Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Lyme car race, vote now
Easy directions for the Lyme car vote ... Go to http://tinyurl.com/yjkjm3n - Search, Then type in .. After the bite .. and it will bring up car # 20 - click on car, then on Vote. Voting is still open
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Collective Intelligence, A New Reality - New Hope
Humans, collectively, are an intelligent lot. Having said that, we are not all created equal nor do we all share a common interest.
Strong suits insofar as intellect, physical health, physical design, mental health, personality, stamina, as well as life's obstacles, and economics all drive one's direction in life and create one's path. The map on which you may find your path is filled with missed options, untraveled roads, wrong turns, and choices subconsciously or consciously overlooked.
You may have embarked on a career in plumbing but had life's path been layed out differently you would now be a marine biologist, doctor, or physicist. Your aptitude and intellect may have allowed you to travel in a different direction but for whatever reason you are on the road you are on.
Because you as a plumber had the intellect and aptitude to have become a doctor/researcher, your contribution to mankind was not necessarily being used in the best possible way in terms of contribution to the global databank of knowledge.
What is now taking place is a remarkable combining of human intellect…a form of mind merging allowing the strength's of each person to work collectively with others toward problem solving like never before. Person's who for whatever reasons were unable to contribute to the global knowledge process now have the vehicle with which to do so.
The medium for this new mind melding is the Internet. While on the Internet we are privy to information garnered from many professions. That we may not hail from a particular profession does not mean we are incapable of comprehending the information within that professional database if given the opportunity.
Most people can successfully negate misinformation and disinformation quite quickly. Online however, it is a collective process aided by discussion groups, research sites, etc. where the moderate thinking majority rein in and frequently expose those who are corrupt. Extreme unfounded claims and statements are made, and proclaimed as truth, but the majority of moderate thinkers aid in toning this down.
This form of mass critiquing and screening gives the global population the opportunity to have well reviewed data at their fingertips as never before. The laborer, who could have been a physicist can now contribute to the review process of the global databank of knowledge.
A Fear of Embracing Change
This newly formed collective intellect and learning is frightening to some of those who previously held domain of knowledge over us.
A medical doctor was once the only one privy to the details of disease, the intricacies of research, and modes of treatment. The good doctors understood their limited understanding of the complexities of illness so they listened and learned from their patient. Other doctors took offense at patient input. Until now the patient had to have blind faith.
These days patients arrive armed with information and, more importantly, relevant questions pertaining to their situation at hand.
Most of us know this does not sit well with some doctors. Some doctors deride all information the patient has garnered from the Internet, forgetting that websites like PubMed and others can arm the patient with more current research data than they have available.
Complex diseases such as Lyme disease are rife with vague and multi-system symptoms that are hard to explain. Many patients cannot communicate their specific and sometimes varied symptoms until they hear how it was explained by others experiencing the same symptoms. This online communication is critical in aiding the patient to put their thoughts in perspective enough to effectively relate them to the doctor.
Wise doctors embrace this and look at it as a furthering of their profession toward a better diagnostic picture. They realize that patients are using data from the Internet to explain something they could not previously relate.
Many times the health issues of the patient are subjective in nature. Subjectivity now seems to be a dirty word in medicine yet is the foundation of all medicine. These subjective complaints can be the hardest symptoms to have taken seriously. With tools like the Internet patients can discuss these problems with others in the same boat perhaps finding an objective measurement of their subjective symptom.
Teachers and professors, not just of medicine, once could lord over the student because they had not yet imparted their knowledge to the student. The wise teachers encouraged debate and understood their own limitations within the subject matter while others smothered thought and questions thereby never revealing their own lack of expertise in the subject at hand. Now the students, like the patients, are armed with knowledge and informed questions enabling them to extract details from what once may have been a reluctant educator.
Internet Data, Good or Bad?
Frequently, whether in colleges or in the doctors offices of the world we are warned against the evils and usefulness of the information available on the Internet. One has to question the root of the logic of those who speak against this newfound flow of data. In the past if data were peer reviewed, published in ink, and placed in a library these data were taken as fact and put into curriculum regardless of how flawed or biased the process was in facilitating that bit of information.
Now if this information is flawed it's much more likely to be critiqued by hundreds or thousands in chat rooms, newsgroups, forums, blogs and websites around the world. Those who buy into nonsense were going to buy into it anyway somewhere, but now the majority of people will ask good questions and seek data from very good sources bypassing the nonsense. Those who believe anything they read are still going to be out there and, they are comprised of our educators, doctors, politicians, clergy, laborers, bellhops, maids and business leaders.
When the data given online reek of propaganda the wise people alert others, much to the dismay of the corporate world of mis-information and dis-information. All too often people who had control of information were dangerously skewing the information they released to the lowly public. One good example of this is data being withheld about the prevalence of disease.
