Health committee  The doctor can get away with it once and he might be able to get away with it twice, but eventually somebody is going to start saying, “Why does that person keep having these people to whom he keeps giving long-term antibiotics?”

Health committee  The colleges. Certainly, I can think of three doctors right off. They didn't go in saying that they were closing them down for their treatment of Lyme disease. They said that they were going in and investigating something else. However, they happened to take every file of somebod

Health committee  That is not necessary.

Health committee  The big difference is that in the American physicians may prescribe long-term antibiotics. It is more difficult for physicians because the cost of insurance is higher. In the United States a medical appointment costs $400, whereas it costs $40 here. That is the big difference. T

Health committee  The problem comes from the fact that the diagnosis is complex; it is not black and white.

Health committee  The systems are different. Our system is centralized, whereas in the United States there is a great diversity. The Infectious Diseases Society of America, the IDSA, states that you only need two to four weeks of treatment. However, another group will say that things are not that

Health committee  I think you need to speak to Dr. Hawkins. He bases his conclusions on the clinical diagnosis, and he knows whether a person will react well or not to antibiotics. Another approach may have to be taken if the antibiotics no longer work. Doctors who are very familiar with Lyme dise

Health committee  It's a Western blot, but in the case of the national lab, if you have five or more bands, it's reported as positive. If you have four or fewer, it's reported as negative. You don't know if you had four out of 10 or if you had six out of 10. All we're saying is that if people coul

Health committee  It's the reporting of the bands.

Health committee  Each European country has a different standard. I can show you that. I will forward information on the different European countries. Some choose three as positive. Some choose whatever number as positive. I can send you that.

Health committee  I think that the costs of having people being misdiagnosed are actually pretty slight because most of the people who are getting the so-called false positive result get the treatment and then they get better. One other thing, if I could.... Why aren't the patients represented? B

Health committee  I would call EIA and IFA one level, with Western blot as another. The way I understand it, you can do a EIA or IFA, followed by a more specific Western blot.

Health committee  Yes. Absolutely. In order to get the diagnosis of Lyme disease, you have to have that Western blot.

Health committee  We have no idea. That's the problem. I can't give you an idea. I know that we do have a lot of false negatives. I don't know how many of these people actually have one of the co-infections. It's possible, and this is what my research is, to look at all the bacteria in the tick, a

Health committee  Virtually everybody contacts CanLyme, and has gone through the current medical system. They have a real reason for believing they have Lyme disease. They seek private testing, sometimes in the U.S. and sometimes in Europe. They haven't got any better answer.