Excellent Book----Prevention?

books:

	• Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic Pamela Weintraub St. Martin's Press, 2008 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 65 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good book/mediocre service

Great product but the delivery took forever... I don't know if Amazon had to order the book and then send it out or what but it took, I think, over 2 weeks to have it delivered (which is a first for me for an Amazon purchase!).

Essential and Powerful!

Pam Weintraub tells a tale almost too scary to believe. And I might not if I didn't have ME (CFIDS), another common and extremely disabling infectious disease also ignored and denied by the CDC, NIH and other medical powers that be for decades. This is an extremely important story that everyone needs to read. The book is well written and chock full of useful info on diagnosis and treatment. Highly Recommended.
If you enjoy this book (and you will), check out Osler's Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic for the spellbinding medical-thriller story of ME (CFIDS).

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Eye-opening if one-sided

I'm a pediatrician and I came to this book as a skeptic. There is so much anti-science and pseudo-science around and I thought that blaming all manner of ills on this infectious disease was probably another example. After all, weren't the CDC and IDSA the highest authorities on the issue?

I read the book partly because I'm interested in the question of how people in general decide what to believe about controversial issues, especially in health. Why do people believe the CDC, their friend, their doctor, a book, or an Internet post, when the authorities present conflicting information? Clearly, the experts know more about Lyme disease, say, than the average person. When the experts disagree, what basis does the lay person have for choosing between them? How can you judge the evidence and logic of the experts without understanding even more than they do?

This book is an excellent example of a skilled person actually trying to understand more than the experts, if not in depth then in breadth. The author works not only from many individual stories (common in pseudo-science) but also with much scientific and technical information. Judging from the hundreds of references at the end of the book, much of this evidence is drawn from mainstream, peer-reviewed journals.

Weintraub argues persuasively that the establishment views of Lyme disease, the ideas and guidelines formulated by the CDC and IDSA, have been distorted by several factors. These include academic politics, financial interests, turf wars, the complexity of the disease, and hardening of attitudes caused by the "Lyme war" itself (the author notes early in the book the unusual degree of personalization in this conflict, with leaders from all sides being demonized as mentally ill or evil).

Having read the book, I am still a skeptic but now a bit skeptical of the objectivity and authority of the establishment. It's hard for me to imagine that there are masses of people with debilitating symptoms of chronic Lyme disease, denied valid treatment because of the intransigence of the medical establishment (and insurance companies). However, unless Weintraub is lying--and I'm sure she is not--the evidence is too strong dismiss out of hand.

My only caveat is that the book is one-sided. Though it deals with some of the mainstream arguments (such as the claim that a short course of antibiotics will kill almost all the Lyme organisms), it does not give any space to an establishment refutation of the "Lyme movement" views. Before making up my mind on the issue, I would certainly want to read a good response from the IDSA, answering point-by-point the issues brought up in the book. I doubt such a response would clear the air, but it would be just as unreasonable to ignore their response as to ignore this book itself.

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The politics of Lyme

Great book to learn about the politics behind the Lyme epidemic. Parts of it will make you angry with the obstacles the CDC puts on doctors who are trying to help their patients.

Excellent Book----Prevention?

As a Lyme disease survivor who gradually became aware of the ongoing controversy about chronic Lyme disease, I found this book to be extremely informative. I highly recommend it.

Living in a rural area where Lyme disease is becoming a silent epidemic, the best defense for the future is prevention-- appropriate covering and daily tick checks, especially of children (if it looks like a small black scab or mole, but has legs, get the tweezers.) Nymphs can be especially hard to spot. Summer camp counselors and caregivers should be adequately trained.

Don't rely on a bulls eye or rash to diagnose; I had neither. When you go to a doctor with undiagnosed pain or other mysterious symptoms, demand a Lyme disease titer test as part of the doctor's workup (my daughter, not the M.D. requested mine.) My Lyme disease was confirmed by two tests. The nurse who inserted my PICC line told me I was very lucky to be diagnosed early; her merchant marine husband has become mentally and physically disabled and is searching for doctors who can help with his chronic situation.

I thought I was one of the fortunate people with few problems, but after reading Pam Weintraub's research on spirochetes and cysts, I'm not so sure.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A groundbreaking and controversial narrative investigation into the science, history, medical politics, and patient experience of Lyme disease told by a science journalist whose entire family contracted the disease.Pamela Weintraub paints a nuanced picture of the intense controversy and crippling uncertainty surrounding Lyme disease and sheds light on one of the angriest medical disputes raging today. She also reveals her personal odyssey through the land of Lyme after she, her husband and their two sons became seriously ill with the disease beginning in the 1990s. From the microbe causing the infection and the definition of the disease, to the length and type of treatment and the kind of practitioner needed, Lyme is a hotbed of contention. With a CDC-estimated 200,000-plus new cases of Lyme disease a year, it has surpassed both AIDS and TB as the fastest-spreading infectious disease in the U.S. Yet alarmingly, in many cases, because the disease often eludes blood tests and not all patients exhibit the classic "bulls-eye" rash and swollen joints, doctors are woefully unable or unwilling to diagnose Lyme. When that happens, once-treatable infections become chronic, inexorably disseminating to cause disabling conditions that may never be cured. Weintraub reveals why the Lyme epidemic has been allowed to explode, why patients are dismissed, and what can be done to raise awareness in the medical community and find a cure. The most comprehensive book ever written about the past, present and future of Lyme disease, this exposes the ticking clock of a raging epidemic.

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