new england journal of medicine lyme disease

However, that was shown not to be the mechanism. This became a justification for the idea that the vaccine could make your Lyme disease worse. The article suggesting that came out in Science the same week that the New England Journal of Medicine article was published with the results of the Phase 3 vaccine trial. Studies suggested that there was molecular mimicry - partial sequence homology - between outer surface protein A (OspA) of the spirochete and a host protein called LFA-1, and it was proposed that this was perhaps the reason for post-infectious antibiotic refractory Lyme arthritis. But association does not prove causation, and the reason for the association was not altogether clear. Studies that had been done of patients with Lyme arthritis showed an association between having an antibody response to the bacteria’s outer surface protein A, used in the vaccine, and developing what we call today post-infectious Lyme arthritis. This was 20 to 25 years ago, and we did not know as much about Lyme disease as we know now. Some people felt that the vaccine made their post-treatment symptomatology worse. The single most important factor leading to the withdrawal of the vaccine was a strong anti-vaccine movement. That trial involved 10,000 people, 5,000 of whom - I’m giving rough numbers now - received the vaccine and 5,000 of whom received placebo. I was principal investigator of the Phase 3 trial of the SmithKline Beecham vaccine, the first commercially available vaccine for Lyme disease. GAZETTE: There are Lyme disease vaccines available for dogs but none for people, even though a human vaccine was developed decades ago. The Gazette spoke with Allen Steere, a professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a discoverer of Lyme disease, about the prospects for a new vaccine being developed by Pfizer and Valneva, currently in Phase 3 trials. One had been developed in the late 1990s and pulled off the market in 2002, in part due to a vigorous anti-vaccination movement. Though the threat has grown and become more well-known, there are currently no vaccines for humans, although there are three for dogs. Left untreated, it may attack the joints, heart, and nervous system with potentially long-lasting impacts, including arthritis, heart palpitations, dizziness, or shooting pains. Early symptoms may include an expanding skin lesion at the site of the bite, often accompanied by fever, headache, and fatigue. High summer is here, but many heading to forests and fields reach not for shorts and a T-shirt, but long sleeves, pants, and a shot of bug spray, hoping to keep a threat at bay: the deer ticks that carry Lyme disease.īorrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease-causing bacterium transmitted by tick bites, has been found in increasing numbers around the country, particularly in the Northeast.

New england journal of medicine lyme disease