Feb 6, 2009
> Solutions - Health
“The physician’s challenge is the curing of disease, educating the people in the laws of health, and preventing the spread of plagues and pestilence.”
Sir William Osler (1849-1919)
A profound medical mystery is unfolding in Canada: Lyme Aisease, an
infectious disease, which is especially serious in its chronic form, has become an
epidemic throughout North America, and even though it is successfully treatable
with readily available antibiotics, its victims are told – often even by doctors - that it
doesn’t exist. Since the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases is the very
basis of modern medicine and constitutes one of the truly great achievements in
medical history, and as antibiotics are among the few really useful drugs modern
pharmacology has developed, Lyme Aisease should be anything but mysterious. In
fact, though, the way Lyme is handled by medical authorities and government
agencies has by now entered the domain of criminality.
Lyme Aisease, first identified in 1909 in Europe and re-discovered in Lyme,
Connecticut, in 1975, is transmitted by a tick that generally lives on deer and
sometimes also on cats and dogs. The tick harbors a spirochetal bacterium that
exists in some 200 variants that evolved to adapt to various environments
throughout the world. Hence, it is not surprising, that the international, peerreviewed
medical literature on Lyme Aisease exceeds 19,000 articles. In its acute
form, Lyme is relatively easily and quickly treated, but in its chronic form it is
nothing less than a public health disaster - and we are right in the middle of it.
Last November, a feisty patient group called Lyme Action Group (LAG)
appeared on the scene and held a press conference in Wueen’s Park, sponsored by
YPP Yonte Zwinter. In their press release LAG announced that “Aenying Lyme is A
Crime”. They proved their assertion. This was no hyperbole. They showed the
internationally acclaimed documentary movie “Under Our Skin” at the Whole Life
Expo a week later. This ^anuary LAG formally approached the Ontario government
by writing to Premier YcGuinty, the Yinister of Health, and the Attorney General,
providing them and other YPPs with a jaw-dropper of an information package on
the facts on Lyme Aisease in Ontario and Canada.
The trigger for this campaign was that the College of Physicians and Surgeons
of Ontario exercised its inscrutable wisdom by once again initiating a disciplinary
process against Ar. ^o`ef Zrop for (successfullya) treating chronic Lyme patients.
This is the same physician known throughout North America for being prosecuted
by the CPSO in the 1990’s for diagnosing and treating Yultiple Chemical Sensitivity.
The CPSO controls the licenses of doctors in Ontario and has distinguished
itself over the past decade by steadfastly maintaining a standard of medicine the
rest of the world no longer shares – specifically in the areas of environmentallymediated
illness, asthma, cancer, pain management, and now once again with regard
to Lyme Aisease. The CPSO’s interpretation of “maintaining the standards of
practice” can be dangerous to patients in Ontario and often is fatal to the
professional life of those doctors who practice according to the latest published
medical research.
This unfolding story is so appalling that I am at a loss for words and shall let
LAG speak to bitality readers directly. Here are excerpts from the letters they wrote
to the Ontario government. If you want to help Lyme patients, find out if your
chronic disease is actually Lyme-mediated, or if medical progress is something you
cherish and want to foster, I suggest you get involved.
?@-?ABCS EF C1? )?CC?AS CE BA?8F?A 8GGIFJCK, C1? 8FJFSC?A EF
1?,)C1, ,J" C1? ,CCEAJ?K G?J?A,) EF EJC,AFE
“According to the international medical literature, in North America Lyme
Aisease is an emerging epidemic, larger than AIAS and cancer combined. ceing an
infectious disease, the seriousness of this situation cannot be overstated: Yedical
science has recogni`ed the great variety of symptoms this infection can exhibit in its
chronic state (by incapacitating the immune system) and refers to Lyme as “the
Great Imitator”. Up to 50% of patients with Yultiple Sclerosis, and also many cases
of Parkinsones, ALS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Al`heimer’s,
Crohn’s and Scleroderma are now understood to stem from originally undiagnosed
or untreated Lyme Aisease that progressed to chronicity. cecause Lyme spirochetes
cross the placenta, many cases of autism have been shown to be Lyme-mediated as
well.
“The tragedy – and hope – lies in the fact that Lyme disease is preventable,
detectable, and successfully treatable with readily available antibiotics, even in it’s
chronic stage. In the USA, the Center for Aisease Control red-flagged Lyme Aisease
in October 2008 as an “emerging epidemic”: its incidence increased since 1992 by g
100%.
