Lyme: STD Possibility per Emerging Research and Documentary

I suspect that the 'sexual' aspect of this topic is getting people's attention. Combining this with the growing awareness by people with 'chronic illnesses', that I globally refer to on Lumigrate as 'the overlapping illnesses', becoming aware that Lyme is frequently part of the 'palate' of separate items their body carries and adds to the body's burden -- this is going to be a 'hot topic' going around the Internet I suspect. Hence I wanted to have a topic addressing it on Lumigrate.

To begin to lay a groundwork for our YOUsers, I direct people's attention on Lumigrate to the topic about "load theory" by environmental medicine specialist Marc Spurlock, MD, of Dallas, Texas, who became the MD expert on Lumigrate in our first year on the Internet, 2009. It resides in the section about chronic pain, fatigue, fibromyaliga, in a forum that has his name in the title. Here's the link: www.lumigrate.com/forum/are-you-loaded-what-i-see-causing-illnesses-soar-children-through-elderly [1] and this is our graphic to give you a pre-view of what is in store:

Regarding this study and topic: Please read the details below. This was a very small study. I don't mean to imply that it's not a mega-numbers study and hence should not be considered, because those kinds of studies are funded by entities of 'organized medicine' that are simply part of 'the system' and they don't fund things that will not help the cause of their overall direction with their businesses and overall mission of the system. That's a fundamental I suggest everyone get under their belts or else NOTHING really makes sense with the medical system.

The documentary Under Our Skin, (UOS) is basically one of the biggest 'steps forward' so far relative to the Lyme issue. It included an implication of this possibility / probability. UOS is a well-known documentary project within 'the Lyme-aware community'. Sequels will follow, but part one tells the story of a number of people in the United States diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, the providers and others involved in helping with the type of treatment they believe in, seek, and/or promote, and the barriers, or hurdles to the treatment and payment of the type of treatment shown in the film.

One of the leading researchers about Lyme in the US is Alan MacDonald, MD, is in Under Our Skin and also very prominent on the Internet on the subject of Lyme / Borrelia. So he is on record being asked how Lyme is transmitted besides from ticks directly. He stated it can be from mother to baby, and did not say anything one way or the other about it being sexually transmitted, but his work is based on the similarities to the sexually transmittied syphilis. (Search on his name and 'interview' to find some great resources if you're interested, there are a few interviews, some in video and others written out.) Off the record, I would imagine he might have something more to say. It appears to me he perhaps integrates in some orthomolecular medicine approach to his work, and other progressive concepts, but worked and was trained in "orthodox" medical hospital systems. He was a pathologist and is now in his mid/late 60s and working in capacities to continue research and advisement but in slightly different capacity.

There's an article about the STD aspect of Lyme / Borrelia written by a ND, at Whole Health Insider -- asking the question "is Lyme the 'next AIDS'?" Here's the link:

Interestingly, in my talking with a classical homeopath, these conditions are called something which indicates they'd long ago found similar things, as the wording starts with "syphi" if I remember correctly. I was making the rounds seeing if people of various providers types had heard of 'pyroluria', which I think is a buried 'missing link' about mental health and physical health disorders I'd observed running in families, and the homeopath gave me a little overview about their perspective on these types of conditions. (But was unfamiliar with pyroluria, which is great to find that it's pretty much across the board of inside and outside the box that can hopefully learn about it and help people they serve be now telling them.)

I suggest everyone with an interest in chronic fatigue, chronic illness, chronic pain from system illness/inflammation conditions, whether providers or consumers, watch Under Our Skin so that you are aware of it and it's message and can suggest it to others if you agree with me that it's an invaluable resource for learning. The animation of how it is appearing to spread based on statistics (which are not accurate, it's very messed up how the statistics are being manipulated by the organizations involved) was staggering when I watched, I remember thinking "holy cow!" It is so important that EVERYONE knows about how common it is that people have Lyme / Borrelia lurking in them, and perhaps do what they can to stop the further transmission to others, and naturally adopt the wellness and lifestyle changes for themselves and others they are responsible for (such as children).

I am going to provide the link to Dr Mercola's website's topic about UOS as they have done a good overview to read, and Dr Mercola does some commentary about his take on the treatment option that is focused upon in the film. articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/13/under-our-skin-documentary.aspx [3] . Before you 'order it' if the setup at his website leads people to that (which is an affiliate setup, most likely), search online and see if you can find it for $0. The Internet is always changing with what is available.

I learned of the film when it was first out and being promoted in the Internet, and found it VERY educational and intruguing. One aspect that really got my attention was their information showing how the cases in the US 'spread', and they were opening the door to then bring in the sexual transmission information as a possibility.

l always take the opportunity to share one observation when I watched it: the only experts shown had "MD" after their names. No D.O.s -- in the United States DOs and MDs are the 'physicians' when it comes to conventional, allopathic, insurance-based medicine, so not seeing anything but MDs was something that stood out. Often in medical circles the PhDs are experts that are included in telling the stories, but in UOS, no PhDs, that I recall. Again, conventional research, funded through universities and other entities is filled with PhDs. Granted, if it were about functional medicine and integrative medicine, such as what Lumigrate's roots are deeply planted into from our foundational moments, you'd expect to see N.D., D.C., D.A.O.M. perhaps (Oriental Medicine/Acupuncture). I just want people to be aware. There was something about the movie that left me, more than usual, saying 'who was behind doing this movie'.

In other words, 'follow the money'. Something I say so many times a day when teaching people to become the YOUsers of their own lives and being empowered, educated, effective people, it feels like a broken record sometimes. So this is no exception, and I'm not saying to scrutinize UOS's message more than any other, just remember to have that 'filter' in mind when you watch.

Per the information from the Journal of Investigative Medicine 2014;62:280-281, there are research findings titled:

ISOLATION AND DETECTION OF BORRELIA BURGDORFERI FROM HUMAN VAGINAL AND SEMINAL SECRETIONS, by

Background: Previous epidemiological and immunological studies suggest that infection with the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi could be transferred from person to person via intimate human contact without a tick vector (Harvey and Salvato, Med Hypotheses 2003;60:742; Stricker et al, J Investig Med 2004;52:S151).

Detecting viable spirochetes in vaginal and seminal secretions would provide additional evidence to support this hypothesis.

Methods: Three North American patients with a history of Lyme disease, one male and two female, were selected for the study after informed consent was obtained.

Serological testing for B. burgdorferi was performed on all three subjects. Blood and semen or vaginal secretions were used to inoculate BSK-‐H medium for Borrelia culture. Motile spirochetes were detected in cultures by light and/or darkfield microscopy, and cultured spirochete concentrates were subjected to Dieterle silver staining, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and anti-‐B. burgdorferi immunohistochemical staining for further characterization. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing was performed by two independent laboratories for specific identification of the cultured isolates. Positive and negative controls for immunohistochemical staining and PCR were performed in all experiments.

Results: Serum antibodies to B. burgdorferi were detected in all three patients. Motile spirochetes were observed in culture fluid inoculated with blood and genital secretions from the three subjects. Morphological features of spirochetes were confirmed by Dieterle staining, SEM and immunohistochemical staining of culture concentrates. PCR testing confirmed that the spirochetes isolated from blood and genital secretions were strains of B. burgdorferi, and PCR subtyping indicated that the strains were B. burgdorferi sensu stricto.

Conclusions: The culture of viable B. burgdorferi in genital secretions suggests that Lyme disease could be transmitted by intimate contact from person to person.

Comments

Tue, 04/22/2014 - 1:20pm

#1 [11]

Mardy Ross

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Feb 16 2009

Posts: 2032

eHealthChannel's Complement of Lyme (& Autism Literate) Experts

It's CRUCIAL for YOUsers who are medical consumers to understand thoroughly the 'game' that is played. Learn the game, play he game, don't 'be gamed'. For YOUsers wishing to learn more about how the medical system -- inside and outside the box -- work, and why it is that there is 'inside the box' and 'outside the box', plus what some would call "conspiring" to delay the outside the box information from getting to be used by more people, here's a link that has information at Lumigrate: www.lumigrate.com/forum/outside-box-conventional-medicine-history-shows-slow-progress-functional-integrative-and-other#comment-2642 [12] . You'll see at the bottom of this comment area, a video by a young woman named Brittany is covered to show how many people are figuring this stuff out and doing really great little (and bigger) videos that are helping create more education. But I would prefer YOUsers from Lumigrate REALLY understand it, so I've provided what I hope will help YOU!

I found a complement of videos at eHealthChannel dot org which had many familiar faces in the thumbnails. Or logos of providers whose work I've seen ... Dr Temple Grandin, autism expert and animal sciences professor at my alma mater, Colorado State University. She spoke to my occupational therapy class just prior to our graduation in 1996. Dr Klinghardt, Dr Tent (the chiropractor whose video of a packed room presentation to physicians and others has been very much spread around social media with fanfare. It's worth a watch to the very end when he reveals what had just occurred with his mother's end of life in the allopathic care system and his opinion and what he relates from conversations he had with doctors.)

Here's the link: Please take the trip and 'see the sites' as I say!

www.ehealthchannel.org/hair-loss/a-practical-lyme-diet~QElXlGTISBY [13]

Here are the notes from a few of the videos I watched (and made notes of for adding for YOUsers for your benefit in reading over and hopefully being able to better decide how to spend your time/energy in doing your homework)

Marty Ross, MD

www.treatlyme.net

A Practical Lyme Diet

Diagnosing Babesia. A Lyme Byte. April 2, 2014
Marty Ross, MD of www.treatlyme.net [14]

Question from a follower/fan who thinks they have CLD, and asks about testing. His response:

Doesn't like testing for babesia -- there are 15-20 strains and we have good testing for two strains and that's it. So tests would look at antibodies against just two strains,

The testing can be done through Igenics, however. They can also tag it with a fluorescent agent. But you have to have a lot of it in you to find it that way.

He makes his decisions based on the clinical signs.

Those symptoms are:

excessive nighttime sweating (that can soak the bed)
panic attacks
air hunger
skipping or racing of heart
migraine and/or headaches in front of head
regular sensations of de javu

Hallmark symptoms are the first two. He has provided a LOT of videos at this conglomerate video website portal, and I was impressed with the providers/experts I saw on video when I was lead to the site when searching on information about another MD, pathologist/ laboratory Lyme researcher Alan MacDonald. I was searching on his name and Lewy Body Disease, as he is one of the few researchers or medical experts in general who talks about LBD. (His research history is reported in three videos. I've made notes of that and will add it in here for now:

The following video clip is excerpted from a 100 minute interview. The complete interview is available on DVD from the foundation. This is one of three videos, each video segment is appr. 25 minutes. Contact: Richard Longland, Founder and Principal, The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation. info@arthropatient.org

The Biology of Lyme Disease: An Expert's Perspective

Alan B MacDonald, MD

Fellow, College of American Pathologists

Diplomate, American Board of Pathology

Board Certification, Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology

Associated Investigator, Harvard University Brain Bank, Belmont, Mass

Affiliated Researcher, University of New Haven, West Haven Connecticut

Career Researcher, Borreliosis and Lyme Disease in the Human Host, 1982-2013

Started in Columbia University, NY.

He wanted to cover a broad area of diagnostic medicine, gave up the University/Professor track and took up the track of what a hospital pathologist would come to them for advise about. It's patient oriented, but broad-based specialty. NYU Bellevue Hospital

This helped him in his work/career as he

If a pathologist makes a mistake, everyone gets sued and the patient suffers.

If you're an internist and you're wrong 20% of the time, you're a wonderful internist. But this is not the case for pathologists.

Tissue tropisms - the bug seeks out an area of the body to cause body in. Tropism means there an attraction in preference to other areas. Virus, bacteria, fungus. "Podiatrists make a nice living taking care of fungus of the toes."

Syphilis could get about every target in the body you can think of. Over 500 years this was collected, a book was published in 1945, called 'the green monster' because it had so many things to learn it was a challenge.

Working in Southampton NY, he was approached by Jorge Benach, PhD. They knew Southampton was close to Shelter Island, and they wanted to do research from that area.

.....

So he got doctors in his system on board looking into Lyme and in 1987 had a full day symposium and did Lyme disease from A to Z, and from each of the specialties.

There are a couple of reasons he is a career Alzheimer's, Lyme researcher ....

His grandfather was a physician and he had, it turned out Lewy Body Disease, which is kind of a first cousin of Alzheimers.

His mother would go into the pantry every day and cry .... so he wanted to do more about dementia.

8:00 in video...

Syphilis of the nervous system that causes dementia --

9:30

He went to a presentation in Vienna, Austria and they were presenting about tertiary syphilis - "Lyme" and "my mind did an electric lightning bolt and I thought why couldn't there be "tertiary Lyme disease" --- and Alzheimer would be it"

Got brains to study and he was able to grow the Lyme spirochete from 4 of 4 brains!

Within a year he wrote this up and sent the report to JAMA and they were 'reluctant to publish it' because it would promote public concern. They compromised and did a letter to the editors, which got published in 1986, one year after he got the idea in Vienna, Austria conference.

Since that time his techniques has gotten more sophisticated ........ able to show better the normal and diseased tissues.

Plaques are the areas where the brain has been destroyed.

Granular degeneration.

Now he gets brains from the Harvard Brain Bank. At the time of the video taped interview, he was working at Universtiy of New Haven with Dr Eva Sapi, PhD. Fishing a case study from a German physician -- Alzheimer areas had the Lyme spirochete.

He is a Quality Control officer, basically, in his position now, so he diagnosis if he can and sends out to others also.

Strep throat for example, or a diseased appendix -- you'll see the bugs at the site of what they're attacking.

In general paresis, this was difficult because it was one of the last areas to be brought

Noguchi's spirochetes

Rockefeller

That brought the last of the symptoms into the firm community of diseases that are cause by syphilis. Finding

the strep bacteria at the throat or the bacteria at the ruptured appendix.

The spirochetes are not waiting for a bus or reading the paper, they're there to do injury. (showing the mouth / gums in a slide as another example of where it can show up)

90% by weight of the body is bacterial, and our cells and our body is based on HEALTHY bacteria doing good things for us.

Borelia is a spirochete, and it's controlled by DNA, and the DNA produces proteins.

17:00

We have all our tests based on on strain: B31. Dr Alan Barbour did that work,

Serial Dilution and counting colonies. He cloned the B31 to a single .............

that is now the basis for all our USA test kits.

Now think about it. One spirochete, and one lineage ...... is going to be the ruler for diagnosing all the ..... in the United States. We know now that there are about 100... So one set of DNA ....and that's the ruler for all the 99 others we know about in the US. And that spirochete didn't come from a human body, it came from a tick gut. So there's a lot of flaws in how the testing has been developed.

There are many strains around the world. And those don't react very well. So if a person goes to Europe and gets infected there, gets tested in the US/back home, you will get a negative result. That's scary. But if you go back to Europe and get tested then it will more likely find it.

So "betting the ranch" on one is a flawed concept.

In Europe there are at least three strains in play they test for.

For each of those strains in Europe they have manufactured test kits they have derived from the strain. And you run the blood against it -- therefore you have a wider net with their testing than the US. (Fun graphic inserted showing a small hand held fishing net versus a big fishing boat with wide nets).

We recently completed a study on a brain from a doctor's brain from Europe ....

We found all three borelia strains simultaneiously affecting his brain.

He had multiple infection with multiple strains.

There was a Stonybrook patient who had gone to Europe ........

You're dealing with many possible straings due to air travel, military service, etc. in the modern way of life.

And the testing done in the US comes from a test kit that was developed in way they didn't originate it coming from a human. "Military intelligence".

24:00

Virulence:

Death counts versus survivor counts

These become more aggressive..

Each strain of borellia .. has differences at the level of DNA

That is expected in species in the wild, as things can mutate.

There are fluxes, which has to do with shifting, and if you can imagine DNA changing. It's a molecule in flux ... influenza does it/fluxes. DNA in flux happens at the microbial level, it's just a manifestation of life on earth. It's not static.

Video provided by:

Richard Longland

Founder and Principal

info@arthropatient.org

617-314-5900

arthropatient.org

whyamistillsick.com

biofilmcommunity.org

Note: I highly recommend you go on to Parts 2 and 3 --- I found that Biofilm has a YouTube channel which would be a really excellent place to go study videos because they're doing a high standard of quality of content, from what I could see, with the videos they are posting. It has a whole range of topics, from oral health to Lyme to other disorders.

This is what they had about this video:

www.youtube.com/watch [15]

Dr. Alan MacDonald, Pathologist, Lyme Disease Expert - Part 2 (of 3)

(By the way -- I was the 6,877th viewer of this, so perhaps notice the views when you go. Biofilm currently has 39 videos at YouTube. You might benefit from looking around their channel and their website, learning about what they're about. ~ Mardy)

Published on Aug 22, 2013

This is a 30 minute video with Dr. Alan MacDonald, a retired M.D. and board certified in Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology. This revealing interview from May 2013 (part 2 of 3) covers many misunderstandings associated with Lyme disease:

Brains and eyes as infection sanctuary sites
Cloaking of spirochetes in complementary proteins
Borrelia lifeforms: biofilms, communities, persisters, liposomes
Syphilis spirochetes and similararities
Spirochetes similar in biofunction as sperm
Anatomy of a tick assault
Six ways of evading the human immune system
The CDC and Borrelia biofilms
Atomic force microscopy: confirms Borrelia biofilms
101 strains of Borrelia, 150 global genotypes
Babesiosis types
Why strain variation makes testing inaccurate

The complete interview is available on DVD from The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation. Please offer an any-sized, tax deductible donation at this link:

http://www.arthropatient.org/about/do... [16]

Our specific library of current intelligence on biofilms:

http://www.biofilmcommunity.org/ [17]

Our documentary on biofilms, Why Am I Still Sick, now available in French, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese:

http://www.whyamistillsick.com/ [18]

Category

Science & Technology [19]

License

Standard YouTube License

Another video at the eHealthChannel that I wanted to highlight here is about

Why the Government won't allow treatment for Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD)

By Brittany, who appeared in the 3rd season finale of the Discovery Channel show Monsters Inside Me, re: LD

15 minutes and 40 seconds for the video. It covers:

The Great Lyme Debate - Why the government is hiding the truth about chronic Lyme disease. A political and economic disease as much as it is a bacterial infection.

Complaints will go into the system against a doctor for "following unusual practices in treating patients with Lyme disease", and can result in suspension of a license.

The Jim Six trial is shown in snippets

They show a young woman (teen?) who got sick at 7 years old with Lyme. A Colorado Rockies baseball player shown who went to having trouble putting a shirt on when he became ill.

Some infectious disease doctors don't believe in Lyme. "they said I was faking it and pretending so I could get out of school." the young woman/teen? said in the segment in Brittany's video to show someone in bed/unwell who is young.

Brittany is one of the fortunate few who found appropriate and helpful treatment and has had a good recovery. She found a LLD (Lyme literate doctor) and has done a lot of research in neuropsychology and the conspiracy about Lyme disease so she provided the video. She states she's goign to be proving everything she presents with references. (What I saw was a lot of photo images of things that you could see that she was getting the information from these sources but then they weren't listed anywhere as 'reference' necessarily, so it just depends on the level of 'research' proof you're wanting whether this is going to be sufficiently convincing overall. For most people, it will be reasonably convincing I think.)

The US government is a major factor/player. The other is IDSA, which is being used to provide guidelines BigMedical and BigInsurance uses for Lyme in the industry, in order to keep costs down. There basically was not a valid process and committee with IDSA -- much conflict of interest with who was on the committee.

She covers

Traub - The Godfather of Plum Island. He was brought here for Operation Paperclip

1970 - John Loftus hired by office of special investigations to Dept of Justice. He was given a security clearance to allow him to go through the documents.

He found that Nazi germ warfare included ticks with bugs dropped by planes to spread diseases.

Huge paper trail exists showing this, per the video.

1st case of Lyme disease in the US diagnosed 1970, she states (I've seen that differently elsewhere).

It's called the "perfect storm of diseases". If it's caught early, it's very treatable.

In most cases it's not caught early and then it's more difficult to treat. In the late stage it can be impossible.

People become disabled and have severe neurological problems.

From Plum Island to the mainland / state of Connecticut is not far across some of the Atlantic Ocean.

The majority of cases are on east coast Brittany says and it is shown on a map of just the eastern part of the US, but it also shows a lot in the midwest, such as Michigan. I suggest people look to the map in Under Our Skin because it shows how the cases occurred over time in the USA -- this video would leave people believing that if you're not in those two areas, you'd not be at risk for LD.

IDSA Lyme Guidelines Authors -- Samual Danta --- there seemed to be pressure to get something 'out there'. Chairmanship was taken over by someone else and then they never met again.

Insurance companies used the guidelines for what they'd reimburse for treatment, because it's so expensive to treat. Many people are shown in the video saying they incurred about $75,000-100,000, to double that amount, in out of pocket expenses or what is total between them and their insurance payors.

Doctors are supposed to follow these guidelines

Few doctors will take the chance to go outside the guidelines.

Complaint form goes into the medical board, and they're trying to get rid of doctors who cost them a lot of money. Doctor who go outside the guidelines are prosecuted, have lost licenses, and been sued. This sends a message to all doctors.

Dr Jim Six shown

Connecticut Attorney General

Richard Blumenthal opened up an investigation about the panel that created the guidelines. The current IDSA committee has many conflicts of interest.

Randy _____ studied --- found

Proof that scientists were infecting ticks with the virus' at Plum Island. Surmise is was transported on birds. Randy stated that many of the experiments were done outside and weren't monitored well. He found proof that they were using it for biowarfare. He provided a form to the govt. and it was stated on the form that they were doing experiments on Plum Island on anthrax and other things, but specifically Lyme disease was on the list.

Dr Joseph Jemsek license suspended for a year --

Brittany's out of pocket costs were $40,000.

Hence they don't take insurance often to reduce their chances of being targeted

Infectious Disease Society of America's FB last January 4 is discussed ---

Posted a ? of what would you like to see this year. The Lyme community 'blew it up' and posted a lot of comments about CLD. IDSA deleted the comments.

Deleted Brittany's comment and blocked her for posting something on their wall asking when they'd get with it the way Discovery channel did in having an episode of the show she was in.

President Bush was treated for LD in August 2006 and it was not revealed until August of 2007. He saw 11 doctors prior to diagnosis. She states she found out that treatment was in Bethesda at NIH. She stated there is a photo of Bush shaking hand with a LLD/Physician. IDDocs won't acknowledge nor treat CLD. LLD go around the guidelines and treat these people and are risking practice and license and livelihood by becoming a LLD.

Long-term antibiotics do work, she states (and shows photos from demonstrations stating this). She appreciates her treatment and doctor and signs off saying she wishes the best for everyone, knows the struggle, but in time thinks things will be more exposed and things will change.

She hopes this video contributes to that and "I wish you all the best".

AND I hope by covering a few of these videos that I thought would be well-served to do a little overviewing/transcribing of helped YOU find information in a more efficient way. ~ Mardy

__________________

Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate [10] and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!

Wed, 09/03/2014 - 10:21am

#2 [23]

Mardy Ross

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Feb 16 2009

Posts: 2032

Borreliosis Basics, includes possibility of sexual transmission

I came across this fabulous, short overview about the basics of borreliosis and wanted to add it on here for our YOUsers to benefit from. Laura cites some of her sources but not all, and on this one she does not cite where the information she was including came from. Beyond what I've provided, above, as you'll say she says here "the info's out there, go for it" if you want to look into it more to be sure what's being shared and said is accurate for YOU to 'run the ball' with. I've added bolding, as I often do, for making things more obvious and to break things up a bit.

Borreliosis Basics - by Laura Hovind

Borreliosis is a multi-system disease caused by a spirochetal bacterium (parasite). A spirochete is a spiral-shaped parasite with an internal flagellar bundle.

Borreliosis is transmitted primarily through the bite of an infected tick, but also may be transmitted by insect vectors, in utero to an unborn fetus, (says Yale), and possibly via sexual intercourse. If not treated immediately with antibiotics, the infection can persist for years and cause neurological diseases such as MS, Lupus, cancer, Chronic Fatigue/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and Alzheimer’s, according to IDSA and the CDC.

Borreliae parasites have the ability to change (shed/bleb off) their outer surface proteins (Osps/Vmps) to evade detection by the immune system in a mechanism commonly known as antigenic variation. Several of these outer surface proteins such as OspA (the Lyme "vaccines") are TLR-2 agonists or are fungal types (Pam3Cys or similar), meaning these shed lipoproteins essentially disable the immune system, and not just by tolerance to other fungal antigens (TLR2) but to other antigen types (managed by other TLRs):

See this report: "Because IRAK1 is required for TLR7/9-induced IFN-I production, we propose that TLR2 signaling induces rapid depletion of IRAK1, which impairs IFN-I induction by TLR7/9. This novel mechanism, whereby TLR2 inhibits IFN-I induction by TLR7/9, may shape immune responses to microbes that express ligands for both TLR2 and TLR7/TLR9, or responses to bacteria/virus coinfection." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22227568 [24]

Also, there is cross-tolerance to TLR4 agonists from constant TLR2-agonism of shed borrelial antigens like OspA and vice-versa. (This is in the literature, so help yourself.)

This creates an environment where opportunistic infections can thrive and cause chronic, disabling disease. TLR2-agonist tolerance apparently reactivates latent herpes viruses (thru IL-10, the and inhibition of apoptosis of OspA or EBV infected cells, the mechanism shown above re TLR2-signaling and the inhibition of IFN-I, and perhaps other unknown mechanisms), particularly Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), which is probably the main driver of all these New Great and Great Imitator disease.

Fungal antigen tolerance from exposure to shed borrelial lipoproteins causes fungal tolerance in the blood and the inability to get rid of mycoplasma/eperythrozoons from the blood, especially the red blood cells (which causes fatigue).

__________________

Thu, 10/09/2014 - 7:09am

#3 [25]

Mardy Ross

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Feb 16 2009

Posts: 2032

MORE Research Shows STI Aspect in a Good Overview Article

MORE research being reported about the STI/STD aspect of Lyme, with a good overview about Lyme (though it cites the 300,000 'official' number of CDC and not the 'or up to 1M' that is often published, and most in the Lyme expert community believe the numbers of new cases are more likely several million new/year at this time).

Highlight from the article (at the link, below) so you can see the nature of the info:

"Commonly known as Lyme disease (aka Borrelia burgdorferi), you might assume this potential sexually transmitted infection (STI) can only afflict those bitten by a tick. Sadly, it may be time to ditch that notion. Emerging information indicates that, if you are having unprotected sex at all — even in a monogamous relationship — you’re at risk of infection.

Lyme symptoms have often been dismissed as stress or aging. They include fatigue, joint pains, muscle aches, headaches and flu-like symptoms. However, left untreated, the infection can travel to the nervous system, dwell in your tissue, and mimic chronic illnesses such as arthritis, paralysis, epilepsy or even Alzheimer’s disease.

In fact, the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) suggests that Lyme should be considered in diagnoses of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and many other multi-system illnesses.

The work of Lyme-aware healthcare providers is being hampered by faulty testing and an outdated treatment protocol. As if that wasn’t enough, these professionals are also up against a medical community and agencies that seem rather averse to examining the rise of Lyme infection, with many institutional leaders clinging to the dangerous, antiquated notion that chronic Lyme doesn’t even exist.

The status quo is making it incredibly difficult for severely ill patients to receive the treatment they desperately need. - See more at:http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/monogamous-std-doesnt-care-shesaid/#sthash.fLFqEs09.dpuf [26]

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Fri, 09/08/2017 - 10:39am

#4 [27]

Mardy Ross

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Top of the Totem Pole

Joined: Feb 16 2009

Posts: 2032

Challenging the Tickborn Disease Paradigm at Taylor&Francis

At Taylor and Francis Online, I found (via a FB friend sharing this link, I'm giving you here), a wonderful resource for MANY subjects, well laid out and organized. Discover. Learn. Share. 3,800,000+articles, the landing page for Taylor & Francis Online says as a 'welcome' if you go to their home page.

I'm suggesting you go and read this article at the site, AND look around.....

Sexual transmission of Lyme disease: challenging the tickborne disease paradigm

Raphael B Stricker & Marianne J Middelveen
Pages 1303-1306 | Published online: 26 Aug 2015

Abstract

Lyme disease caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi has become a major worldwide epidemic. In this article, we explore the clinical, epidemiological and experimental evidence for sexual transmission of Lyme disease in animal models and humans. Although the likelihood of sexual transmission of the Lyme spirochete remains speculative, the possibility of Lyme disease transmission via intimate human contact merits further study.

Keywords: Borrelia burgdorferi, genital secretions, Lyme disease, sexual transmission

Lyme disease is the most common tickborne illness in the world today. It is also one of the most controversial illnesses in the history of medicine, and the controversy features two opposing camps.

One camp espouses the viewpoint of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) that tickborne infection with the Lyme spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, can be difficult to detect given the current state of diagnostic tests and that the organism can be hard to eradicate given its ability to evade the host immune response and antibiotic therapy.

The other camp espouses the viewpoint of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) that Lyme disease is a simple tickborne infection that is easily diagnosed and treated. According to this viewpoint, the notion that infection may persist after a short course of antibiotics lacks ‘credible scientific evidence’, persistence mechanisms of B. burgdorferi are deemed ‘implausible’ and chronic Lyme disease due to persistent B. burgdorferi infection is rare or non-existent.

While the revised ILADS Lyme guidelines recommend longer antibiotic treatment for patients with chronic Lyme disease, the IDSA Lyme guidelines discourage antibiotic treatment for patients with persistent Lyme disease symptoms [5,6] Cameron DJ, Johnson LB, Maloney EL. Evidence assessments and guideline recommendations in Lyme disease: the clinical management of known tick bites, erythema migrans rashes and persistent disease.

The Lyme disease controversy has resulted in a stalemate between the ILADS and IDSA points of view. Each side claims that its clinical, epidemiological, diagnostic and therapeutic pronouncements are ‘evidence based’ and represent the ‘standard of care’ for the disease.

This ‘he said/she said’ dispute in turn has left patients without a clear path to diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The dispute has also dampened pharmaceutical company interest in developing new antibiotic treatments for the disease similar to the ‘designer drugs’ that have revolutionized the therapy of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

The medical and lay press has also been confused by the dispute and ultimately has lost interest in publishing repetitive articles about a tickborne disease that could be characterized as unimportant.

Despite these issues, the specter of Lyme disease has continued to grow. In 2013, the CDC published a trio of reports suggesting that the annual rate of Lyme disease was more than 300,000 cases in the USA.

This annual rate was more than 10-times the number of cases reported using the surveillance case definition employed by the CDC, making Lyme disease almost twice as common as breast cancer and six-times more common than HIV/AIDS.

The huge rate increase also created problems for the epidemiology of the tickborne disease. Based on a study of confirmed tickbites in the Netherlands, the annual tickbite rate was estimated to be 495 per 100,000 population, which translates into about 1.5 million tickbites per year in the USA.

Based on the assumption that only 2% of tickbites yield infection with B. burgdorferi, it would take 15 million tickbites per year to achieve the CDC rate of Lyme disease. This implausible tickbite requirement suggests that other means of Lyme disease transmission may occur.

The Lyme spirochete B. burgdorferi is a relatively complex organism that is similar to the spirochetal agent of syphilis. B. burgdorferi contains enzymes that facilitate tissue penetration, and the spirochete has the ability to form cystic structures and hide in biofilms
. These properties allow the organism to persist in a variety of tissues and hostile environments and to escape the reach of antibiotics. The ability of B. burgdorferi to infect privileged sites such as the eye, synovium and brain may also contribute to persistence of the spirochete in human tissues [1,2] Stricker RB, Johnson L. Lyme disease: the next decade. Infect Drug Resist 2011;4:1-9
Stricker RB, Johnson L. Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment: Lessons from the AIDS epidemic. Minerva Med 2010;101:419-25. The pleotropic and pleomorphic properties of the spirochete suggest that the genital tract could also harbor the infection, resulting in transmission from person to person without a tick vector.

Evidence for direct transmission of B. burgdorferi in the absence of a tick vector initially came from animal studies, although results were mixed. A mouse study by Burgess et al. demonstrated transmission of the spirochete from infected to uninfected animals of the same sex.

Another mouse study by Wright and Nielsen demonstrated B. burgdorferi transmission from infected males to uninfected females following intercourse. A third mouse study by Altaie et al. demonstrated spirochetal transmission from infected males to their offspring, presumably via maternal contact.

An unpublished study by Gustafson showed transmission of the Lyme spirochete to uninfected female dogs and their offspring via artificial insemination with infected semen.

In contrast, studies in Lewis rats and Syrian hamsters failed to show contact or sexual transmission in these highly inbred rodents. Limited contact times and lack of PCR testing may have contributed to the negative results in these two animal models .

Of interest, B. burgdorferi transmission has also been associated with sexual contact between male and female Ixodes ticks.

Human sexual transmission of Lyme disease was initially suggested by Bach in 2001. He observed that sexually active patients had a marked propensity for antibiotic failure and speculated that re-infection occurred by intimate person-to-person contact. In 2003, Harvey and Salvato studied a group of chronically ill B. burgdorferi-seropositive and PCR-positive patients in Houston, Texas – a non-endemic area – and provided epidemiological evidence that Lyme disease could spread in the absence of infected ticks. In this scenario, intimate person-to-person transfer was implicated as the probable means of transmission.

A study by Stricker et al. provided clinical and immunological evidence for B. burgdorferi transmission via intimate contact. In heterosexual seropositive couples with Lyme disease in which only one partner had a documented tickbite, the partner with the documented tickbite tended to have more severe clinical manifestations of the disease and a lower CD57 NK cell level. This difference in clinical severity and CD57 NK cell level was not noted in seropositive couples diagnosed with Lyme disease in which both partners had a documented history of tickbite. Sexual transfer of B. burgdorferi infection therefore seems possible in humans.

In order to investigate this possibility, Middelveen et al. performed the first Borrelia culture study on human semen and vaginal secretions.

Patients with documented Lyme disease, including heterosexual couples having unprotected sex, had genital cultures studied in three independent laboratories. The cultures of semen and vaginal secretions were subjected to light and darkfield microscopy and were found to contain live, motile spirochetes that displayed characteristic undulating movement and stained positive with Dieterle silver staining and anti-B. burgdorferi immunostaining.

Furthermore, PCR testing and molecular hybridization with highly specific DNA probes demonstrated that the live genital spirochetes were Borrelia strains and not treponemes. Of particular interest, one couple was found to have B. hermsii rather than B. burgdorferi in their genital secretions, further implicating sexual transmission in these cases. Control subjects who tested negative for Lyme disease had no evidence of Borrelia spirochetes in their genital secretions.

The combination of animal models and human studies strongly suggests that the Lyme spirochete may be sexually transmitted, much like the spirochetal agent of syphilis. This possibility is difficult to prove because direct transmission studies in humans similar to the ‘volunteer’ experiments performed on syphilis patients would be unethical by current standards.

However, the animal studies showing contact and sexual transmission should be reproduced and extended to other animal models using sophisticated immunological and molecular methods to examine venereal exposure to B. burgdorferi. In addition, further epidemiology studies should be conducted to assess whether sexual transmission might explain the increase in Lyme disease cases around the world.

These studies could also address geographical discrepancies between human and tick infection rates in various reports as well as gender discrepancies in Lyme disease statistics.

The results might create a paradigm shift that would transform Lyme disease from a tickborne illness into a sexually transmitted infection.

The significance of this paradigm shift would be profound. As a sexually transmitted infection, Lyme disease would command greater respect in the medical community. The current inadequate diagnostic tests for the disease would have to be replaced with more sensitive testing, and test patterns would have to be adjusted to account for sexual transmission. Treatment for Lyme disease would also need to be reassessed, with therapeutic approaches tailored to eradication of the spirochete from privileged sites in the genital tract similar to the tactics for treating HIV/AIDS.

Pharmaceutical companies would be encouraged to come up with new ‘designer drugs’ for this sexually transmitted disease using the strategies that produced effective treatments for HIV/AIDS and HCV. The Lyme disease landscape would change drastically for patients. Although infected individuals would be forced to deal with the risk of sexual transmission, they would also benefit from easier access to treatment and eventually better treatment based on the experience with HIV/AIDS and HCV. With this paradigm shift, the ‘Lyme Wars’ would finally come to an end, and after more than 40 years the Lyme spirochete could finally be contained.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank S Altaie, A Barbour, G Chaconas, L Gilbert, N Haak, M Kroun, R Lane, SH Lee, K Liegner, A MacDonald, L Montagnier, K Mullis, E Sapi, J Shah and J Sperling for helpful discussion. They also thank L Johnson, P Mervine and P Smith for online support.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors are supported in part by a grant from the Lindorf Family Foundation, Newark, OH. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

References

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14787210.2015.1081056 [28]

Again, PLEASE GO TO THE SOURCE TO SEE THIS WITH THE REFERENCES IN THE LIST

AND AS THEY ARE ADDED WITHIN THE TEXT, as this is a well researched, cited, properly done piece.

I removed them for our purposes introducting YOUsers here to make this very readable. Most are tired, have Lyme and coinfection symptoms or are otherwise weary when finding information and our 'niche' is to make this a place to learn of resources for further study and to cover a lot of bases before delving in further elsehwere.

I added paragraph breaks for that reaons too. And I bolded things I thought Lumigrate readers might appreciate the "pop" effect for, in light of that I'm very much encouraging a trip off to this website to look not only at the article but at the other content there, and know of it as a resource for this type of HELPFUL, quality information we seek!

Live and learn. Learn and live better! ~ Mardy

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