There's a review of it in today's NY Times. READ IT HERE
I responded to it, but it was taken down, so here it is.
Had
I seen this movie before my daughter was bitten by a tick here in
Southern California seven terrible years ago and subsequently
misdiagnosed by 20+ doctors, her life would be much different than it
is today. She would be in college. She would not live in pain 24/7.
The job of a parent is to see to our children's safety. So we use seatbelts in the car. We don't vote on it every time we get in the car, we do it because we have been educated on the threats inherent if we don't: there are accidents, and some kids will be injured or die. It's just common sense now, though it wasn't always.
So it is with tick-borne illness. Except that we parents are NOT educated about the threat that Lyme poses. We think we know something about it, and it's not a big deal, but the little we know is mainly wrong... old doctor's tales that have not been put to rest. Hmm, why is that? Watch Under Our Skin and you'll begin to see how and why the very people who we THINK are looking out for us and our children, and in whom we place our trust, have an agenda very different than that of public benefit and safety.
Lyme is an epidemic. It's in your state, no matter what the doctor says. Your kids can be bitten and you won't know it. Your kids may have symptoms and no bulls-eye rash. Your kids may have symptoms all over the map: in fact, so many that they get labeled as whiners, hypochondriacs, attention-seekers, liars, slackers, etc. by the very people you pay to help them. And misdiagnosis and under-treatment is the norm unless parents persist in getting a diagnosis that speaks to ALL of the symptoms, (eg., fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraines, nausea, fatigue, etc), and not just some of them.
The government has fallen down on the job. I confronted a CDC official at a public event and said to her, "I know you know how bad Lyme Disease really is." And she said, "Yes, we do." "Then what is it going to take for you people who are supposed to be looking out for us and our children to get the word out about Lyme and educate the public?" And here is an instance of a government official actually speaking truth. She said, "It's going to take a lot more people getting sick."
So there it is. Disgusting.
In my family, two out of three of us have been a part of that experiment. We have "given." Would anyone reading this like to also volunteer, so that the government will proactively provide parents the known information you need to protect your children? (Well, sorry, NOT yours, because they'll be chronically ill. But other people's children, somewhere down the line, maybe.)
Of course not. Unless you want to believe the Infectious Diseases Society's spin that Lyme is "hard to get, and easy to cure," when precisely the opposite is true.
The IDSA wants and expects your faith in them. Don't give it so easily: they have not earned it, and you will see that in Under Our Skin. You as a parent want unbiased knowledge. You want uncompromised scientific evidence. You don't want a panel overseeing treatment guidelines that includes members that have patents on Lyme-related products. It's not likely to be in your best self-interest. Duh.
On July 30th, in Washington, DC, there will be a quasi-public hearing (they won't let you in, but it will be live on the internet) about changing the guidelines governing Lyme treatment, brought about by the CT Attorney General's Office. The IDSA is treating it as a pesky PR problem. Too bad for them, they have to listen to wacky Lyme patients and their equally misguided treating doctors for a few hours. But they're confident that there will be little public notice. And they may be right. They've got a huge financial war chest and Lyme patients are sick and broke from being denied long term treatment by their doctors and insurers.
Do let them get away with it! Educate yourself about how to protect your children. Go to www.lymedisease.org, or http://health.groups.yahoo.com... or www.lymepolicywonk.org for the political angle.
Bev Feldman
www.lymesucks.org
There's a huge problem with Lyme disease (Borreliosis) beyond the disease itself. The path to correct diagnosis is a rocky one, riddled with false turns that will devastate your health and suck your resources for years.
If you think you might have Lyme, you'll be searching for good information, and naturally it would seem that you should turn to our medical doctors, who learn from their medical societies and the government. It's an entirely rational thought. But think about it: you have an underlying assumption that what they say is unbiased information and scientifically proven. Why wouldn't they? Isn't that their job -- to correctly diagnose you and treat you accordingly? It is. We thought that too. And we were wrong.
The truth is much more complicated.