In one situation close to this author's heart, a particular government health body told anyone who asked that there was no Lyme disease in their area and furthermore there were no ticks known to carry and transmit the disease there. As a result, the public were not taking the precautions necessary to protect themselves. Many needlessly contracted the illness. The Internet revealed the true results of the governments' own research showing they knew of the seriousness at hand for some years The general practitioners, our frontline defence, had relied on the government to provide the data but they had been kept in the dark, yet again.
Trust in those in control of our health who are paid to protect the public is as low as it has been in memory, and for good reason. Examples are everywhere from medical guideline writers having conflicts of interest to pharmaceutical product licensing to firings of whistle-blowers who dared to reveal truths.
Most people, when given enough information are able to garner the seed from the chaff and when given the opportunity will seek the seed, not the chaff. When they find the seed they take whatever action is required to sew that seed.
Things Must Change
Using the medical and scientific research community as a prime examples of why things must change we firstly have to understand that those in charge will resist change.
Typically a researcher has to seek funding to embark on the study of an idea or theory he/she may have. The sources of funding are finite, fought after, and often come with the price tag of giving up intellectual and economic rights to the final product to a private or corporate entity.
Only those persons or corporations with enough money to fund or co-fund research are privy to the ownership benefits of research. They then are able to gain more control of data, increase their wealth and, in too many cases then can dictate to the scientists what is to be achieved from their benevolence.
Once a researcher has funding in place and research is complete, papers are produced. When reviewed by a potentially biased or conflicted group of peers, the final paper is then published in journals related to the specific area of medicine or science the research was deemed within.
Too often those who fund the research have considerable influence in the publishing of that information (ie. well placed peers in the peer review/publishing process). Only those data the funding source wants released goes to print. When that data, which suited the needs of that funding source were printed it greatly limited and guided the worlds' databank of knowledge. When driven by money...sanity, sustainability, moral responsibility, medical responsibility, ethical responsibility and wisdom are lost.
Cover-up of undesirable findings and failure to disclose are all too common.
The Internet can expose information that is tainted because the data is critiqued by the masses. Many of those critiquing may be within the realm of that field of information or may simply be those who have the aptitude to understand the data. A lot of free data is published online (still not enough) allowing this critiquing to take place.
There are those who would like to severely restrict this free flow of information. This would be a disaster and would take away the biggest opportunity mankind has had to make better choices for its survival.
Taxpayers May Benefit
Information control can be powerful. As such, clever ways have been devised over the years for corporations and not so well intended politicians and/or bureaucrats to unite to access public money, without calling it public money. Research grants, tax breaks, wide ranging corporate deductions for 'research and development', public/private partnerships are all methods by which corporations can access public funds.
As taxpayers we see tax freedom day move further and further into the calendar year yet we have less and less control over our destiny as corporate control wraps itself ever tighter around our lives, choking any freedom we think we have in determining our own destiny.
Even though we are repeatedly told how well things are in life and how life has improved, the world is at greater risk of catastrophic failure than ever before, mishandled by the heartless, faceless world of economics. No one can state with any level of credibility that we are not heading down a perilous road of single-minded, consumption driven, self-destructiveness.
The marrying of corporate money with public money to fund research projects (co-funding) is done under the guise of a wise use of public funds, and stretching a dollar. In reality the public gives up control of the information it funded putting it in the hands of boardrooms. These boardrooms in turn can cleverly control and fund the election of politicians hand-picked to ensure the continual flow of public monies into their coffers. They fund these political ties from the profits earned from the use of public monies… a perpetual bottomless pit.
No reasonable person would allow their destiny to be controlled by profit yet when the benefactors of profit hold all the data we are left with nothing to question. We can only surmise and assume then live with the consequences.
The Internet if managed correctly can change this and we can own the data we paid for.
The controlled, directed, and filtered global databank of knowledge presently makes up the content of science, history, and medical textbooks from which our young minds learn. We put our futures in these young hands yet we give them, unwittingly, only part of the puzzle to work with.
Monetary interests have severely infiltrated, restricted and directed our databank of knowledge. As corporations merge more frequently, those in control of this knowledge are fewer and fewer. Information is power and we are being led by many not so well intended participants.
Universities are now covertly corporations for profit, heavily laden with conflicts of interest. All research emanating from these bodies is unfortunately suspect and trust in our most prestigious institutions has gone out the window.
A well-funded researcher was once held in high esteem. Now one questions the source and purpose of his/her funding and the possibility of tainted results.
Our professors teach to young minds conflicted data with full confidence, however naïve and misguided, that what they are teaching is good solid information.
We need these educators, our 'conduits of information between generations', to be more vigilant in checking the source of the data they teach, and to also encourage open debate of data.
