Talk:Lyme disease

Wiki Education assignment: Health Psychology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2024 and 14 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Miafclark (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Nicoleschully, Ryancaserta2.

— Assignment last updated by Nicoleschully (talk) 19:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Microbiology of College Life

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2024 and 11 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Naifalbasheer (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Farres Kamel.

— Assignment last updated by Jason.DeLaCruz1313 (talk) 00:31, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Neuropsychiatric Symptoms

Hi, I am concerned about the information about neuropsychiatric symptoms of lyme disease. On the published wiki article it claims that people with lyme disease are just as likely to experience mental health issues as the general public, however, there is a lot of new research disproving this statement. I want to include more information about how lyme disease can present itself through different psychiatric symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies. I think it would be important to include this information because often times people with Lyme disease and psychiatric presenting symptoms go misdiagnosed and end up with treatments that are unsuccessful. I was wondering if it would be best to include this information under an entirely new header, or just edit and add to the information that already addresses psychiatric symptoms. If I were to include a new header I would discuss how the symptoms present themselves and how they can go about being treated. If any of you are interested in this, here is a recent review addressing the topic: https://assets.cureus.com/uploads/review_article/pdf/244441/20240415-3260-17dkswc.pdf Miafclark (talk) 17:06, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi Miafclark. Can you find some better sources? The journal Cureus has some problems, including suspicions of being a predatory journal. We need to do better than that here. Keep in mind WP:MEDRS. We need reviews and meta-analyses, not single studies, even if they are peer-reviewed. Yes, that means that Wikipedia has stricter requirements for sourcing of medical information than medical journals. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:36, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi Valjean. Another source I was referring to is linked here: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/6/3/104 Miafclark (talk) 18:16, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Because this is just one study, and it goes against what other RS say, I'm hesitant to use it. We need more input from other editors. I suggest that you start a thread at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, point back to this thread, and ask if this source is a WP:MEDRS source and whether it's usable here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:19, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Miafclark- Thanks for your good faith efforts to improve this article. I reverted your edits because they are based in fringe theories and are not compliant with Wikipedia standards for reliable sources in medicine. These are complicated medical topics that are made even more confusing by prevalent misinformation, misconceptions, and overdiagnosis.

The Cairns reference has been criticized by experts as "uninformative and misleading".

The MDPI article by Robert Bransfield makes many claims, including asserting that Lyme disease is responsible for 25 different disorders, including 1200 suicides per year and autism. These claims are not supported by reliable data and don't pass the smell test. MDPI is known for its low standards, especially in special issues.

If you look at per-state suicide rates, the 1200 number is of similar magnitude to some of the per-state numbers in northeast US (e.g. for 2021, Connecticut reported 401, New York reported 1660, Massachusetts reported 604, and Pennsylvania reported 1885.) You can add up the numbers yourself, but basically, 1200 is a significant percentage of suicides in high-incidence states. If Lyme disease caused suicide (or 1200 suicides!), it would be readily apparent because 90% of Lyme cases are reported in 14 states + DC.

Bransfield's claims about autism are deconstructed here and mentioned in the lengthy article "Antiscience and ethical concerns associated with advocacy of Lyme disease". An analysis of blood samples of autistic children found no evidence of Lyme disease. Bransfield never provided suitable evidence that his patients had Lyme disease at all.

The recent Cureus review by Brackett et al is heavily reliant on the fringe claims of Bransfield (3 papers) plus an unreliable online survey of people claiming to have Lyme disease. Other cited papers include patients with diagnoses of PTLDS, which is not representative of Lyme disease patients and cannot be used to determine causality. The expert source currently used in the Wikipedia article underscores that correlation does not necessarily mean causation:

Although Lyme disease can co-occur with psychiatric illness, as it may with any other illness, there is no systematic evidence supporting a causal relationship that would warrant routine Lyme disease screening of patients with either ongoing or newly diagnosed psychiatric illness."
— 2020 guidelines

Worse than relying on unreliable sources, the Brackett review ignores evidence against its claims. See, for example, a 2022 article, which differentiates between known neurological manifestations of by Lyme disease and psychiatric disorders. Like the Brackett review, the report by Charlotte Huff contradicts expert consensus and contrary data while relying on an internet survey and fringe sources (including co-authors of Bransfield). Given the deficiencies of both sources, they should not be used in this article. The claim that antimicrobials improve psychiatric disorders is also not supported by reliable evidence. ScienceFlyer (talk) 22:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Contradictory info about neuropsychiatric symptoms

Now the article contains contradictory statements regarding the neuropsychiatric aspect of the topic, and that needs to be resolved by discussing it here. More experienced editors can examine the issue and determine if the new content supersedes the older, in which case, the older content will likely be deleted. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:58, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

@Valjean Reverted the new material and replied above. ScienceFlyer (talk) 22:55, 6 May 2024 (UTC)