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Laboratory Testing and Antibiotics for Lyme Disease

Alan G. Barbour, MD

JAMA. 1998;279:239-240.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The reported incidence of Lyme disease, an arthropod-borne infection, is about the same as another spirochetal infection, syphilis.¹ But Lyme disease receives far more public and media attention than the sexually transmitted infection does.² However, this attention is not hard to understand: Lyme disease is primarily a disorder of suburban, educated middle- and upper-class people. Lyme disease can be as disabling as syphilis, but there usually is not a stigma to having Borrelia burgdorferi infection. The demographics of Lyme disease also make it likely that those at risk of infection would be comparatively knowledgeable about the disease and may even have opinions about how to manage it. Does this level of interest—a set of patient expectations and perhaps even demands—influence care itself? In this issue of THE JOURNAL, the article by Fix and colleagues,³ while not directly answering that question, does reveal a possible consequence of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

From the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology, University of California, Irvine.

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