Innatoss Test: Disgraceful waste of money on Test that will further doom Borreliosis sufferers
Blog post by Elena Cook (personal capacity)
29 July 2016
I
received an article regarding the Innatoss test today from a friend who
forwarded it from the Caudwell Lyme list. British billionaire John
Caudwell, who has several members of his family afflicted with Lyme
disease, is praising this new test and is apparently very "excited"
about it.
I
think it is an utter farce that leading people in the British Lyme
patients' movement are rejoicing over things they have no understanding
of, and which will only end up hurting patients with Borreliosis not
just in UK, but the world over.
This
new test, funded by the European taxpayers to the tune of 2 million
Euros, is based not on recognition of the DNA of Borrelia, but on the
immune response to it. Yet that same principle of aiming to detect this
disease using antibody and other immune response-based methods has
FAILED consistently to diagnose accurately for several decades now.
The
fact that Dr Gerald Stanek is an integral part of this colossal waste
of money comes as no surprise. Stanek is arguably the leading chronic
Lyme Denialist in Europe, and certainly one of the leaders of that
shameful contingency worldwide.
Stanek
was one of only two Europeans to co-author the IDSA Lyme guidelines.
Those infamous guidelines have hurt countless victims - child and adult -
of this disease, and were the subject of an investigation by the
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal some years ago, due to
the large-scale corruption involved.
Stanek
is also the main force behind the appallingly unscientific European
guidelines which have been the model for Dr. Tim Brooks' policies.
As Britain's top Lyme Denialist Tim Brooks wrote in his shameful report to the Health and Safety Executive (Ref 1):
"RIPL
follows current practice as recommended in
Stanek’s review (see Table 3)." (RIPL is Brooks' testing
lab for Lyme in Britain, based in our biological warfare lab at Porton
Down).
Should
anyone have more doubts, they have only to glance at "Table 3" in
Brooks' document to see just what Stanek's policy means -
- ZERO prophylactic antibiotics are to be given to people bitten by ticks in the UK, despite strong evidence that by the time symptoms appear, the bacteria has already disseminated around the body
- Only 3 weeks' antibiotics to be given in Lyme carditis, even when Third-stage Heart Block occurs (third-stage heart block can and does kill; not long ago CDC quietly published on cases of three young people who died of sudden cardiac death due to Borreliosis. One of the dead had been diagnosed with "anxiety". CDC did not offer any apology, and certainly no policy changes, related to the fact that Lyme carditis goes undetected largely because of the myths they have spread as to its "rarity" - a baseless description they even repeat in the report on the 3 deaths itself.)
- Only 3 weeks' antibiotics to be given in "late" neuroborreliosis (Denialists routinely use the term "late" as they do not wish to admit to the epidemic of **chronic** neuroborreliosis. ) This is the case even when the neuroborreliosis produces signs as serious as myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord, which can cause patients to be permanently paralysed, with total loss of bladder, bowel and sexual function for the rest of their lives)
Apart
from Stanek's murky involvement, the test manufacturer itself,
Innatoss, is heavily bound up with the United states Department of
Defense, being part of a consortium currently receiving over $5 million
to develop a biowarfare vaccine.
Given that the US biowarfare establishment, along with its European allies, is the major force
behind the decades of neglect and maltreatment of chronic borreliosis
patients (not to mention the coverup over related serious and fatal
neurological diseases), we can hardly expect DARPA and the United States
Department of Defense to be funding a company that would reverse their
own Denial, and allow the true incidence and prevalence of serious,
persistent Borreliosis internationally to emerge (see Ref 2).
Is
anyone really foolish enough to believe this new T-cell based test will
diagnose anyone but a small proportion of very recently-infected
individuals, while missing multitudes?
Dr
Herremans, senior scientist at Innatoss, has already made her views
clear in published papers on Lyme. She believes that existing
antibody-based tests are just fine for the "later stages of disease",
the only problem being that chronic Lyme patients may be false positive:
"Based on this and other studies, we can conclude that commercially
available assays for the detection of anti–B. burgdorferi antibodies
generally have a high sensitivity in later stages of disease in patient
groups with clinically well-defined disease caused by B. burgdorferi
(neuroborreliosis, ACA, and arthritis).We think that we can extrapolate
these results to other disease manifestations of B. burgdorferi infection.
