The UK Says No to IDSA Lyme Guidelines

Last week, I posted a blog regarding the IDSA stealth front organization, the American Lyme Disease Foundation (ALDF). I pointed out that the organization masquerades as a patient organization or an independent source of information, but is really just the members of the IDSA Lyme guidelines panel and a couple of businessmen. I highlighted the fact that Dr. Phil Baker who was responsible for overseeing the Lyme clinical trials at the NIH prior to his retirement is now the Executive Director at the ALDF. I also raised questions about his management of two NIH trials under his watch, the Klempner trial and the Embers trial. Both trials were funded around the same time. Klempner, which concluded that chronic infection did not persist and that treatment was ineffective, was published in 2004. Embers, which found persistent infection notwithstanding treatment, was not published until almost ten years later. During the interim, the Klempner trial was relied on by the IDSA to deny patients treatment for chronic Lyme and no one mentioned that the companion study, the Embers trial, was still pending. Dr. Baker took issue with my post (see below), and I respond.

According to a nationwide survey by LymeDisease.org, only 7% of chronic Lyme patients are diagnosed and treated within critical thirty-day window essential to cure. More than half wait two years or more for correct diagnosis.

Please refer back to this site for new post on the hearings

Even a few short weeks ago, who would have thought we’d be wearing face masks…

What are we to make of the recently launched journal “Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases” that includes on its editorial board five members of the IDSA Lyme guidelines panel? Dr. Wormser, who chaired the IDSA Lyme guidelines panel, is an associate editor of the journal. Do you think that they might have a bias or might exclude others points of view? If so, is this peer review or is it censorship?