Exerpts from under our skin web site
Indeed why would NIH try to sensor a retired researcher??
Dr. Burgdorfer: was the expert in the field and died recently
http://underourskin.com/news/lyme-discoverer-willy-burgdorfer-breaks-silence-heated-controversy
Just as we began filming, there was a pounding on the door, and we found ourselves facing someone who turned out to be a top researcher at the nearby
Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a biolevel-4 NIH research facility. Standing on the porch, our uninvited guest said, “I’ve been told that I need to supervise this interview. This comes from the highest levels. There are things that Willy can’t talk about.” We were stunned. After all, Dr. Burgdorfer had been retired from the lab since 1986. We were there to talk to a private citizen, about the history of a very public discovery that had put him on the short list for a Nobel Prize. Earlier that year, the NIH had refused our requests to interview any of their Lyme researchers. What was going on? Why would the NIH want to censor information about
the fastest growing bug-borne disease in the United States? Fortunately, our iron-willed film director, Andy Abrahams Wilson, turned the NIH handler away, and what followed was an amazingly candid interview about Lyme disease—its dangers and its controversies.
Dr. Burgdorfer: I most regret that
the technology used to diagnose and
to even treat Lyme disease wasn’t worked all the way through. It [was based on] only a few results, then published. And later on, people [wanted] to take them back. I think
Borrelia burgdorferi is too serious an [infectious] agent to play with, and with many laboratories, the severity of the disease is overlooked.
Andy Wilson: What’s the next stage of research? Dr. Burgdorfer: Neurologic manifestations have to be the next stage of research. Also [
Borrelia burgdorferi’s] antigenicity. Ecologically,
the diversification of Borrelia is tremendous. Because of the spirochete’s ability to change—to change its physiology, to change its “antigenic” structure for instance—a spirochete may be capable of producing disease or not. And one piece of work that needs to be done, that has lately been neglected, is development of the spirochete—whether it transfers [genes via] fission, or whether individual spirochetes have the ability to break into spheres or particles. We don’t know yet how they do it but they do. They go into the lymphocytes, they go into every tissue. Just because we have not seen [them], does not mean that they are not there. Once the immune response is down, are [they] capable of re-entering the bloodstream and producing disease?
Andy Wilson: Do you have Lyme? Dr. Burgdorfer: No. I don’t. But I say that cautiously. Because I have been working with Lyme disease ever since 1981. _______ Soon after we turned-off the camera and began packing up our gear, Dr. Burgdorfer told us with a wry smile, “I didn’t tell you everything.”