Fallon Study results

[Guest guest]

Basically I think Fallons study was well done.

I Want to know if at the end of the 6 months if the people were

tesing positive? Has any body read this whole study???

Barb

From Euro Lyme:

.... " the antibiotics worked initially on reducing pain, fatigue and

mental fog,

but six months later patients were no better than those who did not

receive

long-term therapy " ...

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?

Action=UserDisplayFullDocument & orgI\

d=2499 & topicId=100015118 & docId=l:615922493

.... " Earlier this month, scientists at Columbia University Medical

School

announced the opening of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research

Center,

established with a $3-million gift from two of these organizations,

Time for

Lyme and the Lyme Disease Association.

Heading the new institute is Dr. Fallon, a scientist who says

that he

wants to address the controversy head-on and develop a test that will

identify

active infection.

Back in the late 1990s, Fallon was awarded $5 million in federal

grants to

conduct a long-term antibiotic study and collect brain scans from

these

patients. The study, finished two years ago, is under review by a

major

scientific journal, Fallon said. Now he's hoping to unravel the

mysteries of

chronic Lyme by bringing experts from all walks of science into the

fray.

More studies needed

" There has been very little done on chronic Lyme disease, " he said

earlier this

month at a conference sponsored by Columbia. " Mothers are powerful

people, " he

said, pointing to the women who started the organizations after their

children

were diagnosed with chronic Lyme infections.

Fallon, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia,

said that in

the study the antibiotics worked initially on reducing pain, fatigue

and mental

fog, but six months later patients were no better than those who did

not receive

long-term therapy.

" I would have loved for it to work out, but it didn't, " Fallon said.

He said he

did find evidence of an abnormal circuitry on the brain scans of some

of those

with chronic Lyme disease, and the abnormality did not change with the

antibiotic treatment.

" It's uncertain whether it is a low-grade chronic infection or a post-

infection

syndrome, " he said. " But the patient community is sick, and for a

long time it

wasn't acknowleged. "

" .....