Lone Star Ticks

This is from my friend Rick Laferriere in an e-mail sent to me.

Journal of Medical Entomology(2013), 50(2):244

http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/ME12207 We need to know the enemy(ticks) Be well, Richard

Begin Article:

Lone star tick (Acari: Ixodidae) occurrence in Nebraska:
historical and current perspectives.
Cortinas R, Spomer S.
Journal of Medical Entomology, 2013 Mar;50(2):244-51.



Abstract

In 2010 and 2011, field collections were undertaken to
determine the geographic range of the lone star tick,
Amblyomma americanum (L.), in Nebraska In addition, tick
identifications from submissions by the general public
dating to 1911 were examined. Consistent lone star tick
identifications from extreme southeast Nebraska began in 1987.

Specimens have been identified from 27 counties, making lone
star ticks the second most frequently and second most widely
reported tick in the state after Dermacentor variabilis
(Say). Surveys conducted in 70 sites in 43 counties yielded
2,169 ticks of which 1,035 were lone star ticks. Lone star
ticks were more frequent in the southeast portion of the
state and ticks were found in nine counties from which there
were no known submissions. Life stage peaks observed during
the surveys corresponded with those observed from
submissions. Other ticks, incidental to the study, were also
collected.

Woody plant expansion into the tallgrass prairie,
white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virgianianus L.) and wild
turkey (Meleagris gallopavo L.) population growth, and the
increased frequency of milder winters may be facilitating
lone star tick occurrence in the region. Further studies
will assess lone star tick establishment and disease
pathogen prevalence in the state.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/ME12207

Sneaky Lyme Disease Bacteria

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted on my blog. My Lyme disease has had me down for a number of months now. I also have my wife being treated for it now, as well. I hope to get back to regular posts now. This is a great article from www.gather.news com. Thanks to them and the articles's author Megan Hamilton .

 

How Sneaky Lyme Disease Bacteria Use Manganese to Fool the Immune System

March 24, 2013 01:25 AM EDT

Bacteria, like humans, must eat in order to survive. Also, like humans, they utilize iron and other metals to produce the protein and enzymes that are essential for their survival. Normally, when humans get sick due to these misbehaving bugs, the iron produced by these little naughty no-nos is detected by the immune system, which then swings into action, according to LiveScience.
What does the immune system do?
It puts these troublesome microbes on a very strict diet, meaning no iron whatsoever, starving them out of existence. The immune system does this by inducing the liver to produce a hormone that inhibits iron from being absorbed by the gut and by the bloodstream, according to this article in Science Daily.
However, one species of these nefarious bugs has managed to hoodwink the immune system. In fact, these particular troublemakers don't even have the genes that help to produce the proteins which accumulate iron, according to the article. As the only known organism that exists without utilizing iron, Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease instead produces massive amounts of manganese, especially in the areas where it needs to defend itself against the immune system. It uses all that manganese in order to cause Lyme Disease.
Pretty wily for itty-bitty prokaryotic organisms that don't even have brains.
Undoubtedly, most people know by now that Lyme Disease starts with a tick bite.
It has some rather unlovely symptoms, according to LiveScience, including: fever, fatigue, headaches, and rashes. If it isn't treated with the appropriate antibiotics, Lyme Disease can also cause problems for the central nervous system and the cardiovascular system. It's quite amazing that something which can't even be seen with the naked eye can cause so much trouble.
The immune system, like a blood hound with a stuffed up sniffer, doesn't detect the manganese. So from then on, it's party on for Borrelia but a not-so-good time for those now infected with Lyme Disease, a disease that is frequently slow growing and difficult to detect, the article in Science Daily mentions.
Scientists are optimistic that the manganese discovery will open up new options in the treatment of Lyme Disease, said Dr. Valeria Culotta, who is a molecular biologist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"The only therapy for Lyme Disease right now are antibiotics like penicillin, which are effective if the disease is detected early enough," Culotta said in a statement, according to LiveScience. Penicillin attacks Borrelia's cell walls, but the problem is, not all of these critters have cell walls.
Using sophisticated equipment, Culotta and her fellow scientists were able to measure proteins that contained metals all the way down to parts per trillion, LiveScience reported.
"We'd like to find targets inside pathogenic (disease-causing) cells that could thwart their growth," Culotta said.
The next step will be mapping out all the proteins containing metal that inhabit Borrelia. Then the researchers will try to learn how the microbe sucks the manganese in from its surrounding environment, LiveScience reported. The manganese might be the weak link in the bacteria's chain mail, and the researchers can exploit this.
What's the best way to do that?
"The best targets are enzymes that pathogens have, but people do not, so they would kill the pathogens but not harm people," Culotta said, according to LiveScience.
By working for the common good, these scientists may have found a way to beat this nefarious critter at its own game. This is science at it's best.
Lyme Disease distribution map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Important Article from Brown University

