I just finished 's Bitten, which tells the history of the US government's secret program in the 1950s and 1960s to weaponize ticks to deliver deadly bacteria to incapacitate unsuspecting populations. Newby, a talented journalist and science writer, structures her history around a biography of Willy Burgdorfer, the Swiss-American scientist who discovered borellia burgdorferi, a spirochete bacteria often found in Lyme disease patients. It's an incredible, infuriating, well-written book worth your time. A few lessons: 1. The mid-20th century US biomedical research establishment was psychopathic, whole-heartedly embracing reckless, deadly investigations in the name of developing vaccines and bioweapons. 2. It is possible (& perhaps likely, though not proven) that the emergence and spread of Lyme disease may have been caused by this research program, which included large open-air testing of intentionally infected ticks on US soil. 3. The bioweapons program used combinations of viruses and bacteria infecting the same tick to hide the body's immune response to infection from detection by standard medical tests. 4. Lyme disease and related syndromes are likely caused by more than just borellia burgorferi. Newby makes a circumstantial case for a shadowy rickettsia bacteria that Willy Burgdorfer studied, which he called the "Swiss agent." 5. The financial interests of biomedical researchers and testing companies peddling faulty tests – alongside their control over the official pronouncements and policy of the National Institute of Health and the US Infectious Disease Society of America – have frozen in place a diagnostic doctrine that has led to countless Lyme disease patients misdiagnosed and gaslit about the symptoms they are suffering.I just finished @krisnewby's Bitten, which tells the history of the US government's secret program in the 1950s and 1960s to weaponize ticks to deliver deadly bacteria to incapacitate unsuspecting populations.
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 27, 2023
Newby, a talented journalist and science writer, structures her…
Closing thought: similar tendencies in the biomedical research and medical establishments are still extant and may help explain many things about the COVID-19 pandemic. History does not repeat, but it rhymes.
Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons, Kris Newby, June 30, 2020.
And here is a good story by @cpiller in Stat News on Will Burgdorfer's "Swiss Agent" a possible contributor to Lyme disease pathology. https://t.co/Wfn8N7YuSu
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 27, 2023
