Thread by @BeauxReliosis

One of the big #LymeDisease lies is that it takes two whole days of tick attachment to transmit disease. There have been studies published debunking this lie, but I like to use #tick #biology instead. iai.asm.org/content/70/7/3…

And #spirochete #science. Because first of all, you have to know how spirochetes operate. They are able to adapt to different environmental conditions by changing their outer surface proteins (Osps).
#LymeDisease #LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth

2/

It’s pretty well known and accepted as fact that Borrelia spirochetes express OspA in the tick gut environment and OspC in a human. How do they change their coat from OspA to OspC while they are feeding?
#LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth
3/

A common misconception (happily perpetuated by the #LymeMafia) is that *poof!* the OspA magically disappears & is replaced by OspC. Incorrect. Borrelia do this thing called blebbing. It’s the release of exosomes covered in Osps. See the “fish eggs?”
#LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth
4/

When OspA is down-regulated and OspC is up-regulated, the OspA-covered blebs end up in the sludge of the tick’s gut contents. This is where we come to the #tickbiology part. Reminder: we’re told by the #LymeMafia that it takes 48 hours or more to transmit #LymeDisease.
5/

This is why it’s called a “feeding cycle.”

“Ticks alternate blood ingestion and salivation, each cycle lasting for 5–20 min at a time.”

Components of the tick’s gut contents get pumped through the salivary glands up to 12 times per hour.
#LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth

6/

The CDC knows this. Everyone knows this. It’s really, really old news. 20 years ago in The NY Times:

“What the tick actually spits into the host is a bacteria population that is highly variable.”

nytimes.com/2001/02/20/hea…

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7/

The #LymeMafia would like us all to believe it’s a very “clean” process, where all of a sudden, the spirochetes are covered in OspA instead of OspC & nothing gets injected into the human host after the initial saliva etc. upon attachment. But they, themselves proved otherwise.
8/

And Alan Barbour, pictured below, who worked with Willy Burgdorfer at NIH’s Rocky Mtn Lab, and owned the patent for recombinant OspA, also knew this to be the case.

(I like to mock him for making up a whole new genus, “Borreliella,” *just* for #LymeDisease spirochetes.)

9/

In US Patent 6,719,983 Alan Barbour said the lipoproteins expressed by Borreliae are so widely variable the immune system can’t fight the infection. There are too many targets, they’re constantly changing, and some aren’t even attached to the offending organism.
#LymeDisease
10/

Here’s that Barbour quote from his patent:

“An important aspect of the invention is the recognition that Borrelia VMP-like sequences recombine at the vls site, with the result that antigenic variation is virtually limitless....” (continued)

#LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth
11/

Barbour quote, cont.:

“...Multiclonal populations therefore can exist in an infected patient so that immunological defenses are severely tested if not totally overwhelmed.”

To summarize: ticks inject toxic sludge into their victims continuously until removed.
#LymeDisease
12/

Michael Cook published a great review of transmission time in 2001.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

#LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth
#LymeDisease
#LongLyme

13/

Ref 43 from Cook:
“The findings may have bearings on the time of tick attachment required for spirochete transmission since borreliae are already present in the salivary glands of systemically infected ticks at the beginning of the blood meal.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8061407/
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To wrap up:

The #LymeMafia tell the #BigLie that it takes multiple days for ticks to transmit #LymeDisease because, if it was widely known that transmission can happen immediately, vakzeens would be useless.
#ProfitsOverPatients
#LymeDiseaseAwarenessMonth

15/

...They are, anyway, for different reasons, but that’s a whole separate thread.
#LymeDisease
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