If those involved in the creation of information at our institutions, and those empowered to impart that information all step up to the plate and wrest control back from the cold corporate world then perhaps the public can once again get good value for their dollar.
The Internet can be an important tool in this regaining of control.
Keeping and Improving Open Access of Data Online
In order to arm the educators with methods to check sources and possible conflicts we must demand an open process. There is this mis-guided notion that the collective intellect of the human race is incapable of discerning fact from fiction when it comes to data outside the day-to-day realm of an individual's experience. The truth is, that by applying this collective online intelligence we can have that plumber with the aptitude of a physicist now able to contribute to the accuracy and cleansing of the global databank of knowledge.
Because he has been a plumber he has a view or perspective that is less cluttered or biased while reviewing this scientific data.
In many cases we are now exposing the flawed, intentionally designed research from which important decisions are being made for what it is...corrupt, globally destructive, species threatening, restrictive in genetic diversity and perilously consumption driven. Some groups have begun to demand to know the source, design and intent of research.
A proclamation that data be allowed to flow freely into the public domain is our moral and ethical right. In fact it is now beyond a right…it is a must. True whistle blowers must be encouraged and protected with all of our might and will. They will be the cornerstones of abating the restriction and ownership of data which could affect the future of the world.
By putting all data in the public realm for this giant screening process it may just allow humans to avoid self destruction.
The Internet could be the bright light in the path toward this process and we must not allow it to be constrained by neither limiting access nor withholding information.
Jim M. Wilson A.I.I.C.
jimwilson@telus.net
written Sept 2005
seen at
http://www.canlyme.com/Collective_Intelligence.html
Humans, collectively, are an intelligent lot. Having said that, we are not all created equal nor do we all share a common interest.
Strong suits insofar as intellect, physical health, physical design, mental health, personality, stamina, as well as life's obstacles, and economics all drive one's direction in life and create one's path. The map on which you may find your path is filled with missed options, untraveled roads, wrong turns, and choices subconsciously or consciously overlooked.
You may have embarked on a career in plumbing but had life's path been layed out differently you would now be a marine biologist, doctor, or physicist. Your aptitude and intellect may have allowed you to travel in a different direction but for whatever reason you are on the road you are on.
Because you as a plumber had the intellect and aptitude to have become a doctor/researcher, your contribution to mankind was not necessarily being used in the best possible way in terms of contribution to the global databank of knowledge.
What is now taking place is a remarkable combining of human intellect…a form of mind merging allowing the strength's of each person to work collectively with others toward problem solving like never before. Person's who for whatever reasons were unable to contribute to the global knowledge process now have the vehicle with which to do so.
The medium for this new mind melding is the Internet. While on the Internet we are privy to information garnered from many professions. That we may not hail from a particular profession does not mean we are incapable of comprehending the information within that professional database if given the opportunity.
Most people can successfully negate misinformation and disinformation quite quickly. Online however, it is a collective process aided by discussion groups, research sites, etc. where the moderate thinking majority rein in and frequently expose those who are corrupt. Extreme unfounded claims and statements are made, and proclaimed as truth, but the majority of moderate thinkers aid in toning this down.
This form of mass critiquing and screening gives the global population the opportunity to have well reviewed data at their fingertips as never before. The laborer, who could have been a physicist can now contribute to the review process of the global databank of knowledge.
A Fear of Embracing Change
This newly formed collective intellect and learning is frightening to some of those who previously held domain of knowledge over us.
A medical doctor was once the only one privy to the details of disease, the intricacies of research, and modes of treatment. The good doctors understood their limited understanding of the complexities of illness so they listened and learned from their patient. Other doctors took offense at patient input. Until now the patient had to have blind faith.
These days patients arrive armed with information and, more importantly, relevant questions pertaining to their situation at hand.
Most of us know this does not sit well with some doctors. Some doctors deride all information the patient has garnered from the Internet, forgetting that websites like PubMed and others can arm the patient with more current research data than they have available.
Complex diseases such as Lyme disease are rife with vague and multi-system symptoms that are hard to explain. Many patients cannot communicate their specific and sometimes varied symptoms until they hear how it was explained by others experiencing the same symptoms. This online communication is critical in aiding the patient to put their thoughts in perspective enough to effectively relate them to the doctor.
Wise doctors embrace this and look at it as a furthering of their profession toward a better diagnostic picture. They realize that patients are using data from the Internet to explain something they could not previously relate.
Many times the health issues of the patient are subjective in nature. Subjectivity now seems to be a dirty word in medicine yet is the foundation of all medicine. These subjective complaints can be the hardest symptoms to have taken seriously. With tools like the Internet patients can discuss these problems with others in the same boat perhaps finding an objective measurement of their subjective symptom.
