Until now, we thought that Europe had an advantage over the US because the US had overly politicised the issue of Lyme disease.
This is also a legacy of the fact that after the World War, biological weapons researchers concentrated in the US, so Borrelia, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, was also put on the “menu”. The so-called “Swiss bug” was the subject of research for decades, and I have personally seen documents from the past decade and heard personal accounts that confirm possible human experiments – among the American population.
The name Burgdorfer, who conducted the research, and Lyme, where a strikingly genetically stable variant appeared – coincidentally not far from a secret laboratory – may be familiar from this story. It is understandable that they tried to sweep this under the carpet…
Further controversy was caused by the fact that the American insurance system is very generous to doctors and stingy to patients. In other words, they gave huge sums of money to consultants for research who somehow came to the conclusion that the diagnostic criteria were too low (which they weren’t) and that a two-week treatment for Lyme disease was sufficient (which it isn’t), and that the rest was post-Lyme (which it absolutely isn’t). But wouldn’t it be in the insurer’s interest to cure patients? As Jenna, an activist working on WHO classifications, told me, insurers work on a quarterly profit basis, but Lyme disease takes at least a year, or rather a year and a half, to pay off.
On the other hand, the advantage is that Lyme disease can be treated relatively cheaply privately in Hungary, and not everyone has had their licence revoked, as in the US or Norway (by the way, the film Under Our Skin is a must-see). Although there have been attacks, it turned out that health recommendations are not so binding that someone would be imprisoned for them.
When I first spoke with prominent Lyme doctors and officials after the US elections, they were outraged. They dismissed the CDC people and cut off the funding. I just smiled to myself, because everyone knew that RFK Jr, the Secretary of Health, and his family were “Lyme victims”.
Now, fresh air is flowing in, and money is flowing into Lyme research in the US, which is making great strides forward. So much has happened in the last month that it is difficult to describe.
We hope that the removal of the interests and scientists that have hitherto prevented the recognition of the facts will have a positive effect on the American Lyme front, and that this will also have a knock-on effect here.
There is much to say… There is much to publish…
We have been saying and writing about this since 1991. Enjoy reading!
