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A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

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Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#341

Post by wildmanx »

gknoy wrote: post #308
crypot wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was bit by a tick in 2010. I pulled it off my forearm and it left a protrusion that lasted about 2 weeks. No rings. I got sick with a flu around this time. Went to the doctor, the lyme test came back negative. Shortly after this I started to develop lesions in my mouth and scalp. Then they spread to my entire body. 6 months later got a diagnosis of an autoimmune blistering disease. The specialist said it was a usua…

> 8 years of oral antibiotics Holy cow. That is a frightening amount of time to have to take those.

And a prime recipe for antibiotic resistance to develop.

If an MD prescribed antibiotics for that long a continuous time period, they should lose their license.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#342

Post by abakker »

tdeck wrote: post #315
pwenzel wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Minnesota and am being treated for Lyme disease for the second time in 15 months. It's no joke. The first time I got Lyme, it came with a painful shingles co-infection on top of the usual symptoms. Now the second time, I am again worried about getting sick with something else while in an immunocompromised state. The fatigue, fever, and back pain that came along this second time was worse than the first. I n…

I had Lyme twice as a kid too (in suburban Pennsylvania). It's not fun and it's a bit crazy that you can get it more than once. People are usually shocked when I tell them. I knew someone who was temporarily paralyzed on one side because of Lyme that they diagnosed late - it's scary.

I grew up in CT. Had it 4 times, only got the bullseye once. It is no joke, and as you get older it seems to suck more and more. Last time I had numbness in my face as the only symptom, but...thrice bitten, fully paranoid, and I was treated pretty fast.

One thing which is important with a vaccine is that when I was a kid (early 90s) the rate of ticks carrying lyme was in the 10% range or less, while now it is >50%. A vaccine is critical.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#343

Post by abakker »

lurquer wrote: post #332
acdha wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confused on several points: the vaccine was approved following extensive safety tests but the lawsuits caused the manufacturer to decide it was not worth manufacturing. The U.S. regulators consistently found no connection between the vaccine and the complaints, so the _scientific_ side worked but the legal / business side let public safety down. Similarly, it's no secret that companies have a vested in…

In regard to the Lyme disease vaccine issue, you are glossing over a very important component of the story. Due to public pressure, the FDA reconvened to take another look. While the FDA did not change its opinion (except for requesting some additional labeling and studies) the effect was disastrous for marketing. Sales plummeted. And, it was no longer worthwhile to pursue. The ‘official act’ of the FDA reconvening a…

makes you wonder how much "public pressure" came from the operators of quack lyme disease message boards and alternative treatment providers...after 4 times having it, I'm happy to say, in Doxycycline I trust. just don't go reading Lyme disease message boards without a tinfoil hat on.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#344

Post by bstpierre »

kortex wrote: post #175
mrfusion wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d wonder though if deer use your front yard more than you? Especially in the pre dawn hours. Even if you garden you’re probably only out there a couple times a week? But you could be right that quantity of deer is more important. BTW have you considered guniea fowl? Or at least something like this might help. https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/bait-boxes-are-...

I am pretty they do, while I haven't seen them in my yard, they love my neighbor's ~1acre lawn abutting woods across the street. I see them hanging out there all hours of the day. I actually just learned about guinea fowl elsewhere in this thread! Definitely will be looking into it. I also started doing the permethrin soaked cotton balls in tubes. Mice collect the cotton for their nest and it kills ticks. Also our do…

Based on our experience, with anywhere from 2 to about 15 in a flock, guineas aren't super effective at reducing ticks. They're also very noisy, leave big turds all over the place, and at least in our rural New England area, serve to attract predators.

Our spring "dog tick season" has become intense the last couple of years. At the height of the season this spring the daily tick count from grooming the dog was anywhere from 10 (a light day) to a high of 27 ticks acquired after an hour-long hike. When it's this bad, I can pick up four just walking across the front lawn. During that season they're mostly not deer ticks, so fortunately they're bigger and much easier to find, and at least according to most literature I've seen, dog ticks do not transmit Lyme.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#345

Post by irq-1 »

scotty79 wrote: post #340
irq-1 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. If a for-profit corporation includes a warning in a EULA they're off the hook?? That's definitely not the principle we should use to evaluate new drugs. If the company decided to take it off the market, when there are always lawsuits about new drugs, what should we do? Should we liberate the drug fro…

If the product causes provable harm then company should be prosecuted criminally by the state to determine if the testing done was sufficeint and there was no faul play. But letting random people sue manufacturer because they have some symptoms at later point in time than the time they took the vaccine is just recipie for what already happened on case of Lyme vaccine. Everybody looses except for lawyers and people lo…

You're suggesting a fundamental change to the legal system in the US. The idea that we would depend on the Government pursuing criminal charges... that's scary to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#346

Post by irq-1 »

fallingknife wrote: post #321
irq-1 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. If a for-profit corporation includes a warning in a EULA they're off the hook?? That's definitely not the principle we should use to evaluate new drugs. If the company decided to take it off the market, when there are always lawsuits about new drugs, what should we do? Should we liberate the drug fro…

I do not want to have to ask doctors permission to get the medicine I need. Make them like lawyers where they are advisors only. If that has a side effect of letting companies off from some liability, then I will accept that trade off.

> I do not want to have to ask doctors permission to get the medicine I need.

That's how it works in most countries, but not the US. Here we have a government regulatory agency (the CDC) to protect people from the ill effects of the free market. I like it that way.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#347

Post by wildmanx »

mwigdahl wrote: post #168
Dumblydorr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A doctor's opinion on disease isn't merely an opinion, it's an educated guess based on experience and qualifications. New diseases and research are constantly appearing, thousands of articles are written each year. We can't expect doctors to know everything, but we can expect them to have more informed opinions, on average, than non-doctors. I say this because there's a rising trend of anti-intellectualism and distru…

I'd qualify that: "...we can expect them to have more informed opinions, on average, _for any random condition_, than non-doctors." The thing I think you're missing is that the resources to do good, deep research on a condition do exist, and the sufferer has very strong motivation to do that research and become very well informed in the etiology and treatment options. The doctor, less so. They have a lot of patients…

The English language has a serious deficiency in the term "research".

You can do "research" by spending your days in a lab, formulating hypotheses, doing experiments, reading related academic work, drawing conclusions, publishing their findings.

You can do "research" by googling, reading blog posts and wikipedia articles, watching Youtube videos, following telegram links and possibly reading a popular-science book.

These two things are very different activities and produce very different bodies of knowledge. "Do your own research!" is a common sentiment in Covid skeptic circles. It doesn't mean being in a lab. It means following links in your Google bubble. That doesn't necessarily produce useful knowledge. Properly trained researchers are aware of things like confirmation bias, selection bias, recollection bias. The "I did my own research crowd" is not and suffers seriously from it.

Using the term with the doctor is blurring the line between both versions. They don't stand in the lab and "do their own research", but they are more educated in the medical field than the common patient and have context.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#348

Post by wildmanx »

inter_netuser wrote: post #156
Dumblydorr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A doctor's opinion on disease isn't merely an opinion, it's an educated guess based on experience and qualifications. New diseases and research are constantly appearing, thousands of articles are written each year. We can't expect doctors to know everything, but we can expect them to have more informed opinions, on average, than non-doctors. I say this because there's a rising trend of anti-intellectualism and distru…

Indeed, there is plenty of distrust. If they are doing such a great job though, why the distrust? I don't know a single person with a significant chronic condition in the US who would say the health system and all their physicians are amazing and great. Usually you hear the exact opposite. However, stories about that gem of a doctor they finally found over the years are very common. Most physician suck, not sure why.…

> I don't know a single person with a significant chronic condition in the US who would say the health system and all their physicians are amazing and great. Usually you hear the exact opposite.

> However, stories about that gem of a doctor they finally found over the years are very common. Most physician suck, not sure why.

Great example of reporting bias. Nobody goes around telling everybody "all is fine". That's not news and nobody wants to hear it. Something needs to be special, out of the ordinary, a sensation even. "All my doctors suck, listen to my 10-minute rant about my odyssey" is what people _think_ will be interesting.

Ever heard a news anchor say "Nothing remarkable happened today. Have a good evening." Of course not. They will report something, no matter how unimportant, ridiculous, sensationalist.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#349

Post by _huayra_ »

pessimizer wrote: post #322
_huayra_ wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry pal I gotcha here: 1. Form The High Church of Vaccination 2. Claim vaccination as a sacrament 3. Watch the craven fascist majority of the US supreme court (i.e. all of the ones that fashion themselves as lil Scalias, but have terrible writing that reeks of double standards, if any at all, and dog whistles to their base) try to somehow toss the case for not having standing while trying to not undo any of t…

How drinking bleach became a Church ‘sacrament’ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/genesis-ii-church-bleach-cure...

Well their orange-haired chubby savior did say how good of a disinfectant it was. Top it off with some disinfecting UV light in a tanning bed and you have the bedrock of a healthy life....oh wait I mean cancer.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#350

Post by evanmoran »

im3w1l wrote: post #277
wildmanx wrote: post #236

What shocks me most with this story is that there is a vaccine (Lymerix), and it's pretty effective (76-92 percent after three injections) but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. I…

> 76-92 percent after three injections That's not a lot. Like sure if herd immunity was on the table it might have been, but lyme has an animal reservoir. Like if I had 76% immunity I would still panic every time I saw a tick, so then what is the point?

I understand where you are coming from. You will be worried about ticks with or without the vaccine. I will too! But I think the vaccine isn’t for making you stop protecting yourself from ticks (it can’t do that, as you noted). The important part is it’s a small poke for a better chance at staying healthy. If you are worried in both cases, the question becomes is the time/cost to get the shot worth the result. So if you walk in the woods a lot the answer is very likely yes. If you never go near ticks then maybe not.

Another way to think about it is if there was a vaccine to stop car accidents that is only 75% effective, is it worth getting the shot even though I’ll still be afraid of car accidents? Absolutely! The shot is unbelievably easy to get and probably cheap. It doesn’t solve everything, but it is so easy to do it’s hard not to be worth it.

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