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We have read with some interest the posts subsequent to Dr Susan
O'Connell's 1995 ‘Lyme Disease in the United Kingdom' Review. This study
appears to remain UK definitive though we wonder if such a specialist as
Dr O'Connell would be prepared to re-publish now that more clinical data
has become available from practitioners, particularly in the United States
?
There seems to be an appreciable degree of conflict between
professional opinions emerging into the mainstream newspapers concerning
diagnosis, disease prevalence figures and treatment.
The New York Times (23 May 2000) reports that the leading physician
advocate of the ‘Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment' view has become the
subject of formal investigation by the Massachusetts Board of
Registration. We noticed that his articles are listed five times in the
UK 1995 Review Appendices giving a good deal of credence to his stance.
Further, perhaps in contradiction, the NYT newspaper writes that the
Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University
College of Physicians has published an article entitled ‘The
Underdiagnosis of Neuropsychiatric Lyme Disease in Children and Adults'
citing the case of a child brought to good health with long-term
antibiotics - the reverse of the hitherto accepted opinion for treatments.
It would be reassuring to hear that when a UK Paper on Lyme Disease
is next published the differences of medical opinion presently extant are
fully reflected with the Appendices clearly showing a variety of original
sources.
Range of Opinions necessary for Lyme Disease
We have read with some interest the posts subsequent to Dr Susan
O'Connell's 1995 ‘Lyme Disease in the United Kingdom' Review. This study
appears to remain UK definitive though we wonder if such a specialist as
Dr O'Connell would be prepared to re-publish now that more clinical data
has become available from practitioners, particularly in the United States
?
There seems to be an appreciable degree of conflict between
professional opinions emerging into the mainstream newspapers concerning
diagnosis, disease prevalence figures and treatment.
The New York Times (23 May 2000) reports that the leading physician
advocate of the ‘Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment' view has become the
subject of formal investigation by the Massachusetts Board of
Registration. We noticed that his articles are listed five times in the
UK 1995 Review Appendices giving a good deal of credence to his stance.
Further, perhaps in contradiction, the NYT newspaper writes that the
Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University
College of Physicians has published an article entitled ‘The
Underdiagnosis of Neuropsychiatric Lyme Disease in Children and Adults'
citing the case of a child brought to good health with long-term
antibiotics - the reverse of the hitherto accepted opinion for treatments.
It would be reassuring to hear that when a UK Paper on Lyme Disease
is next published the differences of medical opinion presently extant are
fully reflected with the Appendices clearly showing a variety of original
sources.
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May we use your columns to draw attention to the Self-Help E-Mail
address
www.egroups.com/group/lymearduk/.
TW Mundy (Husband of Lyme Disease Sufferer)
Competing interests: No competing interests