"Open" letter from Tom Grier

Thomas Grier Executive Director
Dr. Paul H Duray Pathology Research
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Dear Editors: I am writing to express a concern about the article you recently published, written by Professor Jan Keppel Hesselink. The article was a position paper about how patients and the lay-public have exaggerated concerns or misrepresented the seriousness of Lyme disease and modern vaccines.

As someone who has been involved with Lyme disease and Lyme disease research since 1990, I have concerns about academics who express strong opinions on this subject, but offer little or no scientific support or research of their own to support that patients are trying to influence medicine in a negative direction.

Since 1991 I have fought for pathology based Lyme disease research to put certain myths and misinformation about Lyme-Borreliosis to rest. For over 25 years the lay-public has been told facts about Lyme disease that quite frankly are not true and were never true. Many of these untrue facts are still being propagated by major physician groups and medical institutions; but lets look at the facts from a position of human pathology. Then decide who is misleading whom?

We were told that only the Ixodes dammini tick could carry Lyme disease and that it was only found in the NE USA therefore Lyme disease was only in the NE USA. The truth is there never was an Ixodes dammini tick, Dr. Andrew Spielman of Harvard misidentified the Black Legged tick which is found throughout North America and several close cousins of this tick all carry the Lyme spirochete and B. burgdorferi is found all through the Northern Hemisphere.

We were told that Borrelia burgdorferi was never intracellular. In truth Lyme disease is very much an intracellular disease and I have attached our own research photos to support that Lyme disease enters the brain and then enter both glial cells and human neurons. We urge every country to do human-brain autopsies as we have done, to see the whole truth of this disease.

We were told for over two decades that Lyme disease is not transferred from mother to fetus. (2006 Dr. Gary Wormser Yale in Under Our Skin documentary.) Once again we have the pathology evidence from 1989 of eight fetal autopsies showing Borrelia in the umbilical fluid, in the placenta, and in almost every fetal organ at necrotopsy. (See attach images)

What else did they get wrong? (When I say they I generally mean in my opinion that the misinformation about Lyme was most damaging from those that had the most influence on the Medical Community which includes the CDC, Yale, SUNY, Harvard and Mayo Clinic, the ACP and the IDSA)

Another untrue truth we were told was that only one species of Borrelia causes Lyme disease. Did they learn nothing from Relapsing Fevers? Borrelia changes and evolves like no other bacteria. It is constantly changing and evolving. We now have 12 species that cause Lyme disease and several species that we call Lyme-Like.

Another non-fact is that we were told that there was only one reservoir host – the white footed mouse. Of course now we know many rodents and birds are carriers of the disease and transmit it to feeding ticks. The range of these animals is far beyond the NE USA where we were told was the only place Lyme disease could exist.

In the Yale medical Report by Marc Voortman it says that patients with a positive ELISA test but a negative western blot can ignore symptoms like a bull’s-eye rash, Bell’s Palsy, and swollen joints and no treatment is necessary, but if the Western Blot test is positive you can treat up-to 2 weeks with doxycycline. I have attached pathological proof that two weeks is not sufficient for late Lyme symptoms.

The list of misinformation shows that the medical experts from the very discovery of this disease got over a dozen major-critically important facts about Lyme Borreliosis completely wrong, and perpetrated misinformation long after pathology had proved them wrong.

The most damaging untruth about Lyme disease was the insistence that Lyme disease does not persist in the human body after antibiotic treatment.

Attached are photos from a patient that lives just a few miles from me. He was a logger who was sick for 30+ years. He was diagnosed with Lyme disease and treated with aggressive antibiotic combinations for over seven years. When he died we found both Borrelia burgdorferi and Borrelia miyamotoi in his brain, and we found live B.burgdorferi and B. mayoni in his testicle.

Lyme disease does persist. It gets into the brain and inside brain cells. (Attached pathology photos from brain autopsies) In addition we have cultured B. burgdorferi out of Alzheimer’s brains.

