Emerging Diseases

Psychiatry

From Chronic Fatigue to Lyme: Medically Unexplained No More

Pamela Weintraub on October 9, 2009

Hard-to-see things like spirochetes or retroviruses aren't going to stop some flat-Earthers from labeling sick patients psychiatric, leaving them untreated for their real disease, rejected, and in pain. But for patients, things may be changing --because science is moving on.

Hard-to-see things like spirochetes or retroviruses aren't going to stop some flat-Earthers from labeling sick patients psychiatric, leaving them untreated for their real disease, rejected, and in pain. But for patients, things may be changing --because science is moving on.

He was a tempting target: "With my data, nothing fit anymore --not the tick, not the microorganism, not the serology," Ed Masters said. "One person told me, ‘Masters, they were having a big old fine party, and you're the turd in the punchbowl. You spoiled it.'" And so he had. 

"I am not comfortable with the CDC's position that Missouri is the hole in the donut, and that somehow Missouri is a magical, ‘Lyme-free' zone and that these observed Missouri spirochetes have nothing to do with human disease." --Dr. Ed Masters, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Politics

Rebel with a Cause: The Incredible Dr. Masters, Part II

Pamela Weintraub on June 27, 2009

“I was living in two worlds,” Masters said. “I would go to conferences and present to academic experts, and they would say, “Hmmm, that’s Lyme disease. Then I would go back home to Missouri and the people from the CDC would tell me I was misdiagnosing all these patients. Diagnosis of Lyme disease based on the rash was controversial only in Missouri, and nowhere else in the world.”

“I was living in two worlds,” Masters said. “I would go to conferences and present to academic experts, and they would say, “Hmmm, that’s Lyme disease. Then I would go back home to Missouri and the people from the CDC would tell me I was misdiagnosing all these patients. Diagnosis of Lyme disease based on the rash was controversial only in Missouri, and nowhere else in the world.”

Health

Rebel with a Cause: The Incredible Dr. Masters, Part 1

Pamela Weintraub on June 25, 2009

It was July 2003 that I set out on a journey to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to visit Edwin J Masters, the doctor involved in hand-to-hand combat with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the existence of Lyme disease in the Southern United States. Working with a few intrepid colleagues, Dr. Masters managed to generate powerful evidence for Southern Lyme, though his evidence was continually undermined. For two days straight I sat with Dr. Masters in his oversized basement, reviewing document after document showing how data had been massaged to undermine patients and cast doubt on their disease. Ed Masters' story sheds light not only on Lyme disease but also the dangers we all face when medicine is politicized and studies designed to undermine patient care.

It was July 2003 that I set out on a journey to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to visit Edwin J Masters, the doctor involved in hand-to-hand combat with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the existence of Lyme disease in the Southern United States. Working with a few intrepid colleagues, Dr. Masters managed to generate powerful evidence for Southern Lyme, though his evidence was continually undermined. For two days straight I sat with Dr. Masters in his oversized basement, reviewing document after document showing how data had been massaged to undermine patients and cast doubt on their disease. Ed Masters' story sheds light not only on Lyme disease but also the dangers we all face when medicine is politicized and studies designed to undermine patient care.

Depression

Dispassionate about swine flu

Pamela Weintraub on May 2, 2009

Like a grade B thriller, there's foreshadowing of disaster and infection run amuck. But it's just hypothetical to me. Why I can't get worked up over swine flu.

Like a grade B thriller, there's foreshadowing of disaster and infection run amuck. But it's just hypothetical to me. Why I can't get worked up over swine flu.

Sleep

Babesia: The malaria-like disease in your yard, part 1

Pamela Weintraub on April 4, 2009

Doctors could never explain the strange spikes of fever to 105 degrees Fahrenheit that hit me in hallucinogenic waves for more than a week that summer, or the gullies of sleep so black that, except for the nightmares, I thought I might be dead. When the fever broke and I noticed the sweating, it seemed just a consequence of summer. It was after the sweat leveled off that the headache-without-end licked its first noxious path through my brain. I would suffer that headache --an inexplicable migraine-- for seven long years, until I was treated for Lyme disease and its malarialike cousin in the tick --babesiosis.Human babesiosis presents just like malaria --but you can catch it in your own backyard in Lyme-endemic areas like California and the northeast.  Today thousands of cases of human babesiosis are diagnosed each year in regions known for Lyme disease. But due to ignorance on the part of primary care practitioners, it can also go unrecognized and untreated for years as was the case for me. When Lyme patients don't get well, babesia is often the cause. Pictured at left is a grassy field on Nantucket Island, where the disease in humans was first found. 

