What is apparently happening according to this mostly convincing documentary is that
(1) some people get a chronic form of Lyme disease and, (2) the insurance companies don't want to pay for the long-term treatment required, and (3) their method for avoiding the costs is to deny the disease exists. (4) Additionally, the sufferers are accused of faking it or having it all in their heads.
Furthermore, doctors who treat (and apparently cure) patients with chronic Lyme disease are threatened with losing their medical licenses because the medical establishment believes that the long- term use of intravenous antibiotics (as seen in this film) is harmful.
If all of this is true then this is a national disgrace of a criminal nature.
However, according to the article in Wikipedia, "Chronic Lyme disease is a generally unrecognised diagnosis that encompasses 'a broad array of illnesses or symptom complexes for which there is no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to B. burgdorferi infection.'" One of the citations that Wikipedia gives is an article in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The documentary shows several persons who were bitten by a tick or ticks and contracted Lyme disease but continued to have horrendous symptoms months or years after they should have been cured. Then these same persons are treated with intravenous antibiotics over months or years and then become free of symptoms.
At issue here is did the antibiotics cure them? And if so, what was it that was cured?
My belief is twofold (1) that the infectious agent Borrelia burgdorferi disrupted or compromised the immune system of these people so badly that it took months or years for their bodies to recover, and (2) the infectious agent was able to hide from the immune system in biofilms within the body for months or years. Consequently, in the first case, the antibiotics did not cure them. The passage of time and perhaps love and good life style choices did. In the second case gradually the antibiotics may have cured the disease. In other cases the immune system may be keeping the bacteria at bay.
By the way, the disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi is only one of many similar diseases caused by tick bites throughout the world. Consequently, when doctors are not able to find the Lyme disease agent in a chronically sick person it may be the case they are looking for the wrong bug.
I invite the reader to see the recent Australian documentary "Our Battle Ongoing: Lyme Disease in Australia" (2017) for more information. There is also an "Under Our Skin 2: Emergence" 2015 that brings the viewer more up to date. Interested people should also read relevant literature on the Web and reach your own conclusions.
As far as this documentary goes, it is very well done, nicely edited, clearly presented and seemingly fair, but alarming. Perhaps a subject like chronic Lyme disease IS alarming and should be treated as such.
I hope that this documentary will encourage more research so that we can understand what happens to the relatively few people who get "chronic Lyme disease" and find a cure that spares them months and years of pain and suffering.
--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"
(1) some people get a chronic form of Lyme disease and, (2) the insurance companies don't want to pay for the long-term treatment required, and (3) their method for avoiding the costs is to deny the disease exists. (4) Additionally, the sufferers are accused of faking it or having it all in their heads.
Furthermore, doctors who treat (and apparently cure) patients with chronic Lyme disease are threatened with losing their medical licenses because the medical establishment believes that the long- term use of intravenous antibiotics (as seen in this film) is harmful.
If all of this is true then this is a national disgrace of a criminal nature.
However, according to the article in Wikipedia, "Chronic Lyme disease is a generally unrecognised diagnosis that encompasses 'a broad array of illnesses or symptom complexes for which there is no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to B. burgdorferi infection.'" One of the citations that Wikipedia gives is an article in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The documentary shows several persons who were bitten by a tick or ticks and contracted Lyme disease but continued to have horrendous symptoms months or years after they should have been cured. Then these same persons are treated with intravenous antibiotics over months or years and then become free of symptoms.
At issue here is did the antibiotics cure them? And if so, what was it that was cured?
My belief is twofold (1) that the infectious agent Borrelia burgdorferi disrupted or compromised the immune system of these people so badly that it took months or years for their bodies to recover, and (2) the infectious agent was able to hide from the immune system in biofilms within the body for months or years. Consequently, in the first case, the antibiotics did not cure them. The passage of time and perhaps love and good life style choices did. In the second case gradually the antibiotics may have cured the disease. In other cases the immune system may be keeping the bacteria at bay.
By the way, the disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi is only one of many similar diseases caused by tick bites throughout the world. Consequently, when doctors are not able to find the Lyme disease agent in a chronically sick person it may be the case they are looking for the wrong bug.
I invite the reader to see the recent Australian documentary "Our Battle Ongoing: Lyme Disease in Australia" (2017) for more information. There is also an "Under Our Skin 2: Emergence" 2015 that brings the viewer more up to date. Interested people should also read relevant literature on the Web and reach your own conclusions.
As far as this documentary goes, it is very well done, nicely edited, clearly presented and seemingly fair, but alarming. Perhaps a subject like chronic Lyme disease IS alarming and should be treated as such.
I hope that this documentary will encourage more research so that we can understand what happens to the relatively few people who get "chronic Lyme disease" and find a cure that spares them months and years of pain and suffering.
--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"