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Lyme Disease and Biological Warfare, Part 4: Physicians [Financially] Healing Themselves

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COMMENT: In Kris New­by’s book, Bit­ten: The Secret His­to­ry of Lyme Dis­ease and Bio­log­i­cal Weapons, the author presents dis­turb­ing infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ing that Lyme Dis­ease result­ed from bio­log­i­cal war­fare research.

The book fea­tures exten­sive dis­cus­sion of Willy Burgdor­fer, a Swiss-born vet­er­an of the U.S. bio­log­i­cal war­fare pro­gram and the “dis­cov­er­er” of Bor­re­lia Burgdor­feri–the organ­ism that offi­cial­ly caus­es Lyme Dis­ease.

Lis­ten­ers and read­ers are emphat­i­cal­ly encour­aged to read and pur­chase Ms. New­by’s book.

In pre­vi­ous posts, we not­ed:

  1. The pos­si­bil­i­ty that Rudolf Geigy, Burgdor­fer­’s Swiss aca­d­e­m­ic men­tor, may have engaged in espi­onage for the Third Reich through the I.G. Far­ben espi­onage estab­lish­ment, as well as Geigy’s spec­u­la­tive role as a Project Paper­clip oper­a­tive.
  2. Burgdor­fer­’s con­fes­sion to Tim Grey–an inde­pen­dent filmmaker–that Lyme Dis­ease result­ed from bio­log­i­cal war­fare.
  3. The focus of the U.S. bio­log­i­cal war­fare pro­gram, and Willy Burgdor­fer­’s research, on genet­ic manip­u­la­tion of microor­gan­isms to make them more path­o­gen­ic and resis­tant to treat­ment.
  4. Infor­ma­tion regard­ing what Willy termed “the Swiss Agent”–a rick­ettsia that was present in the vast major­i­ty of Lyme suf­fer­ers test­ed ear­ly in research into the dis­ease.

In this post, we present dis­cus­sion of Ms. New­by’s expose of the insti­tu­tion­al­ly and finan­cial­ly inces­tu­ous rela­tion­ship between bureau­crat­ic and cor­po­rate enti­ties that both reg­u­late, and prof­it from, Lyme Dis­ease. Key “experts” involved with diag­nos­ing and treat­ing the afflic­tion run inter­fer­ence for the sta­tus quo.

Legal and reg­u­la­to­ry rul­ings have enabled the patent­ing of liv­ing organ­isms and that has exac­er­bat­ed the mon­e­tiz­ing of Lyme Dis­ease treat­ment. That mon­e­ti­za­tion, in turn, has adverse­ly affect­ed the qual­i­ty of care for afflict­ed patients. ” . . . . All of a sud­den, the insti­tu­tions that were sup­posed to be pro­tec­tors of pub­lic health became busi­ness part­ners with Big Phar­ma. The uni­ver­si­ty researchers who had pre­vi­ous­ly shared infor­ma­tion on dan­ger­ous emerg­ing dis­eases were now delay­ing pub­lish­ing their find­ings so they could become entre­pre­neurs and prof­it from patents through their uni­ver­si­ty tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer groups. We essen­tial­ly lost our sys­tem of sci­en­tif­ic checks and bal­ances. And this, in turn, has under­mined patient trust in the insti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to ‘do no harm.’ . . .”

Strik­ing­ly, a FOIA suit she filed was stonewalled for five years, before final­ly yield­ing the doc­u­ments she had so long sought.

The “experts” and their agen­da were neat­ly, and alarm­ing­ly, summed up by Ms. New­by:

” . . . . The emails revealed a dis­turb­ing pic­ture of a nonof­fi­cial group of gov­ern­ment employ­ees and guide­lines authors that had been set­ting the nation­al Lyme dis­ease research agen­da with­out pub­lic over­sight or trans­paren­cy. . . . Bot­tom line, the guide­lines authors reg­u­lar­ly con­vened in gov­ern­ment-fund­ed, closed-door meet­ings with hid­den agen­das that lined the pock­ets of aca­d­e­m­ic researchers with sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial inter­ests in Lyme dis­ease tests and vac­cines. A large per­cent­age of gov­ern­ment grants were award­ed to the guide­line authors and/or researchers in their labs. Part of the group’s stat­ed mis­sion, culled from these FOIA emails, was to run a covert ‘dis­in­for­ma­tion war’ and a ‘sociopo­lit­i­cal offen­sive’ to dis­cred­it Lyme patients, physi­cians, and jour­nal­ists who ques­tioned the group’s research and motives. In the FOIA-obtained emails, Lyme patients and their treat­ing physi­cians were called ‘loonies’ and ‘quacks’ by Lyme guide­lines authors and NIH employ­ees. . . .”

1. Legal and reg­u­la­to­ry rul­ings have enabled the patent­ing of liv­ing organ­isms and that has exac­er­bat­ed the mon­e­tiz­ing of Lyme Dis­ease treat­ment. That mon­e­ti­za­tion, in turn, has adverse­ly affect­ed the qual­i­ty of care for afflict­ed patients. ” . . . . All of a sud­den, the insti­tu­tions that were sup­posed to be pro­tec­tors of pub­lic health became busi­ness part­ners with Big Phar­ma. The uni­ver­si­ty researchers who had pre­vi­ous­ly shared infor­ma­tion on dan­ger­ous emerg­ing dis­eases were now delay­ing pub­lish­ing their find­ings so they could become entre­pre­neurs and prof­it from patents through their uni­ver­si­ty tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer groups. We essen­tial­ly lost our sys­tem of sci­en­tif­ic checks and bal­ances. And this, in turn, has under­mined patient trust in the insti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to ‘do no harm.’ . . .”

Bit­ten: The Secret His­to­ry of Lyme Dis­ease and Bio­log­i­cal Weapons by Kris New­by; Harper­Collins [HC]; Copy­right 2019 by Kris New­by; ISBN 9780062896728; pp. 229–230.

. . . . Think­ing back on my research for the Lyme doc­u­men­tary Under Our Skin, I con­clud­ed that there was much more mon­ey at stake with Lyme Dis­ease. It was the first major new dis­ease dis­cov­ered after the Bayh-Dole Act and the Dia­mond v. Chakrabar­ty Supreme Court deci­sion made it pos­si­ble for the NIH, the CDC, and uni­ver­si­ties to patent and prof­it from “own­er­ship” of live organ­isms. When the causative organ­ism behind Lyme dis­ease was announced, some­thing akin to the Okla­homa Land Rush of 1889 began, as sci­en­tists with­in these insti­tu­tions began furi­ous­ly fil­ing patents on the sur­face pro­teins and DNA of the Lyme spiro­chete, hop­ing to prof­it from future vac­cines and diag­nos­tic tests that used these markers–for exam­ple, an NIH employ­ee who patents a bac­te­r­i­al sur­face pro­tein used in a com­mer­cial test kit or a vac­cine could receive up to $150,000 in roy­al­ty pay­ments a year, an amount that might dou­ble his or her annu­al salary. All of a sud­den, the insti­tu­tions that were sup­posed to be pro­tec­tors of pub­lic health became busi­ness part­ners with Big Phar­ma. The uni­ver­si­ty researchers who had pre­vi­ous­ly shared infor­ma­tion on dan­ger­ous emerg­ing dis­eases were now delay­ing pub­lish­ing their find­ings so they could become entre­pre­neurs and prof­it from patents through their uni­ver­si­ty tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer groups. We essen­tial­ly lost our sys­tem of sci­en­tif­ic checks and bal­ances. And this, in turn, has under­mined patient trust in the insti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to “do no harm.”

With Lyme dis­ease, there’s no prof­it incen­tive for proac­tive­ly treat­ing some­one with a few weeks of inex­pen­sive, off-patent antibi­otics. It’s the patentable vac­cines and manda­to­ry tests-before-treat­ment that bring in the steady rev­enues year after year. . . . 

2. Ms. New­by went up against the “Lyme Dis­ease estab­lish­ment” in an attempt to find out why the dis­ease was being mis­di­ag­nosed and inef­fec­tive­ly treat­ed. Strik­ing­ly, a FOIA suit she filed was stonewalled for five years, before final­ly yield­ing the doc­u­ments she had so long sought.

