Authors of this paper from the United Kingdom say they want to stop calling it "chronic Lyme disease" and start calling it, " chronic arthropod-borne neuropathy (CAN)." They write that calling it "chronic Lyme disease" causes confusion and claim, "These patients have a different disease from Lyme disease." GALDA would like to see them back that statement up with some solid evidence.
Where's the proof that these patients don't have persistent Lyme disease? The Embers monkey study showed that those with late stage infection may not test positive for Lyme disease because antibody levels may wax and wane. And, what about the possibility of other tick-borne infections in some of these people who test negative but are symptomatic? Maybe they are infected with another tick-borne disease.
Changing the name to "CAN" when symptoms may be caused by seronegative Lyme Borreliosis or another already named, treatable tick-borne disease may further complicate matters and delay treatment.
Hmmm! Why not give us better tests or better still learn to culture Lyme!!
