LYMEPOLICYWONK: Oh, Canada! Important New Lyme Study

The IDSA trots out bad faith move after bad faith move to ensure that their Lyme disease guidelines are rubberstamped quickly and quietly. IDSA took first things first–which means stacking the panel has been front and center in its cross-hairs for some time.

On April 22nd, the IDSA guidelines review hearing panel rubber-stamped its Lyme disease guidelines in its final report of the hearing. Those of us who presented and attended the hearing were appalled. Sure we had our reservations about the ability of a panel stacked with IDSA members to impartially review the guidelines, but there were 1,600 pages of peer reviewed evidence that had been presented to the panel and independent scientists had attested to the persistence of the Lyme bacteria and the low quality of the tests. How could they ignore the weight of such evidence? How could they decide to leave the guidelines completely unchanged even though a panel of their own choosing was divided on the testing? To make matters worse, the IDSA then trumpeted the results of a stacked panel as "independent" in their report. Dr. Stricker and I were given the opportunity to respond to the IDSA "spin" and our letter to the editor was just published. An excerpt follows:

Finally, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) came out with its agenda for their “State of the Science Hearing”after much hemming and hawing. Patient groups (including CALDA) who asked for transparency in the study process received a mere “no comment” response. Well, we never got transparency, and we only got the agenda after it was finalized and released to the public. So, here’s the score: its 3 for 3 in the ‘Final Inning’ in favor of the IDSA.

Four of the 6 IOM panel members are IDSA members.

10 of the 14 physician speakers were authors on the IDSA guidelines or the copycat guidelines issued by members of the IDSA panel or members of the IDSA.

Zero ILADS physicians have been chosen to speak. Let me repeat: ZERO, zip, nada, not a single ILADS physician was chosen to speak!

Dr. Gary Wormser, poster boy of the Connecticut IDSA antitrust investigation, is kicking off the game.

Oh, there’s window dressing to be sure. A personalized tour of the Agenda after the great leap forward. . .

In the movie “The King’s Speech”, the Duke of York tells his unorthodox speech therapist Logue that he has “been t-t-treated f-or this by the f-f-finest ph-ph-physicians.” Logue responds: They are idiots. When the Duke protests that “Th-they h-h-have knighthoods”, Logue responds “Well, that makes it official that they are idiots.” He is talking about hubris and arrogance interfering with medicine and science. So it is with “eminence based medicine”–guidelines that hinge upon the opinion, bias and arrogance of physicians that hold a particular viewpoint rather than science. The IDSA has been called to task in research by its own members that find that the IDSA’s guidelines are based mostly on opinion—not evidence.