and help to................................
There are many items dealing with Lyme Disease.
Movies / documentaries showing the horrors of living with Lyme Disease,
Doctor's speaking out trying to help Lyme Disease sufferer's, news paper articles about Lyme, reports showing Lyme Disease is transferred by more than just ticks and more. Check out the articles and links on this page and learn more about the Lyme Disease fight and how it effects thousands and thousands of people.
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IDSA panel violates agreement with AG; Blumenthal asks for a re-do of vote:
SA sent
February 1, 2010, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal expressed concern
over "improper voting procedures" used by the IDSA in the Lyme
guidelines review voting process. The AG asked the Lyme panel to re-do
its voting in compliance with the agreement.What happened? The way the IDSA panel voted on the guidelines blatantly violated the group's Settlement Agreement with the Attorney General. The IDSA manipulated the voting process to favor NO change in the guidelines. Click for the Lyme Policy Wonk's further explanation of what happened, and to see the text of the AG's letter and the IDSA's internal memo which confirmed its understanding of the required voting procedure.
http://www.lymedisease.org/news/index.php
If you live in Connecticut, please e-mail and thank Richard Blumenthal for investigating the IDSA and for enforcing the settlement agreement. Our health is at risk and we thank him for trying to protect it. Your letter might read: "I want to thank you for investigating the IDSA and enforcing the settlement agreement. Patients with Lyme rely on your broad-shoulders!" Your subject should read "IDSA Lyme Disease Guidlines"
To contact CT Attorney General Blumenthal: attorney.general@po.state.ct.us
PMID: 19995919 [PubMed - in process]
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New Yale Study There's been a surge of encouraging momentum and positive developments building recently for patients suffering from chronic Lyme disease, and for the doctors who treat them. Signaling what many hope is a harbinger of commonsense legislative action that will eventually sweep across the country, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell last month signed into law a bill that allows physicians to prescribe long-term antibiotics in the treatment of persistent Lyme disease. House Bill 6200 unanimously passed through both sides of the Connecticut General Assembly. The bill allows doctors to treat for Lyme disease outside standard guidelines, which were established by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and recommend against treating Lyme disease more than a few weeks. The IDSA guidelines, however, have come under intense fire. In May, the Connecticut Attorney General found that the panel responsible for writing the Lyme guidelines had conflicts of interest, engaged in exclusionary conduct, and suppressed scientific evidence. The Attorney General's investigation resulted in a settlement forcing the IDSA to form a new panel to review and revise the guidelines. That process is ongoing, however, and doctors across the country who currently treat long term for chronic Lyme still do so at great risk to their medical licenses. In that light, the legislation recently approved and signed into law by Gov. Rell in Connecticut comes as welcome news. The bill allows doctors to prescribe long-term antibiotics as a way to treat patients with Lyme disease, if a licensed physician has documented the patient's clinical diagnosis of the disease and treatment. The bill also prevents the state health department from taking disciplinary action against any physician who prescribes long-term antibiotics to Lyme patients. "This is positive step forward in bringing the possibility for renewed health to chronic Lyme patients who have suffered terribly under the flawed guidelines issued by the IDSA," said Dr. Joseph Jemsek, a infectious disease specialist who two years ago was disciplined by the North Carolina Medical Board, for treating Lyme patients outside the IDSA guidelines. The medical board's ruling was immediately stayed, and Dr. Jemsek continues to successfully treat Lyme patients from across the country and the globe, from his clinic in Fort Mill, SC. "It is my sincere hope that doctors everywhere will one day be able to enjoy the same protections now afforded physicians in Connecticut," Dr. Jemsek said, "to provide chronic Lyme patients with the best possible care." "Doctors will have the right to use treatment guidelines based on their clinical experience and best medical judgment," she said. "This bill does not, however, shield any physician who provides substandard care." The newly approved legislation is already drawing high praise from Lyme advocates and patients' rights groups across the nation. "Justice has been served," Pat Smith, president of the national Lyme Disease Association, told Connecticut's Wilton Villager newspaper. "Human health has finally triumphed over vested interest in the Lyme capital of the world. Lyme patients and treating physicians in Connecticut can breathe a collective sigh of relief. For years, they have not only been battling the disease, but also battling the politics which have prevented patients from getting treatment and physicians from treating. Gov. Rell and the Legislature have come down on the side of the people." _______________________________________________________________
The range of Lyme disease is spreading in North America and it appears that birds play a significant role by transporting the Lyme disease bacterium over long distances, a new study by the Yale School of Public Health has found.
