Under Our Skin 2: Emergence Page #4

has been collaborating with

the lyme guidelines authors

in a way that's outside

of government rules and regulations.

I think among lyme disease patients,

there's a feeling that

the money has all been

going to the same people

who have a bias against the existence

of chronic lyme disease

and a real disrespect for the patients.

Nih officials call lyme

patients, "lyme loonies."

They call their treating

physicians quacks.

There's one nih official

who says, "this is a war with patients",

and we need to

start shooting back."

Thousands of Americans

come down with lyme disease every year.

The medical system seems unable

to deal with the disease.

If it's untreated, it can trigger

permanent neurological

and physical degeneration.

By the time it strikes

your central nervous system,

it could be too late.

Health insurance companies

won't pay for chronic

lyme disease treatments.

Tens of thousands

of out of pocket dollars...

It's known as lyme disease.

Thousands suffer from it,

and the symptoms are

devastating, often fatal.

In my practice, I've seen

children from all over the world,

from every state in America,

every province in Canada,

every state in Mexico, south America,

central America, China, Japan, India,

Australia, New Zealand,

and every single country in Europe.

We have official data

of around 60,000 cases,

but the unofficial number

is several hundred thousand each year.

1,500 cases every year reported,

and in the last 10, it has doubled.

Officially, there are more or

less 30,000 to 40,000 cases,

new cases each year.

That is not the real situation.

50,000 new cases.

Some of the doctors are threatened

to lose their licenses.

As of last year, 100%

of Canadian doctors now

who have become publicly known

as treating lyme disease

have now been shut down.

In the U.S., people are

debating about the severity,

whether there's chronicity,

whether treatment works.

In Australia, the debate

is it doesn't exist.

Good evening and welcome to the program.

First tonight, the silent

and deadly killer

that's striking down healthy

Australians every day.

This hideous infectious

disease is spread by ticks

and other insects,

such as fleas and mites,

and unless diagnosed

and treated immediately

can have tragic consequences.

A man has died from a disease

he caught from a tick,

but yet again authorities here

refuse to acknowledge

the disease exists in Australia.

Officially, Australia

is not an endemic area

due to a study that

was done 20 years ago.

Some microbiologists

gathered 12,000 ticks,

crushed them up, found

some borrelia-like organisms,

but decided they weren't lyme

and discarded them and then reported

there was no lyme disease in Australia.

However, there is a lyme-like

disease in Australia.

So it's accepted there's a

lyme-like disease in Australia,

but they don't know the causative agent.

Actually one of the problems

in lyme disease

is it's very name, lyme disease.

Lyme is an infection

by the germ called borrelia,

and the reason why that's important

is because there are hundreds,

literally 200 to 300

different kinds of borrelia,

and lyme disease

is from just one of them.

Lyme disease needs to be renamed, period.

I don't care what you call it,

but there's too much of a stigma,

there's too much prejudice

around lyme disease.

The moment those two words

come out of a patient's mouth,

immediately, if you just look

around, you'll see an eye roll,

and that's how you know

that person is no longer open

or really should be treating that.

We now need to divorce ourselves

from the confines of lyme as a word

and as an easy-to-cure,

hard-to-get infection,

and open it up to borrelia complex

as an easy-to-get,

hard-to-treat infection

due to multiple species

and multiple co-infection.

There are no rules

for borreliosis complex

on the CDC website,

and idsa has no rules

for borreliosis complex.

So let them have their lyme,

let the rest of us have borreliosis,

and let's get on with life.

Well, the medical community

seems to be split

by the great lyme disease debate.

Is it sexually transmitted?

Is lyme disease the next

epidemic after aids?

The study that was just

published in abstract form

in the journal of investigative medicine,

described genital secretions

in patients with lyme disease.

What we found was that

you can find live bacteria

that cause lyme disease

and also the same strain

of the spirochete

in married couples.

I think it's really a game changer

that will completely change

the way people look at this disease.

There's things that I'm feeling

that probably happen to everybody.

Like, one of my eyes is blurred out

and I've always had 20/10 vision.

I won't tell you that it's

not in the back of my mind

that it is possible.

Sean had antibodies for lyme,

but they said that he was

not symptomatic to treat.

He's had no issues with it,

and he's had no need for treatment.

If you think about how many

people are probably infected,

it's overwhelming how many people

could actually be very, very sick.

It's scary.

In newtown, Connecticut,

today is a very different

world than it used to be.

It's a different place.

The world knows about it.

For us, newtown is a place

we raised our children.

It was a place we spent eight years.

It was a place we loved but we

feared because of the ticks.

So when newtown happened,

I just sat on this chair

and I cried and I just cried

and I just desperately

tried to get in touch

with the people I knew

because my son Jared

could have been in

that first-grade class.

When it became clear

that there was a teenage boy

who had taken his own life,

killed his mother,

and so violently hurt other children,

there's no doubt it went through

my mind that he was sick,

that he was sick with lyme disease.

There was some information

that perhaps the mother

had been diagnosed with m.S.,

and immediately then I put

the two pieces together.

He very well could have had

congenital pediatric lyme disease.

Doctor, you claim that

it is a possibility here

that lyme disease leading to lyme rage

may have been the reason why the shooter

acted in the manner that he did?

No question about it.

The literature is filled with cases

of lyme disease that affects the brain.

You must consider lyme disease

in this perpetrator.

A common mistake that many doctors make

is they say, "well, that's psychiatrics",

so therefore it's not

related to lyme."

But some of the children,

teenagers, adults,

I can see lyme rage,

and it's hard to believe

unless you've seen it.

A deadly church shooting in Illinois

leaves some local folks in shock.

Prosecutors have now charged

27-year-old Terry sedlacek with murder.

While police are not commenting

on a possible motive,

sedlacek's mother blames her son's

erratic behavior on lyme disease.

It's important to make sure

that there's not lyme disease

that's driving the whole

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes