Kudos to Columbia University, et al., for making a more diligent effort to provide better quality testing diseases spread by ticks. Their findings include multiple infectious organisms that are injected via ticks into the bloodstream of Americans on a daily basis.
Finally, after all the controversy, after all the battles between those of us considered Lyme literate doctors and organizations like the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an organization who recently admitted they missed the mark, for years, with their overzealous requirements on antibody testing which has proven to have at least 60 percent false negatives.
This research by Columbia University, et al., and their admittance that previous Lyme testing was inept, should surely wake-up the World Health Organization (WHO), who was recently named in a report for violating human rights of people with tick-borne diseases.
The report resulted in a meeting between the United Nations Human Rights Council, medical professionals, scientists, human rights experts, and advocates. A human rights expert discussed the neglect of Lyme patients, in which the outdated codes of WHO resulted in very sick people being denied treatment. He also mentions the attacks on Lyme doctors who are treating chronic Lyme disease patients.
The previous lack of quality testing for Lyme disease in conjunction with the past CDC criteria and the fear many physicians on a national level, have historically faced from medical boards, is undoubtedly responsible for the unnecessary suffering, and worse, severe brain infections and neurological sequela in millions of Lyme patients in America.
Again, hats off to Columbia University and others involved in attempting to advance testing for the multiple infectious organism ticks can carry, and often inject, into our bloodstream.