Monday 9 December 2013

TICK BORNE DISEASES - DOES YOUR DOCTOR KNOW HOW TO TREAT YOU?



Dr Joseph Jemsek discusses the Physician Training Program offered by 

International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS)

 http://www.ilads.org/lyme_programs/lyme_training.html

From ILADS website facts on Lyme Disease :-

NO ACCURATE TESTS

THERE ARE NO TESTS AVAILABLE TO PROVE THAT THE ORGANISM IS ERADICATED OR THAT THE PATIENT IS CURED.

FEWER THAN 50% OF PATIENTS WITH LYME DISEASE RECALL A TICK BITE.

FEWER THAN 50% OF PATIENTS WITH LYME DISEASE RECALL ANY RASH.

THE ELISA SCREENING TEST IS UNRELIABLE. The common Elisa test you receive at your doctor's office misses 35% of culture proven Lyme disease. Some studies indicate up to 50% of the patients tested for Lyme disease receive false negative results.

UP TO 50% OF TICKS IN LYME-ENDEMIC AREAS ARE INFECTED. The onset of Lyme disease symptoms can be easily mistaken for other illnesses. Once symptoms are more evident the disease may have already entered the central nervous system, and could be hard to cure.

40% OF LYME PATIENTS END UP WITH LONG TERM HEALTH PROBLEMS. The average patient sees 5 doctors over nearly 2 years before being diagnosed.

SHORT TREATMENT COURSES HAVE RESULTED IN UPWARDS OF A
40% RELAPSE RATE, ESPECIALLY IF TREATMENT IS DELAYED.

There has never been a study demonstrating that 30 days of antibiotic treatment cures chronic Lyme disease. However there is much documentation demonstrating that short courses of antibiotic treatment fail to eradicate the Lyme spirochete. -

See more at: http://www.ilads.org/campaign/lyme-campaign-quickfacts.php#sthash.d7PrP86H.dpuf

Sunday 17 November 2013

'MIKOVITS' DISEASE' - COMPETENT XMRV'S THROUGH RECOMBINATION!

Well this is an interesting piece of research - here 

 2013 Nov;87(21):11525-37. doi: 10.1128/JVI.01787-13. Epub 2013 Aug 21.

Generation of multiple replication-competent retroviruses through recombination between PreXMRV-1 and PreXMRV-2.

Source

Viral Mutation Section.

Abstract

We previously identified two novel endogenous murine leukemia virus proviruses, PreXMRV-1 and PreXMRV-2, and showed that they most likely recombined during xenograft passaging of a human prostate tumor in mice to generate xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV). To determine the recombination potential of PreXMRV-1 and PreXMRV-2, we examined the generation of replication-competent retroviruses (RCRs) over time in a cell culture system. We observed that either virus alone was noninfectious and the RNA transcripts of the viruses were undetectable in the blood and spleen of nude mice that carry them. To determine their potential to generate RCRs through recombination, we transfected PreXMRV-1 and PreXMRV-2 into 293T cells and used the virus produced to infect fresh cells; the presence of reverse transcriptase activity at 10 days postinfection indicated the presence of RCRs. Population sequencing of proviral DNA indicated that all RCRs contained the gag and 5' half of pol from PreXMRV-2 and the long terminal repeat, 3' half of pol (including integrase), and env from PreXMRV-1. All crossovers were within sequences of at least 9 identical nucleotides, and crossovers within each of two selected recombination zones of 415 nucleotides (nt) in the 5' untranslated region and 982 nt in pol were required to generate RCRs. A recombinant with the same genotype as XMRV was not detected, and our analysis indicates that the probability of generating an identical RCR is vanishingly small. In addition, the studies indicate that the process of RCR formation is primarily driven by selection for viable cis and trans elements from the parental proviruses.

I have posted some time ago about XMRV here

Friday 8 November 2013

PROBLEMS WITH CDC DEFINING LYME DISEASE

A Short Historical Perspective of Lyme Disease in America
 
By
 
Thomas Grier

 Below is a short extract from this article written by Tom Grier to read the full article go to Betty G's post on MD Junction forum here 

'Dr. Ed Masters tried in earnest to get the Lyme experts and the CDC to open their eyes and their minds to see that there was a problem with the current definition of Lyme disease.

Later Dr. Masters also insisted there was a problem with curing his patients with just two weeks of oral antibiotics.

By this time he and other clinicians were throwing everything they had at this disease including intravenous drugs like Rocephin and Vancomycin only to find that patients were often refractory or relapsing months later.

Dr. Masters was diligent in his approach to this disease and in addition to trying to document the tick bites, culture the bacteria and collect patient histories he went one step further.

