The following article shares verbal comments Phyllis Mervine gave to the Tick-Borne Diseases Working Group on December 3, 2018.
I ’m Phyllis Mervine, founder and president of the patient advocacy nonprofit LymeDisease.org. I’m going to focus on the November 26 letter sent by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, or IDSA, to the Working Group. In their letter, the IDSA accuses the Working Group of attempting “to stifle the voices of physicians who use sound, evidence-based science to direct care for their patients.”
Not Evidence-Based? Says Who?
They say, “we are extremely concerned that the non-evidenced based approach is favored by the Working Group.”
I’d like to ask, who decided the IDSA is the sole arbiter of what constitutes evidence? IDSA conveniently ignores the evidence that chronic Lyme disease exists and doesn’t treat it, so how could they be experts?
If someone presents evidence that doesn’t fit with their theories, they say it’s not “convincing.” IDSA’s Lyme guidelines are more than 10 years old and were removed from the National Guidelines Clearinghouse website almost three years ago because they were out of date. The IDSA has no grounds for attacking the Working Group.
The last time the IDSA published new Lyme guidelines was in 2006. They were almost immediately called out by the Connecticut Attorney General for commercial conflicts of interest and suppression of scientific evidence…………… Join or login below to continue reading.
You must be a LymeDisease.org member to access this content.
If you are already a member, log in below. Otherwise, become a member today to access the full content of this article and the full library of Lyme Times articles.
* Physician Directory Memberships do not have access to the Lyme Times.