Lyme Disease: The Cause, the Cure, the Controversy

by Alan G. Barbour

Book Overview

Lyme disease is one of the least understood of the new diseases--and one of the most dreaded. Because undiagnosed or untreated Lyme disease can pose serious health threats, people who develop symptoms... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801852242
• ISBN13: 9780801852244
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A comprehensive, objective and informative treatise

Barbour (Prof. of Medicicine & Microbiology at U, Texas, and specialist on the topic) provides a sympathetic, wide-ranging look at Lyme disease and related topics that reveals not only the difficulties in fully understanding the disease, but (in the process) the difficulties in diagnosis that medicine faces in many areas of diagnosis and treatment. The book is very clearly written and interesting to both layperson and medic. The lack of references is unfortunate, but as a leading expert, Barbour may be considered a primary source. If you want to be told you have Lyme disease, you may be disappointed. If you want to understand why that diagnosis might be problematical, and what the various sources of difficulty are, you will be more than satisfied. In the end, you will also be in a position to participate in a process of participatory diagnosis and treatment between patient and medic with a great deal more certainty, based on real knowledge.

Excellent resource for the lay reader

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the US, and can manifest itself in a variety of symptoms in different individuals. In easy to understand terms, Dr. Barbour describes aspects of this disease and its treatment, as well as the causative bacteria and the ticks that spread it. Due to the variation in Lyme disease symptoms from patient to patient, the disease is probably both underdiagnosed and overdiagnosed by different physicians, which has led to the controversy mentioned in the book's title. Dr. Barbour argues for a restricted definition of Lyme disease, including specific patient symptoms such as the characteristic "bulls-eye" rash, arthritis or facial palsy, or, in their absence, cultivation of bacteria or identification of specific antibodies in the blood. For that reason, this book will undoubtedly attract the animosity of those who prefer a much broader definition of the disease. This controversy is well covered in Dr. Barbour's book, making it an ideal reference for physicians seeking to understand and allay their patients' fears.Brian Stevenson, PhD