Tina J. Garcia
P.O. Box 2654
Mesa, Arizona 85214-2654
March 28, 2006
Edward McSweegan, Ph.D.
1692 Barrister Court
Crofton, Maryland 21114
Re: Your Recent False Statements Published in Nature
Dear Dr. McSweegan:
As you probably are aware, your recent correspondence to Nature, published in the March 16, 2006 issue, is circulating the Internet. I am writing to let you know how damaging your statements are to Lyme disease patients worldwide. I find your letter appalling, to say the least, and in one way distressing to learn that you are in favor of moving the vaccine human experimentation to Europe. In another way, I am relieved that the “litigious environment” in the United States is finally flushing the rats out of their holes, referring to the small group of manipulative, financial-interest-bearing individuals who are guilty of CONTROLLING Lyme disease parameters and thereby PREVENTING patients from obtaining diagnosis and treatment. With regard to your statement:
“First, Lyme disease is non-communicable, readily treatable with common antibiotics and geographically localized in the United States.”
I would like you to produce the valid, published research that proves that “Lyme disease is non-communicable.” In the event that you are unable to produce valid, published research to substantiate your statement, I will continue to rely upon my own clinical experiences and those of Lyme patients and treating physicians who have experienced firsthand transmission through intimate contact and transmission from mother to fetus.
Please tell me your story about how easy it is to be readily treated with common antibiotics for Lyme disease. To begin with, antibiotics require a prescription from a physician. A prescription will only be ordered if there is a diagnosis. Most physicians do not rely upon a clinical diagnosis for Lyme disease as they should, but instead order inaccurate ELISA tests that often come back negative per the carefully-crafted CDC laboratory criteria. Therefore, a diagnosis is not provided, nor is the prescription for "common antibiotics." So this "readily treatable" infection actually is a DIFFICULT TO TREAT infection or a NO TREATMENT infection.
Edward McSweegan, Ph.D.
March 28, 2006
Page Two
In addition, a diagnosis may not be provided due to your reference to the disease being "geographically localized in the United States." Your statement may very well cause many physicians to completely disregard the possibility of a tick-borne infection in a patient who does not live or has not traveled to the northeastern portion of the U.S. Mainstream physicians have not been provided with adequate information thanks to damaging statements such as yours. Physicians are under the ludicrous impression that Lyme disease is an easily-treated infection that one can only contract within Lyme, Connecticut city limits.
It is my opinion that your statements are criminally misleading. I think the time has come for you and others who have also made similarly criminally-misleading statements and published them as though they are based upon valid research, to be held legally responsible for your negligent actions!
I seriously question your motives when you refer to advocacy for treatment of chronic Lyme disease infection as "hysteria". This is a good example of an ad hominem attack against people in desperate need of help. This statement savagely attacks patients who are struggling to survive on a daily basis due to the debilitating effects of Lyme disease. Would you DARE make such an injurious statement about cancer patients attempting to obtain diagnoses and treatment for their debilitating disease?
I also strongly resent your statement that, “In the United States, activists have turned Lyme disease into everyone's backyard bogeyman,” as though Lyme disease and the symptoms thereof are figments of our imaginations, a creature that doesn't exist, a childish fear, an infection to be outgrown and forgotten. You also stated in reference to Lyme disease activists that, “They have demonized experts for their views on treatment and prevention.” In my activist opinion, your views and those of your cohorts who share them are not demonic; however, I do believe your group’s views are sadistic, tortuous, barbaric and inexcusable!
According to the Lyme Disease Association's 2001 Conflicts of Interest: Laboratory Testing, Vaccination, and Treatment Guidelines report, certain individuals associated with the CDC, the NIH, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) had and have potential conflicts of interest. The report documents how these individuals have carefully crafted the diagnosis criteria, testing and IDSA Treatment Guidelines to accommodate money-making Lyme disease test kits, along with vaccine clinical trials, such as the human experimentation trials you are currently having difficulty finding subjects for. These individuals have caused many, many people to suffer from late-stage, chronic Lyme disease and co-infections, due to lack of proper diagnoses and treatment. It is my belief that your current and past statements regarding the simplicity of Lyme disease as an infection have helped to destroy thousands, perhaps millions, of lives throughout the United States, not just in a “geographically localized” area.
Edward McSweegan, Ph.D.
March 28, 2006
Page Three
Your “bogeyman” statement causes me to ask a viable question. Why are you actively promoting human experimentation, clinical trials for an allegedly preventive OspA Lyme disease vaccine for such a trivial infectious disease? If the picture you have painted of Lyme disease is true, that it “is non-communicable, readily-treatable with common antibiotics and geographically localized in the United States”, why are you taking the time to write a letter to Nature to promote a needless vaccine and human-experimentation, clinical trials in Europe? Who needs such a vaccine? Contrary to Dr. Allen Steere’s statement in one his letters, Lyme disease patients are NOT the people who are interested in a vaccine!! Unfortunately, Dr. Steere is also guilty of making a false statement without valid substantiation.
If Lyme disease is such an imaginary scary fellow, Dr. McSweegan, why are you and your manipulating Lyme research cohorts so motivated to create and promote a new OspA vaccine? You attack the patients and advocates in the United States because we are wise to your criminal manipulations. WE DON'T WANT A VACCINE!! WE WANT TREATMENT to overcome the alien “bogeymen” that have taken over our bodies!! Woefully, you and your manipulating Lyme research accomplices are experiencing some difficulties finding test subjects for the new vaccine. Oh, well, that's how the cookie crumbles, the towers fall, and hopefully, the vaccine approval fails!
So, now you're going to look for unwitting subjects in Europe, according to your letter to Nature. I just can't decide which are worse, the blood-sucking ticks or the blood-sucking, financially-motivated researchers and vaccine developers.
Search your soul, Dr. McSweegan. Is there half an ounce of compassion left in you? If Lyme disease is just a "bogeyman," as you have the audacity to name it, why the letter to Nature and the push for a needless vaccine for an imaginary disease? Is it unreasonable to assume that if the disease is imaginary, then the vaccine is imaginary as well? Do you and your manipulating cohorts have even a slight understanding of what life is really about, or do you only understand microbes and money? It appears as if the reign of Lyme Kings and Queens in the United States is nearing an end. In my opinion, the Kings and Queens of Lyme disease are a compromised collection of laboratory specimens decaying in a petri dish. I certainly do not wish this group to cause harm in Europe, but I am grateful that the “litigious environment” in the United States has got them on the run.
I wish you bad luck with your barbaric, human-experimentation, OspA vaccine clinical trial recruitment in Europe. The Europeans have always been light years ahead of the Americans when it comes to knowledge of tick-borne infections. Hopefully, they will not become your next victims.
One more thing, Dr. McSweegan: STOP promulgating criminally-misleading information that destroys the lives of your Borrelia-infected, chronically-wasting, fellow Americans!!!!
With much concern, but not hysterical,
Tina J. Garcia
Cc: Nature