Focusing on Lyme

[Guest guest]

Human concern tends to flow to those outlets where it has a chance

of impacting reality. This is good. In some cases, the facts are

manipulated to divert concern from outlets where it is desperately

needed. This is bad.

There is a manipulation of facts like that where Lyme disease is

concerned, an ongoing effort to create the appearance that all we

can gain by focusing on this illness is confusion and

disappointment.

Cases where Lyme diagnosis leads to successful treatment and

resolution of symptoms are lined up side by side under a sign that

reads: " Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and treat. "

Cases where Lyme diagnosis leads to treatment failure are also lined

up side by side, under a sign that reads: " Post-Lyme syndrome does

not respond to antibiotics. "

I am sorry to say that patients do not seem entirely innocent in the

fostering of this illusion, particularly those 'non-responders' who

never get much benefit from treatment.

If their lives were the only ones that mattered, we might all stop

focusing on Lyme immediately, since to date that focus has done

these individuals little good.

But the lives of responders also matter, and we have every reason to

believe there are millions of potential responders who will never

get the chance to get well unless more energy and attention are

focused on Lyme disease.

Note the lack of specificity in that statement. I am not saying that

any one person or group of persons is obliged to focus more on Lyme.

I am saying that unless more people do, millions will continue to

suffer needlessly.

I don't expect everyone on this list to focus on Lyme, nor would I

even want them too. The only collective obliigation I would suggest

for our group is that no one make statements which can easily be

construed to mean " Bah, Lyme disease is not worth all this focused

attention. "

However inadvertently, such statements give aid and comfort to those

who deny established remedies to patients who desperately need them.