Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic (Revised Edition with New Chapter)

By Pamela Weintraub

Book Overview

The groundbreaking, award-winning investigation into Lyme disease--the science, history, medical politics, and patient experience--now with a brand new chapter.

When Pamela Weintraub, a science journalist, learned that her oldest son tested positive for Lyme disease, she thought she had found an answer to the symptoms that had been plaguing her family for years--but her nightmare had just begun. Almost everything about Lyme disease turned out to be deeply controversial, from the microbe causing the infection, to the length and type of treatment and the kind of practitioner needed.

On one side of the fight, the scientists who first studied Lyme describe a disease transmitted by a deer tick that is hard to catch but easy to cure no matter how advanced the case. On the other side, rebel doctors insist that Lyme and a soup of "co-infections" cause a complicated spectrum of illness often dramatically different - and far more difficult to treat - than the original researchers claim. Instead of just swollen knees and a rash, patients can experience exhaustion, disabling pain, and a "Lyme fog" that leaves them dazed and confused. As patients struggle for answers, once-treatable infections become chronic.

In this nuanced picture of the intense controversy and crippling uncertainty surrounding Lyme disease, Pamela Weintraub sheds light on one of the angriest medical disputes raging today. The most comprehensive book ever written about the past, present and future of Lyme disease, Cure Unknown exposes the ticking clock of a raging epidemic and the vulnerability we all share.

Winner of the American Medical Writers Association Book Award

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250044561
• ISBN13: 9781250044563
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I am so thankful to Pamela Weintraub for writing this book because it has helped me navigate the murky waters of lyme in the last two weeks as we seek treatment for our 11-year-old son who was just diagnosed. Even though we went directly to a lyme-literate doctor for help based on advice from our naturopathic doctor we got a real whiff of what Pamela Weintraub refers to as "the land of lyme" during the last week. I was much better prepared to help my son because of this book. I am appalled that something this serious and this widespread is not being given more press and that children continue to go off to camps (where my son and another classmate picked up lyme disease) where camp staff, parents and teachers are blithely unaware of the very serious risks posed by ticks. I am simply in awe of Weintraub who was able to write such a riveting and scholarly book after all she and her family has been through. Great job! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

A Must Read for All Parents

I'm not a doctor, nor a medical researcher. But I am a parent who's been fighting for the life of my teenage daughter who has now been diagnosed with Lyme Disease + 2 co-infections. I have a biology degree and have been through a lot of illnesses myself, but I've never seen anything like the story of Lyme. This book is a must-read for all parents. It is a fact-based narrative that tells it like it is, from the political in-fighting in the medical community to the important research that's not getting the attention it should. And the stories it tells about those infected with Lyme are mesmerizing. We fight for a diagnosis, then we fight for treatment. If my family wasn't living this story ourselves, I'd think this was a Stephen King novel.

Doctor recommended, a compelling read!

As a California physician, I have found myself diagnosing Lyme disease in an increasing number of patients who come to me with vague, multi-system complaints, but certain consistent patterns: living, working or playing in outdoor brush or field areas (gardening, golf, hiking, camping)is the first, but many have only a little outdoor exposure. Second, complaints of the slow onset of stiff, aching joints that get better and worse, sore muscles, that spasm, tingle and turn numb off and on, headaches and fatigue, problems with sleep, an up and down course that slowly gets worse. Pamela Weintraub, a professional writer and editor, tells her story of her family's move to a rural New York community as healthy active people, only to have all four family members contract Lyme disease in the early 90's, and face not only the disability of this infection but also the confusing double talk of a medical community in denial. She tells not only her story but those of others, and in the telling reveals the difficulties in getting an accurate diagnosis, in finding a doctor to believe and treat the patient, and in being able emotionally and financially to continue the treatment until the disease is resolved. If you are a patient with Lyme disease, perhaps you will learn some things you didn't know before. If you are someone who has believed that perhaps Lyme disease is a myth, or that the people who have it are exaggerating, this is the book for you. If you are a physician, and have quoted the Infectious Disease Society of America's treatment guidelines to a suffering patient to explain why you will not treat them, or will only treat them for three weeks- this is the book for you. Those of us who have Lyme disease, or treat Lyme disease, know it to be as devastating and disabling as a HIV infection, and in many cases, as difficult to cure. Give this book to doctors, to journalists, to scout leaders who take kids into the woods, to your friends who go camping, gardening, horseback riding; to your friends with furry pets, or those who enjoy the deer in their yards. We have a serious growing epidemic in this country, affecting young and old. Let's wake ourselves up to proper treatment and prevention. Dr. Tedde M. Rinker, Redwood City, California

Amazing

Incredibly well written and answers many questions of why Lyme Disease is such a problem all across the US and world. The Doctors, medical societies, health departments, and government who should be there to protect our citizens has failed us on so many levels. Pam put's it together and tells us some of the stories and why. The argument over Lyme Disease should have been resolved over 20 years ago when they first discovered this disease in significant numbers of people. Today it continues to be the most political, misrepresented, undiagnosed and devastating disease that you can get from otherwise living a health active lifestyle. It's as easy to get as small tick bite, yet as hard to get help as if your swimming with a shark. They used to say "You don't get Lyme, until you GET Lyme". Now people can get Lyme by Reading Pam's Book.

The New Tuskegee

Superb book that reads like a scientific who-done-it. Rarely has Lyme Disease been as accurately presented in the variety of symptoms, treatments and policies. But most of all it describes a heartless medical bureaucracy that sacrificed thousands of families into bankruptcy, permanent illness and even death to satisfy insurance company lobbyists. Lyme is the Tuskegee experiment of this century.