Federal Lyme plan risks cementing a false diagnosis, warns op-ed

An op-ed argues the new federal Lyme plan could validate misdiagnoses by steering patients to ILADS clinicians and framing Lyme as an infection-associated chronic illness, despite evidence that many positive tests (like isolated IgM or non-specific Western blots) are false and that genuine Lyme disease is geographically concentrated; the piece warns that long antibiotic courses can harm patients and calls for careful, evidence-based diagnosis instead of expanding a system built around a disputed syndrome.