He saved patient’s blood samples, CSF samples, and skin biopsies, and he also had the patients save the same samples at their own homes in their own freezers. This turned out later to prove to be a wise decision.

Dr. Master’s troubles with the local health department continued for years and culminated in the seizure of hundreds of his “Lyme-patient’s” blood samples and skin biopsies from his office freezer containing patient’s frozen samples.
These seized samples were promptly and without explanation taken by the state and destroyed.

As with other Lyme rebels and mavericks who insisted on taking a pathology perspective about Lyme disease rather than a serology based perspective, Dr. Masters treated Lyme disease aggressively and against the recommended protocols that was used and advocated by Yale Medical and the Infectious Disease Society of America IDSA.

It seemed just a matter of time until he would somehow be sanctioned and silenced, but then Ed Master’s patients stepped forward.

Ed Masters insisted that all of his patients save duplicates of the samples that he stored in his office. The patients would keep them at their own homes.
What was more important was that all patients signed a paper that said the samples were stored in his office were the property of his patients and no one else. That was the legal loop hole that quieted the barking dogs.

No one accepted the patients owned the samples, not even the state of Missouri and taking those samples without their permission and destroying them was a violation of patient’s rights and an invasion of their medical records.

When those patients went to the health department and requested the return of these samples; mysteriously and inexplicably all interest by the Health Department in re-educating Dr. Masters on how to diagnose and treat Lyme patients in Missouri vanished.

Unfortunately Ed masters died at age 63 in 2009 from complications of diabetes. His lectures will be missed both for the insight and humor that Dr. Masters seamlessly wove into all aspects of his life.

Dr. Ed Master’s biggest contribution to Lyme disease will be the understanding that Lyme is not a stand-alone disease, nor a static disease that does not change.

Like its relations that cause Relapsing Fevers, the Lyme spirochete is prone to change, adapt, migrate, and survive.

Twenty years before it was accepted, Dr. Masters suggested that the migration of birds spread ticks north and south but in 1995 this was not accepted.

Now we know that many of those migrating bird species not only harbor several species of ticks, but also are host reservoirs for Borrelia burgdorferi.'

_________________________________________________


The steps these pioneering doctors have gone to to protect themselves from Health Authorities with their own agenda!

I have posted lectures by Tom Grier in the right hand column of this blog all very enlightening reading.

It begs the question to what lengths our new UK NHS Lyme clinic along with Porton Down will be going to to help the patients.

Monday 4 November 2013

NEW GUIDANCE IN UK FOR LYME DISEASE

PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND - Health Protection Report

'Multidisciplinary group to develop new UK Lyme disease guidance (page 4 here )

Specialists based at PHE's Rare and Imported Pathogens Laboratory (RIPL), Porton Down, are to coordinate the development of new UK guidance on the diagnosis and treatment of cases of Lyme disease, the tick-borne infection of which there are approximately one thousand laboratory-confirmed cases recorded annually in England and Wales but whose true prevalence is uncertain because of the difficulties associated with diagnosis and the non-specific nature of symptoms associated with chronic sequelae of the disease.

 This was announced at the end of the PHE's first Lyme disease conference held in London on October 9 [1]. The meeting was addressed by experts from RIPL, by clinicians from Wales and Scotland, and by patient organisations.

 National surveillance of Lyme disease in England and Wales began in 1986, since when officially-recorded incidence has increased five-fold; the true level of infections is estimated to be two to three times higher than the confirmed cases. The disease is named after a US location where a cluster of cases among children was investigated in 1975.

 Because risk of infection is mainly associated with outdoor recreational activity in tick-infested areas of dense vegetation, precautionary advice for the public is routinely issued at springtime [2] while recommendations on diagnosis and treatment for health professionals, including for GPs, including references to statements of best practice, have been regularly updated on the legacy HPA website [3].

 Although geographical factors are significant in determining the manifestation of Lyme disease, no official, nationally-agreed guidance has been developed specifically for UK conditions. A multidisciplinary group is therefore to be convened to develop national guidance on diagnosis, investigation and treatment, including treatment of complex cases, Tim Brooks, clinical service director of RIPL, told the conference. Representatives of all medical specialties that see cases at different stages of the disease's progression, including GPs, infectious disease specialists, microbiologists and neurologists, as well as patient groups, would be involved in the guidance development.

