize Lyme and the people it infects - especially the people it infects. You recall that 1983 paper that bifurcated Lyme symptoms into Major and Minor? You put a and b together and I'm not sure what you get, but it ain't merely an ancient pathogen.
Ever talk to the NIH or CDC directly, like face to face? I have several times. It's a strange kind of experience. It's like they don't like us, even though they are supposed to be working for us. That's a culture that's been taught.
i would agree -
there is documented evidence of gov programs in several countries detailing investigations into weaponizing ticks
there is clearly a coordinated attempt to muddy the waters and mischaracterise lyme
i just dont see any actual evidence except hearsay and speculation for genetically modifying the pathogens themselves via any method - or genetically engineering ticks themselves ??? ( i know that was not your input)
thsi is the thing with conspiracy theories - if we allow ourselves to selectively sample only the things( facts, statements, hearsay, ideas, suspicions) that align with our ideas, fears, theories etc - without putting equal energy into looking for the evidence on the other side of the equation - these theories can seem to have a weight of "evidence" behind them - and it becomes possible to believe all sorts of things that are not necessarily true - and if you do take pains to look with equal rigor at the evidence against the idea - it starts to become a lot less believable.
human negativity bias ( a pr
opensity to believe or focus on negative possibilities that is hardwired into our biology as a survival strategy - evolved for a time when doing so in a physically more dangerous world would tend to keep us alive) and the social polarisation that the internet era has brought us - where every search we make online and every social media post we look at is targeted at showing what the engines calculate we most want to see( in order to keep us connected and clicking) feeds this negativity bias and exposes us not to the raw unfiltered reality of the world we live in - but a filtered pre-prepared version of that world disproportionately represented in things someone else thinks we will find engaging, interesting, emotive, divisive etc
as an example of things on the other side of the balance
think about
how many people it would take to be involved in the genetic engineering of dozens of lineages of borrelia species - and have them distributed around the entire globe in ways that would look later to people with a technology ( PCR) that didn't exist at the time - that they all evolved separately and naturally and distributed themselves within animal hosts and arthropod vectors over hundreds of thousands or millions of years in what looked like an entirely natural way when inspected in incredible detail with technology 50 years into the future ( technology that was not even imagined in the 60's or 70s when this was apparently being done).
think about
just how many species of borrelia there are - predominant in different host species and geography
think about
the evidence of lyme disease existence long before it was found in the USA in the 70's
think about
how the patterns of disease in many countries have been found to follow season migrations of birds or other natural hosts - and not a single deliberate or even many many deliberate human disseminations.
on the other hand - think about
a dogmatic organisation - with a few senior figures who set policy - and who are subject to influence of lobbyists and corruption - - where all other more junior members have to tow the line and who seemingly - even though they are a government funded civic service seem to have skin in the game ( i believe CDC members are on record as holding patents on borrelia biology). i would guess everyone in that organisation has some idea of what is going on - and the lower ranks would not necessarily feel good about
it.
that would credibly explain why when you spoke to them - they would feel threatened - defensive - perhaps ashamed - after all your very existence and questions threaten the organisation on which they depend for a living.
its not my job to change your beliefs - and that is not my intention here - so i apologise if that's how it comes over.
to me its just an example - i find the broader discussion about
belief systems in the context of chronic illness interesting and think it worthwhile to highlight the above in terms of raising awareness of how we come to believe what we believe.
as sick people who can spend years down one rabbit hole or another - depending n what we believe - our beliefs can and do determine how we will spend years of our lives - and perhaps therefore have the ability to effect our quality of life as much as or more than any other factor.
i find myself in a constant struggle to inspect my own beliefs in order to try to steer the ship based on a halfway decent map of reality - but all the while knowing that the map is never the terrain - just the best map we have at this point in time.