"Study Shows Low Lyme Disease Risk" reads the headline in
the Albany Times Union June 13, 2001. Comforting words. "Lyme
disease is very difficult to catch, even from a deer tick in
a Lyme-infested area, and it can easily be stopped in its tracks
with two capsules of an antibiotic, a new study shows. Two other
studies..conclude that prolonged and intensive use of antibiotics...does
nothing for people with symptoms attributed to chronic Lyme
disease. The findings are in keeping with the assertions of
researchers who say that symptoms attributed to the disorder
have nothing at all to do with it in most cases.
"Researchers, both those associated with the studies and others
who were not, said they hoped the findings would alleviate what
they called inflated public fear of Lyme disease, which has
been widely viewed as a grave illness that is easy to catch.
In 1999, 16,019 cases were reported to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, most of them in the Northeast.
"The study to see whether a single dose of doxycycline could
prevent Lyme disease was directed by Dr. Robert B. Nadelman...who
said many doctors were giving 10-to 21-day courses of the antibiotic
to people who had found deer ticks on their bodies in hope of
stopping an infection...He recruited 482 people in Westchester
County, all of whom had found deer ticks on their bodies. Half
got a single dose of doxycycline and the others got two dmmy
capsules for comparison. The investigators found that the drug
did prevent Lyme disease: just 0.4 percent of those wo took
the antibiotic got the disease. But even if people did not get
any treatment, their chances of getting Lyme disease from a
deer tick were just 3 percent. Lyme disease researchers emphasized,
however, that most people with the infection, even the small
percentage who develop serious symptoms, get better on their
own. ...The antibiotic has side effects and almost no one who
took it would have gotten Lyme disease anyway. People who are
bitten can watch the site where the tick fed and take a full
course of antibiotics if a rash develops. The typical Lyme disease
patient with a rash but no other symptoms takes the antibiotic
and is cured.
"Two other studies addressed the treatment of people who had
Lyme disease and later developed symptoms such as fatigue, aches
and pains, and memory loss. One study enrolled patients who
had antibodies to the Lyme disease microorganism, which indicated
that they had been infected. The other enrolled patients who
no longer had antibodies but had documented cases of Lyme disease.
Half of the patients in each study received an introvenous antibiotic
for a month, followed by oral doxycycline for 60 days and the
others received a dummy medication. The results showed that
the antibiotics were no more effective than the placebos. But
Dr. Sam L. Donta, who is among those who have treated hundreds
of patients with long-term antibiotics, said the drugs in the
studies were not given fo a long enough time, and he would have
chosen different ones. Dr. Leonard H. Sigal, a Lyme disease
expert who was not associated with the studies, said the message
was that 'Lyme disease, although a problem, is not nearly as
big a problem as most people think.'"
Printed in the September, 2001 Dinner Notice