Teachers and professors, not just of medicine, once could lord over the student because they had not yet imparted their knowledge to the student. The wise teachers encouraged debate and understood their own limitations within the subject matter while others smothered thought and questions thereby never revealing their own lack of expertise in the subject at hand. Now the students, like the patients, are armed with knowledge and informed questions enabling them to extract details from what once may have been a reluctant educator.
Internet Data, Good or Bad?
Frequently, whether in colleges or in the doctors offices of the world we are warned against the evils and usefulness of the information available on the Internet. One has to question the root of the logic of those who speak against this newfound flow of data. In the past if data were peer reviewed, published in ink, and placed in a library these data were taken as fact and put into curriculum regardless of how flawed or biased the process was in facilitating that bit of information.
Now if this information is flawed it's much more likely to be critiqued by hundreds or thousands in chat rooms, newsgroups, forums, blogs and websites around the world. Those who buy into nonsense were going to buy into it anyway somewhere, but now the majority of people will ask good questions and seek data from very good sources bypassing the nonsense. Those who believe anything they read are still going to be out there and, they are comprised of our educators, doctors, politicians, clergy, laborers, bellhops, maids and business leaders.
When the data given online reek of propaganda the wise people alert others, much to the dismay of the corporate world of mis-information and dis-information. All too often people who had control of information were dangerously skewing the information they released to the lowly public. One good example of this is data being withheld about the prevalence of disease.
In one situation close to this author's heart, a particular government health body told anyone who asked that there was no Lyme disease in their area and furthermore there were no ticks known to carry and transmit the disease there. As a result, the public were not taking the precautions necessary to protect themselves. Many needlessly contracted the illness. The Internet revealed the true results of the governments' own research showing they knew of the seriousness at hand for some years The general practitioners, our frontline defence, had relied on the government to provide the data but they had been kept in the dark, yet again.
Trust in those in control of our health who are paid to protect the public is as low as it has been in memory, and for good reason. Examples are everywhere from medical guideline writers having conflicts of interest to pharmaceutical product licensing to firings of whistle-blowers who dared to reveal truths.
Most people, when given enough information are able to garner the seed from the chaff and when given the opportunity will seek the seed, not the chaff. When they find the seed they take whatever action is required to sew that seed.
Things Must Change
Using the medical and scientific research community as a prime examples of why things must change we firstly have to understand that those in charge will resist change.
Typically a researcher has to seek funding to embark on the study of an idea or theory he/she may have. The sources of funding are finite, fought after, and often come with the price tag of giving up intellectual and economic rights to the final product to a private or corporate entity.
Only those persons or corporations with enough money to fund or co-fund research are privy to the ownership benefits of research. They then are able to gain more control of data, increase their wealth and, in too many cases then can dictate to the scientists what is to be achieved from their benevolence.
Once a researcher has funding in place and research is complete, papers are produced. When reviewed by a potentially biased or conflicted group of peers, the final paper is then published in journals related to the specific area of medicine or science the research was deemed within.
Too often those who fund the research have considerable influence in the publishing of that information (ie. well placed peers in the peer review/publishing process). Only those data the funding source wants released goes to print. When that data, which suited the needs of that funding source were printed it greatly limited and guided the worlds' databank of knowledge. When driven by money...sanity, sustainability, moral responsibility, medical responsibility, ethical responsibility and wisdom are lost.
Cover-up of undesirable findings and failure to disclose are all too common.
The Internet can expose information that is tainted because the data is critiqued by the masses. Many of those critiquing may be within the realm of that field of information or may simply be those who have the aptitude to understand the data. A lot of free data is published online (still not enough) allowing this critiquing to take place.
There are those who would like to severely restrict this free flow of information. This would be a disaster and would take away the biggest opportunity mankind has had to make better choices for its survival.
Taxpayers May Benefit
Information control can be powerful. As such, clever ways have been devised over the years for corporations and not so well intended politicians and/or bureaucrats to unite to access public money, without calling it public money. Research grants, tax breaks, wide ranging corporate deductions for 'research and development', public/private partnerships are all methods by which corporations can access public funds.
As taxpayers we see tax freedom day move further and further into the calendar year yet we have less and less control over our destiny as corporate control wraps itself ever tighter around our lives, choking any freedom we think we have in determining our own destiny.
Even though we are repeatedly told how well things are in life and how life has improved, the world is at greater risk of catastrophic failure than ever before, mishandled by the heartless, faceless world of economics. No one can state with any level of credibility that we are not heading down a perilous road of single-minded, consumption driven, self-destructiveness.
The marrying of corporate money with public money to fund research projects (co-funding) is done under the guise of a wise use of public funds, and stretching a dollar. In reality the public gives up control of the information it funded putting it in the hands of boardrooms. These boardrooms in turn can cleverly control and fund the election of politicians hand-picked to ensure the continual flow of public monies into their coffers. They fund these political ties from the profits earned from the use of public monies… a perpetual bottomless pit.
