It is TOO discouraging that so MANY ailing patients & docs have fought the LD battle for YEARS!
On the doc's blog, he states that "science is catching up," but is it really, when politics & greed continue to rule?!
Re the 2001 NYTs article, "Stalking Dr. Steere Over Lyme Disease, By DAVID GRANN, the doc's revealing comments:
"Although this piece was written 14 years ago, nothing, or very little has changed. Dr. Steere, a once virtuoso violinist whose career was cut short by a finger injury turned his focus to medicine. By serendipity Lyme fell into his lap and he has been a Moses of the field for the last 40 years. Contemporary medicine has no experience with a multisystem disease such as Lyme disease. The specialization of American medicine makes it more difficult for physicians to see recurring patterns of the disease.
Patients instead are diagnosed with psychosomatic disease, fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. It is fascinating that Dr. Steere says that chronic Lyme has become a garbage can diagnosis and that fibromyalgia is frequently the real answer. Dr Steere tells the reporter: “there is no controversy amongst scientists.”
"[They] live in a bubble, have lunch with each other and validate their beliefs: Lyme is easily treated with short courses of antibiotics. Their influence continues to have far reaching consequences leading to devastation for so many Lyme patients.
Personal attacks, such as in the case of Dr. Steere, have an effect opposite of that desired. The besieged only become defensive, clinging more tenaciously than before to their flawed system of belief.
Science is the best weapon we have. It is finally catching up.
Fourteen years later after this interview, when nothing seems to have changed, a study published a few days ago in PLOS one by Auwaerter, (Feng, Zhang) a stalwart “Steerite” leading the charge in the Lyme war against the Burrasconites, firmly contradicts the basis of the Steere hypothesis.
In this study the Hopkins’ group admits the cause of ‘Post-Lyme” is uncertain. The idea that Lyme bacteria persist after 2-4 weeks of amoxicillin is “controversial” according to the authors of the study, who then proceed to provide clear, concise and convincing evidence that Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme agent,cannot in any world, possibly be killed by this recommended therapy.
The evidence is clear, there is no single drug is capable of eliminating Lyme persisters in mice, dogs, primates and humans -- or in a test tube. There is no known combination of two drugs that can eliminate Lyme persisters. The authors have discovered a single combination of three drugs: daptomycin + cefoperazone + doxycycline processing the unique ability to eliminate Lyme persisters in a test tube. This is a huge step forward.
We may not be able to readily adopt this study for clinical purposes. Daptomycin is an extremely expensive drug and is currently reserved for the sickest hospitalized patients. Infectious disease physician's "stewardship" over antibiotics will likely be a roadblock against the use of this potent drug, and, third party payers, hiding behind the banner of FDA approval will likely not pay for it. Cefoperazone I have tried to prescribe; pharmacists have told me it is not available.
Only a veritable nuclear bomb of antibiotics could kill all the Lyme in a test tube. Still, Dr. Auewater (at his other job), along with the coterie of Steerites will continue to tell us the pea shooter therapy is all our patients should ever need...
New research at the test tube level with drugs such as Claritin and the "nuclear option" may prove to be helpful. Test tube science does not always translate into clinical cures but may certainly provide key, new evidence.
The study gives us another rock to throw at the edifice of the Steere - IDSA - CDC dogma. It remains a David vs Goliath battle. For now, Lyme remains a political disease. We know the science, which are adversaries claim to hide behind, will prevail in the end."
