Cross posted w/ permission. Not verified through snopes.
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>On February 28, 2007, the UNDER OUR SKIN film crew interviewed Willy
>Burgdorfer, Ph.D., M.D., and Scientist Emeritus at the National Institutes

>of Health (NIH), for three hours at his home in Hamilton, Montana. Dr.
>Burgdorfer is the discoverer and namesake of the spirochete (a type of
>bacterium) that causes Lyme disease, called Borrelia burgdorferi. He has
>received numerous awards, including the Robert Koch Gold Medal, the IDSA
>Bristol Award, the Schaudinn-Hoffman Plaque, and the Walter Reed Medal. He

>is a coeditor of the book, "Aspects of Lyme Borreliosis," and has
>published over 220 research papers.
>
>Just as we began filming, there was a pounding on the door, and we found
>ourselves facing someone who turned out to be a top researcher at the
>nearby Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a biolevel-4 NIH research facility.
>Standing on the porch, our uninvited guest said, "I've been told that I
>need to supervise this interview. This comes from the highest levels.
>There are things that Willy can't talk about."
>
>We were stunned. After all, Dr. Burgdorfer had been retired from the lab
>since 1986. We were there to talk to a private citizen, about the history
>of a very public discovery that had put him on the short list for a Nobel
>Prize. Earlier that year, the NIH had refused our requests to interview
>any of their Lyme researchers. What was going on? Why would the NIH want
>to censor information about the fastest growing bug-borne disease in the
>United States?
>
>Fortunately, our iron-willed film director, Andy Abrahams Wilson, turned
>the NIH handler away, and what followed was an amazingly candid interview
>about Lyme disease—its dangers and its controversies. Here are highlights
>from this three-hour interview:
>
>Andy Wilson: Could you describe the "Aha!" moment when you discovered the
>spirochete that causes Lyme disease?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: I remember that time quite well. Allen Steere called me in

>the summer of 1977 and said, "Willy, I would like to discuss with you the
>methods you are using in dissecting ticks, and [looking] for microbial
>agents." I sat with him about two hours that summer and told him over the
>phone how to dissect ticks. Then about two months later he called again,
>and I repeated, again, the same thing. And he finally said [in 1981],
>"Well, I'm willing to send you some serum [samples]. I want you to examine

>them for me."
>
>But it was not an "Aha" [moment]. It was a "What in the hell? What's in
>that smear?" And then my work [on relapsing fever] as a Swiss student came

>back. [I said to myself], "Willy, these are spirochetes!" The slide showed

>long slender forms, a little bit curved, and they were only in the
>mid-part of the tick. Nowhere else. There were so many people who said,
>"That is impossible Willie. You can't get spirochetes out of hard-bodied
>ticks." [But from my work on] relapsing fever ticks from Africa, I knew
>what a spirochete looked like. The Belgian Congo and Kenya are hotspots
>for relapsing fever. Even Livingston [the African explorer and Scottish
>missionary] was exposed, and he called it "tick fever."
>
>Andy Wilson: And what did they call this spirochete?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: I discovered the agent producing Lyme disease, so they
>called it Borrelia burgdorferi, after my name, Willy Burgdorfer. The
>initial findings were published right away in Science magazine. And even
>today, [this discovery] is considered a breakthrough in spirochetal
>research. There are many laboratories that are using our techniques,
>applying them to syphilis, because of similarities.
>
>Andy Wilson: What are the similarities between Borrelia burgdorferi and
>syphilis?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: The similarities that I know of are associated with the
>infection of the brain, the nervous system. The syphilis spirochete,
>Treponema pallidum has an affinity for nerve tissues. The Borrelia
>burgdorferi spirochete very likely has that too. Children are especially
>sensitive to Borrelia burgdorferi.
>
>The Lyme disease spirochete is far more virulent than syphilis. We don't
>know the end yet. And [we] can't even make a [blood] smear with Borrelia
>burgdorferi and see the organism. It's there. But you don't see it. You
>cannot find this spirochete. Why not? After all, I have a sick person
>here. He is trembling all over. His synovial fluid is full of spirochetes.