The “experts” and their agen­da was neat­ly, and alarm­ing­ly, summed up by Ms. New­by:

” . . . . The emails revealed a dis­turb­ing pic­ture of a nonof­fi­cial group of gov­ern­ment employ­ees and guide­lines authors that had been set­ting the nation­al Lyme dis­ease research agen­da with­out pub­lic over­sight or trans­paren­cy. . . . Bot­tom line, the guide­lines authors reg­u­lar­ly con­vened in gov­ern­ment-fund­ed, closed-door meet­ings with hid­den agen­das that lined the pock­ets of aca­d­e­m­ic researchers with sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial inter­ests in Lyme dis­ease tests and vac­cines. A large per­cent­age of gov­ern­ment grants were award­ed to the guide­line authors and/or researchers in their labs. Part of the group’s stat­ed mis­sion, culled from these FOIA emails, was to run a covert ‘dis­in­for­ma­tion war’ and a ‘sociopo­lit­i­cal offen­sive’ to dis­cred­it Lyme patients, physi­cians, and jour­nal­ists who ques­tioned the group’s research and motives. In the FOIA-obtained emails, Lyme patients and their treat­ing physi­cians were called ‘loonies’ and ‘quacks’ by Lyme guide­lines authors and NIH employ­ees. . . .”

Bit­ten: The Secret His­to­ry of Lyme Dis­ease and Bio­log­i­cal Weapons by Kris New­by; Harper­Collins [HC]; Copy­right 2019 by Kris New­by; ISBN 9780062896728; pp. 121–124.

. . . . In the IDSA [Infec­tious Dis­eases Soci­ety of Amer­i­ca] guide­lines, chron­ic Lyme isn’t clas­si­fied as an ongo­ing, per­sis­tent infec­tion; it’s con­sid­ered either an autoim­mune syn­drome (in which a body’s immune sys­tem attacks itself) or a psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion caused by “the aches and pains of dai­ly liv­ing” or “pri­or trau­mat­ic psy­cho­log­i­cal events.” These guide­lines were often used by med­ical insur­ers to deny treat­ment, and many of its authors are paid con­sult­ing fees to tes­ti­fy as expert wit­ness­es in these insur­ance cas­es. In some states, the guide­line rec­om­men­da­tions take on the force of law, so that Lyme physi­cians who prac­tice out­side them are at risk of los­ing their med­ical licens­es.

The pro­tes­tors were angry because, as part of a 2008 antitrust set­tle­ment brought by Con­necti­cut attor­ney gen­er­al Richard Blu­men­thal (now a sen­a­tor), the IDSA guide­lines were sup­posed to appoint an expert pan­el with­out bias­es or con­flicts to do a re-review of the guide­lines. In the set­tle­ment press release, Blu­men­thal had writ­ten, “My office uncov­ered undis­closed finan­cial inter­ests held by sev­er­al of the most pow­er­ful IDSA pan­elists. The IDSA’s guide­line pan­el improp­er­ly ignored or min­i­mized con­sid­er­a­tion of alter­na­tive med­ical opin­ion and evi­dence regard­ing chron­ic Lyme dis­ease, poten­tial­ly rais­ing seri­ous ques­tions about whether the rec­om­men­da­tions reflect­ed all rel­e­vant sci­ence.”

In response, the IDSA lead­er­ship select­ed a review pan­el of doc­tors and sci­en­tists, and they deter­mined that “No changes or revi­sions to the 2006 Lyme guide­lines are nec­es­sary at this time.”

Lor­raine John­son, JD, MBA, the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of LymeDisease.org, and a cham­pi­on of the IDSA antitrust suit, main­tains that the review pan­el was stacked with like-mind­ed cronies of the orig­i­nal guide­lines’ authors and was there­fore biased. She cites the recent arti­cle by research qual­i­ty expert and Stan­ford pro­fes­sor John Ioan­ni­dis, MD, DSc, who rec­om­mends that “Pro­fes­sion­al soci­eties should con­sid­er dis­en­tan­gling their spe­cial­ists from guide­lines and dis­ease def­i­n­i­tions and lis­ten to what more impar­tial stake­hold­ers think about their prac­tices.”

