Bush Apparently Had Lyme Disease

I'm not kidding. Here's an article from Thursday:

Bush Apparently Had Lyme Disease, Washington Post

I like this quote from this random blog:

"While this doesn't explain the first 6 years of bad decision making, it might help with the past year."

Also, when I search for Bush Lyme, Google search wants to know if I mean Bush lame instead.

Interestingly, the doctors never tested him for it. Is that because they know that the lab tests are not very good? Or, maybe they did test him for it, and it was negative, so they don't want people to know.

Or how about the notorious Dr. Wormser being quoted as saying that "if he got it in Texas, it was undoubtedly STARI." How undoubtedly can it be, when no bugs were looked for, new bugs are discovered all the time, and the causative agent of STARI hasn't even been identified yet? Unless STARI is another name for "unidentified". It was undoubtedly unidentified.

Well, STARI is supposed to be milder than Lyme disease. In any case, the President is too old, and "lame", to notice if he ends up having long-term problems from the infection.

President Bush Says...

"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. And it is not the only option before us.''

Bush again vetoes stem cell legislation.

So what is he saying? That he and the government know that they are not ethical, or that there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives that he doesn't consider to be human life?

***

Oh, I figured it out. "Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical." But destroying human life for some *other* purpose is okay.

Can't Even Imagine

Although this past week, my mind has been too blank and tired to even write in my blog, I managed to watch some television tonight.

A PBS film about the United States biological weapons program in the mid-twentieth century:

The Living Weapon

You just want to cover your ears, hide your eyes, and pretend that such a dark side of humanity doesn't exist, and that our governments don't commit such crimes.

I have been reading about conspiracy theories that cover all sorts of diseases from AIDS to chronic fatigue syndrome to Gulf War Illness, mostly all being related by (possibly genetically engineered) mycoplasma infections. It is too hard to believe that our government could engage in such secrecy and cover-ups, at the cost of human suffering even of its own civilians.

But a PBS film is a reliable source. Although the film was brief, it stated plainly such things as, accidental deaths from working in the biological weapons labs would be covered up in secrecy, human volunteers were not told the real reasons for the research, and they sprayed deadly stuff over the ocean and "simulants" over cities and in buildings. Imagine the possible information that hasn't been declassified.

Before getting sick myself, I probably would have totally dismissed all the stuff I've read on the Web as quack material. I don't think this illness has warped my mind that much. It's just that when you get sick yourself, you have a reason to care, and you know the diseases are real and serious. Then you start to read, and the stuff, maybe not all, but enough, really does make sense and isn't that crazy. If more people cared, it wouldn't be relegated to the stuff of quack research.

Unfortunately, the nature of these illnesses is that the people who are sick are so disabled that they can't help themselves, speak out, or do research. And it takes about three people to take care of one sick person. (And that is pretty much the idea behind biological weapons that disable rather than kill.) All the people who know and care are bogged down. So these are silent illnesses to society. Nobody hears about or thinks much about Gulf War Illness, chronic fatigue syndrome, or Lyme disease ever, until you yourself or a loved one gets sick, then it becomes your entire life.

Who knew that getting bitten by a stupid tick would do this, enter into a political medical war, and also the possibility of covert government operations.

Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about these things, and just think about how to treat the disease and get better. But reading about how to treat such diseases inevitably leads to this information.

Believing People

I'm not one to usually believe in conspiracy theories, but this one is rather believable:

Plum Island: Biowarfare Laboratory?

Lyme Disease is a Biowarfare Issue

Let's take a look at this map of reported cases from the CDC. Where do you think Plum Island is located? In the middle of that dense semicircle in New England. And let's compare this 2004 map with one from 1999. The semicircle expands. As does a strange cluster around Minnesota. Now if the disease has really been around for a longer time, and if the increase in reported cases were simply due to increased awareness and diagnosis, one would expect the case map to just get evenly denser everywhere, instead of expanding outwards from the original source. I wonder if birds migrate from New England to Minnesota. There are even more interesting articles out there, and even more interesting when you start reading up on Gulf War Illness.

Another thing is, if the disease had really been around long before it was discovered in Lyme, CT, there would be written record of it. People on the Oregon Trail and Little House on the Prairie who spent all day in the grass would have gotten it. There is plenty written about dysentery and consumption, but nothing that sounds like Lyme disease.

But what to do about it? We just need to figure out how to heal all the sick and disabled people, and prevent more from occurring. An epidemic like this could really disable a nation, maybe even a species. The CDC gets more than 20,000 reported cases every year and this number is increasing over time (double that of ten years ago), but even itself says that it estimates there are 10 times that number that occur. That would be 1 in 1500 people every year. Over a lifetime, that would be 1 in 20 people, at the current rate. Since the disease was only discovered 30 years ago, it still appears to be rare. But the math is warning.