In a shocking revelation, investigative journalist Kris Newby has presented compelling evidence that Lyme Disease, which afflicts an estimated 476,000 Americans each year, was in fact developed by the US government as a biological weapon.
Newby’s extensive research provides a disturbing account of the federal government’s secretive bioweapons program and its manipulation of pathogens to make them more lethal, including the possibility that the organism responsible for Lyme Disease was created in a lab. This raises the alarming question: could this devastating disease, with its debilitating symptoms, be a ticking time bomb, unleashed upon the American public?
In a Feb. 28 Substack article, investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker interviewed award-winning author Kris Newby about the U.S. government’s history of manipulating pathogens to make them deadlier, and the secretive federal research that may be responsible for the epidemic of Lyme disease.
Newby, who educates healthcare providers on vector-borne diseases, is the author of “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons.” She also produced the 2008 Lyme disease documentary “Under Our Skin,” which was nominated for an Academy Award the following year. A follow-up film, “Under Our Skin 2: Emergence” came out in 2014.
“We were desperately ill and undiagnosed for a year. I thought that was the end of my life as I knew it. It took us four or five years to fully recover,” she told Thacker.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 476,000 Americans are diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease each year.
Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks infected with the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi (or B. burgdoferi).
Ticks can also carry other pathogens, and coinfections are another reason why Lyme disease is so difficult to treat.
A “typical” case usually starts out with an expanding rash, fever, fatigue, chills and headache. As the disease progresses, additional symptoms can emerge.
Complicating matters further, there’s yet another tick-borne disease on the loose. Researchers have identified a tick-borne illness that is very similar to Lyme, caused by Borrelia miyamotoi.
According to Newby, there’s good reason to suspect that Lyme disease might be a biological weapon.
“At that point, I knew I wasn’t done with the story,” she told Thacker. Her book, “Bitten,” is the result of her investigation into the military’s use of infectious bioweapons.
“When we started the film, Lyme disease was already too controversial to go down the bioweapons rabbit hole, so we focused on the human toll and the corruption in the medical system that allowed this epidemic to get so out of control.
“This CIA guy was a little bit in his cups, but what he said rang true. I started doing some research, interviewed him several times, and found that it was a verifiable story.”
“He started hinting at the unnatural origin of the outbreak to several people …
“When I interviewed him for the book, he said, ‘Yes, I was in the biological weapons program. I was tasked with trying to mass produce ticks and mosquitoes.’
“That’s also when he told me that he was called to investigate the outbreak of what was called ‘Lyme disease,’ but which could’ve been caused by one or more organisms. In Army documents, they said they were conducting early gain-of-function experiments by mixing pathogens — bacteria and viruses — inside ticks to create more effective bioweapons.”
While he made some important admissions during that interview, at the very end, he broke into an “evil little smile” and said, “I didn’t tell you everything.” Was he hinting that Lyme disease was a bioweapon?
“I went as far as I could as a journalist to put together the circumstantial evidence that says Lyme disease is not the big problem — meaning the bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi.
“It’s what Burgdorfer said that they’re covering up: 1) that a different bacteria, perhaps a rickettsia related to Rocky Mountain spotted fever, was developed as a bioweapon in the Cold War; 2) that it might be a combination of bugs inside the ticks that is making people sick.”
Opposing IDSA is the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, the members of which argue that many patients suffer long-term consequences and require far longer treatment than recommended by IDSA.
Newby concurs, stating that when it comes to Lyme disease, “chronic” is not a misnomer. “It’s because the Borrelia bacteria have taken on a different form inside your body, and that form is very difficult to eradicate with antibiotics,” she said.
“We think that it’s an intracellular, or a cyst form of the bacteria that the antibiotics can’t penetrate. We’ve done some testing on this, and it seems that many patients with chronic Lyme disease still have that form of the bacteria. So, we think that the standard month-long antibiotic treatment, which is based on the idea that the bacteria are in their normal spirochetal form, is not enough.
“I don’t think we really know how long patients with chronic Lyme should be treated, but I think we need to be prepared to treat them until their symptoms have resolved. We don’t want to be overtreating patients, but we also don’t want to be undertreating them.”
Preventing Lyme Disease
Considering the difficulty of diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, taking preventive measures is very important:
- Avoid tick-infested areas, such as leaf piles around trees.
- Walk in the middle of trails and avoid brushing against long grasses and path edgings.
- Don’t sit on logs or wooden stumps and take extra precautions if you’re in an area where rats have been sighted.
- Wear light-colored long pants and long sleeves, to make it easier to see the ticks.
- Tuck your pants into socks, and wear closed shoes and a hat, especially if venturing out into wooded areas. Also tuck your shirt into your pants.
- Ticks are very tiny. You want to find and remove them before they bite, so do a thorough tick check upon returning inside, and keep checking for several days following exposure.
- Also check your bedding for several days following exposure.
What to do if you suspect Lyme disease
If you’ve been bitten by a tick, or have symptoms of Lyme disease, such as an expanding rash, fever, fatigue, chills, and headache, see your doctor right away. Early diagnosis and treatment are key.
But be aware that lab tests are notoriously unreliable, so if you have symptoms but test negative for Lyme, you may still have the disease. If your doctor doesn’t believe you have Lyme, find one who does.