Chronic Lyme Disease: It’s Time To Solve The Medical Mystery

[Guest guest]

HealthAffairs July 2012

Chronic Lyme Disease: It's Time To Solve The Medical Mystery Inside An Enigma

by Laurie McClellan

Scientists and doctors disagree about whether there is such a

condition as " chronic " Lyme disease or " post–Lyme disease syndrome. "

Americans need the National Institutes of Health and basic science

research to help determine the answer.

Narrative Matters

I don't believe in the Loch Ness monster. I don't think a cabal of

government scientists are autopsying aliens right now somewhere deep

in Area 51, or plotting a vast conspiracy from a bunker at the North

Pole. But in the past two years, I've lived through an experience that

has felt, at times, like a real-life episode of The X-Files—that

long-running TV show about a government conspiracy hiding the

existence of intelligent extraterrestrials.

What happened is this: My husband, Pat, who's now fifty-one, became

frighteningly, mysteriously ill. And when two doctors finally fit the

puzzle pieces of his symptoms together, we discovered that according

to medical authorities, his disease does not officially exist.

The full article can be assessed here:

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/3/647.long