It mimics the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, arthritis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and even Alzheimer’s disease, yet it’s hard to detect because its corkscrew-shaped form allows it to burrow into and hide in your tissues. Now an epidemic out of control, did it too come from the U.S. biological weapons program?
Story at-a-Glance
- In her book, “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons,” Kris Newby reviews the circumstantial evidence suggesting the organism that causes Lyme disease may originally have been developed as a biological weapon.
- An estimated 476,000 Americans are diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease each year, and prevalence is rising.
- Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks (and sometimes other biting insects) infected with the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. There are about two dozen species of B. burgdorferi with hundreds of strains worldwide, many of which are resistant to antibiotics.
- Ticks can also carry other pathogens, and coinfections are another reason why Lyme disease is so difficult to treat.
- A major challenge with Lyme disease is that its symptoms imitate so many other disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS), arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and even Alzheimer’s disease, making proper identification difficult and time-consuming.
Newby, who educates health care providers on vector-borne diseases, is the author of “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons.” She also produced the 2008 Lyme disease documentary “Under Our Skin,”[2] which was nominated for an Academy Award the following year.[3] A follow-up film, “Under Our Skin 2: Emergence” came out in 2014.
