Though his treatment usually takes from one to six months, it was a year before the spirochetes completely disappeared from Pepper's blood tests. Lyme disease was identified by Yale University's Dr. Allen Steere in 1975. An epidemiologist with a background in rheumatology, Steere studied a group of Lyme, Connecticut, children who seemed to have a new kind of arthritis. But by that time, the NIH had assigned Lyme's research funding to its arthritis branch. Some argue that Burrascano's tests are no more statistically reliable than the standard ones.
Patients feel better after the hyperbaric chamber because they're high on all that oxygen.
People who complain they have continuing symptoms may think they have chronic Lyme because out of eleven blood tests, one showed a weak positive result, according to one Manhattan physician who sees a lot of Lyme. That's why you can't directly correlate this European research to North America. Clearly, there isn't enough definitive research to tip the balance in either direction. But an ethics probe probably can. In 1993, Burrascano accused NIH and CDC Lyme-disease grant recipients of improprieties at a Senate committee hearing on Lyme research.