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Ian Lipkin on Lyme...

Helen

Senior Member
Messages
2,243
Thanks to @Simon and his very good report from Dr. Ian Lipkins talk in London in September we got these news:

"Chronic Lyme disease – chasing the wrong microbe?

Fever, fatigue, headaches and a characteristic rash are all characteristic of Lyme disease, which is caused by the bacteriumBorrelia burgdorferi and spread through the bites of blood-sucking ticks. It’s treated by antibiotics, but some people remain ill, often leading to the controversial diagnosis of ‘chronic Lyme disease’.

Various theories to explain the illness include prolonged immune activation or even that people are choosing an illness role for secondary gain.

Lipkin is interested in pursuing another theory: what if they’ve got the wrong man and B. burgdorferi isn’t the culprit in some cases? Following the hunch that chronic Lyme disease is caused by a different pathogen, they’ve been looking to see what other microbes are carried by the ticks that spread Lyme disease.

Lipkin said they’ve already discovered a number of different viruses in the ticks. They have more work to do to see if any of these could be causing chronic Lyme disease but added, 'we expect it will surprise many people when it is finally done.'

Some doctors as Kenny De Meirleir, Horowitz, Nicolaus and Swartzbach at Infectolabs among others are already chasing viruses in chronic Lyme patients, but maybe Lipkin will be able to confirm something with indisputable tests.
 

Martial

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Location
Ventura, CA
Interesting but I hope he doesn't focus too much on viruses exclusively, most doctors with lyme experience understand the complex nature of various co infections, this covers viral, parasitic, malaria, etc. Sometimes a tick may get someone sick with various infections and not have the borrelia bacteria.
 
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duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Of course, still on the table is that Borrelia IS the culprit, and has been all along. As for the role of other TBD's, yes, their contributions are seemingly daily being revealed in greater detail, and their threat more fully appreciated.

Not sure that Lipkin isn't just retracing paths already forged. Hopefully, his efforts will generate something new and meaningful.
 

Simon

Senior Member
Messages
3,789
Location
Monmouth, UK
Of course, still on the table is that Borrelia IS the culprit, and has been all along. As for the role of other TBD's, yes, their contributions are seemingly daily being revealed in greater detail, and their threat more fully appreciated.

Not sure that Lipkin isn't just retracing paths already forged. Hopefully, his efforts will generate something new and meaningful.
I'm not up on Lyme research at all, but as I understand it what Ian Lipkin's doing that's different is he's working forward from the ticks: what pathogens, known and unknown, is the tick carrying? If you want to find pathogens like this, there's probably no one better than Lipkin to do it.

The next step is to see if any chronic lyme disease patients have an immune reaction to these microbes.

It's probably worth checking out what he actually said: starts on the video @ 25 mins. It might mean more to you than to me.
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
Dietrich Klinghardt believes Lyme has become endemic, no longer necessarily related to ticks at all. I don't have any links, but understand that this is his position. This is his website, there's a pdf from 2011, looks like he's suggesting parasites as at least involved. I don't have Lyme, but have used his pyroluria protocol. If he's been discredited, please inform me. I think I heard him say this in an autism vid.

ETA the website: http://klinghardtacademy.com/
 
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Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
Dietrich Klinghardt believes Lyme has become endemic, no longer necessarily related to ticks at all. I don't have any links, but understand that this is his position. This is his website, there's a pdf from 2011, looks like he's suggesting parasites as at least involved. I don't have Lyme, but have used his pyroluria protocol. If he's been discredited, please inform me. I think I heard him say this in an autism vid.
He says mosquitoes and fleas can also transmit Lyme.
 

duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Simon, the thought is a good one. The issue, if it is an issue, is that experts who do nothing but study ticks and look for pathogens in ticks have already identified a small army of such pathogens. One such expert, of course, was Willy Burgdorfer, who stumbled on Bb while looking for another related disease in ticks collected from Long Island, NY in '81 or 82 or whatever.

On top of these are the researchers that explore TBD's in animals, e.g. veterinarians. Researchers like Monica Embers and Stephen Barthold. Cap those distinct groups off with researchers and clinicians and pathologists that deal directly with humans as end reservoirs for Bb and company.

The result of these disparate but interrelated efforts is volumes of research already accrued about KNOWN pathogens - and yet those volumes are pretty much contested not in that the pathogens take hold in humans, but the degree of the illnesses they transmit, how they can be tracked, and whether we really know how to treat them adequately. The problem isn't so much unknown viruses or bacteria or parasites; the problem, to date, has been the politics which may pivot on patents and legacy.

That being said, Dr. Lipkin MAY find an unknown virus at the root of all this mess, and help resolve it. God bless him if he can. :)
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
if sequencing was already done in CFS patients and nothing new was found, why are they still searching for new microbes?

