Lyme disease is often misdiagnosed or goes undiagnosed, but research has halted because every stage of the disease is bitterly contested by scientists, Steven Phillips, MD, a specialist in treating complex infections, wrote in an opinion piece published by NBC News.
Experts believe more than 400,000 new Lyme infections occur annually in the U.S., but every facet of the disease has been mired in scientific controversy at the research level, Dr. Phillips wrote. Blood tests used to diagnose Lyme are 40 years old and miss more cases than they diagnose, and a Johns Hopkins study found that 23 percent of Lyme rashes are not properly diagnosed.
The disease also sees high rates of treatment failure. In a study of late-stage Lyme patients, nearly 30 percent did not respond to weeks of antibiotics and, in those who did improve, 100 percent continued to have symptoms. Estimates of U.S. residents living with chronic Lyme disease are as high as 2 million, yet some medical societies reiterate that antibiotics readily cure the disease, Dr. Phillips wrote.
Over the past 20 years, there have been only three NIH-funded trials evaluating antibiotic re-treatment of Lyme patients who remain ill after a short course of antibiotics. Two of the trials demonstrated benefits to re-treatment, and the one that did not was "fraught with invalidating biostatistical design errors." More and better research into the "ongoing plague" of Lyme disease is needed, Dr. Phillips concluded.