No reasonable person would allow their destiny to be controlled by profit yet when the benefactors of profit hold all the data we are left with nothing to question. We can only surmise and assume then live with the consequences.
The Internet if managed correctly can change this and we can own the data we paid for.
The controlled, directed, and filtered global databank of knowledge presently makes up the content of science, history, and medical textbooks from which our young minds learn. We put our futures in these young hands yet we give them, unwittingly, only part of the puzzle to work with.
Monetary interests have severely infiltrated, restricted and directed our databank of knowledge. As corporations merge more frequently, those in control of this knowledge are fewer and fewer. Information is power and we are being led by many not so well intended participants.
Universities are now covertly corporations for profit, heavily laden with conflicts of interest. All research emanating from these bodies is unfortunately suspect and trust in our most prestigious institutions has gone out the window.
A well-funded researcher was once held in high esteem. Now one questions the source and purpose of his/her funding and the possibility of tainted results.
Our professors teach to young minds conflicted data with full confidence, however naïve and misguided, that what they are teaching is good solid information.
We need these educators, our 'conduits of information between generations', to be more vigilant in checking the source of the data they teach, and to also encourage open debate of data.
If those involved in the creation of information at our institutions, and those empowered to impart that information all step up to the plate and wrest control back from the cold corporate world then perhaps the public can once again get good value for their dollar.
The Internet can be an important tool in this regaining of control.
Keeping and Improving Open Access of Data Online
In order to arm the educators with methods to check sources and possible conflicts we must demand an open process. There is this mis-guided notion that the collective intellect of the human race is incapable of discerning fact from fiction when it comes to data outside the day-to-day realm of an individual's experience. The truth is, that by applying this collective online intelligence we can have that plumber with the aptitude of a physicist now able to contribute to the accuracy and cleansing of the global databank of knowledge.
Because he has been a plumber he has a view or perspective that is less cluttered or biased while reviewing this scientific data.
In many cases we are now exposing the flawed, intentionally designed research from which important decisions are being made for what it is...corrupt, globally destructive, species threatening, restrictive in genetic diversity and perilously consumption driven. Some groups have begun to demand to know the source, design and intent of research.
A proclamation that data be allowed to flow freely into the public domain is our moral and ethical right. In fact it is now beyond a right…it is a must. True whistle blowers must be encouraged and protected with all of our might and will. They will be the cornerstones of abating the restriction and ownership of data which could affect the future of the world.
By putting all data in the public realm for this giant screening process it may just allow humans to avoid self destruction.
The Internet could be the bright light in the path toward this process and we must not allow it to be constrained by neither limiting access nor withholding information.
Jim M. Wilson A.I.I.C.
jimwilson@telus.net
written Sept 2005
seen at
http://www.canlyme.com/Collective_Intelligence.html
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
CanLyme Responds to AMMI rebuke of W5
November 25, 2009 - It is encouraging to see that the AMMI is willing to keep the debate over Lyme disease open in a public forum like a press release. The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation has been struggling for years to increase the transparency of the debate. Similarly, working with the investigative reporters of CTV’s W5 has been an opportunity to work with some of the best investigative journalists in Canada and we have welcomed their incisive input.
We are in complete agreement that our ultimate goal is to protect and educate the public through the promotion of accurate diagnosis, prevention and treatment of human disease. We also agree with the statement that there is no need to alarm the public needlessly. Working with W5 allowed us to demonstrate that there is hope for the many Canadians who are struggling with Lyme disease. Among the three cases highlighted by the W5 documentary, one showed a full recovery and one showed a partial recovery, both of which responded well to antibiotics under medical supervision. These cases showed that there is hope and that education about Lyme disease is the key to recovery.
The importance of such education was clear throughout the W5 documentary, as all the featured patients were faced with disbelief by their Canadian physicians that they were suffering from Lyme disease. Since the AMMI is in agreement that Lyme is much more treatable in its early stages, it is logically obvious that widespread education is essential to early diagnosis and treatment. For late stage Lyme disease, W5 documented that some Canadians have recovered from serious Lyme-like illnesses that responded positively only when treated by those educated in the complexities of Lyme disease.
We do not believe that it is helpful for the AMMI to deflect attention away from antibiotic-treatable late stage Lyme disease by highlighting an old hypothesis that such illness is purely an induced autoimmune disorder. Not only has no useful treatment been developed on the basis of this hypothesis, but the weight of recent peer reviewed research has failed to support it. If the AMMI has reason to believe that we are wrong in this assessment of the autoimmune theory of late stage Lyme disease, then we would welcome a rebuttal supported by evidence.
