Dear Reader Janet,
Thank You for the excellent information on Lyme Disease and it is important to note that sexual transmission of the disease is emphasized and something folks need to be aware of. Lyme/Morgellons and Co infections are relationship destroyers, a family destroyers a life destroyers by design, no doubt.
Look to Lab 257 on Plum Island. Then consider where the labs are around the world and add a 'fictitious' movie, "12 Monkeys". Damned if it doesn't look plausible.
Thank you for the thought provoking information. Here is a link to Maryland University for some more info on Cat's Claw:
https://www.umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/cats-claw
Many Blessings,
CrystalRiver
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Lyme Disease: Nutraceutical Breakthrough Using TOA-Free Cat's Claw
Excerpted from an article by Allergy Research Group
If the words Lyme disease invoke a sense of panic, your concern is valid. Considered the fastest-growing epidemic in the world, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, affirms that "there is considerable under-reporting" of Lyme disease. The agency maintains that the actual infection rate may be 1.8 million, 10 times higher than the 180,000 cases currently reported. On a June 2002 episode of the Today Show, Lyme disease expert, Dan Kinderleher, M.D., stated that the number of cases may be 100 times higher (or 18 million in the U.S. alone) than reported by the CDC.
Generally thought of as a tick-borne illness with symptoms ranging from flulike fever and body aches to joint swelling and extreme fatigue, Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb). Those at high risk either live or spend time in grassy and heavily wooded areas where ticks carrying the disease breed. In the U.S., this includes states in the Northwest,North Central, and Northeast. Even in such areas, not all deer ticks are infected and only a small percentage of people or pets bitten by deer ticks actually become sick.
So if the percentage is so small then why are there 18 million sufferers?
A couple of possibilities:
1. Misdiagnosis. Katrina Tang, M.D., H.M.D., Founder and Director of Research at the Sierra Integrative Medicine Clinic in Reno, Nevada, states that Lyme disease eludes many doctors because of its ability to mimic many other diseases. According to an informal study conducted by the American Lyme Disease Alliance, most patients diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are actually suffering from Lyme disease. In a study of 31 patients diagnosed with CFS, 28 patients, or 90.3%, were found to be ill as a result of Lyme.
2. Ticks may not be the exclusive insect of transmission. In addition to ticks, Bb may be carried and transmitted by fleas, mosquitoes, and mites.
3. Lyme disease may not be exclusively insect-borne. Compelling evidence supports both sexual and congenital human-to-human transfer. Other front-line physicians are arriving at the same conclusions. "Of the more than 5,000 children I've treated, 240 have been born with the disease," says Charles Ray Jones, M.D., who is the world's leading pediatric specialist on Lyme disease.
Furthermore, in 1990, a study by the CDC stated that the data demonstrates that Bb can survive the blood processing procedures normally applied to transfused blood in the USA.
A NATURAL ALTERNATIVE?
To combat Lyme and its wide array of innocuous, yet sometimes severe symptoms (see www.needs.com for a complete list), Western medicine's tact is to implement one or more long courses of antibiotic therapy, sometimes with marginal results. However, a recent pilot study using a high-quality herbal extract showed promising results and offers a possible natural alternative.
This six-month pilot study was conducted with 28 patients suffering from Advanced Chronic Lyme disease. All tested positive for Bb using the Western Blot blood test. A control group of 14 patients was treated with conventional antibiotics. At the end of the study, three improved slightly, three became worse, and the remaining experienced no change in their clinical condition. The experimental group was treated with Pentacyclic Alkaloid Chemotype Uncaria tomentosa. At the end of the study, 85% of the patients in this group tested negative for Bb, and all the patients experienced a dramatic improvement in their clinical condition.
Also known as TOA-free Cat's Claw, Pentacyclic Alkaloid Chemotype, is a rare variety of a medicinal plant of Cat's Claw. Unlike traditional Cat's Claw, this variety of Uncaria tomentosa does not contain a group of chemical antagonists called tetracyclic oxindole alkaloids or TOAs that act upon the central nervous system and can greatly inhibit the positive effect of the pentacyclic oxindole alkaloids (POAs).