>But when it comes to blood, it's not there. So there is something
>associated with this organism that makes it different.
>
>Andy Wilson: Why is Borrelia burgdorferi so hard to find in the body and
>culture outside the body?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: Borrelia burgdorferi in the tissues of a patient is
>extremely difficult to demonstrate, because, first of all, you don't like
>somebody to take samples out of your brain [to look] for spirochetes. The
>same with other tissues. Every system in your body can be infected with
>spirochete. But to prove that is extremely difficult. It demands surgical
>work, which is very expensive
>
>Andy Wilson: Are you a believer in the idea of persistent Lyme infections?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: I am a believer in persistent infections because people
>suffering with Lyme disease, ten or fifteen or twenty years later, get
>sick [again]. Because it appears that this organism has the ability to be
>sequestered in tissues and [it] is possible that it could reappear,
>bringing back the clinical manifestations it caused in the first place.
>These are controversial issues for microbiologists, as well as the
>physicians who are asked to treat patients.
>
>Andy Wilson: How do you feel about the controversy in the Lyme world?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: The controversy in Lyme disease research is a shameful
>affair. And I say that because the whole thing is politically tainted.
>Money goes to people who have, for the past 30 years, produced the same
>thing—nothing. Serology has to be started from scratch with people who
>don't know beforehand the results of their research.
>
>There are lots of physicians around who wouldn't touch a Lyme disease
>patient. They tell the nurse, "You tell the guy to get out of here. I
>don't want to see him." That is shameful. So [this] shame includes
>physicians who don't even have the courage to tell a patient, "You have
>Lyme disease and I don't know anything about it."
>
>Andy Wilson: What about the Lyme vaccine?
>
>******Dr. Burgdorfer: The [first generation] vaccine was not specific
>enough and not strong enough. So what is needed is additional work on a
>vaccine. What we have right now is a good example of work that goes to
>industry [too soon], and industry says, "Okay fine, get it out. " And
>somebody says, well it's too early. And it's already on the market … and
>you see that every day …You see that this company is falling down, and
>these guys are realizing that the vaccine work is full of holes and never
>should have come out. A lot of people are going to pay for that. They're
>going to get sick with Lyme as a result of the vaccination. Then you're in

>trouble.******
>
>Andy Wilson: What do you think about the relationship between Lyme and
>neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: Right now they are building a research center at Columbia
>University, to study this possibility, because many physicians believe
>that neurologic manifestations, regardless [of] what type, are typical for

>Lyme disease.
>
>Andy Wilson: What do you most regret about what has happened, in the
>aftermath of your discovery?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: I most regret that the technology used to diagnose and to
>even treat Lyme disease wasn't worked all the way through. It [was based
>on] only a few results, then published. And later on, people [wanted] to
>take them back. I think Borrelia burgdorferi is too serious an
>[infectious] agent to play with, and with many laboratories, the severity
>of the disease is overlooked.
>
>Andy Wilson: What's the next stage of research?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: Neurologic manifestations have to be the next stage of
>research. Also [Borrelia burgdorferi's] antigenicity. Ecologically, the
>diversification of Borrelia is tremendous. Because of the spirochete's
>ability to change—to change its physiology, to change its "antigenic"
>structure for instance—a spirochete may be capable of producing disease or
not.
>
>And one piece of work that needs to be done, that has lately been
>neglected, is development of the spirochete—whether it transfers [genes
>via] fission, or whether individual spirochetes have the ability to break
>into spheres or particles. We don't know yet how they do it but they do.
>They go into the lymphocytes, they go into every tissue. Just because we
>have not seen [them], does not mean that they are not there. Once the
>immune response is down, are [they] capable of re-entering the bloodstream

>and producing disease?
>
>Andy Wilson: Do you have Lyme?
>
>Dr. Burgdorfer: No. I don't. But I say that cautiously. Because I have
>been working with Lyme disease ever since 1981.
>
><http://underourskin.com/blog/?p=191>