By Terri McCormick

The newly published study, Postmortem evidence of Babesia and Bartonella infections in chronically ill suicidal young people, was released July 27 in Parasites & Vectors.¹ Documenting Babesia and Bartonella in chronically ill young people is more than a scientific finding. For the Lyme community, it is a moment of truth, a moment of grief, and a moment of deep recognition.

It gives greater weight to questions families have been asking for years: Can infections remain hidden? Can symptoms be misunderstood? And can the underlying problem go unrecognized until it is too late?

But above all, this study is about six young lives. Six families who endured what no family should ever have to face. Four of the six young people died by suicide. One died after receiving medical aid in dying following years of severe illness, while another, who had struggled with suicidal thoughts, died from a separate medical condition.¹

And six families made an extraordinary choice, allowing their children’s stories, medical histories, and tissue samples to be studied so that other families might someday have answers, hope, and a different outcome.

Their generosity to help others is immeasurable.

What they have given us is also an opportunity to ask a difficult question: What might we find if we looked beyond the symptoms sooner?

Why this research matters

September is Suicide Prevention Month, and September 10 marks World Suicide Prevention Day. It is a time to talk openly about suicide, but also to ask whether we are doing enough to understand what may be driving a person’s suffering.

For decades, patients with Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, and related conditions have struggled to be believed. Many have faced years of misdiagnosis, psychiatric labels, and treatments that did not explain or resolve the full picture of their illness.

The new study raises important questions about infection, inflammation, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and the ways these conditions may intersect.

The researchers are careful not to claim that finding evidence of infection after death proves it caused the illnesses or deaths. They acknowledge that other infections, diseases, or factors may also have played a role.¹ But the findings raise questions that deserve further investigation.

One of the six young people in this study was Alec Dulude.

Alec’s story

I know Alec’s story well, and I share it here with deep respect for him and his family.

Alec was a college athlete. An outdoorsman. A wildland firefighter.

Alec Dulude

He was strong, capable, and deeply connected to his family and the outdoor world. He loved the mountains, the trails, the rivers and the pastimes that kept him outside. He was the kind of young man who pushed himself, who showed up for others, and who found purpose in hard, physical challenges.

When Alec’s health began to unravel, it did so in ways that were confusing and frightening. His symptoms crossed physical, neurological, and psychiatric lines, the kind of complex, overlapping presentation many Lyme families know too well.

What started as headaches and fatigue grew into severe anxiety, depression, panic, confusion, intrusive thoughts, and hallucinations. He also developed muscle pain, joint pain, gastrointestinal issues, chest pain, weakness, and significant weight loss.

Alec’s symptoms led to multiple hospitalizations, an extensive list of medications, and several psychiatric diagnoses that never fully explained what was happening.

His family searched for answers for six years. They pursued every avenue they could. They asked every question. They tried to understand what was happening to their son.

Alec’s father was a physician, and their family had access to excellent medical care. They had medical knowledge, connections, and the resources to keep searching. Still, for six years, they could not find an answer that explained what was happening to their son.

His story leaves a difficult question: With every resource available to his family, how did the possibility of vector-borne infection remain hidden until it was too late?

In Alec’s memory, his family created Alec’s Place, a nonprofit dedicated to educating doctors and patients, advancing public policy, and expanding access to diagnosis and treatment for the neuropsychiatric effects of vector-borne disease.

Infection, inflammation, and the brain

One of the most important questions raised by this study is how infection and inflammation might affect the brain. Families have been asking this for years, often after watching a child or young adult develop psychiatric symptoms alongside other unexplained symptoms.

The study also points to the basal ganglia, an area of the brain involved in emotion, motivation, and movement. Four of the six young people, including Alec, had evidence of basal ganglia encephalitis, meaning inflammation involving this part of the brain.¹

Researchers raise the possibility that inflammation involving the basal ganglia could play a role in some neuropsychiatric symptoms, but they emphasize that more research is needed to understand the connection.

Psychiatrist Robert Bransfield, MD, has studied the connection between Lyme and associated diseases and psychiatric symptoms for years. His research has explored how infection, immune reactions, and inflammation may contribute to neuropsychiatric symptoms.²^,5

In a separate paper focused specifically on suicide, Bransfield examined the association between Lyme and associated diseases and suicidal behavior. He described a range of symptoms associated with increased suicide risk, including depression, panic, paranoia, hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, and sudden mood changes.³

His work raises an important consideration: when severe psychiatric symptoms appear alongside other unexplained symptoms, could an underlying infection be part of the picture?

