Customer Reviews

Lyme Disease: The Cause, the Cure, the Controversy (A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Alan G. Barbour's book not worth reading
Alan G. Barbour is no friend to the Lyme patient. I suffer from chronic Lyme disease and was terribly disappointed and angered by this book. There was a pervasive, underlying thread which downplayed the number of Lyme cases, the severity of the disease, and the complexity of the disease. Barbour's disregard for the plight of Lyme patients is demonstrated in his inexcusable lack of treatment guidelines besides a cookbook reliance on a short term antibiotic therapy which has been clinically proven wrong for many patients. Many, many people are suffering with Lyme disease and cannot get proper treatment. If you buy this book, you will be, in my opinion, adding to this suffering. You will also be less informed when you have finished this book than before you began. Please don't add credibility to Barbour as a Lyme disease expert by buying this book.

This book is typical of the kind of biased and unsupported reportage about Lyme disease that is responsible for so many Lyme disease patients NOT being properly diagnosed and treated.

While rich in jargon, the book argues for definitions of Lyme disease that exclude so many patients with seronegative, intractable, antibiotic-resistant borreliosis. It is a disservice to Lyme disease patients everywhere and misleads naive doctors as well. There are many far better books on the market, and many websites that are far more informative.

This book is a waste unless you can use it as a case study in the arrogance and close-mindedness of some doctors. I use my copy as a coaster for drippy coffee cups.

I contracted chronic Lyme disease a year ago and was not diagnosed for ten months. During that time I got worse and worse and not one doctor helped me. In fact they were rude and didn't listen. The over all feeling in the medical community is one of disbelief and hostility. This book is the epitome of those feelings. Reading this book made me feel the same way I did listening to a doctor tell me that the positive test was not significant. This book does nothing more than berate those that are already sick and frightened. It makes you feel as though you are the one with the problem. The disease is all in your head. Also I think I should add that the author of this book was appointed to the Lyme Advisory community for California and then was promptly removed because the people that had Lyme Disease were so angry with his attitude towards them. Beware of this book. It will do nothing other than make you feel bad about a disease that is not your fault. Which leads me to the age old question, Which is worse the cure or the disease? When there are books like this on the market perpetuating the horrible attitude towards truly sick people it is neither. Until this opinion is dispelled, there is no disease and there will be no cure despite how sick you really are.

This book will only confuse you if you are looking for real answers to the Lyme disease controversy or help for an undiagnosed illness. Barbour does not give you enough information to make informed decisions regarding treatment or diagnosis of an actual entrenched and untreated case of Lyme disease. Your money will be better spent buying books by Denise Lang, Karen Forschner, or Polly Murray.

Alan Barbour did not cite a single reference in the book. It is entirely his opinion and the reason it was published was to hide the truely devastating epidemic of Lyme and related diseases. It is NOT based on his own scientific evidence. Any physician that uses book as a resource and can't see thru the bologna, is a moron.

So, this book is for MDs incapable of original thought and tells very few truths about Lyme disease.

As a lyme disease patient, I scoured the book looking for help with the symptoms that I have dealt with on a daily basis for 5 yrs now. I found no reference to any of these symptoms in this book, nothing to help me cope with the disease that Dr. Barbour says can be cured with a quick dose of antibiotics. Do yourself a favor, skip this book. More information can be found in a few minutes on the internet.

Unfortunately Alan Barbour's book has nothing to offer the patient, caretaker or public that the 3 best selling Lyme disease books do. Referring to authors Denise Lang, Polly Murray and Karen Forschner.

For scientific information and hard facts Forschner's book comes out on top over Barbour's.

When reading the book one gets the feeling as when sitting in a doctors office. Not the compassionate family doc, nor the reserved but informative specialist, but rather the second opinion doctor. The one who makes an unsuccessful attempt at not criticizing your primary physcian while proclaiming his own agenda.

Barbour seems to ride the medical fence concerning the controversies of Lyme disease, telling us nothing new, in detail or subtly supporting theories that are not proven, such as Post-Lyme Syndrome. The word "cure" is curious in the book's title.

In conclusion the 258 pages could easily be condensed to about 25 for actual worthwhile information.

Alan Barbour M.D. is an esteemed scientist whom may want to consider confining his literary work to peer-reviewed medical journals.

I destroyed my copy so that no one would ever read it and assume it had validity. This guy knows little about lyme and doesn't stay current. I hope people read these reviews before they waste their money. My copy was given to me, but it will never attempt to mis-inform anyone else. I agree with other reviewers, if you could rate a book zero, that is what this book would have gotten.

This review shows one star cuz the form wouldn't let me give less.

Dr. Barbour is trying to sell his opinion, and is unable to bolster it with fact. Not to mention the fact that his opinion changes.Remember that Alan Barbour had this to say about Claire Fraser's publication of a Borrelia burgdorferi genome in Nature Dec 1997: "...But those who expecting to find in B.b. a rich vein of gold in which to mine virulence determinants have to be disappointed.....The results encourage study of a more metabolically competent spirochete, such as the Spirocheta aurentia, for a beter understanding of how this ancient group of bacteria evolved, and to identify catalytic molecule of industrial importance...."

Then, he goes and gets all these patents in direct contradiction of his statement: PAT. NO. Title 5,932,220 Diagnostic tests for a new spirochete, Borrelia lonestari sp. nov. 5,846,946 Compositions and methods for administering Borrelia DNA 5,777,095 Osp A and B Sequence of Borrelia burgdonferi strains ACA1 and IP90 5,688,512 Borrelia antigen 5,585,102 Flagella-less borrelia 5,582,990 DNA encoding borrelia burgdorferi OspA and a method for diagnosing borrelia burgdorferi infection 5,571,718 Cloning and expression of soluble truncated variants of Borrelia OspA, OspB and Vmp7 5,523,089 Borrelia antigen 5,436,000 Flagella-less borrelia 5,246,844 Virulence associated proteins in Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb)

This book tells a lop-sided viewpoint about Lyme disease. It is not suported by scientific references nor a bibliograpy. Maybe his family and friends will support this type of book - but patients and docs deserve better.If you are looking for scientific enlightenment or an education about the disease - this book is a Zero.