Makary’s malarky

Mark Twain famously said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Among the many fleet-footed lies being told by the Trump Administration is that Lyme disease originated in a bioweapons facility.

“During a November appearance on the "PBD Podcast," FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, claimed that Lyme disease originated from "Lab 257 on Plum Island" near Lyme, Connecticut. He alleged that the disease stemmed from U.S. biodefense work involving a former Nazi physician who was spared the death penalty at the Nuremberg Trials and later assisted the military, and that infected ticks were explored as weapons.”

There’s plenty of scientific evidence that Commissioner Makary’s conspiracy theory is malarky.

“Decades of research show B. burgdorferi was circulating widely long before the animal laboratory at the center of the conspiracy theory ever opened.


“In 1990, researchers reported finding B. burgdorferi in ticks collected between 1924 and 1951 in locations ranging from Massachusetts to Florida and preserved in alcohol at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology -- years before Plum Island's laboratory was established.

"Decades before Lyme was identified -- and before military scientists could have altered or weaponized it -- the bacterium that causes it was living in the wild," Telford wrote. "That alone is proof that the conspiracy theory is wrong."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/generalinfectiousdisease/119053?xid=nl_mpt_investigative2025-12-17&mh=eb71348a5ff6ae370cc6759bc5dc3300&zdee=gAAAAABm4u1YoCP4y5SBTJUyUyqo9KxZhft26L1xeGdP0BzzQQN1Pb_ifR6vFqhFh-3U6Q_nU7DbA-EawzzXKxSRhMOwjrOGuOKbf7OE641eN0HfnK6eObE%3D&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=InvestigativeMD_12172025&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_InvestigateMD_Active

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