I would not be surprised at all. The more I read, the more I equate Geriatric maladies to some form of bug infection that their weakened immune system is unable to control.

I agree. There have been new studies pointing to toxins, both chemical and biological causing many so called 'autoimmune disorders.' Always ask yourself this question, if something is truly an 'autoimmune disorder' then would it attack all the same kind of affected tissue in the body at the same time. Multiple sclerosis (MS) mean multiple lesions, or multiple damaged areas (affecting the myelin in the central nervous system), but shouldn't it attack all the myelin at the same time? Of course it should. Does the body attack only the viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc. in one part of your body, but not the other? Of course not. So than why the heck would it only attack some myelin in your CNS and not all of it at the same time. There must be something else going on, such as a microbe and/or environmental toxins or something else causing the issue. Most scientist are looking in the wrong area, and you have to ask yourself why. Can it be that most of them and their studies are funded by the pharmaceutical industry? Think about that for a minute.

Not sure if I believe MS is caused by an infection. The MS medication slows down its progress and relieves symptoms, but if you give them to Lyme patients they'll get way worse. Surely they can't be the same thing if you have completely opposite reactions to the medicine.

Noah2112 said...
Not sure if I believe MS is caused by an infection. The MS medication slows down its progress and relieves symptoms, but if you give them to Lyme patients they'll get way worse. Surely they can't be the same thing if you have completely opposite reactions to the medicine.

Not the same thing but I don't see why it couldn't be. Inflammation isn't a binary thing and not all pathogens behave the same way. Most researchers think MS has an infectious component

It's getting hard to tell what's "overlooked" and what just gets poorly communicated to patients. I noticed last week while I was reading my doctors pathology text from medical school it mentioned multiple times bacteria and viruses as likely causes of atherosclerosis and other diseases that still don't get treated as infectious diseases. Like, it's literally in the freakin med school texts. And then you show up to a doctor and they give you immunosuppressants. Hard to tell what's a secret and what's not these days. I think it also depends on what culture of medicine you're interacting with. If you read a bacterial pathogenesis book they act like it's common sense that these are all infectious diseases. Whereas others tend to view the infectious components as peripheral "risk factors" rather than the central process.

But that does bring a good point. There is literally nothing in our understanding of these diseases that demands each one have a single cause. Look at guillaine barre syndrome. It is continuously tied to new pathogens and is just a consequence of convergent evolution. As far as MS, anything that has a tropism for the CNS and damages oligodendrocytes can theoretically increase the risk. I see no reason a spirochete couldn't cause it or any variety of other bacteria and viruses. It's almost ridiculous to look at MS as a single disease entity instead of a symptom (like a fever) of uncertain specificity. I'm sure there are some causes more common than others and that there might be specific differences in the disease between different pathogens. But it drives me nuts when researchers try to use epidemiology to disprove a connection. Like "MS also occurs in non-lyme endemic regions so they're not connected". Uh... maybe there are several causes which is why their geographic spread doesn't perfectly overlap...

"I do agree, it just seems unlikely that these complex conditions that develop over decades are only caused by one factor, but I suspect pathogens may be an important aspect. " -

I agree on this. Other factors play a role but pathogens are really central imo. Not brushing your teeth might be a factor but in the end the only reasonable "cause" for disease to focus on is the overgrowth of bacteria. Most factors probably just influence susceptibility or exposure to infection or hypersensitivity to an otherwise innocuous bacteria

"But if pathogens go the brain (like spirochetes) and sequester themselves there it seems like it's harder to confirm their active presence unless one is performing autopsies specifically looking for pathogens after patients pass away from these conditions."

Yup... Big reason I'm considering going into pathology. I get really frustrated seeing patients when I shadow primary care that are clearly suffering from some infectious disease process and we can't prove it and thus can't do anything about it. One of the tricky aspects particularly in Lyme disease is that post mortem analysis is basically the only way to get definitive answers regarding persistence. But it rarely kills people (knowingly). So... What do you do? But that's basically what all the animal research has relied on. Tedious inspection of the diseased tissues.

It's an interesting conundrum.. Momentum is definitely gaining. And sometimes it's like an OJ Simpson trial. Everybody knows who did it. But you've got some assjack like Wormser standing in the way because of a technicality that hasn't been resolved. But it hurts my head trying to figure out what is going on behind the scenes. It'll be interesting in med school to see what the mainstream perception is like

Kct said...
Anybody here see Dr Alan MacDonald`s 2016 congressional testamony on his lyme infected nematodes in csf ?

Congressional testimony? Have not seen that. Only the poster. Generally I like MacDonald. He's the one who got me thinking about pursuing pathology. But this particular claim seems a bit out there. I wish he would publish it so I can actually read into it. As far as I remember it's only a poster presentation with like... no information

Yeah unfortunately medical bureaucracy is a mess. I don't know much about pathology funding but I'm sure it's still easier to draw in resources for tumors than microbes. I guess I'll find out in four years. I plan on staying at an academic institution if at all possible so that access to those resources is higher.

Oh yeah, time is definitely an issue. That time you spend in the waiting room is not your doctor intensely researching your issues and preparing for your visit. It's your doctor filling out ungodly amounts of paperwork from the last visits so insurance has good deniability for every test or procedure they deem unwarranted. Unfortunately when they do look things up, it's again just a clinical summary put together by a group which may or may not include all the evidence in a nonbiased way. I haven't had a good chance to look at the program UpToDate, but I expect like all clinical summaries controversy is minimized for the sake of simplicity. And that's where people like Wormser have a lot of leverage. Many of these doctors are pretty smart and I suspect if they actually read the garbage that's come out of that mans mouth they would have a different opinion.

Yeah those all good points Psilociraptor and Healing98. Practicing medicine these days is very challenging for a multitude of reasons. I'd imagine that after working all day, trying to cram as many patients into the practice as possible in order to make the business work... as well as fighting through mountains of superfluous paperwork MDs unless they have some sort of personal investment/reason or massive masochistic self-hatred aren't going to want to go home and spend their little free time meticulously researching lyme/coinfections! For a lot of decision making it usually makes sense to outsource to what are generally considered trusted entities like CDC/IDSA. No one can be an expert on everything, hence there has to be some reliance on calculated outsourcing to what one considers trusted experts.

And exactly like Healing98 says, even if the MD does fully understand the ramifications of these infections and what it takes to treat them, they open themselves up to very dangerous liability and attack if they treat outside of the conventional paradigm. The possibility of losing one's license and practice is daunting, especially given the time/resource investment it takes to attain that position. Very high risk. I have a lot of respect for practitioners who treat these diseases beyond conventional standards, it takes a lot of guts.

In regards to politicians, the only ones who buck the trend usually are going to be the ones who have had traumatic personal experience (themselves or family) with these diseases. Otherwise it's hard to change things, in our system where politicians' policy positions get sold to the highest bidder it's no surprise that things don't change. Just have to look at who is footing the bill and what their agendas are (maintain status quo, profits over public health seems to be the standard). I think change will come from the private side of things, it's patients investing in foundations that in turn are helping fund the most interesting research and endeavors. Eventually this will put enough pressure on gov to start making investments as well. If I recall correctly that's how the dynamic played out with HIV.

Post Edited (sebreg) : 7/24/2018 9:59:00 AM (GMT-6)