Doctors could never explain the strange spikes of fever to 105 degrees Fahrenheit that hit me in hallucinogenic waves for more than a week that summer, or the gullies of sleep so black that, except for the nightmares, I thought I might be dead. When the fever broke and I noticed the sweating, it seemed just a consequence of summer. It was after the sweat leveled off that the headache-without-end licked its first noxious path through my brain. I would suffer that headache --an inexplicable migraine-- for seven long years, until I was treated for Lyme disease and its malarialike cousin in the tick --babesiosis.Human babesiosis presents just like malaria --but you can catch it in your own backyard in Lyme-endemic areas like California and the northeast.  Today thousands of cases of human babesiosis are diagnosed each year in regions known for Lyme disease. But due to ignorance on the part of primary care practitioners, it can also go unrecognized and untreated for years as was the case for me. When Lyme patients don't get well, babesia is often the cause. Pictured at left is a grassy field on Nantucket Island, where the disease in humans was first found. 

Psychiatry

An infection can change your personality --there's plenty of proof

Pamela Weintraub on March 30, 2009

Can an infection really alter your personality? At least 65 different microbes have been recognized as causing mental symptoms; the proof lies in several thousand articles published in the medical peer review.

Can an infection really alter your personality? At least 65 different microbes have been recognized as causing mental symptoms; the proof lies in several thousand articles published in the medical peer review.

Anger

Pastor killing: Another act of violence attributed to Lyme disease

Pamela Weintraub on March 9, 2009

A man opened fire on a pastor near St. Louis, murdering him a a rain of gunfire. His family says the attack was provoked by psychiatric illness caused by Lyme disease. Can a tick-borne infection cause this kind of rage?

A man opened fire on a pastor near St. Louis, murdering him a a rain of gunfire. His family says the attack was provoked by psychiatric illness caused by Lyme disease. Can a tick-borne infection cause this kind of rage?

Anger

Chimp attack: Can Lyme explain it? Forbes wants to know.

Pamela Weintraub on March 7, 2009

It would be wrong if the Connecticut chimp attack caused anyone to fear Lyme patients, or to think Lyme disease might send them on killer rampages like the rage-infected zombies in Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic thriller, 28 Days Later. The sickest of the Lyme patients are likely to be found in bed.

It would be wrong if the Connecticut chimp attack caused anyone to fear Lyme patients, or to think Lyme disease might send them on killer rampages like the rage-infected zombies in Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic thriller, 28 Days Later. The sickest of the Lyme patients are likely to be found in bed.

Integrative Medicine

Tick menagerie: Lyme isn't the only disease you can get from a tick

Pamela Weintraub on February 28, 2009

Sitting next to Burgdorfer in a sun-drenched conference room at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, I watched him remove from his ancient briefcase a handwritten chart that had withstood the test of time. Yellowed and creased, the paper listed microbes, six in all. "These," he told me, "are what I found in the Shelter Island ticks."

Sitting next to Burgdorfer in a sun-drenched conference room at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, I watched him remove from his ancient briefcase a handwritten chart that had withstood the test of time. Yellowed and creased, the paper listed microbes, six in all. "These," he told me, "are what I found in the Shelter Island ticks."

Bipolar Disorder

Metaphysical medicine: The murky meaning of cure

Pamela Weintraub on February 13, 2009

The meaning of cure is relative. For the patient, remaining symptoms can be disabling and life-draining. For the scientist parsing the data, such symptoms can be dismissed --as somatic, psychiatric, incurable, irrelevant to the illness at the start.

The meaning of cure is relative. For the patient, remaining symptoms can be disabling and life-draining. For the scientist parsing the data, such symptoms can be dismissed --as somatic, psychiatric, incurable, irrelevant to the illness at the start.

Integrative Medicine

Disappearing a disease: when guidelines lack balance, patients suffer

Pamela Weintraub on February 5, 2009

  Will a new infectious diseases panel rubber-stamp the old guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, or evaluate the evidence anew? To serve society, science must lead the way.

  Will a new infectious diseases panel rubber-stamp the old guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, or evaluate the evidence anew? To serve society, science must lead the way.

Anger

High Anxiety (Neurological Lyme Disease, Part Three)

Pamela Weintraub on February 1, 2009

The young man attacked his neighbor with a medieval ax. Could the real provocation be partially treated, late-stage Lyme disease?

The young man attacked his neighbor with a medieval ax. Could the real provocation be partially treated, late-stage Lyme disease?

