Kris Kristofferson

[GoPackGo]

Take a look here:

http://tasteofcountry.com/kris-kristofferson-memory-loss-lyme-disease/

He has been suffering for years for untreated Lyme disease.

Another fine example of medical malpractice.

I love it when doctors "assume".

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

That's too bad, but glad he's improving and maybe since now a celeb can bring attention to it others will be more fortunate. For some reason "it's never lyme disease" seems to be rampant in the medical field. I know someone who contracted it and it took a lot of time, suffering, and doctors before it was properly diagnosed. Medical malpractice is right, just writing something off to the most likely cause instead of checking out the less likely ones is really poor diagnostic practice.

 

[GoPackGo]

Yeah.. I am glad he is improving as well. All it took were a couple of blood tests.

 

[1prophet]

http://www.thedogpress.com/editorials/Plum-island-LymeDisease_Andrews1.asp

https://sites.newpaltz.edu/ticktalk/social-attitudes/story-by-smaranda-dumitru/

Lyme Disease on Plum Island: Fringe Conspiracy Theory or Government Cover-up?

By Smaranda Dumitru
As an animal disease center Plum Island has been the focus of many dark government conspiracies, from top secret biological weapon experimentation during the Cold War to the working ground for Nazi scientists recruited after World War II.


Perhaps scientific experimentation mixed with government classification is just a hotbed for saucy conspiracies, or maybe there is more to Plum Island than we suspect.

A more recent theory is that Lyme disease escaped from Plum Island, which may be the most plausible conspiracy theory yet. The theory went mainstream in 2004 with Michael C. Carroll’s book, Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory.

Plum Island is located off the coast of Long Island, New York. It was used as a military base during the Spanish-American war and in 1954 was turned into a government animal disease center.The center was established to study foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, a highly contagious disease that is rare in humans but can ravage farms and the livestock industry.

While the center was run by the United States Department of Agriculture, in 2002 during talks of selling the island it was transferred to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

The reason some believe Lyme disease escaped Plum Island is because the island is located just a few miles off the coast of Lyme, Connecticut, which is where the first outbreak of Lyme was observed in 1975. While scientists say that all animals on the island are killed to prevent the possible spread of diseases, conspiracy theorists argue that birds regularly fly between the island and the mainland and thus are able to spread any diseases they may pick up.

“I don’t know if Lyme came from Plum Island,” said April Ferguson*, who is a chief strategy officer for a Hudson Valley policy-oriented think tank, “but it’s weird that no one wants to talk about it, doctors are scared to treat and diagnose it, [and] the government doesn’t talk about it.”

Ferguson started considering a link between Lyme disease and Plum Island after she saw a press release describing how the Centers for Disease Control were closing a Texas A & M University biodefense lab due to outbreaks of Brucella and Coxiella burnetii. Brucella and Coxiella burnetii are both tick-borne bacterial pathogens. This led Ferguson to wonder about Plum Island. Both the lab at Plum Island and the one at Texas A&M are Biosafety Level 3 labs and study similar infectious diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza, and Rift Valley fever.
Ferguson represents Lyme patients pro bono as an attorney.

She considers the government’s attitude towards Lyme very strange. The number of cases jumped tenfold in one year, she pointed out, and insurance companies don’t cover antibiotics for Lyme, even though one can easily get antibiotics for any other condition. “Lyme disease is taboo and I don’t understand why,” she said.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

That's interesting.

 

[abj13]

That's too bad, but glad he's improving and maybe since now a celeb can bring attention to it others will be more fortunate. For some reason "it's never lyme disease" seems to be rampant in the medical field. I know someone who contracted it and it took a lot of time, suffering, and doctors before it was properly diagnosed. Medical malpractice is right, just writing something off to the most likely cause instead of checking out the less likely ones is really poor diagnostic practice.

I think its actually the opposite. Many people worry that they have Lyme, even when they have never traveled to a Lyme endemic area. Certainly there are those who contract it, and go undiagnosed for some period of time. You add to it that there are good, but not perfect tests for Lyme, it confounds the problem. Heck, some medical providers do not even understand how to interpret the FDA approved Lyme test, or when to send it (if you have never lived in a Lyme endemic area, like Texas, you really should not be tested, you're more likely to have a false positive test).