 The Countess of Mar, who opened and closed the meeting, applauded the PHE's willingness to involve patient groups in the guidance development. Many patients experiencing “medically unexplained physical symptoms”, as often occurred prior to a Lyme disease diagnosis, resorted to alternative therapies in the meantime, in order to manage their condition. The benefit of the experience of patient support groups would contribute to the resolution of uncertainties that remain about Lyme: in particular, relating to the effectiveness of diagnosis methods, and to differences of opinion about the usefulness of long-term antibiotic treatment, Lady Mar said. It was also in line with the Chief Medical Officer's support for the concept for the “expert patient”.

 Brooks said guidance development was a long-term project in which patient group involvement was important. He hoped the guidance would encompass differential diagnosis and include recommendations, in the form of algorithms, on routes that health professionals should take when testing for and diagnosing the disease, on treatment of suspected cases, and on investigation pathways to be followed for cases shown to be Lyme-negative.

 References
 1. Lyme disease conference, London, 9 October 2013. See “Conference wrap-up: Lyme disease”, Public Health Matters [Health Protection Directorate post], 15 October 2013, https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/category/hp/.
 2. “Lyme disease update and seasonal tick-bite reminder”, HPR 7(20), 17 May 2013.
 3. Legacy HPA website: Infectious diseases › Infections A-Z › Lyme borreliosis/disease › Guidelines/.

Further information can be found here

Tuesday 29 October 2013

INFECTION - INFLAMMATION - IMMUNE DYSFUNCTION



Dr. Richard Horowitz addressing the crowd at the San Diego 

Lymewalk & Rally, Oct. 19, 2013. He discusses his new book, 

"Why Can't I Get Better? 

Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease."

'How is it possible that an epidemic of tick-borne diseases could be spreading without getting the proper attention? How could patients throughout the United States continue to be desperate for help? To understand the answer to this dilemma, you need to understand the intricacies of Lyme disease and the constructs of the medical paradigm that doctors and health authorities work under.' to read more go to this link here   


WHY CAN'T I GET BETTER?

Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease

Richard I. Horowitz, MD

St. Martin's Press


available here 

Link to Dr Horowitz symptom list here

earlier posts on Dr Horowitz here here and here 

Monday 28 October 2013

CHRONIC LATE LYME DISEASE - DIFFICULT TO TEST, DIFFICULT TO TREAT

The controversy over the late stages of Lyme disease has waged for over 30 years and will continue to do so until we pay attention to the science.

I was having a very quick read through -
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
CENTER FOR BIOLOGICS EVALUATION AND RESEARCH

VACCINES AND RELATED BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

Tuesday,
May 26, 1998

(development of a candidate vaccine for the prevention of Lyme disease.)
Link here 

It didn't take long to realise that chronic difficult to treat Lyme Disease and problems with testing were all acknowledged many years ago, just not talked about in guidelines used for treating patients in the field.

Are we the sacrificial lambs in this race for a vaccine? Are the thousands of wasted lives so unimportant to our Health Departments?

These are just a few comments extracted from this report:-


'I think that it is helpful to think about early and late disease. And clearly something happens between early disease, which is easy to treat, and as Dr. Luft points out, if we didn't ever miss it, we wouldn't need a vaccine. But we do miss it. And late disease, where presumably some other pathogenesis is at work because it is hard to treat. But I would think of these as useful rules of thumb. And I don't think that the statistical information is invalidated. I think if we have eradicated the disease early, it doesn't have a chance to occur late and demonstrate a statistical difference.'

 DR LUFT: "The point that I wanted to make in regard to the study is that there is very heavy dependence on serologic confirmation. ***And when we start thinking about the adverse events, it was stated originally when we got the overview of the disease that the disease is really quite protean. And actually the adverse events are very similar to what the disease manifestations are. And if you start to, as I think Dr. Hall was eluding to -- if you start to kind of say well how often do you actually become sero positive, you can start to have a different take on when someone has an adverse event of whether it is disease specific or infection specific versus vaccine specific. And I think that that is an important issue that we have to deal with.***

 DR. LUFT: 'Well one I think very large issue, and I am not sure it is within the purview of this group, is that the sero diagnosis for Lyme disease in the vaccinated patient population has become extremely difficult and very expensive as a result of this vaccine. What is happening is that all current ELISA's will no longer be useful and that we will have to use Western blot, which is a very costly diagnostic test for the primary diagnosis of patients. And I think that there has to be some work done for the development of new diagnostic testing as well as new diagnostic criteria for this particular patient population. It is going to become a very cumbersome and expensive venture.'

 DR. LUFT: 'I think it is important to realize that this vaccine has a built in adjuvant in it. I mean, it is a lipoprotein and I am not sure how many vaccines are out there that are lipoprotein that has a variety of immunogenic activity in itself and how that might affect either the fetus or the reproductive status of the individual is really unknown. So I would be very -- I would approach that whole issue as to vaccinating someone with a lipoprotein with real caution. Just because we don't have any data in that regard.'