It is unfortunate to see a position paper like this in 2016 considering that this is the year that many major Universities are clamoring to be the first to publish that they have found an infectious etiology to Alzheimer’s disease, and Borreliosis is the front running contender as a brain pathogen. While we have been using pathology for over twenty-years to prove Borrelia and Alzheimer’s are related, others are just now waking up to the fact that having both a cause and a potential treatment for Alzheimers, is worthy of major recognition.

2016 is the year that the race for the Nobel Prize has begun in earnest, and the group that gets accepted recognition of Borrelia in human brain causes Alzheimer’s pathology will most likely win the prize. You will see papers by Harvard and other major Universities vying for the pole position to prove Alzheimer’s has an infectious etiology.

While others live in the past and criticize patients for their efforts to use pathology to prove their illness has been mismanaged, the medical community has moved on and accepted that the facts they once thought were true are now part of history, and that the Lyme patients were in fact more right than the experts.

Lyme disease persists in the brain, the serology tests are missing brain infections, pregnant mothers can transmit the disease to their unborn child, sexual transmission is likely now that we documented Borrelia in human testicles even after antibiotics, and Lyme disease is found through-out the Northern hemisphere caused by more than a dozen species of Borrelia and carried by many ticks, and Lyme disease can kill as it did in the New York man who had Borrelia in his heart.

So when a patient disagrees with their doctor and explains that they are still sick after treatment. Who is right? The doctor citing 30 year old dogma, or the patient that died and had a brain-autopsy done that revealed a persistent brain infection despite years of antibiotics?

Thomas M. Grier (Exec Director)

Dr. Paul H. Duray Pathology Research Foundation

The BASTUHDS!!
You get 'EM Tom Grier. We're all behind you.

-p

I wonder if he would care if we shared it with Doctors that have treated us and deny Lyme?

Great letter Thomas Grier!

*slow clap ....* Excellent letter!

Loved it! Thanks for sharing Traveler.

Jen2772 said...
...This is one reason I am still going to my mainstream doctors to help them learn about this. They cannot really say I am a "complainer" as I don't come to them very often.. I just listen to what they say and still do what I need to to stay well. I keep going back (occasionally) and say I still have these symptoms-If you guys say it isn't Lyme's then fine WHAT IS IT? I have had a heart attack, and many other REAL diagnosable symptoms they cannot deny. Some just stare at me, but now I have had three different doctors doing research. I got this really bad eye reaction, the ophthalmologist was puzzled but promised he would research Lyme's and so did my mainstream internist...

Jen--
that is AWESOME. What a warrior you are to cycle back to those who need to learn from this MOST. It takes will, courage, stamina and bravery to get in front of them over and over. It WILL pay off, I promise.

I encourage all of us to cycle back to those who misdiagnosed, tossed us out on the street, ridiculed us, or tried desperately to help--and share what we've learned and how we're healing. In many ways it is upon us to help them learn, which will hopefully help prevent others from going down such a difficult journey.

Share this information in the form of articles, studies, your lab results, progress reports, bloodwork, a diary - whatever you can.

-p

made your link "clickable".

/madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2010/08/09/tom-grier-lyme-lecture-outline/

Grier has done a few noteworthy articles. Here he discusses LD laboratory tests (may be helpful to docs & patients, alike):

www.lymeneteurope.org/info/laboratory-tests

Thank you Traveler for sharing this information!!! :) I am saving this and all the other posts from Tom Grier to favorites, so that I can hopefully print the articles out tomorrow!

Thank you sebreg for sharing more lectures from Mr. Grier! It took me a while to figure out how to get to " part 2", "part3", and, " part 4". But, after clicking on everything else, I found at the bottom of the page the word "RELATED" to continue reading part 2-4. Ha ha ha! I'm 38 years old and my "Alzheimer's" is raging! :)

Thank you happyjo for also sharing a link! I will be printing this also! :)

The thing that upsets me is how the CDC, IDSA, and All of their lies and cover-ups of how absolutely devastating this disease IS and CAN become.

