---
title: Dr. Steven Phillips Refutes Misinformation by CDC on Lyme Disease
description: from Huffington Post, August 16, 2016 by Dana Parish Yale-Trained Doctor Refutes Dangerous Misinformation Given by CDC’s Dr. Paul Mead on Fox 5 Lyme Specia
---

[News ](https://www.globallymealliance.org/news)

# [Dr. Steven Phillips Refutes Misinformation by CDC on Lyme Disease](https://www.globallymealliance.org/news/dr-steven-phillips-refutes-misinformation-cdc-lyme-disease)

 Written by [Global Lyme Alliance](https://www.globallymealliance.org/news/author/glalyme) | Aug 17, 2016 4:00:00 AM

*from Huffington Post, August 16, 2016* * by Dana Parish*

### Yale-Trained Doctor Refutes Dangerous Misinformation Given by CDC’s Dr. Paul Mead on Fox 5 Lyme Special

  

*On June 30, [Fox 5 New York](http://www.fox5ny.com/) aired a highly-rated thirty-minute TV special about[Lyme Disease](https://www.lymedisease.org/) called “[Lyme and Reason,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL-fBeEd6LI)“ in which I was interviewed with my doctor, Yale-trained internist and preeminent Lyme specialist, [Steven Phillips](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-parish/where-cdc-guidelines-fail-leading-lyme-doctor-succeeds-part-1_b_9318660.html). You can watch our segment [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0ViOX7xNk).*

 Also interviewed was the [CDC’s](http://www.cdc.gov/) Paul Mead, MD, Chief of Epidemiology and Surveillance Activity of the Bacterial Diseases Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You can watch that [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZUlDq-cSGA)

 Many patients and clinicians [expressed outrage](https://www.facebook.com/FOX5NY/photos/a.107956651319.116657.39442131319/10154433090686320/?type=3&theater) on social media regarding what they considered to be dangerous, misleading information offered by Mead, and pointed out the CDC’s pattern of giving [preferential treatment to outdated IDSA](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cdc-refuses-to-end-preferential-treatment-of-idsa-lyme-guidelines-in-response-to-citizen-petition-300192998.html)Lyme guidelines instead of the more [scientifically-supported](http://www.ilads.org/ilads_news/2015/list-of-700-articles-citing-chronic-infection-associated-with-tick-borne-disease-compiled-by-dr-robert-bransfield/), patient-centered [ILADS](http://ilads.org/) guidelines.

 Interestingly, [The National Guidelines Clearinghouse](https://guideline.gov/), a federal database that provides treatment information to health care professionals and insurance companies, has [removed the IDSA Lyme treatment guidelines](https://www.lymedisease.org/idsa-guidelines-removed-ngc/) from its website and only lists the ILADS guidelines.

 To help chronic Lyme patients who feel that the CDC has once again turned its back on them, Phillips wrote a formal rebuttal to some of Mead’s statements and Fox 5 posted it on [their Facebook page. ](https://www.facebook.com/FOX5NY/photos/a.107956651319.116657.39442131319/10154433090686320/?type=3) Fox invited Mead to comment further but that request remains “under review.”

*See Mead’s statements and Phillips’ responses below and watch the TV special and all of the unedited interviews [here](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lyme+and+reason).*

*Please join the conversation and add your comments below. We look forward to hearing from you.*

**Mead:** “typically people with early stages of disease get a rash...” **Phillips:** I don’t actually think it’s accurate to say that this is typical. The initial published findings by Steere documented that 25% of patients recalled a history of rash compatible with erythema migrans (EM). Other published research has pegged the rate of prior EM in late Lyme patients at 22%. Part of the problem with some of the research that demonstrates a very high rate of EM in Lyme disease is that it’s part of the CDC reporting criteria as well as being a common diagnostic criterion. So the CDC’s statistics on the rates of EM in early Lyme may be inherently skewed. It may be likened to publishing a study that 95% of people in prison have committed a crime. **Mead: **“well, actually ‘the great imitator’ is a term used to refer to syphilis which is a different disease” **Phillips:** Well, actually, although syphilis was a previous illness given this nickname, Lyme disease has also carried the moniker in the medical literature. A Pubmed search of ‘great imitator’ and ‘lyme’ returned 23 results. This is because Lyme can present in so many varied ways, able to mimic a broad array of diseases.

 Read the entire article on [HuffingtonPost](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-parish/yale-trained-doctor-refut_b_11291116.html).

[View full post](https://www.globallymealliance.org/news/dr-steven-phillips-refutes-misinformation-cdc-lyme-disease)

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