(2009) Does chronic Lyme disease really exist? Might Lyme disease be associated with MS, ALS/Lou Gehrig's, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases? Is Lyme disease, in addition to being a physical ailment, both an economic and political disease?

Director/producer/photographer Andy Abrahams Wilson's documentary film explores the fierce controversy from the points of view of patients who say they have the disease, physicians who've successfully treated the disease, and other doctors who say there's no evidence to support these assertions.

In 1970 the first instances of the sickness appeared in Lyme, Connecticut; the pathogen - bacterial infection passed along to humans from the bite of a deer tick - has since spread to every state in the US. A decade later Dr Willy Burgdorfer, PhD, discovered the causative agent, a spirochete (similar to syphilis) that became known as Borrelia burgdorferi. Also in the 1980s, two commercial developments complicated the way Lyme disease would be perceived and treated: patenting of living organisms, discouraging researchers from sharing their work, and HMOs, tightening restrictions on medical services.

The classic symptoms begin with a rash and swelling of joints; but others, such as Jordan, formerly a California forest ranger, complain of profound fatigue, shooting and stabbing pains, blurred vision, memory loss, and mental disorder. A laundry list of symptoms - neurological, physical, cognitive - pour from the mouths of people interviewed; they are witnesses to a complex illness being ignored.

An event producer for the band U2, Dana, calmly confesses: "You cannot imagine the pain in my body right now." Sean in Orlando, FL, shares video footage of his wife Mandy writhing in agony. They've been misdiagnosed or told by dozens of doctors before finally finding someone who understands their disease: "There's nothing wrong with you" or "It's all in your head." Pregnant mothers with Lyme disease report miscarriages or infants born with developmental damage to their children.

Advocates acknowledging the disease claim it's an epidemic, "a national health crisis," "the most common vector-borne disease in America," with 35,000 new cases discovered in the US last year, while thousands of others don't know they are infected because their doctors can't recognize it.

Independent researcher Dr Alan MacDonald has published the results of his studies that Lyme infection can become persistently chronic in the human body and is present in patients with ALS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and MS, in the face of resistance from the medical community's insistence that it is merely acute and easily cured; MacDonald's most recent insight of a biofilm model for Lyme disease explains its ability to hide inside the body. Other specialists speak of co-infections being responsible, rather than a single pathogen.

However, the authors of the guidelines for the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) adamantly dismiss all of the above testimony and research. But their credibility has been questioned: nine of the 14 authors can be directly linked to conflicts of interest. Further, medical-insurance companies, attempting to protect their profits by denying patients long-term, expensive antibiotic treatments, have brought Lyme-disease practitioners (such as Drs Joseph Jemsek and Charles Ray Jones) before medical boards to be have their licenses suspended.

If the insurance companies and the IDSA continue to have the final word in this controversy, what hope for relief will those who have/believe they have Lyme disease? Early treatment is necessary since in its late stages a patient with Lyme disease may end up being sick for life.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .