This just in:
stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/403/eaal2717"
Avoiding rash decisionsThe iconic bulls eye rash is associated with Lyme disease, but similar symptoms are observed in other illnesses not caused by Borrelia burgdorferi infection, such as southern tick–associated rash illness, which has not yet been tied to a specific pathogen. Molins et al. set out to define a metabolic signature that would be able to distinguish early Lyme disease from southern tick–associated rash illness. Their findings confirm that these diseases are quite distinct. Moreover, use of the signature could help guide diagnosis and patient treatment."
So, have they checked all 130 strains of borrelia and see what are the metabolic signatures of lyme produced by all of them ? I am just questioning the conclusions of the paper, STARI is a disease of unknown etiology, why not research why does STARI happen ? Maybe it is produced by other strains of Borrelia which still respond to the antibiotics but will give a negative lyme test result. Instead we are researching the differences between STARI and lyme disease which may give hint to MDs that people with STARI do not require antibiotics while people with lyme require. So now you will not be given antibiotics even if you have a rash in all cases !!
Definition of STARI from CDC website
Symptoms of STARI: "The rash may be accompanied by fatigue, fever, headache, muscle and joint pains. This condition has been named southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI).
The cause of STARI is not known."
"Treatment
It is not known whether antibiotic treatment is necessary or beneficial for patients with STARI.Nevertheless, because STARI resembles early Lyme disease, physicians will often treat patients with oral antibiotics. "
But this new paper may put the need of antibiotics into question, you have a disease with the same manifestations like lyme, rash, fever, joint pains, but u have a negative lyme test, so it's not lyme.... it's STARI....
This is just beyond ridiculous....
PS: One of the authors is Gary P. Wormser. I do not understand why this guy does not write research papers about
what are the causes of PTLDS for example. He is a top CDC researcher, no ? Researchers must be curious people to keep their jobs. Instead he writes all kinds of papers about
what NOT to do:
- how PTLDS patients will NOT be helped by long term antibiotics
- how rashes do NOT always indicate lyme disease, therefore you do NOT need antibiotics all the time
- how some of the 700 research papers documenting chronic lyme are NOT good quality
I wonder if AIDS would have become a manageable condition with these kinds of authors, that research only what NOT to do. "Conclusion: patients with AIDS that are given water with carrots twice daily do NOT improve". Do you think HIV/AIDS research would advance with such glorious type of papers? I don't ....
Post Edited (mpost) : 8/23/2017 2:27:29 AM (GMT-6)