Scientific community discounts Lyme disease patients

Every year, over 300,000 individuals in the USA alone are concerned that their acute Lyme disease symptoms will progress to chronic manifestations such as Lyme encephalopathy, chronic neurologic Lyme disease, neuropsychiatric Lyme disease, Lyme carditis, and Post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. [1]

The authors of a new review soundly dismiss patients’ concerns regarding chronic manifestations of Lyme disease stating, “The infection annual incidence is modest (< 30,000 cases) and is not supposed to be fatal.” [2]

In dismissing the possible severity of Lyme disease, Peretti-Watel and colleagues failed to take an evidence-based medicine approach (EBM), which integrates clinical experience and patient values with the best available research information.

Instead, the authors took an eminence-based approach, [3] which relies on the omniscience of the organization rather than the evidence. “In the United States the controversy mainly opposes a learned society known as the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) to a physicians’ association known as the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS),” Peretti-Watel writes.

The authors dismiss “chronic Lyme disease” problems as a controversy rather than a legitimate concern for the general population. 

They express frustration over the general public’s progressive interference with experts’ opinion on Lyme disease.  Yet, it is the general public which suffers the consequences as they try to access needed medical care for the treatment of tick-borne infections.

The experts’ opinions on Lyme disease will continue to be questioned until the general population’s concerns and health issues are successfully addressed.