Our doctors have been well and truly duped by those who have disseminated false information and colluded to distort the science in the interests of what? Money, vested interests, vaccines reputation?

Thanks to Tick Talk Ireland for this excellent information here 



Wednesday 16 October 2013

PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND - LYME DISEASE CONFERENCE

PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND HOLDS A CONFERENCE ON LYME DISEASE.
Details of conference program and attendees found here

A historic event - patients and patient advocate groups have been asking Department of Health for open dialogue over many years on the subject of Lyme Disease.

Conference slides from presentations from PHE here 

My notes.

I thought it was a good positive start of dialogue.

The Countess of Mar gave an excellent and enlightened introduction - clearly she is well informed about this disease and working hard to keep doctors involved with the process of working with patient groups and patients.

Dr Tim Brooks (RIPL Porton Down) spoke enthusiastically about ways forward with testing and looking at improving tests - his colleague went into detail about various tests available.

Stella Huyshe- Shires  chair of Lyme Disease Action did us proud making some very salient points forcefully - some may have been lost on the doctors in the audience who still think they have all the answers but hopefully by the end of the meeting some of them may realise they need to be more open minded talk and listen. Engagement - patient voice at center of every decision. Mentioned Ad Hoc International group that has held progress back -'This battle cannot be won on scientific front we need to mount a socio political offensive' Although patients appreciated Stella highlighting this remark my guess is that it was lost on the medics in the audience -(keep repeating it though)

Wendy did a presentation about awareness and educational work that BADA UK do and the need for much more, pointing out some of the problems of patients depending too much on internet and being mis led by 'Snake oil' medicines.

Dr Roger Evans Raigmore seemed to have a very open mind (recognises sero negativity I talked to him during the break and he pointed out to me that even with low % seronegativity  that could still be a significant number of patients) Currently involved with project with 18 surgeries in Scotland looking at all cases of LD even clinical diagnosis and EM to get a feel for the real figure which he believes is between 5 and 10% that of serology. Also looking at ways of improving testing and looking at more isolates - query Miyamotoi.

Ian Farmer GP from Scotland was greeted with a round of applause when he dismissed the testing as rubbish. He practices in an area where Lyme disease has high incidents which he finds in his patient population - pointed out the area is a popular tourist area - how many return home infected and how do they fare with diagnosis and treatment? One interesting point he made was that it was about 1986 when EM rashes started to appear and talking with locals it appears no reports of EM's prior to then.

Dr Miller talked confidently about the research at the Liverpool clinic details on LDA website previously discussed this research here - he repeated IDSA view with great confidence and I suspect it will take much much more before his views are changed - he believes there is no persistence of this organism beyond a short course of antibiotics and only those who meet epidemiology, clear objective symptoms of Lyme( mainly neuro such as Bells Palsy - as we don't get much arthritis in UK!!!) and has positive serology have Lyme Disease.

Dr Dryden impressed me both in presentation and answering my and others questions and in chats during breaks. I would recommend seeking consultation at his clinic - clinic is open to December in a trial capacity - if we don't use it we may loose it. He tells me that he intends following patients over time and keeping records he also says that if patients go elsewhere say to US Lyme docs he will still follow and may be prepared to discuss cases with Lyme Doctors ( not necessarily treating patient himself but until he talks to specialist doctors he won't learn).He agreed he might work with some of our Lyme friendly GP's at his clinic. Clearly he will work closely with Porton Down RIPL on a range of testing to try to establish underlying causes - biopsy lesions, monitor and evaluate serology over time,will encourage urgent referrals from doctors, and refer on if necessary to other specialists.

Jackie Duggan very interesting on testing methods and different tests. Plex-ID may start being used next year and can be primed to test for 8000 pathogens a variety of borrelia strains/species, Bartonella, Babesia etc

At that point I gave up taking notes.
Remainder of talks were interesting but nothing outstanding beyond what many of us have heard before.

Lots of useful questions and good answers far too many to list here.

Most important question for me was that PHE endorse LDA website thus doctors can go there for information- seemed to be accepted - time will tell.

Countess of Mar did an excellent summing up once again showing her thorough understanding of this disease - as much as any of us can in view of the many uncertainties.

I look forward to seeing what information from the presentations is available and what others perceptions were.

I felt after years of frustration and disappointment this was the start of something better, we deserve so much better and NHS budget could be cut reducing wastage on so many unhelpful consultations which was a point that was taken on board too.

