Regular readers of 51˶ will know that there are few issues as bitterly contentious as what we have called the "much-disputed notion of chronic Lyme disease." That debate even earned the attention of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) when he was state attorney general.
Now, a set of suggests that some cases of the alleged condition are actually cancers. One turned out to be a pituitary tumor, another -- in a man who lived in an area where Lyme disease was quite rare -- a stage IV mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma, and a third was a lung tumor.
The Center for Investigative Reporting spoke to John Burns, the 65-year-old man in the third case. "I'm probably the only person in the world who will say he is happy he got Lyme disease," . "That's how they found the cancer early."
Burns says he is doing just fine now. And it's not only cancers that doctors may miss, says study co-author , of the CDC.
"We have heard of cases of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), MS (multiple sclerosis), and lupus and various other conditions that were misdiagnosed," Nelson .
As the authors conclude: "We are not suggesting that every patient with nonspecific symptoms, such as fatigue, joint pain, or abdominal pain, should be aggressively evaluated for cancer. Rather, we present these cases to demonstrate delays in diagnosis that come from assuming that patients have chronic Lyme disease."