You can google his name. A very trustworthy name in Lyme.

In 1994, the NIH decided that there should be consistency between labs reporting Lyme Disease Western Blots, and that a specific reporting criteria should be established. This sounds good, but one could argue they made a bad situation worse. The consensus committee decided to set the standards for a positive test based on the number of bands that appear. Whereas every lab prior to the hearing had accepted bands 25, 31, and 34 as specific and significant, the NIH, without any clear reasoning, disqualified those bands from being reportable. The result was that what had been a fair good test had now become poor or even useless.

How badly did the NIH bootstrap this test? The following is an analysis of the new guidelines presented as an abstract and lecture at the 1995 Rheumatology Conference in Texas. (1995 Rheumatology Symposia Abstract # 1254 Dr. Paul Fawcett et al.)

This was a study designed to test the recently proposed changes to Western Blot Interpretation. At the Second National Conference on Serological Testing for Lyme Disease, sponsored by the NIH, the committee proposed limiting the bands that could be reported in a Western Blot for diagnosis of Lyme Disease. An IgG Western Blot must have five or more of these bands: 18, 23,28, 30, 39, 41, 45, 58, 66, and 93 kDa. An IgM Western Blot must have two or more bands of the following three bands: 23, 39, 41. Conspicuously absent are the most important bands, 22, 25, 31 and 34, which include OSP-A, OSP-B and OSP-C antigens - the three most widely accepted and recognized antigens. These antigens are so immuno-reactive that they were the antigens chosen for human vaccine trials. Yet they are not considered important enough to include in the diagnostic criteria. Why?****

http://www.canlyme.com/tom.html

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IGenex Western Blot, IgG & IgM Highly specific and more sensitivity than LabCorp

LabCorp probably follows CDC mandate. Bands and perhaps cut-off points are different.

Start googling. I'm tired and gonna watch a movie on TV It's all there.

Read anything by Sam Donta---- Dearborn-----See why Igenex is the best we have so far.

That could be for several reasons:

1. The obvious--- IGeneX is a 'specialty' lab. They ONLY do TBIs and are better at it than Quest or LabCorp.

2. They have their own proprietary medium/substrate/process that they do not share.

3.Their testing is both more sensitive and more specific.

4.Because it's a private lab---- they do NOT have to bow to CDC and that's always a plus.

(Digressing a bit here, but this was in a Tom Grier article:

Reasons for False Negative (Seronegative) Test Results

in Lyme Disease

Nine Reasons for False Negative Lyme Disease Blood Test Results

Reprinted from the Lyme Disease Foundation's brochure, Frequently Asked Questions About Lyme Disease, available online at www.lyme.org

1. Antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) are present, but the laboratory is unable to detect

them.

I've only copied the one reason that pertains to your question----- "the laboratory is unable to detect them".

That can be for any of the next eight reasons in that list---- OR IT COULD BE BECAUSE LAB CORP, QUEST don't 'do it right'!

****i am asking about the competence of the labs, i guess.*****

LabCorp and Quest have some good points. Lyme isn't one of them.

******** if they are that bad, they should not be allowed to run western blots.*****

Yeah, in a perfect world. Their WB's might be fine for other diseases. I don't know.

You're forgetting that we/you do NOT have an easy to detect, easy to cure disease, no matter what the IDSA says.

We're cursed with a disease that is not only highly politicized but also is caused by a spirochete that can pretty much 'run the show'.

But that's a whole 'nuther LONG discussion, one that isn't talked about much here on this board.

Live with this : IGeneX and MDL are the best labs with the best Lyme tests so far.

That's why LabCorp and Quest are NOT reliable for their Lyme tests.