From: jod@EQUATOR.COM (John Setel O'Donnell)
Newsgroups: alt.med.cfs
Subject: Re: Lyme Disease/Garlic-Vit.C 'Cure' ...
Date: 21 Dec 92 04:04:07 GMT
              <CFS-L@NIHLIST.BITNET>
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU


    >Steere, Sigal, et al. are denying the existence of persistent infection.
    >Look at their publication history.  Their denial is responsible for
    >the denial of research monies which could lead to an end to suffering.

    These guys don't get to hand out the grants, you know.  The NIH and
    other funding agencies don't even consult them regarding who grants
    should go to (this would generate a conflict of interest).  Everyone
    competes for the money based on the soundness of their proposals.  I
    have met Alan Steere and I can tell you that he is interested only in
    understanding Lyme disease and how to best treat it.  His motivation is
    not political.  These good people you are slandering are just trying to
    help you and your fellow Lyme disease sufferers.

Sorry, this is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.  These guys do the peer reviews on
the proposals to investigate persistent infection and make negative
recommendations.  Steere's publications first said, "we're curing
everybody"; then they said "post-Lyme syndrome"; now they say
"fibromyalgia."  His denial of persistent infection is widely
accepted.  This has a great deal to do with why only $200K was
allocated in 1991 for research toward a cure for persistent infection.

    >>Whether or not there is persistence of Borrelia bergdorferi after an
    >>adequate course of Rocephin is unimportant, although I think the
    >>evidence is against it.

    >Could you say, "Whether or not the AIDS virus is amenable to treatment
    >is unimportant, although I think the evidence is against it."????

    Your sentence says exactly the opposite of what mine does.  The issue of
    persistence is not as important as what treatment works.  Long-term
    antibiotics don't help.  Treatment for fibromyalgia does.

Again, you are dead wrong.  Your suggestion that we treating
fibromyalgia is enough is exactly like suggesting that pentamidine is
an adequate AIDS therapy -- that symptom management is enough.  It is
not.  The sufferers are waiting for a CURE.  In many cases there is no
way to manage their symptoms.  They've tried everything.  The need a
CURE FOR PERSISTENT SPIROCHETAL INFECTION.  Just like AIDS sufferers
need something that stops the virus permanently, preferably
eliminating it.


    >Please cite a single reference which refutes the papers I have cited
    >showing persistent infection.

    Those are abstracts, not papers.  That means the study hasn't yet been
    reviewed for scientific merit for inclusion in a peer-reviewed journal.
    Quite a few abstracts never make the cut.  As for refutations, you could
    start by reading those two papers I cited.  There have been several
    other recent papers on this issue, including one coauthored by one of my
    partners, Mike Finkel (I managed to talk him into getting a modem.  Now
    I just have to get him on the net!).  I don't have that reference handy
    but I think I gave it to you earlier over in sci.med.

Wrong again.  Read the papers I cited in Infection and Infec. Immun.
And the papers you cited provide absolutely no evidence for their
irrational faith that the spirochete is eliminated.  None.
-------
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU