Apparently the Lyme Wars are not over. A press release from the Mayday Project, was issued by LymeDisease.org stating: “In an email response to the petition, Beth P. Bell, MD, Director of CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), declined to take action, saying, “CDC believes that IDSA guidelines currently represent the best available synthesis of the medical literature on the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease.”
Is there a big difference between the IDSA guidelines issued in 2006 and the ILADS guidelines developed in 2014 and posted on the National Guidelines Clearinghouse this year?
The IDSA guidelines state that there is no such thing as chronic Lyme disease, and that a 2-4 week course of antibiotics is enough for anyone who has been infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, the spirochete that causes Lyme disease.
The ILADS guidelines recognize that chronic Lyme disease does exist, that people can become very ill from it, that is can be treated with lengthy courses of antibiotics (like tuberculosis, months rather than weeks of therapy) and that other factors may play a part in how the disease unfolds and how rapidly it can be treated.
Click here for more information on Lyme disease diagnosis, the difference between the two sets of guidelines, and how we treat Lyme disease at the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine.
Click here if you wish to contact Beth P. Bell, MD, Director of CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), to comment on her decision.