If Lyme disease is "not a big deal" and can be "cured" with a short round of antibiotics; then why don't they prove this! This might be the "cure" for the people who can convince their doctor early enough and for a high enough dose. But for most people, this is not the case!!

Maybe some of "their" people at the CDC, that don't believe how devastating this disease Is, can infect themselves with the bacteria. (Don't forget about co infections, parasites, and viruses Also!!!) They can "donate" their health. But, they have to wait three years until they start an antibiotic treatment. I think that I read somewhere, that it takes the average Lyme patient 2 to 3 years until they get the proper diagnosis.

They can go from doctor to doctor for all of their symptoms. And be prescribed all sorts of worthless medications that don't work. They can even go to a psychiatrist when the medical community fails to acknowledge their symptoms.

The lab technicians at the CDC and IDSA probably wear full hazmat suits when handling the Lyme bacteria. I don't know why they would have to, since Lyme disease is "hard to get" and "so easy to cure"!

Thank you Tom Grier, for having the Balls to fight for the people suffering from this terrible infection!

Hi Traveler!-

Thank you for thinking about me! It means a lot! :)

Thank you for also posting that link. Ha ha ha! I already posted on that thread!

A lot of great information on that thread also. And I will be printing that off tomorrow as well !

Thank you again Traveler for all the information and support!!

I love your sense of humor, Artermix!! You sound like so many of us here that have been through the ringer with these infections!

It's actually astonishing for me to realize just how many people willingly believe IDSA even if they have done some research!

i watched the CNN miniseries the 80s yesterday, and the episode on AIDS just brought me such a feeling, as it seems it was only for the vigilant and aggressive protests of those afflicted that got the NIH and CDC off their asses (and Rock Hudson dying) and spending the $ on research...

what will it take for $ going into research like it should? is the Kristofferson-Alzheimer connection going to get the big $ going into Alzheimers research with Lyme as a cause?

there has to come a time when they figure this out, but what will the impetus for the govt to spend the money and do the studies needed?

i got so angry when they said on the news 1.9 Billion for Zika research...my friend who was over said youre best hope of research funding increases is global warming leading to more of the country infected- he meant it as a black humor joke, but i wonder how much truth is in that statement....

Actually, the Lyme bacteria uses manganese instead of iron:
"Scientists have confirmed that the pathogen that causes Lyme Disease—unlike any other known organism—can exist without iron, a metal that all other life needs to make proteins and enzymes. Instead of iron, the bacteria substitute manganese to make an essential enzyme, thus eluding immune system defenses that protect the body by starving pathogens of iron.:

phys.org/news/2013-03-scientists-reveal-quirky-feature-lyme.html#jCp

But I do agree that something changed, even though I was infected no later than 1970 in California, so I'm not sure that my case is in that group.

And honestly, after talking with patients that have been to the Lyme clinic in Germany, there are mixed reviews. There is no one "best place in the world" to get treatments, it's all about finding a doctor that can understand your specific set of complications. I wouldn't tell people to not go there, but it's likely they can find good treatment that will help them recover right here in the US most of the time.

The second President George Bush did have Lyme - but it was only a little tiny blurb that was never repeated in the news: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/08/AR2007080802268.html

That was in 2007 that it was reported, and I remember it as I was trying to find a LLMD at the time. Of course, as President of the US, he has top notch doctors, so when those 'flu like symptoms' hit, I'm sure they started testing, not leaving anything out. He was treated early and fast - unlike most of the rest of us.

LOL! Kind of!! Except we have figured out how to heal despite the IDSA guidelines! Getting help to afford it has always been a problem, although MA just passed a bill requiring insurance co's to cover long term Lyme treatments!! Every step of progress needs to be celebrated!!