It took years for Sherrill Franklin to find the true cause of her health problems:
"I thought I had chronic #Lyme," said Franklin, who became a Lyme disease activist. "I didn't know where to turn and I went down that path for a long time." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/her-unexplained-jitteriness-weight-loss-152452344.html
Ozone quack Robert Rowen, who has been associated with the dangerous pseudoscience groups ILADS, A4M, and ACAM, was already a felon for his tax escapades. Now he has pleaded guilty to tax evasion after being indicted for tax fraud. Shades of Al Capone. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/santa-rosa-doctors-indicted-tax-fraud
Wow- A prominent chronic #Lyme activist who was on needless antibiotics for at least 5 years has discovered the true cause of her medical problems
Her unexplained jitteriness and weight loss were telling clues
An unfortunate combination of faulty assumptions and missed opportunities delayed a common diagnosis.
www.washingtonpost.com
With "critical sympathy", Freddie deBoer reviews Ross Douthat's tale of tumbling down the rabbit hole of chronic #Lyme quackery:
Review: Ross Douthat's The Deep Places
I write to become more fully myself; I read to inhabit the lives of other people. That I much prefer reading ...
freddiedeboer.substack.com
Friendly reminder:
Joe Rogan is Goop for men.
Long time charlatan Mark Hyman, MD has nurtured the rise of the Institute for Functional Medicine, a dangerous group of quacks
The pitch that Lucy Ricardo makes is quite similar to purveyors of integrative, functional, and naturopathic snake oil
@drabbyphilips Ayurvedic snake oil with large amounts of alcohol evokes the classic I Love Lucy episode https://youtu.be/7dGmM3TktRE
New from Bloomberg: How Natalie Grams, who once abandoned her medical education to study alternative therapies, became Germany’s most prominent homeopathy skeptic
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-12/homeopathy-doesn-t-work-so-why-do-so-many-germans-believe-in-it
Experts documented a cornucopia of fake treatments marketed for so-called chronic #Lyme disease.
Consumers sadly have little protection from health scams.
Unorthodox Alternative Therapies Marketed to Treat Lyme Disease
Some patients come to believe that they are chronically infected with the agent of Lyme disease. Practitioners of ...
academic.oup.com
The Wilderness Medical Society has produced comprehensive guidelines for the prevention and management of tick-borne illness in the US.
And of course they are in line with the scientific consensus when it comes to #Lyme and other infections. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1080603221001630
Responding to irresponsible promotion of quackery by Kim Lewis, PhD and his press office at Northeastern University. 👇
Lewis has accepted big money from chronic #Lyme pseudoscience groups. He is also involved with a shady and unethical company called Flightpath Biosciences.
@DrJudyStone @medical_xpress @LonnieRhea Chronic Lyme is a pseudoscientific cult & a health scam.
Kim Lewis is a conspiracy theorist who has taken $1.5 million from the Chronic Lyme Cult.
This research is meaningless tooth fairy science, studying something that doesn't exist.
Also please stop promoting child abusers.
Dangerous chronic #Lyme conspiracy theorists launched a harassing lawsuit against scientists and non-profit Infectious Diseases Society of America nearly four years ago.
A judge has now dismissed the case, finding the claims had no basis in fact.
IDSA Dismissed from Lawsuit Judge Rules Lawsuit Against IDSA Baseless
www.idsociety.org
It’s rather common in chronic #Lyme pseudoscience groups for people to claim that the full moon makes their symptoms worse. That belief is not true.
It's a Pseudoscience Supergroup! So much BS in one product it's hard to know where to start.
- Full moon nonsense
- Supplement bunk
- "enabling parasite mobility" (Huh?)
- Detoxification (of course)
- Gluten-free, non-GMO...
All this for only $191! cc @DrJenGunter
Horrific: A quack diagnosed a man with so-called #Lyme disease and heavy metal poisoning.
In truth, the man had untreated HIV/AIDS, which ultimately killed him and infected his fiancé.
Woman Sues Ex-Fiance's Parents for Allegedly Hiding Their Son's HIV
abcnews.go.com
Jann Bellamy: Chiropractors can still get state-approved continuing education credit for anti-vaccination courses, with bonus COVID misinformation now added to the curriculum.
Plandemic star Judy Mikovits joins the faculty.
Anti-vaccination ideology and COVID misinformation in chiropractic continuing education courses: “Plandemic” edition
Chiropractors can still get state-approved continuing ed credit for anti-vaccination courses, with bonus COVID misinformat...
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Thanks to all the doctor and scientists who have spoken out against the chronic #Lyme scam, which has caused so much harm to those who want a solution to their problems
Doctors and scientists discuss “Chronic Lyme” beliefs
lymescience.org
Update: The quackery-promoting web of sites that includes ivmmeta,com included three more domains (c19melatonin,com, c19probiotics,com, & c19ns,com) in August, to make 41 total domains (currently or previously associated, ns=nigella sativa)
@GidMK Correction: The web of sites that includes ivmmeta,com is associated with 38 domains, 36 of which are associated with two IPs: 34.94.4.2 (30 domains) and 34.69.229.180 (6 domains).
They were registered from June 5, 2020 to July 18, 2021.
How it started: How it’s going:
https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Press-Room/Press-Releases---2021/Durham-Physician-License-Suspended-For-Providing-Blank-Signed-COVID-19-Forms-And-Exemptions
Long time Lyme Truther Congressman Chris Smith and a number of chronic #Lyme pseudoscience groups are once again attempting to popularize a bogus conspiracy theory claiming tickborne infections are a bioweapon 🙄
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/no-lyme-diease-is-not-an-escaped-military-bioweapon-despite-what-conspiracy-theorists-say/2019/08/09/5bbd85fa-afe4-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html
Another excellent @tpwky podcast- this time about a chronic infection that impacts 300k people in the US and 8 million people in Latin America.
Chagas disease is caused by a parasite spread by an insect colloquially called the kissing bug.
https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/2021/09/07/episode-81-chagas-disease-the-reverse-triple-discovery/
We see patients who are harmed and defrauded by "Lyme literate" grifters, but quack protection bills may stop medical boards from giving harmed patients some justice.
CT Politicians Protect Lyme Quackery
The Connecticut state senate unanimously passed Public Act No. 09-128: AN ACT CONCERNING THE USE OF LONG-TERM ANTIBI...
theness.com
What to do about naturopaths who endanger the lives of patients?
Once again, we see a naturopath selling fake medicine for a fake diagnosis while dissuading safe and effective prophylaxis for a real health crisis.
https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/ptz0y4/can_i_report_a_naturopath/
New: A letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics recounts another incident of Medical Child Abuse at the hands of a chronic #Lyme charlatan
Pediatrician discusses alarming “chronic Lyme” abuse of a young boy
Disturbing fake diagnoses and unnecessary antibiotics
lymescience.org
Dr. Phillip Baker suggests that an oral COVID vaccine would be easy & cheap to distribute around the world.
Lactobacillus could be engineered to express the spike protein. Such an approach has been used to test an oral #Lyme disease vaccine in mice.
Advantages of an Oral Vaccine to Control the Covid-19 Pandemic
Although vaccines are essential for controlling pandemics, the procedures used to manufacture and deliver them for wor...
www.amjmed.com
Mary Beth Pfeiffer has been spreading baseless conspiracy theories about #Lyme disease and infectious disease experts for years.
When the pandemic hit, she became a top promoter of quack COVID treatments, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
The interesting thing is that these "analyses" are genuinely absolute nonsense that take literally no time to see through, but people won't take even the second it takes to understand why and just share them anyway 🤷♂️ https://twitter.com/marybethpf/status/1440669072463519758
New: We're republishing a 2004 discussion of how a teenage boy was abused with antimicrobial drugs for a fictional chronic #Lyme diagnosis
Chronic Lyme diagnosis and treatment lead to abuse of teenage boy
Pediatricians discuss another horrifying case of Medical Child Abuse
lymescience.org
And don’t inject hydrogen peroxide to treat so-called chronic #Lyme disease
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-prescription-for-death/
Please do not inhale hydrogen peroxide to treat COVID-19.🤦🏾♂️
Here’s a nice quiz from the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a news item warning against treatment for so-called chronic #Lyme disease.
The AAP discusses a CDC report of abuse of 5 patients, including an adolescent girl.
The article & answer are here:
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2017/10/06/MMWR100617
New: CDC study examines consumer and clinician perceptions of a potential #Lyme disease vaccine.
Also evident is that clinicians need assistance combatting rampant misinformation that is causing needless anxiety and false positive diagnoses.
https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyab032
We see impossible expectations used by chronic #Lyme conspiracy theorists all the time.
They claim that since testing isn’t perfect, it makes their false diagnoses and fraudulent treatments legitimate.
@jonathanstea @CaulfieldTim @RyanMarino @doritmi @DrLindaMD @EdzardErnst @ArtKorenevsky Impossible expectations is a classic denial characteristic. Basically, by demanding an unrealistic/unachievable standard of proof/safety/efficacy, the arguer is able to protect their belief and not change their mind.
@johnfocook @crankyuncles
Also applies to chronic #Lyme pseudoscience 👇
Most forms of science denial are fundamentally the same.
Quackwatch has a nice history of the harmful chronic #Lyme movement
Lyme Disease: Questionable Diagnosis and Treatment | Quackwatch
Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in the United States. For 2016, the Centers for Disease Control ...
quackwatch.org
It’s not surprising that bogus treatments advertised for fake chronic #Lyme diagnoses are also being peddled for COVID.
It’s also unsurprising that predatory publisher MDPI, which has promoted a number of quack Lyme treatments, is also legitimizing an unlikely COVID treatment.
This same psychological quirk is exploited by charlatans attempting to convince people they have fake diagnoses like "chronic #Lyme" and "toxic mold illness".
Bogus symptom questionnaires seem specific but actually apply to much of the population.
https://lymescience.org/chronic-lyme-disease-psychology-cognitive-errors/
#ScienceForLife: Day 6: Learn to be a psychic!
An great way to inoculate yourself against misinformation is to create it yourself. So can you learn the tricks & become a “psychic”?
Read the full “Psychic 101”: http://thinkingispower.com/learn-to-be-a-psychic-with-these-7-tricks/
This scam by holistic/integrative/functional quacks is called "Live blood cell analysis". It's often used to fraudulently diagnose parasites, #Lyme, or other problem to sell fake treatments.
It would make sense that it couldn't find a legit health issue.
https://quackwatch.org/related/tests/livecell/
Really cool news. Some kid at my daughter’s school has covid symptoms so her mom took her to some holistic medicine place and pricked her finger, looked at her blood and said she’s negative and the school was cool with that
How it started: How it’s going:
Homeopathy has been well-known as fraudulent since the 19th century.
Stop homeopathy scammers from bilking consumers.
I sent a letter to the FDA today signed by 24 of my colleagues regarding the new guidelines on homeopathic products. More clarity is needed on how the FDA plans to ensure that genuine homeopathic products remain accessible while protecting consumers from unsafe products.
A frequent question we get is, if it’s not #Lyme, what is it?
A new study from Australia, where there is no endemic Lyme disease found the following new confirmed and suspected diagnoses (and no acute Lyme) among 29 people concerned about CLD, most of whom were quackery victims:
