MEDICAL POLITICS: The Shame

• Divided medical opinion on diagnosis and treatment: Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) vs. International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS)
• IDSA Lyme disease guidelines ignore chronic Lyme, dissenting international research and published positive patient outcome from long-term antibiotic treatment. Insurance companies have denied coverage for long-term treatment relying on these guidelines as justification.
• The Attorney General of Connecticut found in May 2008 that the "the IDSA's 2006 Lyme disease guideline panel undercut its credibility by allowing individuals with financial interests -- in drug companies, Lyme disease diagnostic tests, patents and consulting arrangements with insurance companies -- to exclude divergent medical evidence and opinion,” and the IDSA enabled “the chairman who held a bias regarding the existence of chronic Lyme to handpick a like-minded panel.”
• OHIP test for Lyme is grossly false-negative and deficient in diagnosis of chronic Lyme and associated tick-borne infections compared to the combination of lab tests used in US and Europe.
• Positive patient outcome remains irrelevant to medical policy in Canada.
• Doctors are not trained to diagnose and treat and are afraid to become involved with chronic Lyme.
• Patients are caught in the middle – with physical, emotional and financial suffering, and are deprived of treatment which can stop or reverse progression of their disease.