person to person Bb transmission/dan

May 6, 2005

--- In infections , " kdrbrill "

<kdrbrill@y...> wrote [iN PART:

> And finally:

>

> " Bacteriologist, Dr. Lida Mattman, states " I'm convinced Lyme

> disease is transmissable from person to person " . In 1995 Dr.

> Mattman obtained positive cultures for Bb from 43 of 47 persons

> with chronic illness. Only 1 of 23 control patients had a positive

> Bb culture. Dr. Mattman has subsequently recovered Bb

> spirochetes from 8 out of 8 cases of Parkinson's Disease, 41

> cases of multiple sclerosis, 21 cases of amyotrophic lateral

> sclerosis and all tested cases of Alzheimer's Disease. The

> complete recovery of several patients with terminal amyotrophic

> lateral sclerosis after appropriate therapy shows the great

> importance of establishing the diagnosis of Lyme Disease. "

>

I have to say, as an experimental scientist, that I am INCREDIBLY

skeptical at this point about Bb person-to-person transmission.

I've seen these data before as well as the myriad anecdotal reports

of family members all having Lyme, etc. The thing that is NEVER

controlled for is the fact that these people LIVE IN THE SAME PLACE

thereby all exposed to the same environment/ticks. You don't need

person-to-person transmission to explain an entire family being

infected with Bb if they all live in the same place. It's not that

I don't think its possible, but I don't think it's probable and the

data simply don't exist to support such transmission at this point.

Now as for the data that Mattman found Bb in all these various

diseases. Possible, maybe, but the question is how is the Bb

measured? Nearly everone has trouble culturing the bug, PCR is

about 45% sensitive, etc. So how is Mattman ascertaining that all

these people are infected? Bowen-type test? Sorry, I'm not taking

that as definitive data at this point. Moreover, there are 2 or 3

papers in the literature on Alzheimer's and Bb infection -- one

found Bb in some of the patients' and the other found in in NONE of

the patients. At this point, I think the data support that SOME

cases of ALS, MS, Parkinson's, etc. are actually Bb infections, but

I think it is much too early to say that all cases of these diseases

are in fact due to Bb infections... I don't think the answer is

going to be that " easy. "

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