The specificity of the assays varies considerably. This problem is most
prominent in patients with potential aspecific or cross-reacting antibodies.
This phenomenon may also be of importance in patients in
whom chronic Lyme disease is suspected." (Ref 3 )
available assays for the detection of anti–B. burgdorferi antibodies
generally have a high sensitivity in later stages of disease in patient
groups with clinically well-defined disease caused by B. burgdorferi
(neuroborreliosis, ACA, and arthritis).We think that we can extrapolate
these results to other disease manifestations of B. burgdorferi infection.
The specificity of the assays varies considerably. This problem is most
prominent in patients with potential aspecific or cross-reacting antibodies.
This phenomenon may also be of importance in patients in
whom chronic Lyme disease is suspected." (Ref 3 )
For
many decades now, evidence has accumulated showing the many ways in
which the Borrelia bacteria evades the immune system. Furthermore, the
discovery of relapsing fever-type Borrelia like B. miyamotoi , and
other species that are routinely missed by antibody based tests, mean
that we are not equipped to detect Borrelia infections by methods based
on the immune response.
What detects Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto B31 strain or those
antigenically closest to it (the original basis for all current antibody
tests) may be totally irrelevant to some of the Borrelia species and
strains circulating in the brains and spinal cords of extremely ill
people. We have very little knowledge of wild-type strains, and these
are not used in the immune based tests, including the type of test
proposed here.
So
why this test? This is a cosmetic move to falsely lower the apparent
incidence rate of Lyme borreliosis on a pseudoscientific basis.
At the
same time it allows the governments of Europe to pretend they are doing
something concrete to address the epidemic. The public pressure has been
mounting in recent years - especially in France, where several dozen
patients are currently suing their government.
We can understand why an infamous Denialist like Stanek would be keen
to promote such a test, and why the US Defence department, for whom
Borrelia is a militarily sensitive subject, would encourage its partner
to do so.
What is much harder to understand is the
overwhelming ignorance and gullibility of "leading lights" in the Lyme
patients' movement who fall over themselves to laud every false and
deceitful move made by our enemies.
During
the First World War, the US public health authorities, then, as now,
under the ultimate control of the military, insisted that the Spanish
Flu epidemic was really nothing to be alarmed about, and that people
should remain calm.
As
citizens watched body after body carted away in their neighbourhoods,
their children, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers among them, they
lost confidence in their government.
Perhaps
we can forgive the actions of the US government in those days - after
all, they had no real protective equipment or anti-viral medicines to
offer the afflicted public during the terrible days of the Spanish Flu,
which claimed an estimated twenty million lives - more than the War
itself.
But
today we have the technology and we have an armoury of medicines which,
if used for long enough and in the correct manner, can potentially cure
Borreliosis: so the denial of diagnosis and correct treatment is
unforgivable.
What
is acutely pathetic about this whole situation is that in the space of
just a year, phenomenal progress has been made in understanding the true
nature and ramifications of Borreliosis, its relationship to parasitic
nematode worms (which shelter it both from exposure to the immune system
, and from treatments), and the ability to identify these infections
using cast-iron, DNA-based methods.
I am referring to the exemplary work done by Dr Alan MacDonald and his Dr Paul Duray Research Fellowship Endowment.
John Caudwell seems to believe that a 2 million Euro initiative
stage-managed by Europe's biggest Lyme denialist is somehow going to
help patients. Yet he ignored an appeal signed by 266 doctors, researchers
and patients to donate some money from his own huge 2 billion fortune to
aid Dr MacDonald's research.
Members
of the various support committees backing Dr MacDonald's work,
including myself, spent much time trying to explain the huge importance
and scientific significance of Dr MacDonald's extraordinary achievements
using his Molecular Beacon DNA probes and FISH method, as well as
nematode detection procedures, to uncover evidence of a combined
Borrelia-plus-nematode worm infection involved in Alzheimer's disease.
