Private clinics are “taking advantage” of vulnerable patients in Britain by misdiagnosing them with Lyme disease so they can prescribe “profitable” courses of treatment, an expert has warned.
Dr Matthew Dryden, an NHS consultant microbiologist, said private clinics send tests to overseas laboratories which often “provide the result they want, a positive result for Lyme”.
But Dr Dryden claimed these clinics were putting “profit over care” and in many cases, especially among younger people, patients were actually suffering from diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome (ME).
He explained a “profitable” medical industry had materialised in the United States due to insurers covering costs of Lyme disease treatment, but not that of conditions like ME, which have similar symptoms.
Writing in The Times, Dr Dryden said: “Lyme disease is being misdiagnosed by private concerns using unvalidated diagnostic tests. These clinics and laboratories are taking advantage of vulnerable and desperate people with chronic symptoms.”
Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, and it is sometimes known as Lyme Borreliosis. Patients are often unaware they have been bitten, making diagnosis difficult.
Canadian singer Justin Bieber and model Bella Hadid are among a number of high-profile patients known to have been diagnosed with the disease. Hadid raised eyebrows after she shared a GoFundMe page for a friend who practices holistic healing and helped her with her diagnosis.
In 2019, infectious disease specialists at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, conducted a study of the accuracy of Lyme disease diagnoses over 13 years to 2013. They found that more than 72.2 per cent of patients initially diagnosed did not have the disease.
The disease can be found throughout the UK. But it is more common in mainland Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, and in some parts of North America.
An important early sign of Lyme disease is a red skin rash called erythema migrans which typically occurs three to 30 days after the bite of an infected tick. The rash expands slowly and is usually not itchy or painful.
Flu-like symptoms, extreme tiredness and headache occur and if left untreated the disease may spread throughout the body to the nervous system, joints, skin, heart and eyes.
If the rash or tick bite are not seen, then diagnosis is often via a blood test. This can be negative in the early stages and inadequate treatment early on can lead to negative test results, complicating diagnosis, dealing appropriate treatment and leading to debilitating symptoms.
