Thread by @BeauxReliosis

1/ We detected B. burgdorferi–specific immune complexes containing antibody to unique proteins, including recombinant OspA, and the corresponding antigen.”

What does this mean? Keep reading…
#LymeDisease

2/ It is well known that standard serologic tests for #LymeDisease produce a high rate of false negative results, meaning patients are told they don’t have #Lyme when they really do. As a result, alternate test methods have been developed…but rarely used beyond a research lab.

3/ In the early 1990s, Schutzer & Coyle developed a test that could help diagnose otherwise “seronegative” #LymeDisease cases. They found that antibodies that are bound in “complexes” can cause these false-negative tests.

4/ So, if antibodies are doing their job and attaching to their target antigens, standard serologic tests are looking for the wrong things! They knew this in 1991!
#LymeDisease
#ImmuneComplexes

5/ In this letter to the editor (shown here & in my original tweet) Schutzer & Coyle described a patient they examined who was diagnosed with #LymeDisease *after* having contracted it before, AND after receiving the #Lyme vax in one of the trials.

6/ Using their test to detect immune-complexed antibodies, they found antibodies to BOTH OspA and *recombinant* OspA in the patient’s spinal fluid, indicating not only vaccine failure, but also that the vaccine antigen had invaded the CNS. 😮
#LymeDisease

Link to the document: nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.105…