Public Health England Health Matters blog, Conference wrap up - Lyme Disease and comments here

A more detailed summary can be found on Nicola's blog here the devil is in the detail so well worth reading.

Lyme Disease Action feedback here 

Thursday 3 October 2013

BORRELIA BURGDORFERI (LYME DISEASE) BIOFILM






From Dr Alan MacDonald -

Borrelia biofilms are now proven to constitute expressions of Human disease in multiple sites:
Skin: Borrelia lymphocytoma, Heart Valve: borrelia Endocarditis, Bone: borrelia Osteomyelitis

In the Ixodid tick gut: biofilms of Borrelia are established and provide a survival mechanism for the
infectomes of Borrelia between the Blood meals which provide the Only nutrition to the Borrelia.
Blood meals taken by a tick may be spaced at one year intervals.

Biofilms of borrelia are Communities. Within each biofilm Community there is microbe Specialization.
Shape shifting of borrelia between spiral, to cystic, to granualr borrelia is confirmed my microscopic
inspection of Living borrelia biofilm communities and corroborates the Specialization of individual
borrelia because of obvious differences in Shape. Biochemical specialization, quorum sensing, quorum Quenching, lateral DNA transfers between members of the biofilm community [horizontal DNA Transfer]
production of self-generated extrcellular matrix materials [ Outer surface sloughed proteins,
and extrusion of DNA into the Matrix ( extracellualr DNA [eDNA]) :: These are all in play in Borrelia biofilms.

Biofilm infections are ALWAYS CHRONIC INFECTIONS.
Biofilm infections are Never Cured by simple short course Antibiotic Therapies.

Please follow the link ( You Tube above) to view the Borrelia biofilms from the Laboratory of Dr Eva Sapi, University of New Haven,
West Haven , Connecdticut. The video is in High Definition , with a resolution of 1080dpi, so the images on
your computer screen are fully equal to the images as seen through the microscope. The "green glow" in the images is due to the insertion of Green fluorescent Protein (GFP) into borrelia burgdorferi to enable sharp contrast between
individual biofilm community members and the intervening extracellular matrix investment material

Borrelia Burgdorferi Biofilm - Live Microscopy Video


Published on Oct 2, 2013
Eva Sapi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of New Haven, hosted my visit 2008. She collaborated with Dr. Alan MacDonald, retired pathologist and Borrelia career researcher, to discover and prove that Borrelia creates biofilms, as microbes have been doing for three billion years.

Using video microscopy, Dr. Sapi's grad student David Luecke explains in this video how DNA from the Borrelia burgdorferi strain B31 "fluoresces" or glows an eerie green. Any green life forms you see in their various states originate from the B31 strain of Borrelia -- one of 100+ strains known.

REMINDER: Most Lyme disease tests only test for ONE strain of Borrelia! Igenex, Advanced Labs and Spirostats will test for more than one strain, however.

Prior to Dr. Sapi's pioneering efforts researchers dismissed Borrelia biofilms. As well, Borrelia biofilm would ruffle the feathers of the IDSA, NIH, CDC and (most) insurance companies, as it would spell out an obvious scientific syllogism for neuroborreliosis -- known previously as chronic Lyme Disease.

Later, they learned that Sapi et al were correct -- that the standard BSK media could be enriched with collagenase (which humans have abundantly) and this media proved to be ideal for growing spirochetal, slimy communities!

This video shows four different life forms alive in the community: spirochetes, cysts, granular and of course the biofilm community itself. Biofilms protect the microbial community from the immune system and antibiotics, which enable infections to live indefinitely inside us.

Hence, chronic Borreliosis (chronic Lyme disease).

Note: you may have seen this before in low resolution. I offered it to the producers of Under Our Skin years ago (free of charge). In this HD version, I included some amazing new high res AFM photos and additional explanations. Special thanks to David Luecke, who provided these slides, and of course to the Sapi-MacDonald team!

This video was produced by The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation. Please offer an any-sized, tax deductible donation at this link:

http://www.arthropatient.org/about/do...

Our specific library of current intelligence on biofilms:

http://www.biofilmcommunity.org/

Our documentary on biofilms, Why Am I Still Sick, now available in French, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese:

http://www.whyamistillsick.com/

Wednesday 2 October 2013

IGENEX TESTING EXPLAINED BY BOB GIGUERE - FOR LYME DISEASE



Lyme Disease Testing: Bob Giguere from IGeneX


Published on Jul 8, 2013

This 27 minute interview focuses on Lyme Disease testing. By now, many of us have learned that there are 100 strains of Borrelia -- but 99% of all testing on humans is based on testing ONE strain -- the B31 strain!