Hi Everyone,

I have copied this article from Brown University dated August 30,2012. It is important to us because the studies that have said that continued antibiotic treatment is futile in treating Lyme disease may be flawed. This is  a great article and I would like to thank Brown University and David Orenstein for bringing this to our attention.

 

Be well,

Richar

Lyme retreatment guidance may be flawed

August 30, 2012 | Contact: David Orenstein | 401-863-1862 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting FREE 401-863-1862 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Deer ticks, Lyme disease, and medical guidance Accepted medical practice discourages antibiotic retreatment in cases where Lyme disease symptoms persist. A new review of studies behind current medical advice says those studies prove nothing. Credit: Centers for Disease Control

A new statistical review calls into question studies that have been taken as proof that antibiotic retreatment for chronic Lyme disease is futile. That misunderstanding has led to medical guidance that discourages retreatment and insurance coverage for it. Instead, the authors of the review suggest, the proper reading of the studies and their data is that they prove nothing.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Most doctors treat Lyme disease with antibiotics for two to four weeks after diagnosis, but if symptoms persist after that, medical guidelines recommend against antibiotic retreatment. That recommendation may not be warranted. A newly published statistical review of the four studies upon which those guidelines are based reports flaws in design, analysis, and interpretation that call into question the strength of the evidence against retreatment.
Allison DeLong, a biostatistician at Brown University’s Center for Statistical Sciences and lead author of the study published online Aug. 19, 2012, in Contemporary Clinical Trials, said the four studies do not prove that retreatment does not work. That questionable interpretation, however, has led doctors to forgo treatment and insurance companies to withhold reimbursement.
“The goal of the paper is to clarify what was actually found from these clinical trials and what could be said and what couldn’t be said,” DeLong said. “A lack of evidence should not be used to deny treatment when the studies have serious flaws.”
Evidence in the trials is most often inconclusive, she and three co-authors found. Two studies even found some statistically significant benefits from antibiotics.
DeLong has been curious about Lyme disease retreatment for more than a decade since a friend of hers seemed to benefit from therapy. Her friend paid for the treatment out-of-pocket. Statisticians would call that anecdote an “n of 1,” but the example stuck with DeLong as more people, including journalists, began to question whether retreatment really was ineffective.
In 2009 and 2010, DeLong and her colleagues decided to look into the matter with full statistical rigor. Their analysis started by scanning the medical literature for any randomized clinical trials offering evidence of the efficacy of antibiotic retreatment for Lyme disease. Careful review of more than 100 studies ultimately whittled the field down to the four studies on which the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Neurology are based their guidelines.
The most influential studies were conducted by Klempner et al., and published together in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001. The multicenter trials enrolled chronic Lyme sufferers with positive or negative blood serum results for Immunoglobulin G, an antibody that might indicate active infection. In each of the IgG positive and negative groups, patients either received IV antibiotics followed by oral antibiotics or IV placebo followed by oral placebo. Their symptoms were measured along the way using a subjective set of health quality-of-life measures called the SF-36.
Although Klempner et al. found no significant benefit to retreatment, findings from subsequent SF-36 studies in chronic illnesses provide evidence that the Klempner study was looking for unrealistically large differences.
“The trials, as designed, called for treatment effects considerably larger than the minimum clinically important differences (MCID) identified in other chronic illnesses, suggesting that the sample sizes were inadequate and the trials were very likely underpowered to detect the true underlying MCIDs,” DeLong and her co-authors wrote in the journal.
Klempner’s statistics showed that treatment might or might not have been effective given the broad range of a statistical measure known as the confidence interval, DeLong said.
In another of the four trials conducted by Krupp et al., researchers found that retreatment produced a significant benefit for fatigue, but the authors of the study mistakenly discounted that result, DeLong said.
The authors became concerned that their results were tainted by too many subjects realizing that they were receiving real treatment instead of the placebo. The measure of fatigue is subjective and could be influenced by that realization. But DeLong found that the subjects weren’t likely to have realized anything. Here’s why: If the members of each group have a blindly optimistic seven in 10 chance of believing that they received real medicine, then the people who really were would be right seven out of 10 times and the people receiving the placebo would only be right 3 out of 10 times. The people receiving the medicine would seem like they had discovered their status, but in reality they were only making a lucky, optimistic guess.
While the Krupp study was adequately powered to measure a significant benefit from fatigue, it had less power to measure the two other treatment effects it considered: improvements in cognitive processing and clearance of a potential Lyme disease biomarker, DeLong said.
The last of the four studies, by Fallon et al., had a very small sample size. It found hints of some benefits from retreatment but nothing definitive either positively or negatively.
Ultimately, DeLong said, the best evidence to support or refute antibiotic retreatment will come when scientists develop a definitive test for active Lyme disease infection. In the interim, it is possible that chronic Lyme disease patients harbor an ongoing infection that antibiotics could treat.
“The interpretation of the trials goes too far,” she said. “You can’t say it’s been shown that retreatment is not beneficial. You can’t then jump to the conclusion that this shows there is no persistence of infection.”
In addition to DeLong, the paper’s other authors are statistics graduate student Barbara Blossom of Colorado State University, Dr. Elizabeth Maloney of Wyoming, Minn., and Dr. Steven Phillips of Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut.

Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call (401) 863-2476 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting FREE (401) 863-2476 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Plum Island- Myth or is it a reality?

Hi everyone,

 I have been having a really bad flareup of my Lyme disease. I apologize for not posting as much as I should. I ran across this article from CBS news pertaining to Plum Island. For those of you who don't know, many believe that Lyme disease was somehow weaponized at this facility and that the government is responsible for using ticks for research into bio-warfare. Yes, scary stuff. This is a very interesting article. I will let you decide if there is something to this theory. Again, credit for this article goes to CBS news.

Be well,

Richard

Plumbing the mysteries of Plum IslandJune 10, 2012

(CBS News) A place that's off-limits to most of us was in the news this past week. The federal government announced it has granted a license for a new foot-and-mouth vaccine . . . a vaccine developed at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. With correspondent John Miller we get a rare inside look:

Plum Island sits at the end of New York's Long Island like a question mark. For nearly 60 years, controversies and mysteries have engulfed it.

And no wonder. The island is controlled by the Department of Homeland Security. Its labs are staffed by scientists from the United States Department of Agriculture. They come and go by special government ferries, guarded by armed officers.

We were asked not to film the docks on either side.

So what really goes on here? The USDA says scientists study diseases that can affect livestock, primarily overseas, to develop vaccines.

And although the government says the germs stored on the island affect only animals, that doesn't mean they're not dangerous. And information about them is strictly protected for security reasons.

"I cannot comment on our list of pathogens and the inventories and all those things that are sensitive information," said Luis Rodriguez, a research leader work for the Agricultural Research Service, an arm of the USDA on Plum Island.

Microbiologist Marvin Grubman said Plum Island used to be a battery for the Army before the First World War and into the Second World War - the idea being the island was going to protect New York City from invading armadas.

So today, why is Plum Island still guarded like an armed camp?

"Post-9/11 security in the U.S., and of course around the world, has increased because of the potential threat of the bioterrorist weapon," said Grubman. "So since we work with diseases of animals, it's in the U.S. interest not to allow potential terrorists to come in here and obtain a virus and distribute it around the world."

Is that the far-fetched plotline of a novel? Maybe not.

When Afia Saddiqui, an MIT graduate working as a scientist for al Qaeda was captured in Afghanistan in 2008, Plum Island was on a list of targets she kept.