Click on the link below to read the entire article.
http://www.lymedisease.org/news/lyme_disease_views/293.html
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Check out the link below to the newest
movie / documentary about Lyme Disease.
http://www.undertheeightball.com/
This documentary is about producer Timothy Grey's sister and her battle with Lyme disease. It documents all the miss-diagnosis she goes through, how the disease debilitates her and finally her death. One Dr. even told her when they didn't know what was wrong "everybody dies".
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Dr. Joe Jemsek (www.jemsekspecialty.com) discusses the controversy
surrounding Lyme Disease and what action needs to be taken to provide
patients with better care. Below is the you tube link of the discussion.
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=V-lHDA863TM
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July 26, 2009
CT Law Approved To Protect Lyme Doctors
Gov. Rell shared those sentiments.
"Doctors in Connecticut - the absolute epicenter of Lyme disease - can continue to do what is best for their patients suffering from this complex illness," Gov. Rell said. "I think most people know someone who has been infected. The bill also recognizes that Lyme disease patients must have the freedom to choose which remedy or regimen best meets their needs.
Below is the link, then the article. This article is about dealing with L-form bacteria. Note the first highlighted box and the bacteria company Lyme Disease keeps.
http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2009/11/05/
ScienceTech/Bacterial.Antibiotic.Resistance.Genes.Discovered-3824803.shtml
Bacterial antibiotic resistance genes discovered
to kill bacteria that might make us sick.Whether we are concerned about getting strep throat, bacterial meningitis or something else, these prevention methods can offer protection.
However, some bacteria, such as those that cause Staph and MRSA infections, are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Since the 1930s, researchers have been aware that
bacteria may be able to resist treatment because they can morph into the L-form, or bacteria
lacking cell walls.
Until the 1980s, not much else could be known about the L-form, but now, researchers at the Bloomberg School of Public Health have used a wide variety of modern molecular tools to learn
more about the origin and biological functions of the L-form bacteria.
Ying Zhang, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Bloomberg, is the senior author of the study, which was published in PLoS ONE last month.
Not all bacteria can transform into the L-form, but those that can include Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Treponema pallidum (syphilis), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis), Heliobacter pylori (stomach ulcers and cancer), Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease) and Escherichia coli (food poisoning). Zhang's team used E. coli to create a culture of L-form bacteria.
Although it had been difficult to culture L-form bacteria before, Zhang and his team created a new method that more closely simulated the in vivo conditions in which these bacteria form.
"The presence of antibiotic stress is cell wall inhibiting, like penicillin," Zhang said. To prevent the
cells from bursting because of this increased stress, Zhang's team added sucrose to the cell media.
This culture represented the mechanism that occurs in the body. "L forms are formed in response
to stress," Zhang said. "They have a different mode of survival and replication from classical bacteria." The cell wall-deficient bacteria cluster together in the shape of a fried egg rather than the smooth, homogeneous appearance of wild-type bacteria cultures.
Once Zhang and his team were able to successfully culture L-form E. coli, they screened for and identified mutants that fail to grow at the L-form. From these mutants, they were able to discover a series of genes that were linked with the inability to grow in the L-form.
"These fall into four to five different categories involving extracellular matrix synthesis, membrane proteins, membrane biogenesis, DNA repair as well as iron metabolism and energy metabolism," Zhang said.
Their identification of these genes and their effect on L-form bacterial expression is a resounding discovery because it was impossible to do before, what with the difficulty of culturing the L-forms
of various bacteria. Zhang noted, however, that although his team managed to create and study a culture of L-form bacteria, their study cannot be universal.
"What we can culture is only a small percentage - probably less than 1 percent - of all bacteria on earth," Zhang said.
"They exist in nature and grow easily, but we're limited to what we can grow and the form of
bacteria that can grow. Bacteria can grow a variety of different forms even for the same species,
and can change forms under different conditions. L-forms are one example of changing under antibiotic stress."
These L-forms of various bacteria may be the underlying reason for chronic resistant and recurring diseases, such as sarcoidosis, various forms of inflammatory bowel diseases and rheumatoid arthritis. Zhang is confident that there will be many
practical applications of this discovery.
"It is possible, with our discovery of the L-form genes to develop new antibiotics and more
effective ones that can be used with current ones as well as new vaccines to . . . allow these
forms to be eliminated by the immune system," he said.
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Below is an older but still very interesting CDC link showing Lyme Disease is not just transmitted by ticks. It can be transmitted by Ticks, Fleas and Mosquitos.
Per The CDC, Lyme Disease Is The Most Common Of All The Diseases In
The United States, Transmitted By Mosquitoes, Fleas And Ticks.
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