UCal Davis (CDC): "Chronic Lyme does not mean Chronic Lyme"

UCal Davis (CDC): "Chronic Lyme does not mean Chronic Lyme"

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Subject: UCal Davis: "Chronic Lyme does not mean Chronic Lyme"

Date: Apr 1, 2008 4:09 AM

LOL (article below, by Alan Barbour's other partner, Bartold)

That's a good one.
Again they say inflammation is the only way to cause disease, when we
know that
Lyme causes immune-suppression-related diseases, like the exacerbation
of latent
viral infections, which you can see here, I have two or three
activated viral infections:
http :// www .actionlyme.org/JAMES PHILLIPS HOMEPAGE.htm

Additionally, what about all the other studies which show that Lyme
spirochetes
persist past treatment by these bad guys, themselves?"
http:www .actionlyme.org/LYME IS A PERMANENT BRAIN INFECTION.htm

???

So, Lyme is a chronic infection with a zillion studies that prove it,
but it's
not a chronic infection.

Check.

What's next, we never landed on the moon?

UCal, Davis is a CDC bioweapons lab headed by Alan Barbour- owner of
the most patents
for Lyme, and the ImmuLyme patent, over which Gary Wormser is still
being sued.


Uhh. Sorry. This ain't flying. We don't perform such sophisticated
medical
studies on people who claim they're sick, find out why they're sick
with
validated analytical methods (knowing ranges of NORMAL), to then turn
around and
say, "It doesn't mean anything." If that were true, all the hospitals
would be turned into brothels, and there would not be such Mainstream
Medicine Hysteria
alternative medicine.

And the NIH would not have assigned the late crook Steve Schultz to
discover the
value of coffee enemas and the like.

Lyme is chronic and latent. It goes into a cyst form that can
regenerate but it
takes 3 months to reculture the cysts:
http :// www .actionlyme.org/IDSA JOHNSONCULTURING.htm

Never believe *anything* the CDC says.

Kathleen M. Dickson
=================================== http :// www .news.ucdavis.edu/search/news detail.lasso?id…84

Lingering Bacteria Don't Indicate Chronic Lyme Disease

March 31, 2008

The bacteria that cause Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne
illness in the
United States, can linger in mouse tissues long after a full round of
antibiotic
treatment is completed, report researchers from the University of
California, Davis.

The scientists caution that the discovery does not suggest the
presence of chronic
disease, nor does it support extended use of antibiotics to treat Lyme
disease in
humans. Their findings are reported in the March issue of the journal
Antimicrobial
Agents and Chemotherapy.

However, they say, the results of this study do set the stage for
controlled laboratory
research investigating potential therapies for persistent Lyme disease
infections.

"Lyme disease is a tough nut to crack. The bacterium Borrelia
burgdorferi has
evolved to evade the body's immune system so it's not surprising that
it
can also evade antibiotics," said Stephen Barthold, lead researcher on
the
study. Barthold is director of the UC Davis Center for Comparative
Medicine, a cooperative
research center in the schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
that investigates
animal models of human disease.

"It's important to note that the numbers of residual bacteria
identified
in this study were very low and there was no evidence that they were
causing inflammation,"
Barthold said. "Their presence shouldn't be misconstrued as a sign of
chronic
disease."
LYME DISEASE BACKGROUND

Borrelia burgdorferi, the corkscrew-shaped bacterium that causes Lyme
disease, is
transmitted to humans and animals through bites from infected deer
ticks. In the
United States, Lyme disease is most prevalent in the Northeastern and
Great Lakes
states, and is present to a lesser extent in Northern California.
Other high-risk
Lyme disease areas are scattered throughout the nation, usually in
shady, moist
deciduous forests where the carrier ticks and their wildlife hosts
flourish.

Symptoms of Lyme disease are highly variable and may include fever,
headache, fatigue
and a skin rash. If the infection is not treated, it can spread to the
joints, heart
and nervous system.

