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24 May 2012
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CDC Greed
(won't answer the FOIA)
ELISA = arbitrary cutoff.
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TUSKEGEE - By Jerry Leonard
1998, CIA Oilmen & Israelis plan to overthrow
Saddam for the oil.
Bush/Gore Oil/War-(Oct,2000)
Bush's own explainer (Oct
2000) re:
Iraq Oil
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From the Centralia Sentinel
http://www.morningsentinel.com/
090531
Headline: A victim herself, Centralia woman is on a crusade against Lyme
disease
BY JUDITH JOY
FEATURES EDITOR
CENTRALIA — On a pleasant June day, six years ago, Dottie Heffron went to a
birthday party near Iuka and sat in the yard with the other guests around
the picnic table. Since that time, her life hasn’t been the same.
It wasn’t till later in the week that Heffron felt something on her back,
which proved to be an engorged tick which, she says, was almost the size of
a quarter. People almost never feel a tick bite as the ticks release a
substance that desensitizes the skin before they attach themselves. Upon
discovering the tick, Heffron became panicky and, being a widow, called on
her teenage son to help her.
“My son held a cigarette on it, but it just dug in deeper and he
accidentally burned my back.” To her surprise, the tick fell off by itself
and she flushed it down the toilet without thinking too much more about the
incident.
“About two months later, I began having my first spell,” she continued. “I
would feel a twitch in my brain and then have the imminent feeling of death.
I saw at least 30 area doctors and I had every test under the sun and every
test came back fine.
“The hematologists couldn’t find anything wrong with my blood and then I
went to a neurologist in Mt. Vernon who thought I might have Lyme disease.”
At his suggestion, Heffron then went to St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital
in Mt. Vernon and a specific blood test showed that she had antibodies for
both Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, indicating exposure to
both diseases.
Of the 38 symptoms for Lyme disease, Heffron said she had 32 of them and was
immediately put on the antibiotic Doxycycline. Among her symptoms were
numbness and tingling in her fingers and toes, nausea, pain in the joints
and the twitching feeling in her brain.
“For the scratching in my head, they put me on Lexapro, psychotropic drug
like Prozac — but I wasn’t depressed, I had just graduated from college. I
was 46 years old and I had never been sick — so I knew something was
definitely wrong.” Heffron said that she worked as a purchasing agent, but
her brain was so addled she couldn’t add two and two and as soon as she went
off the antibiotic, she got sick again.
Six years later, Heffron is still battling Lyme disease which, she says, has
become chronic. “I could get better treatment from a vet,” she commented,
“than if I went to see a doctor — we do not have Lyme literate doctors in
this area.”
Lyme disease is named for the town in Connecticut where a group of residents
became ill and the connection between tick bites and the resultant illness
was first identified in 1975. Since that time, Lyme disease has spread from
the northeast and is now found in many other places, including the Midwest.
Most doctors in this area, Heffron explains, discount a patient’s claims of
persistent symptoms of lethargy, aching joints and chronic fatigue. “They
tell you it’s all in your head,” said Heffron, who credits a doctor in
Sikeston, Mo., with saving her life.
Still disabled from Lyme disease six years after that isolated tick bite,
Heffron is on a one-woman crusade to warn others not to be complacent if
they are bitten by a tick. When I interviewed Heffron in May, she had just
returned from a meeting of the Physicians Roundtable in Greenville, N.C.
where some 90 doctors discussed the treatment for Lyme disease.
The number of cases of Lyme disease has steadily increased, says Heffron,
yet the CDC (Center for Disease Control) estimates that only one out of 10
cases is successfully diagnosed. Only 30 to 40 percent of those bitten by a
tick develop the characteristic bull’s eye rash around the bite, which is
indicative of the disease.
Heffron said that Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose because the symptoms
mimic many other diseases, including fibromyalgia, and may not appear till
weeks or months after the person was bitten. Although it is generally
thought that Lyme disease is only transmitted by the bite of the deer tick,
Heffron says that every single species of tick can carry Borrelia
burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes the disease. One of the problems, she
adds, is that there is no good test that can prove who is infected with the
spirocete (a type of bacterium) that produces Lyme disease — the blood test
merely indicates the presence of antibodies from which doctors assume that
the person has been exposed to the disease.
The big controversy, explains Heffron, is whether or not Lyme disease
becomes chronic. This debate has divided physicians who treat infectious
diseases into two camps. Some doctors, as well as insurance companies,
believe that treatment with an antibiotic is only necessary for 21 days,
after which time the patient is cured. Any further problems, they believe,
are due to “post-Lyme syndrome” and cannot be improved by treatment with
antibiotics.
Because of this belief, Heffron says that many patients who continue to need
antibiotic treatment are refused such drugs, both by their physicians and
the insurance companies. According to a book, Beating Lyme, by Constance
Bean and Lesley Ann Fein, some doctors have even lost their licenses by
prescribing antibiotics for their patients after the 21-day period is over.
People become so desperate to get the antibiotics, says Heffron, that they
go underground — just as someone craving narcotics might do. “I don’t know
how to get doctors to listen to their patients,” commented Heffron in
exasperation, “If you’re sick, demand a test.”
Because of her experience battling the disease, Heffron was invited,
expense-paid, to come to North Carolina for the Physicians Roundtable and
she had been invited back next year when the group meets in Baltimore. She
has been such an effective crusader that she was able to convince Gov. Pat
Quinn to proclaim May as Lyme Disease Awareness Month in Illinois and she
helped write the proclamation.
As part of her crusade, Heffron has flyers, printed at her own expense,
illustrating the three types of ticks found in this area. They are — the
blacklegged tick (aka deer tick), dog tick and Lone Star tick. Ticks can be
difficult to identify because they are small and there are four stages in
the life cycle — egg, larva, nymph and adult. Also, the males and females of
the three species look somewhat different from each other.
The best thing to do is to protect yourself when you are in the woods by
tucking the cuffs of your trousers into your socks or boots and spraying
your ankles with an insect repellent containing Deet. If you find a tick
attached to your skin use a pair of tweezers to remove it, being careful not
to jerk and leave the head still attached.
After removing the tick, wash your hands and apply an antiseptic to the bite
area. Only a small percentage of ticks carry Lyme disease, but it is always
best to be on the safe side. Some people feel safer if they save the tick
for future testing, just in case they might develop some symptoms. In that
case, do not put the tick in alcohol, as it cannot be tested then; instead
put the tick in a plastic bag or vial with a piece of moist cotton.
People who own dogs and cats should check their pets carefully, especially
if they sleep on the bed or the sofa. Thanks to my cat, Henry, I have found
several ticks crawling on my bed this spring. And even if you shower daily,
ticks can still remain on your skin firmly attached. “I showered daily and
the tick still remained on my back for a week,” Heffron noted.
Despite her near-death experience, Heffron isn’t suggesting that people stay
out of the woods, she merely wants to educate them about the seriousness of
the illness. “If you feel sick and suspect Lyme disease, demand a test,” she
advises. To ignore the illness may lead to serious damage to the heart,
eyes, kidneys, liver, joints and spleen, she warns.
This spring Heffron has been going door-to-door distributing her flyers
alerting people to Lyme disease. “What kind of person would I be if I didn’t
tell other people?” she asked me. “So far, no one has shut the door in my
face.”
Heffron would appreciate any help people might offer in the way of
volunteering or helping to pay the printing expenses. You can contact
Heffron on her cell phone at 204-8084 or visit
www.LymeDiseaseNetwork.com for more information.
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