LIFELYME
(A
non-profit 501(c)3 charity organization)
An
Educational Resource for Lyme Disease and Related Diseases
enter
-
The
Controversy
........, as
the number of U.S. Lyme cases grows by about 30% per year, Lyme
patients are trapped between a broken health care system and biased
medical guidelines that are being used by insurance companies to deny treatment.
Here’s to hoping that Senator Grassley and CT
Attorney General Blumenthal (who is now running for the Senate) will
put some legislative teeth into making “non-profit”
medical societies like the IDSA more accountable for patient welfare
and less beholden to vaccine and drug manufacturers.
Photo caption: At the July 30, 2009 Lyme evidence hearing, ILADs
submitted 300 pages of analysis and 1,300 pages of peer-reviewed
research contesting the IDSA Lyme Guidelines recommendations.
For an
overview of the Lyme controversy, watch the UNDER OUR SKIN trailer:
CLICK
HERE TO WATCH!
Dr.
Joe Jemsek "Speaks the Truth" Speech
Researcher
finds IDSA treatment guidelines long on opinion and short on science
IDSA guidelines are long on opinion and short on science.
This is
the stunning conclusion made by an infectious disease specialist at
Drexel University, Dong Lee, MD in a poster presentation at the
recent IDSA annual conference. Dr. Lee’s analysis is based on a
broad review of 30 guidelines published by the IDSA between 1994 and
2009. More than half of the recommendations made by the IDSA in these
guidelines were not supported by science.
According
to a recent Medscape article, Dr. Lee stated that of the 1408 IDSA
guideline recommendations he reviewed, "more than half were
based on level III evidence, which is from expert opinion or not
supported by properly
controlled
trials.” Lee said that guidelines should not make strong
recommendations in the absence of strong evidence. But of the 589
strong recommendations he reviewed, only 14% were supported by strong
evidence. A second independent study also presented in a poster
session at the IDSA annual meeting by Abdur Khan, MD, assistant
consultant at King Fahad Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
corroborated these findings. Khans study, which reviewed
recommendations in 65 IDSA guidelines found 55% of the
recommendations were supported only by opinion, not by science.
This
conforms with an analysis of the IDSA Lyme guidelines by Dr.
Elizabeth Maloney that found that while the guidelines contained 71
recommendations, 38 are based on level III evidence—namely
expert opinion. In addition, the
IDSA panel
ignored and failed to consider the clinical experience of physicians
who treat longer or with different protocols. In fact, the
Connecticut Attorney General found that the divergent viewpoints were
excluded from the panel. When divergent viewpoints are excluded from
a panel, any consensus based on “expert opinion” is
essentially a rigged
vote.
Recommendations that are long on opinion and short on science should
not replace the judgment of the treating physician.
IDSA Knows That Chronic Lyme Exists Is Lyme Disease Worldwide?
IDSA Lyme Disease Practice Guideline
Lyme War - IDSA Guidelines & ILADS Guidelines (Power Point Presentation)