{"id":9683,"date":"2018-07-31T12:23:07","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T17:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=9683"},"modified":"2021-08-22T08:32:43","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T13:32:43","slug":"lyme-beyond-a-bibliographic-resource","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/07\/31\/lyme-beyond-a-bibliographic-resource\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyme & beyond: a bibliographic resource"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last updated on November 11, 2018<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>Immanence sometimes dips into areas of controversial or \u201cboundary\u201d science, which means areas of science whose interpretation is both publicly and scientifically contentious. While I don\u2019t consider climate science to be all that scientifically<\/em> controversial (though it is certainly\u00a0politically<\/a><\/em>\u00a0controversial), and the general topics of “fake news,” “information war,” and the alternative media ecosystem<\/a>\u00a0(which are sometimes covered here) are not particularly scientifically<\/em> contentious, topics such as “the Hum<\/a>,” to take one example, fall into the area of anomalous phenomena — phenomena whose ontological status is considered unknown, mysterious, or problematic from a scientific perspective. (See note 1 below<\/a> on the Hum.)<\/p>\n

Public health has seen a number of such contentious issues arise, and in recent years the growth in cases of Lyme disease, and more so of “chronic Lyme,” has joined the ranks of other syndromes and conditions — from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or specific variants of it, such as Gulf War Syndrome), Recovered Memory Syndrome, Multiple Personality Disorder, and others — which have at various times teetered precipitously at, or over, the edges of what the scientific community considers “real.” There are connections between many of these phenomena and environmental change (on that, see Mary Beth Pfeiffer’s<\/a> book), but those won’t be the primary focus of this post.<\/p>\n

The following bibliography was begun as a link repository for me to make use of, if and when I might decide to do serious research on the topic. I’m posting it in the hopes that it can be a helpful resource for people who are interested in Lyme disease and its associated conditions, including “Chronic Lyme Disease,” Lyme disease co-infections, and the spectrum of conditions characterized by some as related to Lyme or “beyond Lyme” (as at least one<\/a> popular source calls it).<\/p>\n

My study of these has been far from exhaustive\u2014it\u2019s just an effort to make sense of a debate that has grown and shows no signs of abatement, an effort spurred by the growing proximity of the disease to my everyday life here in Vermont. Deer ticks are plentiful near our home\u2014my son has brought them home from school and we’ve had to pay at least one hospital visit as a result. That visit, and earlier encounters, have been eye-opening insofar as they have introduced my family and I to the raging debate that the following sources document.<\/p>\n

I take no side in the so-called \u201cLyme wars” except insofar as my intellectual commitments have made me aware of some important differences between scientific research and other forms of knowledge-production. In particular, the scientific establishment has two strengths that make it distinctive from any extra-scientific efforts to make sense of these phenomena. The first is that scientific research is carried out within a system of institutionalized peer review that is relatively transparent and broadly based across relevant disciplines. This makes it reliable in ways that other methods of knowledge-production are not. The second strength is that scientific research is generally well funded.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the latter is also its weakness, insofar as much of the funding for scientific research depends on funders who, in a capitalist economy, may be more interested in business opportunities than in public health and welfare. Ideally, medical research is carried out at the behest of public needs, with a publicly responsive infrastructure for guiding, monitoring, managing, and implementing that research. But in the real world, especially in the United States (as compared to other wealthy, developed countries), that mandate has frequently been compromised, sometimes severely. (See Pamela Weintraub’s book, listed in Section III below, for a more detailed case against the medical establishment in relation to Lyme disease.)<\/p>\n

There are other potential weaknesses, including a kind of “groupthink” that one finds anywhere. More importantly, the “unknowns” in the science of Lyme disease are large enough for there to be rival schools of thought, of which one may be better established than another, with no guarantees that the first will ultimately be proven more correct than the other. This means that confusion and contentiousness just might be part of the landscape for some time to come.<\/p>\n

Aside from “pure science” (and, in the real world, science is never “pure”), it’s worth mentioning a few related but distinct forms of knowledge-production that are relevant to the context of Lyme disease.<\/p>\n