Buhner Healing Lyme

Stephen’s response:
One of the difficulties with treating lyme is that everyone is looking for a quick answer to the disease. For most people that is antibiotics. If antibiotics don’t work people must go deeper and try a great many things to get well. And there are a number of good protocols out there, mine among them. However none of the protocols work for everyone. All protocols need to be adjusted for the individuals taking them. By micro adjusting them, most people, nearly all, can be helped. However there is still the desire for a one step cureall and the lyme community gets really excited EVERY time a new thing comes along. And, for some people, the new thing does work. I have answered a query about banderol for a previous questioner, here is that answer (slightly rewritten):

The study [that people are relying on] is ONLY an in vitro study. I discuss the nature of in vitro work on lyme spirochetes in my book; they are virtually useless. Literally thousands of compounds can kill the spirochetes in vitro. The problem is that test tube spirochetes are NOT the same as the ones expressed into the body through a tick bite. There are a number of research papers that go into this in depth. This early misunderstanding is part of what led to the trouble in treating lyme. I do think cat’s claw is highly useful in treating lyme. As to banderol, the extract made from the bark of the otaba tree, there is virtually NOTHING on that plant in the literature. It most likely does have antibacterial action, most South American species of plants do, but there is just too little on it to make any definitive statements about it. As to Richard Horowitz’s protocol: I have spoken with him and looked over his treatment plans and he uses a very wide variety of things to treat lyme, NOT just these two herbs. Banderol probably does have some efficacy in practice but I can’t in any way say that it is a specific for lyme. I am very uncomfortable with the lack of data on the plant, even in ethnobotanical sources.