Lorraine Johnson speaks at Stanford MedX about Lyme disease and 'big-data' research

Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA

Even though there are over 100,000 cases of CHRONIC Lyme each year-three
times more than hepatitis C - only three government treatment trials have
ever been conducted. And those three trials didn't look at treatments
actually used by physicians treating chronic Lyme disease, but were instead
limited to 90 days of a single form of antibiotics. And, they didn't study
ordinary patients. One screened over 32,000 patients to finally enroll just
23, who met the researchers' highly specific criteria. Patients in these
treatment trials are by definition not typical.

The last government treatment trial was over 15 years ago and it took four
years to recruit, five to complete, seven to publish.  It cost nearly $5
million dollars. And there's currently no research-not a single treatment
study on chronic Lyme disease treatment- in the pipeline.

Patients with chronic Lyme disease can't afford to wait for tomorrow's
research -which may never come. They have a worse quality of life than
patients with multiple sclerosis; 43% can't work and 20% are on disability.

See the rest of the article here:
https://www.lymedisease.org/lymepolicywonk-my-speech-at-medx-on-lyme-disease