We are pleased to see that the AMMI has emphasized the importance of ‘epidemiologic findings about the likelihood of exposure to ticks’. However, it is important to remember that this logic may be mistaken to mean that people living outside of restricted areas should not have their Lyme symptoms taken seriously, which would allow them to progress to a stage that is more difficult to treat. Ground cover with oak leaves is only partially correlated with vector distributions, and dispersal of Ixodes ticks on birds migrating to areas distant from oak forests has been well documented.
In the interests of accuracy, we note that the 2008 AMMI conference referred to by the AMMI press release included only a single talk, not a symposium, on the epidemiology of Lyme disease. This plenary talk was presented by an American doctor. There was also a single poster presentation on Lyme disease at this conference. Interestingly, this poster demonstrated that Lyme disease was found in a dog in Alberta as well as in an Ixodes cookei tick removed from that dog. Thus the AMMI is aware that Borrelia burgdorferi (which is spelled with only one i, not two as in the press release) can be found in a putatively non-endemic areas of Canada and that tick vectors other than I. scapularis or even I. pacificus may be involved.
We also wish to correct the AMMI press release statement that ‘One of the issues raised in the W5 story is the stated “fact” that 19,000 cases of LD have been seen in US Border States’. W5 did not say that, neither in the episode that was aired which gave the number as "closer to 15,000 a year" nor in the accompanying website text where it was given as 'nearly 13,000’.
We were surprised to see the AMMI suggesting possible over-reporting of Lyme disease in the United States. To our knowledge, this is the first such indication by a professional organization that US government Centers for Disease Control statistics on Lyme may have been tainted by interference 'engendered by a medical system that pays substantial dividends to both laboratories and physicians for the diagnosis and management of purported “chronic” LD'. In contrast, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for May 7 2004 states that'Studies from the early 1990s suggested that LD cases were under reported by six to 12-fold in some areas where LD is endemic; the current degree of underreporting for national data is unknown'. In this light, we believe that it would have been more appropriate for the AMMI to claim biases in US CDC statistics in the presence of supporting evidence.
Finally, we are glad to know that 'AMMI Canada doctors are at the forefront of antibiotic resistance issues and are confronting the over-use and misuse of antibiotics'. Antibiotic resistance is a serious problem in Canada and it is arguable that the largest component of this problem is due to the extensive use of antibiotics in animal feed at sub-therapeutic levels for economic gain (e.g. 4). We certainly support continued research into the responsible use of antimicrobials.
We’re grateful that W5 journalists were willing to discuss the difficult situation that surrounds Lyme disease, particularly in the Canadian context. We look forward to continued discussion with AMMI Canada, whether in a public or private forum.
1) AMMI Canada Annual Conference 2008 Final Program http://www.ammi.ca/annual_conference/AMMI_Final_Prog2008_rev5.pdf last accessed 23 November 2009.
2) 2) http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091113/w5_lyme_091114/20091114?s_name=W5 last accessed 23 November 2009, audio statement at 7:20
3) 3) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 53 (17): 365-369. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5317a4.htm last accessed 23 November 2009
4) 4) CIPARS 2007 Farm Surveillance Preliminary Results http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cipars-picra/pdf/2007pr_fs-sf-eng.pdf last accessed 23 November 2009
For More Information Contact :
Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation
www.canlyme.com
AMMI responds to CTV w5 story Lyme disease debate
AMMI cries foul (or is that fowl)
Canadian medical microbiologists, who are responsible for Lyme disease testing across Canada, were asked if they wanted to participate in the CTV W-5 show that aired November 14th Canada-wide. They chose not to participate. Now they are crying foul and have issued a press release bemoaning W-5's journalism. CanLyme has issued our response.
Ottawa, November 23, 2009 - AMMI Canada’s ID specialists and medical microbiologists work to reduce the impact of infectious diseases by diagnosing and caring for patients with infections, operating microbiology laboratories and providing expert advice on how to manage and control infectious disease threats, like Lyme Disease (LD), to the health of Canadians.
One of AMMI Canada’s goals is to protect and educate the public through promotion of the accurate diagnosis, prevention and treatment of human infectious diseases.Dr. Gerald Evans, President of AMMI Canada, says, “This sort of unbalanced and poorly informed reporting does no one a service, neither those persons who truly have LD nor the people who have diseases other than Lyme that need an accurate diagnosis to ensure their correct medical management.” There is absolutely no benefit in needlessly alarming the public or contributing to the unfounded belief that the Canadian medical community is ignoring LD.
Canadian ID specialists and medical microbiologists are very sympathetic to the challenges facing misdiagnosed patients. We have taken steps to educate our members, as well as our medical colleagues, on LD. In 2008, AMMI Canada devoted a symposium on this topic during its annual conference. Many of our members have been involved in continuing medical education sessions in our communities and have worked with public health officials to educate the general public on how to protect themselves from LD.
