BRAVO LE MONDE, SENSE AT LAST

Published yesterday in Le Monde the French National newspaper here

Translated with Google Translate apologise for the inaccuracies but far better than my ability to translate and sufficient to understand that for once a decent summary of the situation with Tick borne Disease, Borreliosis including Lyme Disease.

The last two paragraphs which I have highlighted in blue is the best I have read in a National newspaper yet.

There is not enough awareness of the dangers of Tick borne Illness. I thought Lyme Disease was unique to the USA until after 4 years of chronic arthrits and muscle weakness my GP suspected that it was caused by Lyme Disease. I had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Arthritis, Muscle Weakness, Musculo Skeletal Disease, Polymyalgia Rheumatica but finally recovered my health on long term antibiotics following ILADS guidelines. If I had been left treated following the IDSA guidelines which our Health Protection Agency insist our doctors follow, despite considerable evidence and research which supports ILADS, I have no doubt I would have remained chronically ill.


Tick-borne diseases, dilemmas and controversies

by Sylvie Rinaudo , Dr. Engineer, eco-consultant
26.08.10

The summer and the holidays we confront massive small as the attackers are the biting insects and arachnids. Among the arachnids, ticks, which thrive at the expense of warm-blooded animals, which includes humans. Ticks wait on blades of grass or a calf shank passes nearby to grab hold of, and locate their prey to the heat, and smell.

Is it global warming that increases the number of ticks, which does not die during winters become too soft? Is the increase in forest wildlife due to the decrease in consumption of game, which leads to a proliferation of deer and wild boar? The fact is that ticks are more numerous, and the number of bites increased accordingly.

During blood feeding, they are likely to transmit diseases to their host, the best known in our climate is the disease (borreliosis) Lyme.

What happens to those infected? If they develop a rash around the bite, and consult a doctor, they are likely to be diagnosed carriers of Lyme disease, and benefit from antibiotic treatment. However, we know statistically that about half of those infected by this disease do not develop this sign warning Pathognomonic.

The disease may then persist and spread throughout the body. She is particularly fond of the joints and the nervous system, but the whole body is potentially parasite. If the notion of tick bite is present, the doctor may use a serodiagnosis, which will highlight possible contact with the infectious agent of Lyme disease.

This is where the dilemma begins, because Serodiagnostics borreliosis are far from reliable ones are used, for example, to detect HIV. This means that a significant number of people may be falsely reassured, while patients without a diagnosis. Ideally, physicians compensate for this lack of reliability of Serodiagnostics asking a clinical diagnosis, from all the patient's symptoms.

New dilemma: Lyme disease mimics many other diseases, and many practitioners have never met a direct and certain. Difficult for them to identify a clinical presentation that differs from the archetypal taught, so they may miss in good faith a real patient of Lyme, the more easily it will present a doubtful serology.

The more the disease is detected late, it is more difficult to treat. This is where two opposing currents medical, because in addition to the dilemmas previous medical controversy. The famous Infectious Diseases Society of America Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), which has an undeniable dominance in international medical publications on infectious diseases, says that several weeks of antibiotic treatment sufficient to rid of those infected with Lyme disease. If, according to the IDSA, the patient is not cured at the end of this short course is that it suffers from something else, or a "post-Lyme syndrome", body wave and incurable .

Another American ( mistake it is actually International) Medical Society, the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) recommends treatment longer for older cases, and taking into account other illnesses that may have arisen in the course of the tick bite, and denies the notion of post-Lyme syndrome, which she said would only be the result of inadequately treated Lyme disease.

The IDSA complains that long-term antibiotics are treatments that can cause side effects,

ILADS argues that the damage caused by the disease, if it is poorly or inadequately treated, are irrelevant in terms of severity and disability, with the side effects of antibiotics.

However, it appeared that among the experts who drafted the guidelines of the IDSA treatment for Lyme disease, mainly applied in the U.S., many had conflicts of interest. Some doctors engaged as consultants for private medical insurance who refuse treatment cost time, others have participated in developing patents for vaccines antiborréliens, as shown in the excellent documentary "Wilson" Under Our Skin

The Attorney General of the State of Connecticut, seized by the U.S. Lyme disease patients, has investigated the IDSA , And noting the shortcomings and conflicts of interest, requested that the medical society to change its treatment guidelines for Lyme disease, so far without success.

What have we, the French, to do with this dark affair medical pharmacofinancière, which seems purely American?

Unfortunately, everything.

Indeed, French treatment guidelines Lyme disease, established in 2006 a few months after those of the IDSA, follow these closely.

That is to say that the U.S. guidelines for medical treatment, defendants in their country by people suffering from this disease and some practitioners who care for them, indicted by the Attorney General of the State Historical pathology (the town of Lyme, which gave it its name, is located in Connecticut), have so far been applied in France, officially the French Lyme patients.

These guidelines have the merit of French exist and to encourage treatment. However, for old cases of Lyme disease, they incur the same criticism that their American counterparts.

In his book entitled "The Hell of Matignon, Raphaelle Bacqué, journalist at Le Monde, quoting Laurent Fabius, former prime minister Francois Mitterrand, speaking about the contaminated blood scandal:

"Must exist in society and state, sensors, enabling the political authority to make good decisions, even if these are not decisions that are recommended by the scientific community. Thus, at the time, those who held the truth have not been heard. But there must, in society and the functioning of the state sensors to a young researcher who says the opposite of a big shot, but we'll see five years later he was right can be heard. "

The France would do well by taking into account the two existing systems of medical guidelines, which would treat the few hundreds (thousands?) French Lyme patients left behind by the only system of guidelines being applied. Ultimately, it would probably be cheaper for health insurance, and incomparably less costly in human terms.