The conspiracy also affects Lyme disease ... and it's heavy!
The infectious disease team at Garches hospital has absent subscribers. On the answering machine, a message sends Lyme patients to other establishments in the Paris region, inviting them to report to the Ministry of Health the saturation of Christian Perronne's service. "I still cannot treat all of France on my own," he sighs. In recent months, this professor of medicine has been increasing the number of alerts. In the media, he accuses his peers of covering up the ravages of Lyme disease, an infectious disease transmitted by ticks, common among foresters and hunters. Minimization of the number of people affected, promotion of biased tests ... We would be facing a Franco-French medical Chernobyl.
The man, who has entered the Ministry of Health, as well as higher education and the WHO, ended up convincing the health authorities to follow him, in the name of the principle of safety. According to our information, the future Lyme plan, announced at the end of the month, plans to fund its iconoclastic research by testing its protocols outside the box. Covered words, some colleagues consider him "respectable, sympathetic and sincere", but are sorry that his "obscurantist" speech has managed to shake the ministry. He is delighted with the happy outcome of a decade of solitary combat: "At the beginning, I did not speak about my theories in my community, for fear of not being credible. Fortunately the patients made my advertisement."
His theory? Ticks smuggled by a Nazi researcher who took refuge in the United States
Christian Perronne plays emotion against reason. When we observe that his heterodox positions have not been demonstrated, he pulls out from the sleeve of his blouse an astonishing explanation: the "hidden" explosion of Lyme disease would be, according to him, "political", due to a proliferation poorly controlled ticks smuggled by a Nazi refugee researcher in the United States. "The US military and the scientists under its control have every interest in hiding the epidemic since they caused or supported it," he claims.
In reality, this 61-year-old doctor would be the mouthpiece of a "world hysteria", in the words of András Lakos, one of the great European specialists in Lyme. The first pillar of this "conspiracy theory" would rest on a lie of omission: in fact, Lyme is not lethal. Most often benign (red rash on the skin), it is cured with a short antibiotic treatment. According to a recent report, of the approximately 27.000 people affected on average each year in France between 1986 and 2012, a figure on the rise because of the proliferation of ticks, only around 950 hospitalizations are recorded. "In the majority of cases, it ends well. These patients, we never see them again," insists Professor François Bricaire, of La Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris.
Of course, when the first symptoms go unnoticed, Lyme can become, in 15 to 20% of cases, a chronic disease (which lasts more than three months) and disabling: arthritis, dermatological problems, fatigue, etc. "Even these forms improve in a few weeks if we adopt the right treatment", reassures the Hungarian András Lakos. Like his French colleagues, he points to the real Lyme scandal: unrecognized by many general practitioners, it is often misdiagnosed.
Second pillar that feeds suspicion: the place of blood tests, accused of lacking reliability. Corollary, according to Christian Perronne, "many people, wrongly considered as seronegative, are very sick". In reality, it is a truism: the limits of testing kits are known and discussed. "The results vary greatly, admits the Hungarian András Lakos. If your blood is tested in three laboratories, you will probably get a positive result even if you have never been bitten by a tick!" Above all, informed clinicians come to terms with this biological uncertainty common in infectious diseases. "To make a correct diagnosis, the blood tests are repeated in order to measure the evolution of the antibodies, observe the clinical signs and ensure that a tick bite has indeed taken place", summarizes András Lakos.
An epidemic brandished on the Internet, hospitals under attack
After having agitated the fear, we must reassure. Since the scarecrow of a masked epidemic has been brandished on the Internet, hospitals have been beset by patients crippled with pain and neurological problems. When the doctors refuse to incriminate the borrelia bacteria, inclining instead for another pathology (multiple sclerosis, arthritis or psychiatric problems), some go so far as to insult the white coats, flood them with vengeful letters and angry phone calls. "I was accused of everything, even of being the author of a medical genocide by a patient," says, stunned, the Strasbourg microbiologist Benoît Jaulhac.
In Garches, provided they wait a year and a half on the waiting list, those "without a fixed diagnosis" of Lyme find an empathic ear. Even with several negative tests, Christian Perronne agrees to confirm Lyme disease and to administer long-term antibiotic treatment. "I have saved hundreds of people in distress, disabilities and even on the verge of suicide." "He takes care of people, there is undoubtedly a little placebo effect", understands François Bricaire.
Comparable to those of the American rebels, the therapeutic choices outside the nails of Professor Perronne are discussed. According to the American infectious disease specialist Paul Lantos, professor at Duke University, "there is a scientific consensus around the shortness of treatments: many clinical studies have failed to show any real benefit". Not to mention the danger of this option: allergic reactions, opportunistic infections, possible permanent sequelae in the elderly. For András Lakos, the main "massive side effect" of antibiotics is the risk of "false diagnosis": "These patients are no longer able to think about anything other than their illness, have panic attacks, lose their job and sometimes even their family. "
"I was the victim of fierce censorship"
In two key words and a click on Pubmed, the Google of researchers in medicine and biology, it appears that Christian Perronne, author of only six articles on Lyme disease, has not demonstrated everything he puts forward. "I am credible because I have treated a lot of people, replied the professor kindly. I will have the proof one day." Why not bring the controversy to the big magazines, as is the rule in his world? "I was the victim of fierce censorship", defends Christian Perronne.
At the Ministry of Health, some no longer exclude that he can be right alone. "What if he was a genius? Infectious agents hold so many surprises, some bacteria are not detected," weighs a senior official. Another hypothesis formulated by a good connoisseur of ministerial mysteries: "The health authorities are giving in to cover themselves against the pressure of public opinion."
A second priority of the Lyme plan could reconcile Christian Perronne and his peers: we urgently need to help wandering patients. Or how ill-treated suffering irrigated the conspiracy thesis. “A lot of people with unexplained symptoms end up believing it's Lyme, a treatable disease,” said Paul Lantos, the American. “In a way, it might be easier to admit than the news. multiple sclerosis… "
Source: JDD paper