Today, in 2019, these con­tro­ver­sial guide­lines and dis­put­ed tests are still influ­enc­ing Lyme patient care.

Peo­ple often ask me why the IDSA and CDC would sup­port the prob­lem­at­ic two-tier Lyme test. Dur­ing my doc­u­men­tary research, I tried to get an answer to this ques­tion with a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act (FOIA) request that solicit­ed emails between three CDC employ­ees and the IDSA guide­lines authors. For five years the CDC strung me along with friv­o­lous denials, unex­plained delays, and false promis­es. In essence, the delays became an ille­gal, off-the-books FOIA denial. Some delays were attrib­uted to under­staffing, year-end dead­lines, and CDC per­son­nel out for vaca­tion. At one point, my unan­swered calls were blamed on a phone “dead zone” in the CDC’s new FOIA office. After the Lyme doc­u­men­tary Under Our Skin was released, I decid­ed to dou­ble-down on my efforts to dis­lodge the FOIA request. My con­gressper­son sent sev­er­al let­ters to the CDC. The direc­tor of the doc­u­men­tary wrote a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. The FOIA ombuds­man in the Office of Gov­ern­ment Infor­ma­tion Ser­vices repeat­ed­ly pres­sured the CDC to ful­fill my request. I pub­lished blog posts about my plight and enlist­ed the sup­port of a num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cat­ed to ensur­ing gov­ern­ment trans­paren­cy. Final­ly, the CDC sent three-thou­sand-plus FOIA pages, and I then under­stood its moti­va­tion for hav­ing delayed their release.

The emails revealed a dis­turb­ing pic­ture of a nonof­fi­cial group of gov­ern­ment employ­ees and guide­lines authors that had been set­ting the nation­al Lyme dis­ease research agen­da with­out pub­lic over­sight or trans­paren­cy. Inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Mary Beth Pfeif­fer of the Pough­keep­sie Jour­nal was giv­en access to these emails, and on May 20, 2013. She pub­lished an expose on this group’s abuse of pow­er.

Bot­tom line, the guide­lines authors reg­u­lar­ly con­vened in gov­ern­ment-fund­ed, closed-door meet­ings with hid­den agen­das that lined the pock­ets of aca­d­e­m­ic researchers with sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial inter­ests in Lyme dis­ease tests and vac­cines. A large per­cent­age of gov­ern­ment grants were award­ed to the guide­line authors and/or researchers in their labs.

Part of the group’s stat­ed mis­sion, culled from these FOIA emails, was to run a covert “dis­in­for­ma­tion war” and a “sociopo­lit­i­cal offen­sive” to dis­cred­it Lyme patients, physi­cians, and jour­nal­ists who ques­tioned the group’s research and motives. In the FOIA-obtained emails, Lyme patients and their treat­ing physi­cians were called “loonies” and “quacks’ by Lyme guide­lines authors and NIH employ­ees.

Because my FOIA request end­ed up tak­ing five years to process, Under Our Skin had been made and released with­out answer­ing an impor­tant ques­tion: Were the gov­ern­ment offi­cials respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing Lyme dis­ease health pol­i­cy being inap­pro­pri­ate­ly influ­enced by out­side com­mer­cial inter­ests?

Through my FOIA request, I found that a major­i­ty of the authors of the 2006 IDSA Lyme diag­no­sis and treat­ment guide­lines held direct or indi­rect com­mer­cial inter­ests relat­ed to Lyme dis­ease. By defin­ing the dis­ease and endors­ing tests or vac­cines for which they were patent hold­ers, they and their insti­tu­tions made more mon­ey.

Yet, now Willy’s con­fes­sion had added anoth­er poten­tial dimen­sion to the sto­ry, anoth­er rea­son for the CDC to be under­count­ing Lyme cases—maybe gov­ern­ment offi­cials knew that some­thing else, a pathogen in addi­tion to Bor­re­lia, pos­si­bly a bio-weapon, was caus­ing the prob­lems, and they want­ed to keep a lid on it. . . .

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