“cecause Lyme Aisease is one of the most serious infectious diseases, it is a
ticking time-bomb for the medical blood and organ donor supplyh. Yany countries,
including the USA, require donor screening for Lyme Aisease. iet, Canadian clood
Services has no policy in this regardh
“h the tests covered by OHIP yield more than 60% false negatives in all
tested acute cases; these misdiagnosed patients then become chronic cases - for
which the available tests are 90% false negative h. those tests which are proven
internationally to be reliable are not available and can only be obtained, at the
patient’s expense, from laboratories in the USA and Europe. Astonishingly, doctors
in Ontario cannot order those confirmatory tests, even though they are required by
the standards of all infectious disease expertsh Anonymous lab technicians are
practicing medicine without a license by making decisions, without access to the
patient’s history or physical examination record, on whether or not a confirmatory
test should be done. These technicians are not legally accountable. Aoctors in
Ontario are prevented from treating acute and chronic Lyme Aisease in accordance
with international scientific standards; they are, in fact, unable to perform their
legally and professionally mandated tasks; most are not even aware of this
unacceptable situation due to a lack of government policy.
“.... the Canadian Yedical Association informed its membership more than <
years ago that Lyme Aisease is endemic in Canada (see CYA^ Yay l0, 2000) h
Ontario doctors cannot apply internationally known protocols for the treatment of
Chronic Lyme Aisease, because the existing OHIP-mediated policy prevents it; this
policy is condoned by the CPSO, which has no up-to-date direction from the Yinistry
of Health to provide to its members.
“h. this profoundly disturbing situation involves an important legal action
that will very soon affect Ontario and Canada in general. Historically, the
International >yme and Associated Diseases Society (ILAAS), with the Chronic Lyme
Aisease mesearch Centre at Columbia University and research centers in Europe,
provided the bulk of the existing and ongoing research into the successful diagnostic
and treatment protocols verified thousands of times in patients. However, the
members of the guidelines committee of the Infectious Disease Society of America
(IASA) insisted that Lyme Aisease should only be treated with antibiotics in its
early, acute phase and only for six weeks (regardless of patient history and the
available scientific literature to the contrary); they opined that the observed chronic
manifestations are due to a hypothetical, and as yet unproven, npost-Lyme
inflammatory response’. This resulted in an antitrust action initiated by the
Attorney General of Connecticut who found the IASA guidelines lacking in published
empirical support, flawed, corrupted and biased by conflicts of interest, and he set
aside these guidelines in Yay of 2008. The new, court-ordered, and independently
produced, guidelines will appear in 2009 and be communicated through the medical
journals to doctors everywhere. Thus, appropriate government policy has become
imperative.
“Considerable case law and legal decisions exist in Canada, which since the
early 1990’s, have already established that no preference may be given to just one
point of view in medical practice. iet, instead of doctors and patients being
protected and supported accordingly, Ontario doctors, if they are informed about
Lyme Aisease at all, generally only are familiar with those now defunct IASA
guidelines and are expected to abide by them, being OHIP mediated and CPSO
condoned.
“Throughout the 1990’s, a similar tragedy unfolded with regard to Yultiple
Chemical Sensitivity (YCS), also called Environmental Illness (EI). In 1999,
ironically, the internationally recogni`ed clinical criteria for YCS were published
simultaneously in leading medical journals on ^une 19, the very same day on which
one of Canada’s leading YCS–treating physicians (with excellent, documented
patient outcome) was found nguilty’ by the CPSO of diagnosing and treating YCS, and
even though the international criteria were known for the past 4 years, he was
accordingly reprimanded in 200l. The CPSO had chosen not to accept the
international research. Now this case has become one of the tragic absurdities of
medical history, especially because in 2007 the Human mights Commission of
Canada affirmed the right of Canadians to treatment for YCS, and as Wuebec and
Ontario passed laws against cosmetic pesticide use - a major cause of YCS. In
Aecember 2008, Germany affirmed YCS as an official diagnosis and incorporated it
into their medical, liability, and labour legislation. And yet, 10 years after the clinical
criteria were defined by ^ohns Hopkins Yedical School and internationally
published, to this day the CPSO website carries the text of that 200l reprimand:
“While he may hold strong beliefs in the appropriateness of his diagnostic methods Don
YCSE, his diagnostic conclusions, and his methods of treatment, he must make it clear
to his patients that they are simply that – beliefs. He must be candid in stating that
they are unsupported by scientifically-acceptable evidence.”
