barbc56, trying to discuss chronic Lyme without fully understanding its twisted history, in particular its political history, is similar in many regards to trying to understand ME/CFS as a moment in time - like a snapshot - without its tumultuous history and all its associated political baggage.
The result of such a course is likely to leave an individual without a comprehensive appreciation of what ME/CFS is all about, in terms of the disease, its sufferers, and the political dynamics which have kept progress more or less in check these past three decades.
The same error would likely ensue for people trying to fathom Lyme amid all its behind-the-scenes craziness.
Although you are correct when you say that apparently Science cannot at this time state definitively that post treatment symptoms are caused by Lyme, Science also cannot say they aren't. The reason for that is that outside of the bulls eye rash, there is no reliable way for direct testing; testing is indirect, and therefore subject to whimsical calibrations and contentious interpretations.
In fact, I'm sure you are aware that there are two opposing schools of interpretation of post treatment persistence. One claims Borrelia IS still present, the other, it isn't. ILADS believes there is ample evidence of continued infection, and if recommended treatment doesn't work, that means treatment hasn't been successful in ridding the host of its infection. The IDSA believes recommended treatment - ITS recommended treatment btw - is always adequate with only rare exceptions.
Both schools of thought have merit, both problems.
The article commits a gaffe in that it assumes the IDSA stance, which is the stance currently accepted by the CDC and the NIH, is correct. But it does so at the expense of an entire school of clinicians and researchers, and literally tens of thousands of patients, who believe Science clearly suggests that chronic Lyme is active Lyme that persists due to inadequate treatment. Accordingly, subscribers to this latter theory think it's incorrect to categorize continuing debilitating symptoms as a syndrome, when there is at least one known pathogen involved, and both its acute stage as well as its late stage are internationally recognized as the devolving trajectory of a disease with a global footprint.