READ & MAKE A CHOICE
READ & MAKE A CHOICE
By Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA
By Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA
In fact, the guideline authors were busted as a result of these guidelines. The Attorney General concluded, after a lengthy investigation...
"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." Source
The Clinical Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention of Lyme Disease, Human Granulocytic Anaplasmosis, and Babesiosis: Clinical Practice Guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America
Gary P. Wormser,1 Raymond J. Dattwyler,2 Eugene D. Shapiro,5,6 John J. Halperin,3,4 Allen C. Steere,9 Mark S. Klempner,10 Peter J. Krause,8 Johan S. Bakken,11 Franc Strle,13 Gerold Stanek,14 Linda Bockenstedt,7 Durland Fish,6 J. Stephen Dumler,12 and Robert B. Nadelman1
Divisions of 1Infectious Diseases and 2Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla, and 3New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York; 4Atlantic Neuroscience Institute, Summit, New Jersey; Departments of 5Pediatrics and 6Epidemiology and Public Health and 7Section of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, and 8Department of Pediatrics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Hartford; 9Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and 10Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts; 11Section of Infectious Diseases, St. Luke’s Hospital, Duluth, Minnesota; 12Division of Medical Microbiology, Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland; 13Department of Infectious Diseases, University Medical Center, Ljubljana, Slovenia; and 14Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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In fact, these guideline were found to be a copy cat of the really bad IDSA guidelines. Even though the guidelines were suppose to be independent, three of the IDSA guideline author's were also authors on the American Academy of Neurology guidelines- Gary Wormser, Eugene Shapiro & JJ Halperin.
The Attorney General stated...
QUOTE- "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 a 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.
When IDSA learned of the improper links between its panel and the AAN's panel, instead of enforcing its conflict of interest policy, it aggressively sought the AAN's endorsement to "strengthen" its guidelines' impact. The AAN panel -- particularly members who also served on the IDSA panel -- worked equally hard to win AAN's backing of IDSA's conclusions.
The two entities sought to portray each other's guidelines as separate and independent when the facts call into question that contention.
The IDSA subsequently cited AAN's supposed independent corroboration of its findings as part of its attempts to defeat federal legislation to create a Lyme disease advisory committee and state legislation supporting antibiotic therapy for chronic Lyme disease." Source
Practice Parameter: Treatment of nervous system Lyme disease (an evidence-based review): Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology
J. J. Halperin, E. D. Shapiro, E. Logigian, A. L. Belman, L. Dotevall, G. P. Wormser, L. Krupp, G. Gronseth, C. T. Bever
First published May 23, 2007, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000265517.66976.28
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