What will it take to get more effective Lyme treatments?
Although HIV (the cause of AIDS), and Borrelia burgdorferi (the cause of Lyme disease) were both discovered in the early 1980s, Lyme disease has been largely ignored by the medical researchers. Even though, according to CDC figures, Lyme disease is currently six times more common than AIDS—it ranks 202nd on the National Institutes of Health’s research funding list.
Where AIDS patients now receive “designer drugs”—effective medications that have been developed in recent years—Lyme patients are still prescribed 60-year-old antibiotics that fail to cure as many as two-thirds of those who are treated. Better treatment approaches are desperately needed for Lyme disease!
Dr. Raphael Stricker will speak on the topic of “Designer Drugs for Lyme Disease: The New Pharma Frontier?” at April 8’s MyLymeData2017: Overcoming Lyme Disease conference in San Ramon, California.
“We need designer drugs just like the ones that have revolutionized the treatment of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C virus infection,” he said. “The sooner that we start working on those ‘miracle’ drugs, the better for the world’s Lyme disease sufferers.”
Dr. Stricker, an internist and hematologist, is co-principal investigator of the MyLymeData project, the first large-scale longitudinal study of Lyme disease ever conducted.
He is an internationally recognized leader in tick-borne disease diagnosis and treatment, a board member of LymeDisease.org, and past President and board member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). He also serves on the Lyme Disease Advisory Committee that advises the California Department of Public Health.
Dr. Stricker has given talks on Lyme disease to the California State Senate and the United States Congress, as well as at international medical conferences, and has authored over 200 medical journal articles, letters and abstracts. He is the Medical Director of Union Square Medical Associates, a multi-specialty medical practice in San Francisco.
MyLymeData2017: Overcoming Lyme Disease will offer an update on results from the project’s 7200 participants. The conference will also include educational presentations from Lyme-treating physicians.
Other speakers:
- Lorraine Johnson, CEO of LymeDisease.org, “Latest Results from MyLymeData”
- Christine Green, MD, “How to Combat Stealth Pathogens Like Lyme & Co-infections”
- Raj Patel, MD, “Treating Mold Illness in the Context of Lyme Disease”
- Jennifer Sugden, ND, “Pediatric Lyme Disease”
The event takes place at the San Ramon Community Center, 12501 Alcosta Blvd. San Ramon, CA 94583.
MyLymeData2017 is open to the public. Pre-registration is $35 online (through April 5) and $40 at the door (space permitting).
Finally, emphasis on Lyme treatment! Research must include treatments with herbal antimicrobials and chinese medicine, as well as other alternatives to antibiotics. Antibiotics are not as effective any longer and have undesireable effects on the health and recovery of patients. I am one of them and have good results with the alternatives.
I’ve been suffering with Lyme and Tick borne illnesses for 29 years that I know of. When I was a small child growing up in the country, in the Hudson Valley, I remember being sick all the time. Out of school for chronic tonsillitis, fevers, and in 8th grade, about 12 or 13 years old, I had mono so bad I ended up in the hospital with kidney and liver failure. As it looks to me, I probably had tick borne illnesses many years before I ever thought of it. Thankfully I have a wonderful llmd that is world renowned. He has saved my life more times than I like to remember. I am not out of the woods even now. So it seems to me that this epidemic is only getting worse. Please come together and find the, as you called them, “designer drugs”, that are going to help the million sufferers each year. (The CDC claims their are 300,000 new cases of Lyme every year. My doctor’s research has shown that there is closer to 1million cases each year) I hope I’m still here to get the benefits from these ‘ new drugs ‘