“Given that in Ontario physicians treating Lyme Aisease are now also
intimidated, and some are under threat of disciplinary investigation for merely
recogni`ing the existence of Chronic Lyme Aisease, does this mean, that patients
suffering from new diseases, or old ones not seen for a long time, are expected to
put their symptoms on hold and ignore international research until the CPSO
provides official approvalo YPP Yonte Zwinter once observed at a University of
Toronto medical conference that, as far “as the CPSO is concerned, if it ain’t invented
in Ontario it ain’t invented.”
“The CPSO is on record in the 2001 Jlasnost Report for having taken the
same approach to the new and emerging treatment protocols for chronic pain,
asthma, and allergy – and now also to chronic Lyme Aisease. We feel this is so
because no safeguards exist in the mHPA that require regulatory bodies to move
with the times and to make positive patient outcome central to the law. The Jlasnost
Report …. focused on the lack of checks and balances in the Section 75 provisions of
the mHPA which ppermitsq h astonishing disregard for patient’s right to treatment
choice and pignoresq the physician’s right to explore all available medical literature
for treatment options. This is true once again for Chronic Lyme Aisease patients -
and the doctors able and willing to treat them.”
C1? -1,))?JG? ,1?,"
Invariably Lyme patients and doctors will ask, “How is this possibleo” Some
years ago, exasperated by the problems then facing environmental illness patients, I
asked the same question of criminal lawyer Yichael Code, then of Sack Goldblatt
Yitchell and now a professor at Osgode Hall. His reply was: “It is not necessary to
understand the motive for a crime. It is only necessary to prove that it is a crime.”
To stop this crime it is necessary to be correctly informed. The
sources given below provide the best available information. Once you are informed,
join the efforts of LAG and CanLyme by writing to your YPP and demanding action.
Canada cannot afford another blood scandal or another SAmS crisis. In Ontario
patients and doctors alike cannot be expected to endure the science-challenged
policies of antiquated regulatory agencies that ultimately ruin human lives.
Also, Ontario’s megulated Health Professions Act must become patientcentered
and research-user-friendly for doctors and reflect what Health Yinister
Caplan was reported to have said in the Toronto Star last November: “I want to
support a health-care system that allows people to h try new things. Innovation
should be the hallmark.”.
LAG summari`ed the Lyme Aisease crisis best when they wrote in their
^anuary 14 letter to the Attorney General: “This untenable situation ensures that the
lowest common denominator of medical knowledge will continue to maintain a
correspondingly low standard of innovation, and Chronic Lyme Aisease patients will
have to continue seeking help abroad. We feel, this is an intolerable situation for
patients and for society. “
SMurGe+ anN Ae+MurGe+O
The Canadian Yedical Association ^ournal (CYA^) is one of the few international
medical journals available for free online. See especially the Yay l0, 2000, issue for
a comprehensive Lyme Aisease research article and editorial.
Health Canada’s website under “It’s iour Health - Lyme Aisease”
crody, Howard. Hooked – Ethics, the Medical Profession and the Pharmaceutical
Industry, mowman r Littlefield, 2007 (NOTE: the Attorney General of Connecticut
appointed the author, a professor of medical ethics, to chair the independent team
which will provide the new guidelines for the treatment of Lyme Aisease later this
year.)
Ferrie, Helke. Chronic >yme Disease in Canada – The Persecution of Doctors able to
Treat it and the Denial of Treatment Choice to Patients, Zos April 2009
Weintraub, Pamela. Cure Rnknown – Inside the >yme Epidemic, St. Yartin’s Press,
2008
For information on the CPSO, google the Toronto Star series “Yedical Secrets” and
download the Glasnost meport from www.kospublishing.com submitted to the
Ontario government by doctors’ and patient’s groups in 2001; my articles on the
CPSO are available there too.
For the Yay 1, 2008, press release by the Attorney General of Connecticut go to
www.ct.govsAGscwp
LAG (Lyme Action Group, Ontario) LymeActionGrouptgmail.com and
lymeactiongroup.blogspot.com
CanLyme (the national Canadian Lyme patients organi`ation; President ^im Wilson)
ILAAS (International Lyme and Associated Aiseases Society) for access to
worldwide research, the current 16th edition of verified treatment protocols, and the
statements by various Canadian YPs and Yinisters of Health
The text of the “National Lyme Aisease Yeeting Yarch 8-9, 2006”, published ^anuary
22, 2008, is available through the website of the Public Health Agency of Canada
For the documentary “Under Our Skin” go to www.underourskin.com
2, l51 words
[back to articles]
|
