CIHR Lyme disease funds to Dr Evans

CHIR funds Study Run by Anti-Chronic Lyme Doctor

Recently the CIHR (Canadian Institute for Health Research) appointed a new president. Previous president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alain Beaudet, has announced his retirement at the end of a year of turmoil for the embattled health-research funding agency.

http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/12/29/embattled-head-of-canadian-institutes-of-health-research-to-step-down

I felt that this news warranted some further research into what the CIHR has already granted funding for when it comes to Lyme disease. Since 2002, I found that they have funded the following projects.

Among the projects, I found the one given to Queen’s University Lyme Research network. Dr. Schubert and myself participated in November as community stakeholders. Well that is what we understood to be the agenda. It was not as expected. It was possibly the most unprofessionally organized and poor orchestrated attempt at doing nothing more than meeting CIHR funding criteria. This was the description of the project. I would tell you the actually outcome, however apparently it takes months to create a report and I have yet to be sent a copy.

Still further down the list I located the little tidbit that has inspired this article. A $100,000 research funds has been granted to Dr. Gerald Anthony Evans, Dr Samir Patel and Dr Helga Beate. Co-investigators include Dr. Keiran Moore from Queen’s and the KFL&A Health Unit(facilitator of Queen's Lyme research network meeting held in November,2016)

Dr Evans and I have a history together. In the spring of 2015, I contacted the Kingston Whig Standard reporter, Elliot Ferguson to clarify some misinformation released by the paper on Lyme disease transmission. Elliot seemed interested and engaged in getting more information, interested enough that we met and did an short video interview. I had no idea that he was going to be interviewing the very Infectious disease doctor who had previously that year refused to see me months earlier. http://www.thewhig.com/2015/04/24/lyme-disease-controversy

Elliot writes,

"Gerald Evans, an infectious disease specialist at Kingston General Hospital and a professor in the department of medicine at Queen’s University, said Lyme disease is relatively well understood. “It is a real disease and we know exactly what causes it, how it is transmitted and we know how to treat it, but there are groups of people who believe it is a bigger issue and a bigger problem and that we in the traditional, medical, scientific community don’t understand that there are all these people who have it,” Evans said. “The evidence to support the view of people who believe in things like chronic Lyme disease, and the fact that it needs to be treated forever and that it causes a whole host of disorders which we really don’t have a connection to, don’t have any evidence to back up their assertions.”

It is unfortunate like many doctors that Dr. Evans can’t google. It took me a matter of minutes to locate a link to over 700 peer reviewed articles doing exactly that. My research has also lead me to many that may not be on that list as they are fairly new studies done by Dr. Alan MacDonald, Dr. Eva Sapi and others.

Evans goes on to suggest that the same sort of delusion exists in the community of people who question Vaccines. It didn’t strike me until recently, that it’s a strange comparison. It is even a stranger introduction of another topic under as much scrutiny from a large section of both the private and medical communities. In the article Elliot comments about Dr. Evans,

italicized again. "He likened many people’s belief in ongoing Lyme disease infection to the distrust many people have in effectiveness and safety of vaccines.”

I think the irony of his comment will be one that comes back to haunt him, when accurate information about both topics surface. The following are excerpts taken directly from the WHO's (World Health Organization)website, this report was published in 1993, 23 years ago. Yet some how, this report never was read by Dr Evans, or for that matter many many health care professionals seem to not know of its existence or that of a multitude of research and studies already done on the persistence of Lyme disease.

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/62025/1/WHO_CDS_VPH_93.132.pdf

3.1 Clinical Picture

In the spring of 2016, at a Lyme Kingston & Area awareness and support meeting the group welcomed a new member. We were absolutely horrified at what they shared with us. The individual had telltale symptoms of Lyme and went to get tested at their GP, her results were positive for antibodies. Even given our Elisa tests tendency for inaccuracy, the test tends to negate positives more than create false positive. However apparently my opinion was not one shared by the ID(Infectious Disease) physician who saw them. The testing doctor referred them to Dr. Evans. At the appointment, he informed them that their result was a false positive. He did so without any physical exam or discussion. There was an Intern/resident with him during the appointment and at some point he turned to his colleague and discussed the symptomology in front of the patient. He was heard by this patient to say that the weight loss and back tenderness were probably due to pancreatic Cancer and she should see an oncologist. I cannot begin to imagine what I would think, feel or do had I was sitting there, and being informed of having a life threatening disease in such a inappropriate, insensitive manner.

I was told by this person and several others who have had the displeasure of meeting with Dr Evans that I am the lucky one for being denied an appointment. The First refusal to see me was for a Lyme diagnosis. I tested negative on the Elisa so I was not worth seeing. My second refusal for care came after my third increasing titre positive bartonella henasea test. My Internal Medicine doctor was given instruction to prescribe me 5 days of Azithromyacin (commonly know as a Zpack, two pills are taken on the first day then once daily for 4 days after that) by Dr Patel. Both my treating doctor and I were confused over the suggestion that 6 more pills would have much effect. (Dr Patel was informed that I had just come off of 13 months a Azithromyacin twice daily, however that is the standard treatment for Bartonella in Canada.) When symptom failed to wane, we tested again and my doctor put in a request to see Infectious Disease. Dr Evans apparently called my physician directly and told them he would not see me and there was nothing left to be done. He went on to say that testing would always be positive so not to consider it in the differential diagnosis on my ensuing symptoms. So I guess all of my Bartonella symptoms are not bartonella, and there is no such thing as chronic Lyme disease.

I Know these two stories are not unique. I know of others who have had encounters with Dr. Gerald Evans and they share my utter disbelieve and amazement that anyone in the healing profession could be so uneducated and lacking in human empathy. This is the individual that has been given influence not only over a large sum of money, but given the responsibility to report accurately the real issues going on in with Lyme in Canada. What kind of education do we want our future medical professionals to have? Do we really want someone who doesn't know about spirochetal dissemination and biofilms? Do we really want a doctor who believes we are delusional if we don't share his perspective? I don't and I wonder if the CIHR is aware of his negative perspective that will I'm sure taint his research. Much like his practice of refusing patients he knows he can't help. He gets to claim his title of being the healer of Lyme disease. One that is entirely false. What he can claim is that if someone with a strong immune system response and they present with a textbook EM(Erythema Migrans), commonly called a bulls eye rash) and other immune responses and not previously treated he can help address acute Lyme disease. He will not consider anyone with out a positive test result. A test that is wrong 50% of the time! More information on testing accuracy

To my readers.......I ask that you consider what kind of physicians we will have in our futures if this is the negative limited information that they are graduating with. If you are interested in taking further action in regards to this article I have included contact information for everyone involved. So become active in your own health care and the changes that are overdue. Do not let your silence be conceived as consent. Speak up or accept.