How and why this continues to be ignored is insane and unethical. In the meantime, listen to my interview with Bob Giguere from IGeneX as we discuss:

- the transmission of Lyme Disease
- coinfections
- different vectors of Lyme Disease
- how and why most tests are inaccurate
- chronic Lyme Disease
- finding a doctor

Don't forget to watch my other interviews on the ADRSupport channel, especially the ones with Dr. Alan MacDonald, Lyme Disease Researcher and expert!

This video was produced by The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation. Please offer an any-sized, tax deductible donation at this link:

http://www.arthropatient.org/about/do...


Another interesting presentation from Bob Giguere can be heard here 

Sunday 1 September 2013

WHY AM I STILL SICK? COMPLEXITIES OF CHRONIC ILLNESSES.

Dr. Alan MacDonald- Pathologist Lyme Disease Expert - Part III




Published on Aug 26, 2013
This is a 30 minute video with Dr. Alan MacDonald, a retired M.D. and board certified in Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology. This revealing interview from May 2013 (part 3 of 3) covers many misunderstandings associated with Lyme disease:

Biofilm communities
Herxheimer reactions
Failed therapy vs. Doctor failure
Better terms for Lyme disease
How Lyme was named and actual discoverer
Four points of the Steere compass
Multiple co-infections
Complexity and adaptability of borrelia DNA
Importance of CME for competency
Globalization of Lyme disease
Treatment options
Biofilm infections and endocarditis

The complete interview is available on DVD from The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation. Please offer an any-sized, tax deductible donation at this link:

http://www.arthropatient.org/about/do...

Our specific library of current intelligence on biofilms:

http://www.biofilmcommunity.org/

Our documentary on biofilms, Why Am I Still Sick, now available in French, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese:

http://www.whyamistillsick.com/


Parts  I here 
Parts II here 

Tuesday 27 August 2013

COMPLEXITIES OF BORRELIA - LYME DISEASE BY PATHOLOGIST DR ALAN MACDONALD




Published on Aug 22, 2013
This is a 30 minute video with Dr. Alan MacDonald, a retired M.D. and board certified in Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology. This revealing interview from May 2013 (part 2 of 3) covers many misunderstandings associated with Lyme disease:

Brains and eyes as infection sanctuary sites
Cloaking of spirochetes in complementary proteins
Borrelia lifeforms: biofilms, communities, persisters, liposomes
Syphilis spirochetes and similararities
Spirochetes similar in biofunction as sperm
Anatomy of a tick assault
Six ways of evading the human immune system
The CDC and Borrelia biofilms
Atomic force microscopy: confirms Borrelia biofilms
101 strains of Borrelia, 150 global genotypes
Babesiosis types
Why strain variation makes testing inaccurate

The complete interview is available on DVD from The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation. Please offer an any-sized, tax deductible donation at this link:

http://www.arthropatient.org/about/do...

Our specific library of current intelligence on biofilms:

http://www.biofilmcommunity.org/

Our documentary on biofilms, Why Am I Still Sick, now available in French, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese:

http://www.whyamistillsick.com/ 

Sunday 18 August 2013

CAUSE OF CFS/ME IN SUBSET OF PATIENTS

Eleanor Stein MD (FRCP)C Psychiatry and Psycotherapy -
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and related disorders. her website link is here 

Just another specialist who is considering that a sub population of CFS/ME patients may have Lyme Disease.

On her website she shows this very interesting webinar from Janet Sperling MSc :- here 

The NICE guidelines on CFS say that Lyme Disease must be excluded before a diagnosis of CFS is given. Serology in this field is not reliable as this webinar explains and so Lyme Disease should be a clinical diagnosis made by and expert in that field, preferably one that has had considerable experience in diagnosing Lyme Disease.

During this excellent presentation Janet talks about the research below:-

Metagenomic Profile of the Bacterial Communities Associated with Ixodes ricinus Ticks Carpi et al 

link to paper here 


'A total of 108 genera belonging to representatives of all bacterial phyla were detected and a rapid qualitative assessment for pathogenic bacteria, such as Borrelia, Rickettsia and Candidatus Neoehrlichia, and for other bacteria with mutualistic relationship or undetermined function, such as Wolbachia and Rickettsiella, was possible. Interestingly, the ecological analysis revealed that the bacterial community structure differed between the examined geographic regions and tick life stages'

and a pilot study from New Brunswick done at University of Alberta found 158 genera of bacteria in two ticks.

A common myth is that a tick only passes on the odd infection it comes as quite a surprise to me to see just how many bacteria can be passed on by ticks along with other infections.