There is also evidence that the connection between Lyme disease and mental health deserves closer attention.

In 2021, Brian Fallon, MD, and colleagues published a nationwide Danish study involving nearly 7 million people followed over more than two decades. Researchers found that people diagnosed with Lyme borreliosis in a hospital setting had a 28% higher rate of mental disorders, about twice the rate of suicide attempts, and a 75% higher rate of death by suicide compared with people without a Lyme diagnosis.⁴

The study does not prove that Lyme disease caused those outcomes. But during Suicide Prevention Month, the findings are difficult to ignore.

If Lyme disease, Bartonella, and Babesia may contribute to psychiatric suffering, suicide prevention should also include looking for underlying vector-borne infections when other symptoms point in that direction.

The testing challenge

One of the most important lessons from the new study is also one of the simplest: these infections can be difficult to find.

The researchers used specialized testing that goes beyond what is typically done during a routine hospital evaluation. Even then, detecting the organisms was difficult because only small amounts of their DNA were present in many of the samples.¹

Using several different testing methods, researchers confirmed evidence of Babesia, Bartonella, or both in five of the six young people.¹

That raises an important question: If these infections required this level of testing to find, how often might they be missed in living patients?

This study cannot answer that question. It involved only six young people, and the testing was performed after death. But the findings show why better diagnostic tools and more research are needed.

They also remind us that when testing does not provide an answer, it does not always mean the search should end. Symptoms, medical history, and the whole picture may provide important clues that something more needs to be investigated.

When the pieces do not fit, keep asking questions.

Looking deeper

These families spent years searching for answers. And after losing their children, they kept searching. By allowing their medical histories and samples to be studied, they helped make this research possible.

This study would not have been possible without the work of Edward Breitschwerdt, DVM, and his research team. Their work gave these families a closer look at what may have been happening to their children.

The findings do not give us all the answers, and the researchers themselves call for more investigation.¹ But their work gives us important questions to pursue.

We need larger studies, better diagnostic tools, and research that follows living patients over time. We also need greater collaboration among doctors when symptoms cross physical, neurological, and psychiatric lines.

Most of all, we need to keep looking when the symptoms in front of us do not tell the whole story.

During Suicide Prevention Month, that message carries even greater weight.

Suicide prevention means recognizing emotional suffering and getting help when someone is in crisis. But it can also mean asking whether an underlying illness may be contributing to that suffering.

For these six families, the search for answers continued through unimaginable loss.

Their willingness to keep searching may help someone else find answers sooner. Their contribution to this research gives us an opportunity to look more closely, ask different questions, and recognize what might otherwise be missed.

What might we find if we looked beyond the symptoms sooner?

Author’s note

Alec’s full story is shared in my book, Being Misdiagnosed: Stories That Reveal the Hidden Epidemic of Lyme Disease, where his family’s journey is told in greater detail.

Terri McCormick is a writer and advocate for LymeDisease.org.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Endnotes

1. Breitschwerdt EB, Robveille C, Maggi RG, Lindner HH, Harris BT, Kingston E. “Postmortem evidence of Babesia and Bartonella infections in chronically ill suicidal young people.” Parasites & Vectors. Published July 27, 2026. doi:10.1186/s13071-026-07541-8.
2. Bransfield RC. “The Psychoimmunology of Lyme/Tick-Borne Diseases and its Association with Neuropsychiatric Symptoms.” The Open Neurology Journal. 2012;6:88–93. doi:10.2174/1874205X01206010088.
3. Bransfield RC. “Suicide and Lyme and associated diseases.” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment. 2017;13:1575–1587. doi:10.2147/NDT.S136137.
4. Fallon BA, Madsen T, Erlangsen A, Benros ME. “Lyme Borreliosis and Associations With Mental Disorders and Suicidal Behavior: A Nationwide Danish Cohort Study.” American Journal of Psychiatry. 2021;178(10):921–931. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2021.20091347.
5. Bransfield RC. “Microbes and Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future.” Healthcare. 2024;12(1):83. doi:10.3390/healthcare12010083.