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| Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic | 
 enlarge | Author: Pamela Weintraub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $14.85
You Save: $13.10 (47%)
New (30) Used (9) from $14.85
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 2417
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0312378122
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.92
EAN: 9780312378127
ASIN: 0312378122
Publication Date: June 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A groundbreaking and controversial narrative investigation into the science, history, medical politics, and patient experience of Lyme disease told by a science journalist whose entire family contracted the disease. Pamela Weintraub paints a nuanced picture of the intense controversy and crippling uncertainty surrounding Lyme disease and sheds light on one of the angriest medical disputes raging today. She also reveals her personal odyssey through the land of Lyme after she, her husband and their two sons became seriously ill with the disease beginning in the 1990s. From the microbe causing the infection and the definition of the disease, to the length and type of treatment and the kind of practitioner needed, Lyme is a hotbed of contention. With a CDC-estimated 200,000-plus new cases of Lyme disease a year, it has surpassed both AIDS and TB as the fastest-spreading infectious disease in the U.S. Yet alarmingly, in many cases, because the disease often eludes blood tests and not all patients exhibit the classic "bulls-eye" rash and swollen joints, doctors are woefully unable or unwilling to diagnose Lyme. When that happens, once-treatable infections become chronic, inexorably disseminating to cause disabling conditions that may never be cured. Weintraub reveals why the Lyme epidemic has been allowed to explode, why patients are dismissed, and what can be done to raise awareness in the medical community and find a cure. The most comprehensive book ever written about the past, present and future of Lyme disease, this exposes the ticking clock of a raging epidemic.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
Doctor recommended, a compelling read! June 12, 2008
52 out of 55 found this review helpful
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
PHYSICIAN ADDICTED TO AMAZING STORY AND WRITING June 15, 2008
31 out of 34 found this review helpful
I have grown very bored with reading--including my own books. But this work is so well done I literally find myself getting up in the early morning, and grabbing the book as fast as my cherished morning coffee.
I have struggled for years to make sense of the Lyme instructional chaos, such as eccentric thinking and directions from health departments and the CDC. Some medical societies offer various Lyme "guidelines" and confusing Lyme treatment suggestions that make no sense. They simply have never appeared practical in the real world of clinical medicine. No patient is the same, and the extended lab testing I do, sometimes unveils other infections or a wide range of inflammation residues a year AFTER so called "curative" antobiotic treatment. I also never hear discussions about Lyme's BbTox 1 which is a patented Lyme surface biotoxin in a potent poison family.
In this context, the delicious writing of the master of the pen, Weintraub, is such a help, even for a full time researcher and author of infection textbooks. On this one, she is a lighthouse in the storm, who calms and clears the dark water and allows all of us to see the rocks and the insanity in a clear manner.
My only criticism is that I will be done reading this book in a few hours. Books of this powerful clarity and fascination only come along every few years. So buy and enjoy. Since I just read the veterinarians have declared Lyme is in all states, perhaps Weintraub's timing is perfect. This is not an infection you want to treat in yourself or your loved ones after many years--you want to get it now, before permanent injury occurs to the brain, the cartilage or other physical areas.
HISTORIC, POWERFUL AND ENGROSSING June 12, 2008
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
I have followed this famous author's long and respected career in science writing for some time. This is a writer's writer. And when I recently saw she was going to apply her keen mind, wit and brilliance to the issue of Lyme and the other infections routinely carried by the deer tick plague, I was delighted.
I had been to so many Ivy tower experts with the experience of children, and the blind mechanical reasoning of robots, who would look at obviously ill children or other relatives, and sadistically place some kind of Woody Allen joke psychiatric diagnosis on them. Once I even found myself sniffing their breath--no one is this idiotic, are your a drunk?
The infections before them were so far over thier skill and knowledge, they were fumbling like a toddlers in a pool, but they were causing us to drown. Many had fancy administrative positions which deluded them into arrogance and the deception they really knew what they were doing with Lyme (and Babesia, Bartonella and Ehrlichia).
After a few years of full time reading and almost having relatives and children die, and after all the sages and big name physicians sounded less and less informed, I fired them all and a relative fixed my family.
Weintraub gets it. She is not seduced by someone's position with the CDC or NIH. She is an ACTUAL reflective journalist of the old school who is a hard worker, who does not want an easy story, she wants the real deal. She wants the facts. This is Watergate medical style, and I feel it will be one of the most important medical books of the century. Because as IDSA and other dubious medical groups with simplistic clone-like treatment "guidelines," found to be profoundly questionable by the CT state attorney general, will lose the Lyme war, because reality always wins.... But often not until the last act.
This is a massive uncovering of the ugly side of medical politics and scams. And yet it is very engrossing and highly readable. If you have Lyme or have a relative with Lyme or you might have Lyme, you really want to be on a solid foundation before you get tricked into being given junk care. I have walked that road and believed in medical Popes. Yet now I know so many years later, there is no single expert Lyme medical group, and certianly NOT routine infection societies who are still stuck in the early 1990's.
Please give a copy of this book to your family doctor!!! June 21, 2008
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
Three cheers for Pamela Weintraub's Cure Unknown, the first book that accurately presents an objective and in-depth look at the historic obstacles to progress in Lyme disease research and treatment. This book significantly investigates how the disease has been mischaracterized, mishandled, and poorly defined by many so-called "experts" for over three long decades.
In a rush to produce patents (and vaccines) before patient care, well-meant scientists have helped contribute to an epidemic of neglected, chronically disabled, and in some cases, cognitively impaired children and adults. What's more, after endless political infighting over practically all aspects of the disease, the bottomline remains: To date there is no 100% reliable diagnostic test; no 100% reliable treatment regimen; no 100% reliable cure or test for cure.
Please consider giving an extra copy of this book to your family doctor. It will go a long way towards providing much-needed information, and will hopefully reverse much of the stigma involved in clinically diagnosing and treating people with Lyme disease and related tick-borne illnesses.
A Must Read for All Parents June 18, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
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.
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