0 Placeholder: ILADS 2012 Conference Remarks

Coming soon... ILADS 2012 Conference Remarks - watch this space. This work by Camp Other is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licens...

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0 Late November Newsletter From Camp Other

There are a few announcements I'd like to make today... For those of you who are here for the first time, via Twitter: Welcome to Camp Other blog. I'm glad to see you here, and I look forward to having interesting discussions with you both here and on Twitter. Whether you are new to this blog or a returning visitor, the following announcements may help you make sense of what's been happening here at Camp Other blog: An Effort to Change Writing Style and Reporting Joining Twitter is a recent move I made in the past couple of weeks in order...

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2 A Pocket Review of Dr. Steere's NEJM Reinfection Editorial

I finally had the opportunity to sit down and read Dr. Steere's editorial which accompanied Nadelman et al's study, "Differentiation of Reinfection from Relapse in Recurrent Lyme Disease". Before I comment on the editorial, I want to acknowledge the research which was accomplished in the study as it deserves more attention. I think it was an interesting study on two counts: One, it showed that in a group of 17 patients, it was highly unlikely that a patient would get reinfected with the same genotype of Borrelia burgdorferi compared to one...

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0 Lyme Research Alliance Response To Reporting On Reinfection Study

The executive director of the Lyme Research Alliance responded to the New York Times' article, “New Infection, Not Relapse, Brings Back Lyme Symptoms, Study Says” which refers to the Lyme disease reinfection study recently published in the NEJM: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/opinion/lyme-disease-study.html (original text removed in observance of NYT copyright policy.) Current Active Research Projects which are listed on LRA's site: http://www.lymeresearchalliance.org/research_projects.html For the most part, I agree with Mr. Wild's...

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1 What Does The Reinfection Study Have To Do With Chronic Lyme or Post Lyme Disease?

Last week, a number of media outlets wrote articles referring to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), "Differentiation of Reinfection from Relapse in Recurrent Lyme Disease". Since I wanted to see what was actually stated in the study, I acquired a copy of the full text of this publication to see for myself why the authors might have given some journalists the impression that chronic Lyme disease - or even post Lyme disease syndrome - does not exist. Side note: One important thing to know is that at the time I...

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0 CO Comments on "The Pseudoscience of Chronic Lyme"

During the weekend, Ed Yong, who writes for Discover magazine's Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, of alerted me on Twitter to Cassandra Willyard's blog post on The Last Word on Nothing blog - "The Pseudoscience of Chronic Lyme". Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to comment on some journalists' bungling of how to interpret the significance of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published study, Differentiation of Reinfection from Relapse in Recurrent Lyme Disease, I decided to stop by and read what Cassandra and others had to say and...

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4 Do Not Conflate Reinfection With Absence Of A Chronic Condition

It's been a busy day for Lyme disease in the media today. And for me, too, as I have been trying to do some education (translation: damage control) regarding the inaccuracies which were reported concerning the findings from small study on Lyme disease that was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine (summary only; full text behind pay wall). With a sample size of 17 participants, the study advanced the idea that most patients who have new erythema migrans (also called "bull's eye") rashes have been reinfected and do not have...

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2 New Lyme Disease Detection Test For All Stages Of Infection

For all those observing today: Happy Carl Sagan Day! For everyone else: Happy New Lyme Test Day! I say this because today a new blood test for the detection of all stages of Lyme disease has been launched. In a press release, Boulder Diagnostics reported the European market launch of the CE marked SpiroFind in vitro diagnostic test for the detection of active Lyme Borreliosis. The makers of the novel SpiroFind test claim it can detect active Lyme Borreliosis through all stages of disease from early disease to late and persistent manifestation....

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0 Rant: Can The IDSA Meet Lyme Disease Patients Halfway?

A background story for this rant is in order: The following is a rant from Lymenet Europe in response to one member's comment that I blame the IDSA for dysfunction when it comes to the quality of communications between the IDSA and patients and advocates, and don't place enough responsibility for that dysfunction on patients and advocates instead. I disagree with this assertion. I'm not looking at blame. I'm looking at accountability. And I think both "sides" of this conflict are responsible for letting things get to the point where they are...

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2 On Tick Spit, Immune Evasion, and Round Bodies

There has been much interest in the relationship between tick saliva and the immune response to Borrelia burgdorferi in their host mammals - both animal and human. Recently, the following paper, "Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Entrap and Kill Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Stricto Spirochetes and Are Not Affected by Ixodes ricinus Tick Saliva", from the Journal of Immunology added to data on how tick saliva affects the immune response at the bite site in a murine model, and may also explain what happens in humans bitten by Ixodes ricinus ticks. J...

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