A challenge to the conventional medical narrative around infectious
disease from one of France's leading specialists
The accepted message is that humankind has largely conquered infectious
disease with a mixture of antibiotics and vaccines, yet it is becoming
increasingly clear that chronic hidden or latent infections
(crypto-infections) lie behind many of today's big killers, including
heart disease, dementia, and cancer. As an exemplar of how the organisms
responsible can hide in plain sight, causing devastation while the
medical world is in denial, Borrelia burgdorferi--the bacterium
responsible for Lyme disease--has led Dr Perronne to clash with his
fellow specialists in infectious disease (ID) and challenge the status
quo. From his experience as one of France's, and the world's, leading ID
specialists, he examines the threats that both Lyme in particular and
crypto-infections in general pose and how we can rise to the challenge.