Where the issue arises is that now everyone wants to ascribe symptoms, especially with things like "chronic fatigue" to Lyme Disease, despite the fact with large studies there is no association between Lyme Disease, chronic fatigue and associated conditions. And then you have "physicians" (some are not even that) willing to send non-FDA approved tests for Lyme Disease, and offer treatments that have shown no benefit to those with Lyme Disease. Then they want to peddle giving long term antibiotics, despite multiple studies showing no benefit, including a very well performed one published a few months ago in the New England Journal of Medicine:

Berende A, ter Hofstede HJ, Vos FJ, van Middendorp H, Vogelaar ML, Tromp M, van den Hoogen FH, Donders AR, Evers AW, Kullberg BJ. Randomized Trial of Longer-Term Therapy for Symptoms Attributed to Lyme Disease. N Engl J Med. 2016 Mar 31;374(13):1209-20.

This causes major problems, people get labeled with the diagnosis of Lyme Disease, they don't get better after receiving treatment for Lyme Disease (because they don't have it), and then want to ascribe everything wrong with them with the label of their wrong diagnosis. It is much easier to say "well, I'm tired because of my chronic Lyme Disease" despite the fact there is zero evidence such a condition exists. Then they go on the internet discussing their label, and yeah, it strikes an emotional cord with others. They attempt to protest groups like the Infectious Diseases Society of America, despite the fact that is one of the few groups trying to promote proper Lyme Diagnosis and treatment research.

More research is certainly warranted, but there's a large population who are willing to ignore a body of medical evidence to promote the idea they have chronic Lyme Disease or whatever label they want. It is sad and unfortunate that there are so many medical providers willing to prey on these people. If there really is an aversion to "it is never Lyme disease," it is due to physicians recognizing it is a diagnosis that is often abused, and in some cases, should have never been given to a particular patient in the first place.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

How is it a diagnosis that is often abused when it is more likely the last diagnosis in a string of wrong ones? Avril Levigne apparently went through a similar but thankfully shorter ordeal:
http://news.health.com/2015/06/30/why-is-it-so-hard-to-get-a-lyme-disease-diagnosis/

Just to compound this, I've had more discussions about lyme disease with my vet about my pets than I have with any of my own doctors and I literally get more ticks on me than my dogs do.

 

[tweaker2]

Every single participant in the health care industry have their own agenda to pursue. Mainly, how can I get a bigger piece of the lucrative pie and cut out the others while I'm doing it? What we see on the face of it all is the resultant mess that pursuit creates.

What gets the least attention are those poor bastards (us) that have to rely on a system where personal agendas come first while the original purpose of system(to provide efficient and compassionate health care, remember?) is merely a vehicle that gets those agendas from point A to point B.

 

[abj13]

How is it a diagnosis that is often abused when it is more likely the last diagnosis in a string of wrong ones? Avril Levigne apparently went through a similar but thankfully shorter ordeal:
http://news.health.com/2015/06/30/why-is-it-so-hard-to-get-a-lyme-disease-diagnosis/

Just to compound this, I've had more discussions about lyme disease with my vet about my pets than I have with any of my own doctors and I literally get more ticks on me than my dogs do.

You do realize that "chronic Lyme disease" is not a real diagnosis supported by medical literature, correct (different from Kristofferson or Lavigne)?

There's an entire pseudoscience organization that part of their efforts is guided towards a diagnosis not supported by medical literature (chronic Lyme Disease):
http://www.ilads.org/lyme/lyme-tips.php

And just google local "Lyme" doctors. There's one who is a family medicine practitioner near me, he doesn't have training in infectious diseases, rheumatology, neurology or immunology. And he recommends testing for heavy metals in people who are diagnosed with Lyme Disease. Apparently, he thinks himself as a toxicologist too.

 

[TheVrolok]

You do realize that "chronic Lyme disease" is not a real diagnosis supported by medical literature, correct (different from Kristofferson or Lavigne)?

There's an entire pseudoscience organization that part of their efforts is guided towards a diagnosis not supported by medical literature (chronic Lyme Disease):
http://www.ilads.org/lyme/lyme-tips.php

And just google local "Lyme" doctors. There's one who is a family medicine practitioner near me, he doesn't have training in infectious diseases, rheumatology, neurology or immunology. And he recommends testing for heavy metals in people who are diagnosed with Lyme Disease. Apparently, he thinks himself as a toxicologist too.

I live an in endemic area with similar "Lyme literate physicians" in my proximity. Absolutely disgusts me. One particular "Lyme literate physician" across the border in Jersey took roughly 40,000 dollars from a patient of mine before his unfortunate passing due to ALS. Turns out that he did, in fact, have ALS as opposed to the "chronic Lyme disease" which she was treating. My blood is starting to boil just typing this.