Grubman said that the majority of the work being done at Plum Island is focused on foot and mouth disease virus. "Foot and mouth disease is an economically important disease," he said. "For instance, the outbreak of 2001 in the United Kingdom resulted in the slaughter of millions of animals and the loss of billions of dollar to the economy."
Grubman has worked on the island for some 36 years. He was evacuated during an outbreak in 1978 of the highly-contagious foot and mouth disease (formerly - and perhaps more aptly - called hoof and mouth) which overwhelmingly affects cattle.

"There was construction going on on the island and there was a release of virus from the laboratory," Grubman said, though he added that the virus never left Plum Island or reached the mainland.

Back then, animals were kept outside in pens, as seen in CBS News footage. When the virus escaped, it quickly spread from one animal to the next.

More than 200 animals had to be put to death.

A vocal critic of Plum Island is Michael Carroll, who detailed his reasons in his book, "Lab 257." He says the USDA's record of running the island is "somewhere between dismal and abominable. Their record is really a record of mishaps, outbreaks, people getting infected."

After the 1978 outbreak, biocontainment facilities (that's sealed laboratories and holding cells) were built and all animals were moved inside.

Pictures of them were taken by CBS in 1999.

But just five years after that, there were two more outbreaks - this time, inside the biocontainment units.

"We have learned from those lessons," said Rodriguez. "So there are a lot of procedures. It's like an onion where you have layer over layer of safety procedures."

The Department of Agriculture says Michael Carroll hasn't been on the island in more than a decade. But Carroll told Miller he does not believe the changes have made a difference.

"I think there have been a bunch of what I would call façade improvements," Carroll said. "But in reality it's the same place it always has been."

The very history of Plum Island - a post-WWII Army biological weapons lab, the decades of secrecy and today's tight security - all seem to conspire to feed the rumors about what really goes on here.

The less that was known, the more people invented: Stories like that of the Montauk Monster, a creature spawned in the lab that escaped into the sea. Rumors about alien experiments.

But the most pervasive story is the one about Lyme disease. Carroll, a lawyer who admits he has no background in science, contends in his book that Lyme disease was fostered on Plum Island and spread.

Researcher Grubman denies the claim: "There is no scientific basis for suggesting that Lyme disease originated on Plum Island. In fact, the scientific evidence indicates that it did not."

And every other scientific expert we spoke to agrees. Durland Fish, the Lyme expert at Yale University, has said of Carroll's conclusions, "He should stop making these things up. It just scares people."
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New Lyme Disease Test

Hi everyone,
This is the press release that was announced in September of last year by Advanced Labratory Services. I am anxious to hear from anyone who has taken this test? Are the insurance companies paying for it? I am hoping to hear from a number of you.

Thanks,
Richard


BORRELIA CULTURE NOW AVAILABLE TO EVALUATE LYME DISEASE PATIENTSResearch breakthrough promises a new Gold Standard in Lyme Disease testing

Lyme Disease blood testing has been notorious for its unreliability This has been responsible for misdiagnoses and inappropriate patient care, as well as confusion on the part of both patient and physician alike. Now, as a result of intensive research, Advanced Laboratory Services Inc. is able to offer what will rapidly become the new gold standard of Lyme tests, the Borrelia Culture.

Until now, the most widely used confirmatory tests for Lyme disease have been serologies. Being indirect tests, at best they can only indicate possible exposure to this organism at some previous point in time. It has been variously reported that the sensitivity of these assays is low and may miss anywhere from 30% to as many as 70% of cases of Lyme. Once positive, these serologic tests tend to remain positive for variable periods, even years, even after treatment. Therefore they do not and cannot be used as a marker for progress during treatment or for success of treatment. In addition, some acute viral infections may potentially give a false positive result.

How are most other infectious diseases diagnosed? Traditionally, a culture is taken to see if an infection is present, and if so, what specific bacterium is causing it. Unfortunately, because Lyme Borrelia are symbionts, meaning that they need a living host to survive, trying to get them to thrive in vitro has been a nearly impossible task. In addition, they are noted for their very slow growth. Because of these difficulties, Borrelia culture until now has not been available to clinicians.

