May 1, 2014- The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) claims publicly that it reviews and updates its treatment guidelines every 12-18 months. As of May 1, 2014 its Lyme Disease Guidelines have not been reviewed or updated for the past thirty-one (31) months.
This most recent failure to display even a minimal concern for best practices in patient care or to safe guard the public's health follows on the heels of failing to update its guidelines and make specific changes recommended by the IDSA's own hand-picked panel of experts in a report by Carol Baker, dated April 22, 2010.
This atrocity is compounded by the fact NO changes have been made to the 2006 Lyme disease guidelines for over eight (8) years, although over 3,280 new scientific/medical papers regarding Lyme disease have been funded in part by tax-payers and published during that time.
To add to the patient's angst, the CDC and many, if not all, State health departments refer to and publicly advertise the IDSA guidelines to clinicians and insurers as their recommendation for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease.
These are the same guidelines determined to be "riddled with conflicts of interest" by the Connecticut Attorney General (Richard Blumenthal) on May 1, 2008 following a lengthy investigation. Blumenthal, currently a Senator representing CT, stated:
"The IDSA's 2006 Lyme disease guideline panel undercut its credibility by allowing individuals with financial interests -- in drug companies, Lyme disease diagnostic tests, patents and consulting arrangements with insurance companies -- to exclude divergent medical evidence and opinion.
In today's healthcare system, clinical practice guidelines have tremendous influence on the marketing of medical services and products, insurance reimbursements and treatment decisions.
As a result, medical societies that publish such guidelines have a legal and moral duty to use exacting safeguards and scientific standards."
The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) was also publicly sanctioned for its role in the guideline fiasco and its publication was under fire. The Attorney General's Press Release, dated May 1, 2014, reported the following:
"IDSA convened panels in 2000 and 2006 to research and publish guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. Blumenthal's office found that the IDSA disregarded a 2000 panel member who argued that chronic and persistent Lyme disease exists. The 2000 panel pressured the panelist to conform to the group consensus and removed him as an author when he refused.
IDSA sought to portray a second set of Lyme disease guidelines issued by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) as independently corroborating its findings. In fact, IDSA knew that the two panels shared key members, including the respective panel chairmen and were working on both sets of guidelines at the same time -- a violation of IDSA's conflicts of interest policy.
The resulting IDSA and AAN guidelines not only reached the same conclusions regarding the non-existence of chronic Lyme disease, their reasoning at times used strikingly similar language. Both entities, for example, dubbed symptoms persisting after treatment "Post-Lyme Syndrome" and defined it the same way."
Lucy Barnes
AfterTheBite@gmail.com