Integrative Medicine

When the doctor gets sick, the journey is double-edged (Part III)

Pamela Weintraub on January 24, 2009

"What has happened to the medical profession I loved so much? What has happened to make physicians step out of the role of healer into the role of destroyer?" --Psychiatrist Virginia Sherr, Holland PA (pictured at left.)

"What has happened to the medical profession I loved so much? What has happened to make physicians step out of the role of healer into the role of destroyer?" --Psychiatrist Virginia Sherr, Holland PA (pictured at left.)

Genetics

Autism: Environmental triggers, UC Davis says

Pamela Weintraub on January 18, 2009

It's time to start looking for environmental drivers of the autism explosion, a major study from UC Davis finds. The researchers rule out genes and say major culprits could be metals, pesticides and infections in the environment.

It's time to start looking for environmental drivers of the autism explosion, a major study from UC Davis finds. The researchers rule out genes and say major culprits could be metals, pesticides and infections in the environment.

Integrative Medicine

When the doctor gets sick, the journey is double-edged (Part II)

Pamela Weintraub on January 16, 2009

As psychiatrist Virginia Sherr, pictured here, recovered from her long illness, she began to view her patients through a different lens -and "listen with a third, even a fourth, ear." Says Sherr: "I began to hear them describe the same symptoms that had bothered me: pains in their back, headache, enormous fatigue, night sweats, sinus problems that wouldn't quit." For a fleeting millisecond the impossible notion that she, herself, might be infecting her patients flashed through her mind. But her training as a psychiatrist quickly kicked in, causing her to question, instead, whether she had been swept up in a case of reverse transference. In the end, Sherr realized the truth. The patients, too, had significant clinical signs and symptoms and they needed to be worked up. "I realized it had nothing to do with me."

As psychiatrist Virginia Sherr, pictured here, recovered from her long illness, she began to view her patients through a different lens -and "listen with a third, even a fourth, ear." Says Sherr: "I began to hear them describe the same symptoms that had bothered me: pains in their back, headache, enormous fatigue, night sweats, sinus problems that wouldn't quit." For a fleeting millisecond the impossible notion that she, herself, might be infecting her patients flashed through her mind. But her training as a psychiatrist quickly kicked in, causing her to question, instead, whether she had been swept up in a case of reverse transference. In the end, Sherr realized the truth. The patients, too, had significant clinical signs and symptoms and they needed to be worked up. "I realized it had nothing to do with me."

Trauma

Chronic fatigue syndrome & child abuse: Disordered patients or disordered research?

Pamela Weintraub on January 13, 2009

The news that the majority of people with chronic fatigue syndrome had been subject to child abuse or trauma struck me as outrageous. Having come through the Lyme wars, where patients are routinely mislabeled "psychiatric," I viewed this kind of assertion as a red flag.

The news that the majority of people with chronic fatigue syndrome had been subject to child abuse or trauma struck me as outrageous. Having come through the Lyme wars, where patients are routinely mislabeled "psychiatric," I viewed this kind of assertion as a red flag.

Integrative Medicine

When the doctor gets sick, the journey is double-edged (Part I)

Pamela Weintraub on January 9, 2009

Despite her own credentials as a physician, Holland PA psychiatrist Virginia Sherr, pictured here, was considered a "whiner" by other doctors. "I tried to explain that I was in serious difficulty to one physician after the next, as I gasped for breath on exertion, had painful muscle spasms in the thighs, face, and posterior shoulders, and experienced deep, aching, burning pain." Her symptoms became so severe, in fact, that Sherr felt as if "the self I knew was dissolving." 

Despite her own credentials as a physician, Holland PA psychiatrist Virginia Sherr, pictured here, was considered a "whiner" by other doctors. "I tried to explain that I was in serious difficulty to one physician after the next, as I gasped for breath on exertion, had painful muscle spasms in the thighs, face, and posterior shoulders, and experienced deep, aching, burning pain." Her symptoms became so severe, in fact, that Sherr felt as if "the self I knew was dissolving." 

Integrative Medicine

Bartonella: It infects sheep, now humans

Pamela Weintraub on January 8, 2009

The CDC has documented human infection with a species of bartonella bacteria most commonly found in sheep. The news is important for psychologists and psychiatrists because bartonella has been associated with neuropsychiatric disease.  

The CDC has documented human infection with a species of bartonella bacteria most commonly found in sheep. The news is important for psychologists and psychiatrists because bartonella has been associated with neuropsychiatric disease.