There is no dispute that LD is seen in Canada.Canadian doctors are aware that the geographic distribution of the tick that can transmit LD has increased. It is primarily found in areas that have the ecological conditions that favour persistence of the Ixodes tick vector.These conditions have warmer temperatures, an adequate ground cover in the winter, principally oak leaves to prevent dehydration of the ticks, and the natural hosts (white-tailed deer and the white-footed mouse) required bythese ticks to participate in the effective transmission of the LD bacterium. Recent Canadian research on LD has provided valuable surveillance tools that identify where the tick may be found and how that information helps with diagnosing LD in patients. A June 2009 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, The emergence of Lyme disease in Canada, states, “Because the specificity of serologic tests for Lyme disease may not be high, epidemiologic findings about the likelihood of exposure to ticks that transmit Lyme disease inform the serologic diagnosis, rather than the other way around.”
The W5 story does not address the substantial debate about whether “incurable, chronic” LD truly exists. Borrelia burgdorferii, the bacterium that causes LD, is susceptible to many antibiotics and treatment of Stage 1 and 2 LD with a single course of antibiotic therapy is typically very successful. Stage 3 LD, which manifests principally with a form of arthritis, may respond less well to antibiotic therapy. It is hypothesized that since the mechanism by which B. burgdorferii causes LD-associated arthritis is not completely elucidated, persistent symptoms may well involve an autoimmune phenomenon triggered by similarities between antigens of the LD bacterium and human antigens in joint tissues. If this is the case, then prolonged antibiotic therapy after eradication of the microorganism will not be of any value to patients and, at the same time, place them at risk for complications from the overuse of antibiotics. This hypothesis is supported by studies that have shown no benefit to multiple antibiotics or prolonged antibiotic therapy to treat “chronic” LD.
AMMI Canada doctors are at the forefront of antibiotic resistance issues and are confronting the over-use and misuse of antibiotics.“We must consider the potential serious side effects of inappropriate antibiotic use for unproven LD including: Clostridium-difficile-associated disease, life-threatening drug interactions and antibiotic resistance,” offers Evans.
In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) questioned the validity of some American laboratory tests for LD that use a different standard for interpretation.These tests often cost hundreds of dollars and are billed directly to the patients. “This is cause for scepticism,” says Evans. “Furthermore, some American doctors who claim to be LD specialists do so without any requirement or regulatory authority to verify their credentials or any established standards for claiming such a title.” One of the issues raised in the W5 story is the stated “fact” that 19,000 cases of LD have been seen in US Border States, and therefore Canada must be under diagnosing cases of the disease.This is not balanced by pointing out a possible over-reporting of LD in the US, engendered by a medical system that pays substantial dividends to both laboratories and physicians for the diagnosis and management of purported “chronic” LD. As one patient’s family reported in the story, they spent over $90,000 dollars on medical bills for care in the US.
“In many ways it is unfortunate to see a story that misleads and confuses the public on this important health issue and besmirches the earnest efforts of physicians and scientists who want to help patients with LD and accurately diagnose patients who have medical disorders that are not LD, so that they are correctly treated.” concludes Dr. Evans.
AMMI Canada is leading the battle against infectious diseases.When issues related to infectious disease and medical microbiology break, we support efforts to make accurate, up-to-date health information available to the public.
For More Information Contact :
Gwen Lovagi
Association of Medical Microbiology
and Infectious Disease (AMMI) Canada
T: + 1 613-260-3233 x.104
F: + 1 613 260 3235
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Lyme research is lacking in Canada
Billions of dollars are spent on health care and research in Canada with amazingly little public oversight, much to the delight of business interests. Very little attention is paid to those who decide where to spend our dollars.
The Canadian Foundation for Innovation set up by the government of Canada, gave 3.8 billion taxpayer dollars out since its inception in 1997, to only 128 institutions. A pretty elite club. No doubt a funnel through which tax dollars flow into hands of business via our colleges and universities. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but research scientists and those who have been mingling for years with the business machine are not those we want reviewing who gets the money. We have to look at publicly electing people to these positions, and restricting terms of service of those allowed to review research proposals. In just one year, 2005-06, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research spent almost a billion dollars. What have taxpayers seen for all this money? How much research is guided by and for the benefit of business? Victims groups MUST be active participants in deciding where research dollars go. (Not just those from the select few present big dollar charities that have been around for decades, and the bureaucratic/medical elite)
We have been told that out of both of these mega government institutions' huge budgets there will be NO research dollars available to assist the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, CanLyme, in establishing a research centre and treatment clinic in Canada that will truly investigate Lyme disease. These beaurocrats have decided they are going to continue to piecemeal out research dollars rather than confront disease head on.Farming sickness until a profitable way of dealing with it is found seems more appropriate to those who manage our tax dollars allocated for medical research. Brazil, on the other hand identified they had a rapidly growing problem with Lyme-like disease, a possible gene on/off switching change of the same Lyme bacteria as we have. They created such a facility and are taking this very seriously, as are other countries of the world.