Usually, Lyme disease can be successfully treated with about four
weeks of antibiotics.
Treatment is most successful during the early stages of infection. A
few patients,
particularly those treated during late infection, may experience
persistent or recurring
symptoms after the antibiotic treatment is finished, in which case a
second round
of antibiotics may be prescribed.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
antibiotic treatment
above and beyond one repeat round has not been shown to be beneficial
and has been
linked to serious complications, including death.
THE CONTROVERSY

Many of those involved with Lyme disease -- including patients,
doctors, researchers
and health insurance companies -- are divided over how to treat the
ailment when
it persists beyond a second round of antibiotics. Some patients with
persistent
or recurrent Lyme disease symptoms report experiencing fatigue, joint
pain, extreme
headaches, facial paralysis and memory loss. Much of the controversy
revolves around
debate over whether symptoms reflect continued infection after
treatment.

There has been minimal scientific evidence to support the claim that
infection with
the Lyme disease bacterium can persist in a chronic state following
antibiotic treatment.
As a result, treatment guidelines recommend against prescribing long-
term antibiotics
for persistent Lyme disease symptoms. Many physicians and health
insurance companies
refuse to prescribe or pay for extended antibiotic treatments.
THE DAVIS STUDY

Barthold and colleagues studied antibiotic treatments for Borrelia
burgdorferi infection
in laboratory mice.

One group of mice was treated for one month with the antibiotic
ceftriaxone, beginning
during the first three weeks of infection. A second group received the
same antibiotic
for one month, but beginning at four months after infection,
representing a chronic
infection. A third group, serving as the control, received only saline
for one month,
rather than the antibiotic.

When the antibiotic treatments were completed, DNA analysis showed
that small numbers
of the Lyme disease-causing bacteria remained in the tissues of the
antibiotic-treated
mice. Ticks allowed to feed on these infected mice were also able to
acquire and
transmit the infectious bacteria. Curiously, despite the apparent
viability of the
bacteria, they could not be detected by standard laboratory cultures.

The findings support the theory that the bacteria remain viable and
that some bacteria
evade antibiotic treatment by taking refuge in collagen-rich tissues,
skin, ligaments
and tendons.

"Our theory is that these remaining bacteria are in a metabolically
dormant,
non-dividing state," Barthold said. "This would explain why we were
unable
to culture them.

"In future studies we need to look at the long-term fate of these
bacteria,"
he said. "They seem to be non-dividing. If so, are they permanently
crippled
by the antibiotics and eventually would die out, or would they grow
back over the
long term and cause a recurrence of the disease?"

While the residual bacteria do not appear to cause disease, they may
contribute
to the persistence of Lyme disease symptoms, the researchers
suggested.

"This may explain why some Lyme disease patients recover slowly
following antibiotic
treatment, exhibiting what has been termed "post-Lyme disease
syndrome,"
Barthold said.

The existence of a small number of sequestered bacteria should not
come as a surprise,
he added, noting that with disease-causing agents like herpes virus
and the bacteria
that cause tuberculosis and syphilis, it is not unusual for the
infectious organisms
to persist at levels that do not actually cause symptoms.

"This is just part of our world of microbes," Barthold said.
"Antibiotics
are designed to kill large numbers of bacteria -- to knock them down
to the point
that the body's immune system can get control of the infection."

Bacteria have evolved the means to survive antibiotics in the natural
world, he
noted. Furthermore, if disease-causing organisms such as Borrelia have
evolved the
means to escape clearance by the immune system, it is not surprising
that the bacteria
that survive antibiotic treatment would not be eliminated.

In the case of Lyme disease, the research findings do not suggest that
continued
use of antibiotics would succeed in getting rid of the lingering
bacteria.

"I suspect that if the initial round of antibiotics hasn't eliminated
them,
it's not likely that a longer regimen of antibiotics would be any more
successful,"
Barthold said. "It's more likely that a completely different class of
antibiotics
would be needed to accomplish that. This laboratory mouse model will
allow us to
address those possibilities."

Funding for this study was provided by a U.S. Public Health Service
grant from the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Media contact(s):

* Stephen Barthold, Center for Comparative Medicine, (530)
752-1245, swbarthold@ucdavis.edu
* Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843,
pjbailey@ucdavis.edu