by Elena Cook
3 March 2014
3 March 2014
Dr. Barbara Johnson, leading policy-maker on Lyme Disease at the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), and Dr. Allen Steere, an officer of the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service whose views have dominated Lyme Disease medicine since he first "discovered" * the disease in the 1970's, conspired together in 2007 to bury experimental results which, in Steere's own words, might make some people "conclude that two-tier testing is not that reliable".
Those familiar with the controversies surrounding Lyme Disease will be aware that both Dr Johnson and Dr. Steere have for years maintained that Lyme Disease is over-diagnosed, easily-cured for the most part with short courses of antibiotics, and that serious chronic brain disease virtually never occurs in treated people.
Against this is a raft of evidence showing that the Borrelia spirochaetes which cause Lyme have been recovered from the tissues, including the brain, of chronically ill people, despite treatment.
The two-tier testing method imposed by CDC and other government-backed health agencies involves the ELISA test as first tier. This so-called "screening test" for antibodies is notoriously poor at detecting Lyme.
However, only those positive on the ELISA ever go on to receive the second tier antibody test, the Immunoblot or western blot. There are a great number of factors which could cause a patient to test negative using this regime, despite the presence of infection with Borrelia.
The extracts below derive from email correspondence released in response to a FOIA request by Kris Newby. ** All boldface and some additional spacing in the text is mine.
"From: Steere, Allen C., M.D.
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 1:01 PM
To: Johnson, Barbara J. (CDC/CCID/NCZVED)
Subject: Serology Manuscript
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 1:01 PM
To: Johnson, Barbara J. (CDC/CCID/NCZVED)
Subject: Serology Manuscript
Dear Barbara,
It was good to see you and have the opportunity to talk at the recent Banbury conference....
I have attached two tables. One gives summary data about the results of the prospective serologic study based on our data (Table 1) and the other (Table 1a) gives the summary results of your data....
Although the biggest discrepancy is in IgM testing, the frequency of positive results in every category is less in your testing than in ours. I think that this is particularly problematic as it relates to the early disseminated infection (neurologic and cardiac disease) and late disseminated infection (arthritis) groups.
In your testing, the frequency of IgG positivity is on the low side in each of these groups. In contrast, in our prospective testing, these patients had positive results.
We have postulated that this may have resulted from some degrading of the sera with shipping and with time.
However, this is only one explanation that one would have to give in a manuscript. I am worried that some people would conclude that two-tier testing is not that reliable, which is not the message that we would want to give. Therefore, I would propose that we would go back to the plan in which we simply report the prospective study results from my laboratory.
Please let me know what you think.
Allen"
From: Johnson, Barbara J. (CDC/CCID/NCZVED)
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 6:06 PM
To: Steere, Allen C., M.D.
Subject: RE: Serology manuscript
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 6:06 PM
To: Steere, Allen C., M.D.
Subject: RE: Serology manuscript
Dear Allen,
It was good to see you, too, at Banbury!
After (re)reviewing the data from the prospective study, I agree with your assessment. The best evidence of the performance of two-tiered testing (and a C6 assay) are the data that were acquired in real time.
These data are the ones that are most relevant to clinicians. Since I am not able to dissect the effects of time, shipping, storage here, and our performance of the tests, we would confuse the field by showing these results side-by-side.
If we had a clean story to tell of differences between our labs, I would not hesitate to publish the results. But unfortunately, we do not.
Since Banbur
****text here was censored before release under FOIA****
I should be able to send a draft summary of our Banbury discussions fairly soon.
Warm regards,
Barbara
Barbara
Barbara J.B. Johnson Ph.D."
************************************************************ ************************************************************ ****
Ms. Newby was kept waiting five years for the FOIA material, even though regulations state that it should be provided within a month. When it finally arrived, well over 1000 pages had been censored.
Ms. Newby was kept waiting five years for the FOIA material, even though regulations state that it should be provided within a month. When it finally arrived, well over 1000 pages had been censored.
For more information on the FOIA documents, please see:
and insert words "Lyme" and "Foia" into their search box.
* Although Dr. Steere is often lauded as the "discoverer" of Lyme Disease, many familiar aspects of the disease had actually been known in Europe for a century or more.
What is not clear, however, is whether the Lyme Disease afflicting people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was as virulent as it is today. It is a historical fact that the Borrelia genus of bacteria was researched as a bioweapon since at least as far back as the Second World War era.
**Kris Newby, as many of you will know, is the executive producer of the landmark documentary "Under our Skin", which so poignantly highlighted the impact of the denial of chronic Lyme Disease on the lives of its many victims.
Elena Cook
END
The articles by Elena Cook on this website may be distributed as long as they are reproduced without changes, attributing the author, and the link to the original URL is included.
Disclaimer: Material on this website is intended for informational purposes only. It is not intended as medical advice. For all questions relating to your own health, please consult a qualified medical professional.The site owner is not responsible for the content of external sites.
An attempt has been made to render this website accessible to people with a variety of disabilities. If you are having difficulty using this site, or have suggestions for improving the site's accessibility, please contact me.
Copyright © 2012-2015Elena Cook
