IDSA: Caution when opening–contents under pressure

Have you ever heard the saying “what goes around, comes around”? How about “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”. The revolving door between government and industry is cause for concern. The revolving door between the CDC and the vaccine industry is even greater cause for concern. The most recent revolving door has Dr. Julie Gerberding, the first woman to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, being named president of Merck’s vaccine division. Do you think she knows a thing or two about vaccines and how to get them through the process? Do you think she has connections? Dr. Gerberding comes from an infectious disease background.

This just in from Lorraine Johnson: We have been discussing concerns regarding the IDSA hearing viewing restrictions with the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office, who has assured us that the registration requirement has been lifted and provided us with other information about the hearing. The information is fluid and more details may emerge. I will keep you posted on this as news develops.

Last Thursday, the historic review of the IDSA 2006 Lyme guidelines was held in Washington, D.C. Eighteen people presented arguments for and against the guidelines. We don’t know how the IDSA panel will act in the face of this deluge of previously suppressed information, but we do know that we have grown enormously as a community and that the skill-sets we developed on this project will continue to have a positive effect in the future.

I want to share with you a little of the background of the action and acknowledge people who have joined in this massive undertaking over this period. Many others have contributed, and I apologize if I have overlooked anyone’s contribution to this effort.

In the final days waiting for Governor Cuomo to sign the Lyme bill in New York that would ensure Lyme patients access to diagnosis and care, Slate magazine ran what can only be called a Lyme bashing piece designed to kill the legislation. LymeDisease.org responded with this letter to the editor.

The IDSA recently reaffirmed its beleaguered Lyme guidelines with a panel it selected of IDSA members. (Aren’t we all surprised?) Turns out the CDC can’t be quick enough to endorse the IDSA after the IDSA vindicated itself. Overly clubby, don’t you think? The IDSA’s cavalier dismissal of 1600 pages of peer reviewed evidence rebutting its guidelines recommendations actually took my breath away. Now, it seems that the NIH is handing the “hot potato” of a “state of the science” review of Lyme disease that it is mandated to do by law to an “independent” government group, the Institute of Medicine— which, also, surprise-surprise, is composed mostly of IDSA members (according to my sources 4 of 6 members), in what seems like a saga of deniable accountability. (I would so love to be wrong on this.)