Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic (Revised Edition with New Chapter) - Paperback

by Pamela Weintraub (Author)

The groundbreaking, award-winning investigation into Lyme disease--the science, history, medical politics, and patient experience--now with a brand new chapter.

When Pamela Weintraub, a science journalist, learned that her oldest son tested positive for Lyme disease, she thought she had found an answer to the symptoms that had been plaguing her family for years--but her nightmare had just begun. Almost everything about Lyme disease turned out to be deeply controversial, from the microbe causing the infection, to the length and type of treatment and the kind of practitioner needed.

On one side of the fight, the scientists who first studied Lyme describe a disease transmitted by a deer tick that is hard to catch but easy to cure no matter how advanced the case. On the other side, rebel doctors insist that Lyme and a soup of "co-infections" cause a complicated spectrum of illness often dramatically different - and far more difficult to treat - than the original researchers claim. Instead of just swollen knees and a rash, patients can experience exhaustion, disabling pain, and a "Lyme fog" that leaves them dazed and confused. As patients struggle for answers, once-treatable infections become chronic.

In this nuanced picture of the intense controversy and crippling uncertainty surrounding Lyme disease, Pamela Weintraub sheds light on one of the angriest medical disputes raging today. The most comprehensive book ever written about the past, present and future of Lyme disease, Cure Unknown exposes the ticking clock of a raging epidemic and the vulnerability we all share.

Winner of the American Medical Writers Association Book Award

Author Biography

Pamela Weintraub is an author and journalist who specializes in health, biomedicine, and psychology. She is currently a consulting editor at Psychology Today and executive editor at MAMM magazine, and has served as editor in chief of OMNI and staff writer at Discover, Weintraub has written hundreds of articles for many national publications, including Redbook, Ms., McCall's, Audubon, and Health, to name just a few. She is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic. She lives in Connecticut. With Keith Harary, Weintraub has cowritten several books for the In 30 Days series, including Memory Enhancement in 30 Days, Lucid Dreams in 30 Days, and Right Brain Learning in 30 Days.