Our health care budgets are going through the roof and there is no research money to spend looking for the true impact that the fastest growing zoonotic disease in the world has on the human body today and in the future. We'll spend some token dollars chasing ticks, and some dollars looking for a drug (not enough in that regard)...but to get serious and identify the scope of this disease will not happen from their funds, according to PHAC and CIHR. (Lyme bacteria and other borrelia have been found to play a role in approx. 200 diagnoses of diseases and conditions that collectively will bankrupt our system in coming decades)CIHR spent 194 million dollars on strategic initiatives in 2005-06 alone. Lyme disease groups have been asking for serious strategic research dollars for going on to 20 years. Canada no longer has a socialized health care system and hasn't for years, we instead run a social event, a wide-open playground and a "good old boys" club for business.
Our government medical directors are globe trotters, associating within the medical business machine which includes the pharmaceuticals, vaccine manufacturers, medical insurers, the World Health Organization and the CDC. Here in Canada the lowly sick are simply an annoyance and the CPHLN guidelines reflect that reality. They complain that we take up too much of their valuable time.Lyme disease has spread un-checked under their watch, is under-diagnosed, and has been shown in research to be present in several disease processes of which Canada has some of the highest rates in the world of, all while making the medical business machine very rich.
Canadians are dropping like flies but still no strategic research initiative. Gotta wonder who is in control."
Jim Wilson, president CanLyme
Lyme research is lacking in Canada
Billions of dollars are spent on health care and research in Canada with amazingly little public oversight, much to the delight of business interests. Very little attention is paid to those who decide where to spend our dollars.
The Canadian Foundation for Innovation set up by the government of Canada, gave 3.8 billion taxpayer dollars out since its inception in 1997, to only 128 institutions. A pretty elite club. No doubt a funnel through which tax dollars flow into hands of business via our colleges and universities. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but research scientists and those who have been mingling for years with the business machine are not those we want reviewing who gets the money. We have to look at publicly electing people to these positions, and restricting terms of service of those allowed to review research proposals. In just one year, 2005-06, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research spent almost a billion dollars. What have taxpayers seen for all this money? How much research is guided by and for the benefit of business? Victims groups MUST be active participants in deciding where research dollars go. (Not just those from the select few present big dollar charities that have been around for decades, and the bureaucratic/medical elite)
We have been told that out of both of these mega government institutions' huge budgets there will be NO research dollars available to assist the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, CanLyme, in establishing a research centre and treatment clinic in Canada that will truly investigate Lyme disease. These beaurocrats have decided they are going to continue to piecemeal out research dollars rather than confront disease head on.Farming sickness until a profitable way of dealing with it is found seems more appropriate to those who manage our tax dollars allocated for medical research. Brazil, on the other hand identified they had a rapidly growing problem with Lyme-like disease, a possible gene on/off switching change of the same Lyme bacteria as we have. They created such a facility and are taking this very seriously, as are other countries of the world.
Our health care budgets are going through the roof and there is no research money to spend looking for the true impact that the fastest growing zoonotic disease in the world has on the human body today and in the future. We'll spend some token dollars chasing ticks, and some dollars looking for a drug (not enough in that regard)...but to get serious and identify the scope of this disease will not happen from their funds, according to PHAC and CIHR. (Lyme bacteria and other borrelia have been found to play a role in approx. 200 diagnoses of diseases and conditions that collectively will bankrupt our system in coming decades)CIHR spent 194 million dollars on strategic initiatives in 2005-06 alone. Lyme disease groups have been asking for serious strategic research dollars for going on to 20 years. Canada no longer has a socialized health care system and hasn't for years, we instead run a social event, a wide-open playground and a "good old boys" club for business.
Our government medical directors are globe trotters, associating within the medical business machine which includes the pharmaceuticals, vaccine manufacturers, medical insurers, the World Health Organization and the CDC. Here in Canada the lowly sick are simply an annoyance and the CPHLN guidelines reflect that reality. They complain that we take up too much of their valuable time.Lyme disease has spread un-checked under their watch, is under-diagnosed, and has been shown in research to be present in several disease processes of which Canada has some of the highest rates in the world of, all while making the medical business machine very rich.
Canadians are dropping like flies but still no strategic research initiative. Gotta wonder who is in control."
Jim Wilson, president CanLyme
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
New Lyme Book Very Good
"Confronting Lyme Disease" is a great read. It details the histories of patients as they muddle through the medical/ethical problems of getting a proper Lyme diagnosis.
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