I found this webinar enlightening but also the questions and answers very interesting - in the absence of reliable testing for Lyme disease she suggests trialing antibiotics.

Her response to concerns over over use of antibiotics is also interesting. 

Here in UK it is surprising how many antibiotics are used with factory farming - they may not be added as standard to feed as in the past but if one animal/bird in a herd/flock is sick the whole herd/flock is given antibiotics even without testing to see if the infection is bacterial, viral or otherwise. What a pity sick people are not given the same opportunity to trial antibiotics for possible underlying bacterial infections. 




Saturday 27 July 2013

Campaigns — LymePowerOfUs Crowdfunding for Lyme disease awareness

Campaigns — LymePowerOfUs Crowdfunding for Lyme disease awareness

This is the third day since I saw this and I am one of only three who have donated please please pass this around, we will fight this denial every way we can for ourselves, for our children and for our children's children http://t.co/H6ufUgRCiF

Thursday 25 July 2013

BIOFILMS = CHRONIC INFECTIONS: BORRELIA BIOFILMS = CHRONIC LYME DISEASE.

So New - A retrospective on Biofilms of Borrelia and future

Post by inmacdonald » July 24th, 2013, 5:22 pm

In the Original Release of UNDER OUR SKIN [ UOS]
MacDonald's parting remarks are about the exciting future of Biofilms of Borrelia. (earlier posting about Dr MacDonald from UOS here )
At the time of filming, we already had the proof in hand, but we had to get it Published.
We had to get it past an Editor in Chief of a Journal with good academic standing in the world of Medical publishing.
We knew that we would not succeed with the Journal of Infectious Disease
or Clinical Microbiology and infectious Disease or with the newsletter to the membership of the IDSA.

The most important Milestone happened in November 2012 with the long awaited publication of

the PLOS ONE article on In Vitro Biofilms of borrelia burgdorferi.

[We had long since discussed in video interviews, in the year 2006 , and in the film UOS that Biofilms would be the Next Big thing.]

It took 6 years of tedious and politically gut wrenching work to get

THE article into a Prestige journal, PLOS ONE,

The acceptance for the article to be published was, like some births, not an easy delivery.

The original manuscript reviews required mandatory revisions.
Non-negotiable revisions.
The most onerous of these was the directive by the Editorial staff to REMOVE any and All language from the manuscript which connected the significance of Biofilms of borrelia ..... to Human medicine, Human disease, and to Lyme disease ,in specific , and to attitudes toward the proper treatment of Lyme disease and related Borrelia infections.

These demands were acceded to.

Why would PhD reviewers be at all interested in MD type Stuff?

Here the existing politics provide an answer.

None of the 3 reviewers were IDSA aligned persons.
All of the Reviewers, from best that we could determine, were European Microbiologists with special life experience in Biofilm biology of other non-borrelia microbes.

The sticky wicket about biofilms is that Biofilms of the Infectious type are
ALWAYS a marker of CHRONIC INFECTION.

Chronic Lyme borreliosis was then , was in 2006, and is in 2013 a much disputed entity.

Allowing Biofilms of Borrelia to attain academic respectability , by allowing publication of the Sapi et al In Vitro Borrelia biofilm article, the conceptual link by a microscopic structure {biofilm of borrelia community}
overturned all of the objections to the impossibility of Chronic borreliosis
as a Validated Entity.

So , ....did we ask a good question,..... as the Nobel laureate Izzy Singer once remarked...?

Yes!

And So, the next "good question" was .....Are there borrelia biofilms in living organisms or,.....are borrelia biofilms just a Test tube curiosity?

Two weeks after the PLOS ONE publication of the Sapi biofilm In vitro Paper,
came the announcement from the Sapi Group in West Haven Conn at the University of New Haven, that INDEED, Borrelia biofilms were detected under the microscope in a human skin biopsy from Europe from a patient with cutaneous borreliosis.

And, Sapi's group started to look into the Tick gut, to see if Borrelia biofilms are there in the living tick, as a measure to maintain the borrelia through a period of starvation, before it bites its next human victim. This work has also been Paradigm Shifting.

Now to look ahead to the Paradigm shifts yet to come.
MacDonald has announced that the PLAQUES of Alzheimer's disease are Biofilm communities.
That is about as chronic and in the human Body and Disease associated and disease producing as any biofilm professional could ever want to have on a Resume.

How do we Attack and remove biofilms?
That is another tough question.

Biofilms are fortress like communities which are from inception designed to
survive all manner of attack, including high dose long term antibiotic therapies through IV lines surgically sewn into the veins of sick patients who require long term antibiotic therapy.

