This is an editorial piece by Tom Grier- a Lyme Survivor/Thriver/Scientist. Thought provoking articl Veterinary Doxycycline a Harbinger of Corruption Editorial Blog by: Tom Grier It worries me that after the recent increase in price of prescription doxycycline that veterinary sources have not only dried up, but many sites have posted that OTC aquarium doxycycline will not be available until September 25th. That is a pretty specific date? (see Foster and Smith vet catalog site). How do they know the exact date? Why are all distributors using this same date as the date of restocking? Could it be that doxycycline will no longer be available from multiple and competitive sources? A single source selling to all distributors dictates that they can set the new market price for doxycycline. If a person was a suspicious-pessimist, one might think that the CDC’s announcement that Lyme disease is under reported by 10 fold, is part of a greater plan. A plan that has serious financial conflicts of interest, and is paid for by us the tax-payers. Why after 20 years are they admitting their first error? So I ask myself what do certain people have to gain by creating a public awareness of the CDC’s purposeful failure to publicly recognize the true incidence of Lyme disease which was known in 1993 by a Westchester NY doctor record study and Insurance records, and then in a separate article the DCD actually makes a brief statement that “Chronic Lyme Disease” actually exists? (The CDC web site still calls it Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome PTLS , and suggests with several weasel-words that PTLS is not caused by active Lyme infection. By the way Dr. Irvin Vanderhoof PhD published that Lyme was under reported by 10x fold based on Westchester County doctor records and Insurance claims. This was done around 1993, everyone who knew anything about Lyme disease reporting already knew that Lyme disease was 10x greater than what was being reported by the states and the CDC. This is only news to the public and not to the Lyme community. So What is their angle? In MN by 1995 a survey of infectious disease doctors indicated only 1 in 9 Infectious Disease doctors reported cases that they were legally obligated to report by State Law. Many ID doctors didn’t even know how to report Lyme cases to the State and assumed their nurses were doing the reporting. (MN LD Coalition ID Doctor Office survey 1995) The CDC has known all of this for 20 years so why the admission of 300,000 case a year now? Currently a revamped version of Lymerix the OSP-A based vaccine is being created by Benjamin Luft MD et al at Stony Brook (SUNY). It seems to be traveling very fast through FDA approval. Remember Lymerix was voluntarily discontinued so this new vaccine may not be held up by safety or efficacy issues based on Lymerix which was cleared by the FDA in an unprecedented public statement that Lymerix was safe and not being withdrawn by Smith-Kline-Glaxo because of safety or health issues nor was it withdrawn by the FDA . But there were many pending class action lawsuits over Lymerix) It seems a fortuitous coincidence that this new OSP-A based vaccine will be launched so shortly after the CDC has made the announcement that Lyme disease has instantly climbed from thirty thousand cases a year to 300,000 cases a year. Remember that the first line treatment that is recommended by most institutions and medical centers is doxycycline. (Of course that was back when it was the cheapest antibiotic in the world.) So makers of doxycycline stand to make billions more (That’s right doxycycline is soon and quietly going to be a billion dollar product.) which is quite an achievement for a generic drug. Doxycycline just a year ago had multiple sources and was affordable by cash paying patients without health insurance. Now with just one manufacturer and one source, the government and insurance companies have to pay the newly inflated AWP for doxycycline that is about 100x what it once was! So I am thinking many people will profit from this (I don’t know if you can buy stock from this generic company but I would be interested in who is invested in this financial adventure?) When the new Lyme vaccine is launched; because of the hype from the CDC about 300,000 new cases of Lyme will almost mandate that patients get the new Lyme Vaccine. This means that the owners of the OSP-A patent, and the investors in the new vaccine will make money for a couple years (unless side effects and class action law suits forces this product off the market.) (Lymerix was taken off production and distribution for so-called lack of sales, but sales were solid and Lymerix was profitable, many including myself think that the class action law suits that were piling up was the real reason Lymerix was removed from the market. So the question is: Did the manufacturers really pull Lymerix from market to avoid more class action lawsuits and is it really safe like the FDA says? If not can we trust any vaccine data in the future? Since the incidence of Lyme disease is now 300,000 new cases a year, this mandates that Lyme disease is an epidemic. I