1 Three Notable NIAID 2012 Research Projects On Lyme Disease

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) is conducting some Lyme disease related research which I think readers should know about. There are a number of projects to be found on the Project Reporter web site which may be fascinating, but I took the time to select and highlight a few projects which would be of greater interest to patients suffering with Lyme disease and/or its coinfections. Project: AN INTRACELLULAR NICHE FOR BORRELIA BURGDORFERI Institution: TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCE CTR PI: Skare, Jonathan Description...

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6 Health Matters Magazine And Lancet Anti-Science Lyme Disease Rebuttals

I wanted to point out two noteworthy online venues which are discussing Lyme disease as well as chronic Lyme disease - one article and a series of rebuttal letters which have been circulating around the Lyme disease patient community recently. The first venue is Health Matters, an online magazine in the UK which is edited by Steve Iliffe, a professor at the University College of London, and Paul Walker,  an independent health consultant who worked for the NHS for many years. This month, Health Matters published part one of an article by...

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2 Strange But True Facts About Spirochetes

Image: Kilauea Volcano by Brian Snelson I have a few strange but true facts about spirochetes to share which you may not know. A few are ones I have shared here before  - but most are not something about which I've already written. What you read here today may surprise you... Many people call Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes Gram negative bacteria. However, Borrelia burgdorferi are not Gram-negative bacteria even if a Gram negative stain works on them: "Borrelia were thought to be Gram negative because of their double membrane structure,...

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3 Commentary: Critical Mass In The Media On Lyme Disease

It's April, and it's already that time of year again for Lyme disease: The media has been stepping up its coverage of Lyme disease related news items in preparation for May, which is Lyme disease awareness month. For example: Health Department Issues Warning About Ticks (Ohio) 10 Tips To Beat The Ticks (msnbc) Lyme Disease Is On The Rise In New Jersey And Pennsylvania Arkansas On Track For More Tickborne Illnesses This Summer Scientist Says Lack Of Acorns May Mean More Lyme Disease In Maine Minnesota: State's tick season crawling to an early...

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2 Father & Son Develop Drug Which Could Reduce Lyme Excitotoxin

While looking for articles and papers on neurodegeneration in Lyme disease, I came across this interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a father and son team who are working on a drug to treat neurodegeneration in conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. The father, Joseph Muchowski, is a retired chemist from Swiss drug maker, Roche. The son, Paul Muchowski, is a full time investigator at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco, California. The article states that the drug - currently called JM6 - inhibits...

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6 Commentary: On Dr. Phil, Lyme Disease, And "Faking It".

Yesterday a segment about chronic Lyme disease aired on the Dr. Phil Show. There's been much discussion about this episode online throughout the Lyme disease patient community, and so far comments by the hundreds have been posted rapid fire to Dr. Phil's web site about chronic Lyme disease. I am in support of seeing more coverage on Lyme disease and patients with persisting symptoms, but I am not in support of seeing the angle of hypochrondria or "faking disease" being mentioned - even in passing - in relationship to Lyme disease. The...

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0 Commentary: Antibiotics Are Only One Tool - I Want Others.

A few weeks ago, I commented on a Wall Street Journal blog post about chronic Lyme disease. Since then, I have been reflecting on this response to my comments there: "Camp Other – The cure for chronic Lyme is known. If you want a sustainable, long term cure, you can gamble on long term antibiotics, or can you take an alternative approach, which consists of doing between 20 and 50 different things, including Low Dose Naltrexone. Yes, they get you to a cure, at which point a good alkaline diet, oxygenation, vitamin D, etc etc etc should maintain...

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