You would think the Lyme community would be excited to learn that a Lyme vaccine is on the horizon (2026).

That’s just not the case. In fact, there are many – MANY – questions and concerns surrounding this effort.

This is not the first Lyme vaccine – previous efforts did not go so well.

The CDC has done a pathetic job of managing Lyme & tick-borne disease infection reporting, as well as diagnostic and treatment recommendations. I don’t trust them with anything at this point, but I can guarantee that if it involves adding something to my body (like an injection), I will not be taking it.

My personal opinions about the CDC (and Pfizer) aside – the Lyme community has a great deal of concern. Last week, a group of Lyme patient advocates met with the CDC to discuss the future Lyme vaccine. They asked pointed questions.

One of the attendees noted in the article below:

“Let me be clear, attending this meeting was not an endorsement of VLA-15. Quite the opposite—it was a chance for the Lyme advocacy community to raise our serious concerns.”

Some of my own concerns include:

• There is still no accurate test for Lyme disease. How can we know a vaccine works if we can’t even accurately identify those who have been infected? (Personally, I think all funding for research should first go into finding an accurate test. If you can test early, you can treat early.)
• There are numerous strains of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease – this vax seems to be more effective of addressing the European strains, less effective for the east coast strain, and dowsnt seem to have been tested for the west coast strains at all. It also has no protection for the many co-infections that will still be transmittable.
• This is not a typical vaccine. It does not create immunity to Lyme disease. Instead, the tick feeds on the human host, ingesting a byproduct of the vaccine (OspA antibody) which in theory should kill the Lyme bacteria in the gut of the tick. I’m unclear how it works on nymphs (the size of poppyseeds) which are the most infectious of the tick lifecycle and which seem to be less about OspA and more about OspC. I need to study this better to understand but the advocates had questions about this as well – it’s worth looking into.
• Many chronic Lyme patients have autoimmune reactions and mast cell activation syndrome. In order for the vaccine to be effective, numerous doses (minimum 3-4 during the 1st year alone) will be required to keep the OspA antibodies high enough to do the trick. There is concern that over vaccinating those with autoimmune and MCAS issues could trigger both issues.

Read the full article here:

Lymedisease.org article