Much of the information doctors know is not only wrong but it can hurt you and cost you. Why? Because the governing body of infectious disease doctors, the IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) is not interested in treating Lyme. They are heavily involved in bringing Lyme vaccines to market. They are the gatekeepers of research money, and it's not going into treatment research, it's going into vaccine development, which is where the money is. Presently, they are under investigation by CT state attorney general's office for possible anti-trust violations, so we are not making this up. ( IDSA Investigation ) If they had the potential to vaccinate every citizen in the US, that's 250 million people! It's a LOT of 
money at stake, especially if you own the patents!
So let's talk about the first false turn to correct diagnosis that you are likely to take when you visit your doctor -- and let's imagine that you actually know you were bitten by a tick. You ask your doctor to test your blood because you've read that there is a blood test for Lyme. And you assume that it's like getting tested for HIV: it's an accurate test with a yes or no answer. You get the test, and it comes back "negative." Your doctor says that it's not Lyme.
What you didn't know is that:
1. If you test shortly after a tick bite, there is a high likelihood that if you are infected, it will 
not show up on any test for about six weeks. So a test too early after the bite is not a good test. You doctor may not know that.
2. Not all labs are created equal. Presently there are two government licensed labs worth sending your blood to-- IgeneX and MDL. These labs specialize in testing for Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses. Unless your doctor is up to speed on Lyme, your blood will not go to either of those labs. They will use the lab (often Quest) that your insurance provider covers.
3. The first tier test generally ordered (the less expensive ELISA) is very inaccurate for Lyme at best, no matter what lab you send your blood to. But you don't know that! You don't know that the ELISA for Lyme is estimated to be wrong anywhere from 30-50% of the time. It does not even come close to scientific efficacy of being at least 95% correct, yet it is the gatekeeper test! A negative ELISA will end the question of Lyme with most doctors. You'll be prescribed pharmaceuticals for your symptoms and if there is Lyme, it will go untreated. This is what happens to most people. It happened to us.
4. The Western Blot for Lyme (the 2nd tier test that you will get if you happen to have a positive ELISA) is more complicated. It tests for bands of reactivity, which are numbered, and each band tells a story and points to something.
For instance, Band 41 senses the flagellate tail of a bacterium and is not specific for Lyme. However, most Lyme patients react positive on Band 41. Many infected with Lyme ONLY react to Band 41. It is thought that the Lyme bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, which is a spirokete -- meaning its a corkscrew type bug that drills into your cells and tissues -- has an interior coiled structure that is not a tail, but is like an internal tail, and this may be why Band 41 reacts.
(The backstory: The most Lyme-specific Western Blot bands, 31 and 34, were taken out of the differential by the government when there was a Lyme vaccine (LymeRix) that came out but was eventually pulled off the market. If you had the vaccine, you would react to those bands. So they removed those bands from the differential. Today, you can test positive on those bands, not have had the vaccine, and those bands will not be counted towards a diagnosis -- unless you are seeing a Lyme specialist.)
You don't know what bands the lab your blood went to is testing for.
There's a range of bands, all of which point to something specific, but with the exception of MDL and IgeneX, other labs don't test for all bands. How would you, the consumer, know? You don't, and your doctor either doesn't know or doesn't disclose this important fact to you.
Here's a much more detailed explanation of blood tests: Download lyme_blood_tests.doc
NOTE: I'm not posting regularly on this site much anymore. Why? Because Silver is living a completely normal life! We are a success story! But I'm not abandoning Lyme patients or the cause of Lyme education. Feel free to call me. Basically I attribute our success to killing bugs with IV ceftriaxone, and for healing the "aftermath" of the antibiotics by using the Medsonix machine.
We are mother-daughter Lymies... Bev Feldman and Silver Feldman. We are bi-coastal when it comes to Lyme: Silver got it in Malibu, CA, and I got bit and infected in Great Barrington, MA when I took Silver for help for her (then undiagnosed) Lyme. We know that Lyme Sucks BIGTIME. So we are doing what we can to alter the lack of public awareness about Lyme.
We stand for everyone knowing the TRUE facts about Lyme.
Please take a moment to subscribe to our occasional newsletter. It's in the Lyme-colored box on the left. You can contact us at 818-790-7418. We're happy to help sort out some of the Lyme issues with you, but remember we are on PACIFIC time! (We need our sleep!)
At an event I went to last year, there was a silent auction. Mostly it was gift baskets of things I wouldn't want... coffees, certificates for pedicures, stuffed animal gift baskets, just "stuff". 