So Antibiotic Therapy is not a panacea for eliminating biofilms of any microbe
But,
Just before Dr. Bill Costerton passed away from Pancreatic cancer in 2012,
he recorded a video interview on You Tube. In that interview he discussed many things about biofilm biology. Costerton,as the author of many peer reviewed articles on biofilms of many species of microbes, was ideally situated to Editorialize about ALL THINGS BIOFILM>

One of the last topics which he introduced at the end of the video was the concept that Ultrasound energy , correctly administered to Test tube biofilm communities actually breaks up the protective Matrix [Green goo] and opens up the heretofore protected Bacteria to the action of antibiotics, which can then get to the bugs and kill them.

So there is more than a "vague new direction" for killing Biofilm infections.
Costerton has built us an 8 lane highway.

More about this later.

I made the promise in UOS that biofilms would be the Next Great Thing.
That promise has been kept, and more great things will accrue to Lyme borreliosis patients because of Basement laboratory investigations.

Best to you, as always,

Alan MacDonald MD  
July24,2013
website Alzheimerborreliosis

PS: This Week the Lancet Infectious Disease Journal 2013: 13:(8) :719-724hasa manuscript which discusses [b]Streptococcus Gallolyticus[/b] andCancer.
Strep Gallolyticus is a Biofilm former which is highly associated with
setting up its communities on the surface of Malignant Tumors and Premalignant tumors in the human Colon. Some of these biofilm communities send off Showers of the [b]Strep Gallo[/b] biofilm community into the bloodstream, and some of these microbial "emboli" infect the human Cardiac Valves causing Bacterail endocartitis of the Strep Gallo Type[Formerly Strep Bovis endocarditis]

Endocarditis is, and always has been, a BIOFILM infection of the human heart valves.
So a timely "so new" in the world of infectious disease, brought to you by
Biofilm [always chronic] Infections.
Think about it!

Monday 22 July 2013

IDIOPATHIC OR INFECTIOUS DISEASE? SCIENCE EMERGING - BORRELIA AND ALZHEIMER'S




Part II Cystic Borrelia and Related Topics Including Round Body 

Infections of the brain.

Dr Alan MacDonald

Published on Jul 21, 2013

Cystic Borrelia are under appreciated in borrelia biology. This Lecture discusses the formation of Cystic Borrelia, and the Pathological effects in the human body which are
associated with Cystic borrelia, Especially in the Brain. Congential hydrocephalus caused by Gestational borreliosis [ 3cases in world literature ] are reviewed in Detail.
Discussion of the possibility of motility in Cystic borrelia is correlated with Electron Microscopyof borrelia Cystic forms. The String of Pearls form of borrelia is illustrated and the identification of Borrelia String of Pearls forms in human blood by Profesor Morten Laane is illustrated. Round bodies associated with various Nerodegenerative
Disorders in the Human [ ALS, Parkinson's, Cortical Lewy body Dementia. CorticoBasal Degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, FrontoTemporal Dementia] are correlated with parallel observations of Round Body Borrelia Invading Human Brain neurons in a case of Alzheimer's disease. A New paradigm of Round body Neuropathology is suggested for further Study as evidence of Invasive Cystic borrelia microbes. This Paradigm would shift the classification of Neurodegenerative disorders containing Round Intra-neuronal bodies from Idiopathic in Cause to Infectious Diseases of the Human Brain.
Alan B. MacDonald MD July 21,2013
forms in the Human Brain.

Thank you Doctor MacDonald for speaking in Plain English for those of us without a scientific background to understand better.

Sunday 21 July 2013

THE BIOLOGY OF LYME DISEASE - PATHOLOGIST ALAN MACDONALD MD



The Biology of Lyme Disease: An Expert's Perspective


Published on Jul 20, 2013
This is a 30 minute video with Dr. Alan MacDonald, a retired M.D. and board certified in Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology. This revealing interview (1 of 3) covers many of the controversies associated with Lyme disease:

- Chronic Lyme disease
- Alzheimer's and Lyme disease: microscopy and culturing brain tissue
- How Borrelia changes and survives within the human host
- The many strains and variations in Borrelia, how this relates to flawed testing

The complete interview is available from The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation.
http://www.whyamistillsick.com/

And a specific library of current intelligence on biofilms:
http://www.biofilmcommunity.org/

And our non-profit web site, pls make an any-sized donation:
http://www.arthropatient.org/

Alan MacDonald's website Alzheimer Borreliosis 


Thank you Dr MacDonald for this fascinating video - in Plain English which even as non scientists we can easily understand.