don’t know about the CDC but in many states that also mandates special funding to address the epidemic and to find ways to control the epidemic. So the CDC may in fact get more money to deal with Lyme. The trouble with that is that in my opinion they have a very poor history of allocating monies for Lyme research. Do these monies simply culminate in a small circle of friends getting new patents on tests that are poor? Some have already made this argument of friendly financial nepotism better than I can. In October 2012 the CDC webinar on Lyme testing (check the CDC website) states that two-tiered testing is the gold-standard for Lyme disease testing. The webinar also states that serology tests are 99-100% accurate in late Lyme disease cases. If that is true then why do we need better tests? Gosh the CDC says the current tests and two-tiered testing approached 100% accuracy! Yet they also say we need new Lyme tests that are better???? Mmmmm Why? Did you know many of the old Lyme test patents are expiring? Did you know the CDC is focusing most of the current monies for new tests to indirect cytokine response tests, and T-cell response tests? These tests are already available from a Wisconsin Laboratory, but no one in the magic circle of friends of the CDC owns those patents. But now new tests will demand new patents and those tests are being developed with your taxpayer dollars. The recipients of grant monies are all named in the CDC Lyme disease Webinar on Lyme testing on the CDC web site. You will recognize all the names. What is cytokine response testing? If you are exposed to Lyme or have Lyme disease, your immune system sort of keeps a record of it or a memory of it. Your blood can reveal different Lymphokine patterns when a patient’s blood-sample is challenged with a single lab species of Lyme called B-31, it is very indirect and in my opinion this kind of test is less consistent and less accurate that current antibody serology. It too cannot detect emerging new species of Lyme disease like Borrelia valaisiana and 10 more new Lyme Borrelia species. But no matter how bad a Lyme test is, if it is new doctors jump all over it. A local doctor here said the Gunderson Live assay test was the best test ever for Lyme and 100% accurate, but where is it now? The U of MN had a PCR test of knee synovial fluid and in their press release not only told how much better it was than culturing rashes, but also gave the press the cost of $125 and how to submit the test and where to send it. So much for publishing or FDA approval: just put out a press release! More importantly: Where is this gold-standard Lyme test today? The C6-peptide ELISA test uses just one Lyme antigen instead all available antigens, but the praise for this test was practically stratospheric: Yet when tested by independent labs, it faired no better than most other ELISA tests. But this test sold well and had praise from the leaders in Lyme research. So why does the CDC want new tests? If our Lyme disease serology tests are so good: Then why are there 10x more Lyme patients than we thought? So many Lyme tests have come and gone and nearly every one of them had supporters simply because the tests were new. The new cytokine response tests are predictably poor but they will hyped and maybe interested parties will find ways to mandate their use for reporting or government owned facilities like Army bases? So an admission of increased Lyme cases are 10x greater than what is reported in surveillance almost certainly means an increase in: Lyme Vaccine sales (when it is launched) A dramatic increase in Doxycycline sales and profit because it is single source only drug. An increase in monies to the CDC for Lyme disease research and new tests An increase in Lyme testing including new tests being developed now that are way more indirect that antibody testing. People who cannot afford $600 for a month for a month’s supply of doxycycline will be forced to buy Medical Insurance that pays for medications like doxycycline To make doxycycline it actually costs about a penny a tablet to manufacture. I am curious if a patient who has good insurance, insisted on paying cash for their doxycycline and then petitioned the insurance company for reimbursement of what would happen? I think the insurance company would put a stop to this because the price the insurance company will pay for doxycycline maybe less than what the consumer can pay? I don’t know, but I do know cash reimbursement for medications can run into many snags. So back to my original concern: On September 25th will veterinary doxycycline cost 10x more than it does today? The shortage continues even now after a year and it seems to be well calculated and well orchestrated. (If any of this is done by collusion and can be proved: it is called Racketeering.) Who knew that a simple harmless statement like: “Lyme disease is 10x more prevalent than what the CDC reported” could be such a potential windfall of financial gains worth billions of dollars? Tom Grier
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 21:24:02 +0000
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