https://www.facebook.com/CharlesEHolmanFoundation/posts/1259928114036924

New??? Or just newly discovered/ realized??? Thank you, Dr. Horowitz for speaking out and pointing out the obvious. Those of us with Morgellons disease have a mixed reality since the discovery of Borrelia in the condition, which was 'overlooked?' or ignored by the CDC. We certainly would love to explore any 'new strains' that may be involved in Morgellons. Research funding is hard enough to come by when it's a know condition. Since Morgellons is stigmatized by the DOP label, we have a significantly harder road to get any 'new' strains of Borrelia revealed. ... Sunny Gwen Simmons RN, PHN-B

Dr. Richard Horowitz
February 17 at 8:58am ·
The Mayo Clinic recently discovered a new species of borrelia in the US, which they named "Borrelia mayonii". It was claimed to have been the first new species causing a Lyme-like illness in the US, but researchers like Kerry Clark have previously discovered other borrelia causing symptoms in the south, where Lyme was not thought to exist. Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato DNA was found in both blood and skin biopsy samples from patients in southern states and elsewhere in the U.S. B. burgdorferi sensu stricto, B. americana, and B. andersonii were also found from patients in other parts of the United States. His conclusion was that Lyme is more common in the south and may be caused by multiple species (Geographic and genospecies distribution of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato DNA detected in humans in the United States, Kerry L Clark, et al. Journal of Medical Microbiology, online ahead of print, February 25, 2014). Dr Clark was unhappy with the fact that Mayo did not give credit where credit was due and stated in this issue of Scientific American. "I find it unprofessional, and unethical, to not give proper scientific credit to these other researchers”Was this the only new borrelia species to emerge in the past several years? Apart from the prior groundbreaking work of Kerry Clark, we know that there have been 15 new species of borrelia discovered throughout the world in the past 2 decades (between 1990 and 2010) which is almost one new species per year. These include in the US: B. burgdorferi sensu strictu, and Borrelia sensu latu: Borrelia kurtenbachii sp; In Europe: Borrelia afzelii (ACA), Borrelia garinii (neuroborreliosis) and B. spielmani (early skin disease), with B. valaisana, B. lusitanea, B. bavariensis; in Asia: B. japonica, B. turdi, B. tanukii, B.yangtze; in North America: Borrelia andersonii; in the Southern U.S. : B. americanum and B. carolinensis, and in the Pacific U.S.: B. bissettii, which was recently implicated as a human pathogen in Mendocino County, California and in the south (Girard YA, Fedorova N, Lane RS. Genetic diversity of Borrelia burgdorferi and detection of B. bissettii-like DNA in serum of north-coastal California residents. J Clin Microbiol. 2011;49:945–54). There is a lot of genetic diversity in borrelia species, accounting in part for patients who fail standard two-tiered testing, and similarly with this new borrelia species "Three of the six patients who had B. mayonii in the Mayo Clinic study would have failed the standard Lyme tests based on their antibody results". I just got back from speaking at the Focus on Lyme conference in Arizona, where Paul Keim and TGen researchers are looking at novel ways to improve testing in those suffering from Lyme and associated tick-borne disorders. "