An irony of pandemic paranoia
Pandemic? Yes. But it's not coronavirus. It's societal, more precisely, the media. It's as if the "Black Death" in the 14th century has been revisited. But let's examine something else.
My daughter, born the year we first went to the moon, has chronic Lyme disease. It fosters ALS, Alzheimer's, dementia, multiple sclerosis, among others, from bacteria infected by a tick from insects and animals.
It was first identified in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1971 but, obviously, existed years earlier. In the past 50 years, 250,000 people annually -young and old, rich and poor, have been infected.
She has daily seizures, undergoes multiple hyperbaric treatments each week, has a permanent pick-line in her arm, and sleeps 20 out of 24 hours a day.
Doctors, under instructions by "for-profit" healthcare corporations, curtail treatment to two weeks - to maximize profits, for a disease that lasts a lifetime.
The public's ignorance of the disease is Lyme's inverse pandemic leaving its horror unabated by a lack of publicity.
No doubt, coronavirus will get the exposure necessary to treat the thousands while millions of Lyme's victims remain in agony for the rest of their lives.
James D. Cook
Schaumburg