Advanced Laboratory Services Inc. is proud to announce that they have overcome many of these technical difficulties and is able to offer Borrelia cultures. While still considered investigational, the new methods employed allow these advantages:

• By definition, culture is a direct test and if positive, indicates that an infection was present at the time the specimen was taken
• Cultures may be positive even in a patient who is seronegative
• In theory, any fluid or tissue that is infected can be cultured
• All known strains of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato can be detected
• When combined with PCR and DNA sequencing, the exact identity of the Borrelia can be ascertained
• Advanced methods have the promise to increase yield and decrease turn‐around time
• Culture positivity fulfills even the strict CDC surveillance case definition
• Will become the new Gold Standard for laboratory testing
Currently, Advanced Labs is offering two Borrelia blood culture panels. The Basic Panel consists of culturing, with confirmation of identity by histology and by specific immunostaining. The report, if positive, will include a picture of the actual immunostained culture result. The expected turnaround time for this is approximately ten to fourteen days. However, some do grow more slowly, so all cultures will be held in the lab for a minimum of six weeks.

We also offer the Extended Panel. In addition to histology and immunostaining, the identity of all positive cultures will be further studied by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and by nucleic acid sequencing. These extra steps will generally require an additional ten to fourteen days. However, if the initial histology with immunostaining is positive, a preliminary report will be issued while the nucleic acid studies are pending.

Bb culture nuts and bolts:
• Sensitivity exceeds 80% if the patient is symptomatic at the time of blood draw and not on antibiotics for at least four weeks
• All negative controls have remained negative so far
• As with all blood cultures, may need several sets to be sure Any positive test is significant, even if it is the only positive out of a set of three
We have found that the success of culturing Borrelia can be increased by following these simple recommendations:
• The patient should not have been exposed to any antibiotics, even those not known to affect this organism, for a minimum of four weeks prior to the blood sample being drawn.
• Borrelia are more likely to be recovered from patients who are symptomatic at the time of blood sampling.
• A higher yield may be seen if the blood is drawn in the early afternoon, when most infected patients feel especially ill.

Advanced Laboratory Services is continually refining its processes, so we welcome your feedback! Please feel free to share your ideas with us.
Advanced Laboratory Services, Inc. 501 Elmwood Avenue – Sharon Hill, PA 19079
Web: www.advanced-lab.com email: questions@advanced-lab.com

TBDA Gala 2012 Invitation

Hi All.
Please watch this short video and learn of two organizations that now are one.

http://youtu.be/ICDqopdxZ5s

The Tick Slayer- Great New Book

  Hi everyone,
I am posting a copy of an email I received so that you can take advantage of this great book. It is a must read for all of us who suffer from Lyme disease. Links are not live, to purchase go to www.lymebooks.com.
Be well,
Richard

 US Track & Field Athlete
Reveals Successful Lyme Battle
 

THE TICK SLAYER  Battling Lyme Disease and Winning   By Perry Louis Fields US Track & Field Athlete Paperback, $24.95 • 349 Pages  Learn More About the Book Perry Louis Fields is not only a Lyme disease survivor, she is also a US Track & Field top athlete and Olympic hopeful. In this riveting new book , she tells you all about how she beat Lyme disease! But that's not all. Perry's writing style and vast experience within the Lyme disease medical world makes this book a must-read. The tenacity that makes her a successful athlete is what she credits her recovery to, and that tenacity shines through in her new book. Not only will you read about her personal experience with Lyme disease, you'll also hear all about the treatments she used to get better, including her treatment failures, and you'll find useful, specific references on exactly how to find and purchase her  favorite treatments. Some of the treatments and topics she covers in her book include: A comparison of dozens of conventional and alternative treatment options. Various electro-medicine devices and approaches, including ONDAMED, Multi-Wave Oscilator (MWO), QXCI machine, thermal imaging devices, live blood analysis, accupuncture, and many more. Numerous alternative healing approaches such as "Tsi-Ahga," IV Vitamin C, metabolic enzymes, BioMat, nascent iodine, Beta 1,3 Glucans, and more. Parasite cleansing. Probiotic enemas. Special energy-boosting supplements. Blood sugar support. Adrenal support. Liver support. Healing the gut after chronic infection. Dental issues and Perry's extended battle with dental infections. Perry's experiences with numerous health care practitioners of various types, including which ones helped her, and what modalities they used. Perry's return to athletics after her extended battle with Lyme disease. Many more topics - too many to list here! ( learn more) Perry Louis Fields was bitten by an infected tick in the mountains of North Carolina in 2003. Although she has been a long-time track and field athlete, competing at the highest levels in high school, collegiate and post-collegiate events, the disease completely took her out. In 2005, she was forced to stop competing and training and seek medical help soon after the 2005 USA Track and Field championships, where she fell very ill during her competition. Within a few months, her health continued to decline.  After a short course of conventional antibiotic treatment, not seeing improvement and worried that her health would continue to decline, she began researching and treating herself with alternative therapies.  The process of successfully experimenting on herself, trusting her own instincts and forging forward, was the catalyst for her book, The Tick Slayer. Because of her success in recovering from Lyme disease, as well as Chronic Fatigue and Epstein Bar Virus (health problems that began in college), and the co-infections which resulted from tick bite(s), Perry has gained wisdom and experience which guides the writing in her new book. The Tick Slayer is a book for anyone who finds themself devastated by chronic illness and the associated health care challenges. By 2009, Perry was training again and by 2010 she raced her first indoor track season since 2001, where she made her debut at the USA Track and Field Indoor Nationals.  She continues to train in Colorado Springs and is preparing for the 2012 Olympic Trials in the sprints. We have more extensive information about this book available on our website. Paperback Book • 349 Pages • $24.95 •   Learn More

In Other News... Help your fellow Lyme patients! We are editing a new book which is a compilation of the treatments that have helped Lyme sufferers the most. If you have had success with your treatments and want to share your experiences with others, please submit an essay to be considered for inclusion in our new book. Essay writers will even be entered to win cash prizes! Learn more. In case you missed it... The following list includes Lymebook.com's recently released books and DVDs ... just in case you missed them! Released in 2012 Treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease by Burton Waisbren, MD, FACP, FIDSA (book) Released in 2011 Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD, DVD Set (DVD set) 2011 Rife Handbook (book) Defeat Cancer (book or eBook)  Cancer is Curable Now (DVD) Andrew Cutler, PhD, Audio CD Series (audio CDs) Released in 2010 Recipes For Repair (book) The Lyme Diet (book) Under Our Skin (DVD) Ending Denial (book) The Silent Saboteurs (book) Healing Chronic Illness  (book) Healing Lyme Naturally (book) Released in 2009 Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment (book) The Rife Handbook [Updated Edition] (book) 2009 Babesia Update (book) The Stealth Killer (book) Rife's World of Electromedicine (book) Renegade Patient (book) Cure Unknown (book) Evan's Gate (DVD) Released in 2008 The Lyme-Autism Connection (book) Bartonella: Diagnosis and Treatment (book) Cell-Wall Deficient Forms: Stealth Pathogens (book) 2008 Lyme Disease Annual Report (book) 2008 Rife Conference Presentation by Nenah Sylver, Ph.D. (DVD) The Lyme Disease Solution (book) The Lyme Disease Survival Guide (book) And many more... the above list represent s less than half of our catalog. To view everything, visit www.lymebook.com. Stay Connected! New Lyme disease information becomes available almost daily. We don't want you to miss anything! We send email newsletters to you only 2-4 times per year. However, we are continuously publishing new, exclusive information on our blog and FaceBook page. If you don't want to miss anything, "like" us on FaceBook and sign up for email notifications of new blog posts, today!  Also, don't miss our Newsletter Archives, where you can get important information from past email newsletters just like the one you are reading right now. DISCLAIMER:  Lymebook.com newsletters, products, and websites exist as informational and educational resources only.  We do not provide medical advice nor do we offer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or cures for any diseases or medical conditions.  See a licensed physician for medical advice—do not consult Lymebook.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. Bryan Rosner is a journalist, not a medical professional or physician..