Lewy Body dementia, Multiple Sclerosis and the deadly brain cancer
Glioblastoma multiforme, as well as to confirm the presence of
Borreliosis in many patients negative on immune response-based tests.
This
is phenomenal work, and if the Foundation had been able to repeat its
experiments on a larger scale, could have led not only to a massive
improvement in diagnosis and treatment approaches for those who already
suspect they have chronic Borreliosis, but potentially for millions of
others with neurodegenerative disease.
Sadly,
Mr. Caudwell chose not to donate a single penny to Dr MacDonald's
research initiative. Neither has this research ever received any funding
from Pat Smith's Lyme Disease Association in USA, not from Lyme Disease
Action in the UK (two major Lyme campaigns which both advocate the pipe
dream of a "partnership" with our enemies as the way forward.)
In
the case of the appeal for funds to Mr. Caudwell with its 266
signatories, the fundraising committee did not even receive an
acknowledgment of its letter.
Mr. Caudwell is relatively new to Lyme,
having only recently learned that it is the cause of the tragedies in
his own family. Nor is he a person of scientific or medical background.
However, it appears that Mr. Caudwell is taking advice from people who
have their own agenda, and who have convinced him that rather than fund
Dr MacDonald, he should be promoting initiatives by the IDSA guidelines
author Dr. Stanek.
Mr.
Caudwell needs to acknowledge that he has no expertise in Lyme
scientific matters, and to understand that those advising him do not either, or
perhaps do - but have certain agendas of their own.
Ironically,
Dr. MacDonald's FISH DNA probe research has been uncovering the
involvement of Borrelia in psychiatric disorders - a matter of great
relevance to Mr. Caudwell, whose son's life has been in limbo since
childhood due to what was for years considered a "psychiatric illness".
(See Ref 6)
Who
knows whether this work could benefit not only Mr. Caudwell's son, but
thousands of others similarly languishing with lives destroyed and
convenient "psychiatric" labels. Ask any psychiatrist what his or her
cure rate is for the myriad mental diseases they diagnose - and they
will look at you blankly. The cure rate has hovered on the zero mark for
millennia.
It
is tragic, but with no funding forthcoming from those organisations
and individuals in the Lyme patients' movement who do have substantial
resources, the incredibly vital research that Dr. MacDonald has been
doing may have to close. The Duray foundation is a non-profit
foundation, and receives no funding from any government or industry
sources.
It
is a research effort solidly grounded in the welfare of patients, and
supported by patients - not IDSA guidelines authors or the US military.
Despite crowd-funding from intelligent patients
and the best efforts of volunteers, Dr. MacDonald was forced to spend
tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to purchase the specialist
equipment and services he needed to make the landmark discoveries he
made. Information on these discoveries can be seen on the websites of
the Duray Foundation and Spirochaetal Alzheimers Association (Refs 4 and 5 )
In
sum, I suspect that Mr. Caudwell actually has no idea just who Gerald
Stanek is. l could have advised him, but I have been effectively cut off
from communicating not just with him but with almost the entire British
Lyme movement, as I have been banned from just about every British
electronic Lyme forum that exists. Why? Because I refuse to stop
pointing out the biowarfare aspect of this coverup - something we will
have to face and overcome if we are ever to make progress, justy as
those harmed by Agent Orange had to expose the matter before they could
hope to gain any recognition, much less compensation, for their
injuries.
I have also been banned from UK Lyme forums because I refuse to condone
initiatives based on "partnering" with out enemies - something that the
Lyme movement has been attempting to do now for over 40 years.
In forty years, all we have to show for it is a mountain of destroyed and broken lives - our own.
Ref 1:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/meetings/committees/acdp/161012/acdp_99_p62.pdf
Ref 3
Ref 4
Ref 5
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Spirochaetal Alzheimer's Association
temporary site of the Spirochaetal Alzheimer's Association (SAA)
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Preview by Yahoo
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ref 6
