HARDSCIENCEONLYME: Biofilms Made Easy

In his interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, journalist Michael Specter says that patients are desperate and that “chronic Lyme” is “more comforting” for them to grab onto than a vague, incurable diagnosis of post-treatment Lyme disease, the preferred IDSA terminology – and a concept that is “recognized,” he points out. He thinks he is being sympathetic and doesn’t seem to realize how condescending and very offensive this sounds to Lyme patients.

The first sign of Lyme disease may be a non-specific ‘flu-like illness with fever, headache, stiff neck and muscle aches and pains several weeks or even months after the nymphal tick season in your area.

When journalist Michel Specter was interviewed by NPR’s Terry Gross on Fresh Air, he got a few things right, but he also repeated some of the inaccurate information he presented in his recent New Yorker article. That information came from the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) propaganda mill.

David Leiby, of the Red Cross, has declared the risk of blood transfusion for Babesia microti to be unacceptably high. Babesia microti is a coinfection of Lyme disease that is transmitted primarily by ticks. Over the past 30 years, between 70-100 cases of transfusion transmitted Babesia have been reported, with at least 12 fatalities. Although the need to screen for the parasite which lives in red blood cells is now recognized as urgent, the method of screening blood has yet to be determined and several obstacles remain before screening practices are adopted. However, according the Leiby, failure to screen is "no longer a viable alternative". The abstract to the article follows the jump. . .

During his interview with NPR’s Terry Gross on Fresh Air, journalist Michael Specter got a key piece of information WRONG: that a tick must be attached for at least 36 hours before it can transmit infection.

Dr. Eva Sapi and colleagues have published an important study today, "Evaluation of in-vitro antibiotic susceptibility of different morphological forms of Borrelia burgdorferi". I have included the link to the article, which is available free of charge at Dove Press, at the end of this post and encourage you to read it. The study is broad ranging, but makes a significant contribution to Lyme research in a number of areas: culturing techniques, cyst and spirochete antibiotic susceptibility, and the role of biofilms in persistence.