I guess next generation sequencing still has a lot of limitations as to what it can find.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
if sequencing was already done in CFS patients and nothing new was found, why are they still searching for new microbes?
The above discussion relates to Lipkin's research on Lyme disease, and tick-borne diseases, not ME/CFS.

But in terms of ME/CFS, Lipkin is now looking at blood cells, after having found no pathogens in blood plasma, and he's also studying Peterson's spinal fluid samples. And he's looking at the gut microbiome in case any microbes show up there that might be implicated in the disease, that don't show up in the blood. The microbiome study will also include serology (a study of antibodies) to see if any hit-and-run microbes might be implicated in the disease (i.e. microbes that aren't detectable in the blood but that have a lasting impact in terms of illness & symptoms.)

I guess next generation sequencing still has a lot of limitations as to what it can find.
Yes, I suppose that no system is perfect, and science still has a long way to go in terms of understanding disease and the behaviour viruses etc. There might still be unknown human viruses causing disease, but perhaps the answer to ME/CFS lies elsewhere i.e. unusual behaviour of known or common viruses; hidden infections in tissues; hit-and-run infections disrupting the immune system; unusual microbe/genetic/environmental interactions causing disease; leaky gut and an inappropriate immune response to normal gut bacteria etc. etc.
 
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Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
July 2015

Recent tweets by Vincent Racaniello re Lipkin on Lyme...

#ASV2015 Next talk: "Small game hunting" by Ian Lipkin my #Columbia colleague #viruses
https://twitter.com/profvrr/status/619856455022284800

#ASV2015 Lipkin suggesting that some people with chronic Lyme and treated with antibiotics might have a viral infection #viruses
https://twitter.com/profvrr/status/619859774495191040

#ASV2015 Looking at infections of ticks in NY State - found many new viruses 9 so far, antibodies to long island tick rhabdovirus in people
https://twitter.com/profvrr/status/619859647273545729


This seems interesting:
"antibodies to long island tick rhabdovirus in people"
 
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SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
Could this be a clue to the interesting development in pathogen investigation alluded to in the recent Stanford newsletter?
 
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duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
I think Lipkin found this in Lone Star ticks...not the ticks which the IDSA would say is infecting people with Lyme in Long Island, NY (ixodes scapularis ticks, i.e. deer ticks).

Does this mean Lipkin did not find the rhabdovirus in ixodes scapularis ticks?

Not that Lone Star ticks can't infect with Borrelia - well, at least in some peoples' minds they can, including mine. But I would think ixodes is where he should have been looking.

Edited to add: I'm reading the study now. In ixodes scapularis ticks he did examine, he and his team did not find rhabdovirus.

That's a head-scratcher, at least to a certain extent.
 
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duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Ok, so he didn't find rhabdovirus in deer ticks. He only checked 30, but then again, he only examined 25 Lone Star ticks and he found that virus in a portion of that Lone Star pool.

This would mean that, if you're partial to the NIH and CDC and IDSA version of where Lyme or chronic Lyme comes from, this rhabdovirus would not be its cause - based on this limited sampling. And assuming I am interpreting the study (Feb, 2014?) results correctly.
 
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Messages
15,786
This would mean that, if you're partial to the NIH and CDC and IDSA version of where Lyme or chronic Lyme comes from, this rhabdovirus would not be its cause - based on this limited sampling. And assuming I am interpreting the study (Feb, 2014?) results correctly.
Chronic "Lyme" could be coming from a lot of different infections, in various areas. Just because one couldn't be causing every case doesn't rule it out for causing some cases.
 

duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Chronic Lyme could be the result of other infections from different areas, yes.

One problem with that may be how Chronic Lyme is defined. Some clinicians open the definition to include any TBD. Others insist on maintaining that if it's Lyme, it's Lyme; if it's another TBD like Babesia or Bartonella, then it isn't chronic Lyme, it's Babesia or Bartonella.

If you keep to a definition of Lyme that includes Bb sensu lato as its agent, and if you accept the CDC's version of the vector source of Bb sensu lato - which they claim in the United States is primarily ixodes scapularis, and definitely not amblyomma americanum (Lone Star tick) - then it would appear on the basis of this study, the only thing rhabdovirus virus could be mistaken for is chronic STARI, not chronic Lyme.

These are not my rules. I didn't make them and I don't subscribe to them.

The Lyme powers will likely disallow any connection between Lyme - chronic or otherwise - and the Lone Star tick.
 
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duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Don't researchers at Columbia University talk to one another?

Columbia U Medical has a dedicated Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Research Center. Brian Fallon isn't talking to Lipkin about the latter's Lyme efforts? I would hope Fallon knows about the issue...Maybe not, though. Maybe Fallon isn't into the vector aspect. Still.

If I'm right, Lipkin shouldn't be trumpeting the potential chronic Lyme connection quite yet - it's the wrong tick.

Hopefully, I am wrong.