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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEPRESS CONTACTS:

Stephen Lee Emily Fry

St. Martin’s Press St. Martin’s Press

646.307.5555 646.307.5556

stephen.lee@stmartins.com emily.fry@stmartins.com

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By  Pamela  Weintraub

Foreword 

by  

Hillary  

 Johnson

“Weintraub turns a tragic (her children are still unwell) yet eye-opening experience into a

shocking exposure of what can happen when egos, greed, and peer pressure supercedeobjective evidence, allowing patients to suffer chronic, disabling illness.”

— Booklist (starred review)

“[A] compelling read that is also important journalism. With an estimated 200,000 new

cases each year, the Lyme disease epidemic deserves our attention, and CURE

UNKNOWN is poised to become the definitive guide to understanding this illness.”— Discover magazine

“Exhaustively researched…Highly recommended”

— Library Journal 

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Lyme disease is one of the fastest spreading infectious diseases in the United States today, with a CDC-estimated200,000-plus new cases each year. Since Allen Steere published the first article about Lyme in 1977, millions of Americans have fallen prey to this insidious and vastly misunderstood microbe – one that continues to mystify themedical community and fuel an explosive controversy that seriously undermines the treatment and care of thousands of patients across the country.

 With CURE UNKNOWN (St. Martins Griffin; October 13, 2009), science journalist Pamela Weintraub has produced the first truly comprehensive examination of Lyme, outlining her firsthand experience in dealing withthe disease while also investigating the misconceptions about its unpredictable effects and the debate swirling around its very existence. Weintraub, as a journalist, mother and patient, sits in an inherently unique position toapproach the subject, able to explore aspects of the disease from both a clinical and personal perspective, leading toa remarkably clear-eyed, wide-ranging account of the murky world of Lyme and its bevy of controversy.

CURE UNKNOWN opens with Weintraub’s personal story in the early 1990s, when she and her family movedto a wooded property in Westchester County, New York, and promptly began to get sick. At first, the vagueheadaches, joint pains and bone-weariness seemed like minor inconveniences but, as years passed, these symptomsintensified and multiplied, burgeoning into gross signs of disease: swollen knees, limbs that buzzed as though wiredto a power grid, violent mood swings, extreme fatigue, and disabling pains. When a diagnosis of Lyme disease was

finally pronounced for their eldest son, Weintraub figured that their troubles were over when, in reality, thenightmare had just begun.

From the length and type of treatment to the kind of practitioner needed to identify and treat the infection to the very definition of the disease itself, Lyme is a hotbed of contention. On one side of the fight are the scientists whofirst studied Lyme disease, initially writing it up in medical journals as a circular rash and simple joint infection.The disease they describe, transmitted by the bite of a deer tick, is hard to catch and easy to cure no matter how advanced the case. On the other side of the fight, rebel doctors and patient advocacy groups insist that Lyme and asoup of “co-infections” cause a spectrum of illness dramatically different than the narrow set of signs that scientistsdescribe. Caught in the middle of this medical tug-of-war are thousands of desperately ill patients, many of whomcan only sit and wait as their once-treatable infections suddenly balloon into chronic, disabling conditions thatmay never be cured. In CURE UNKNOWN Weintraub provides a heavy-hitting work of investigative

 journalism that thoroughly explores the history, personalities and controversy surrounding Lyme disease,examining everything from the woefully inadequate tests used to “diagnose” Lyme to the biological makeup of themicrobe itself. Weaving in her family’s experiences with those of other patients across the country, Weintraubultimately paints a nuanced, albeit frightening, picture of the “Lyme wars” and sheds light on what might be theangriest and least understood medical dispute today.

CURE UNKNOWN is a truly groundbreaking book about the politics, history, science and patient experience of Lyme disease, a remarkable piece of journalism that promises to change public perception of Lyme and its

 potentially devastating effects. Featuring a Foreword from Hillary Johnson, the author of the revolutionary Osler’s

Web (which won legitimacy for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the medical world), and fully updated with a new 

epilogue in which Weintraub discusses her family’s continued struggle with the disease, the devastating rejection of chronic Lyme by the Infectious Diseases Society, and the hope for better awareness of the disease, this is a must-

read for anyone concerned with both the quality of their health care and the way in which contested diseases aredealt with in the medical community.

CURE UNKNOWN: Inside the Lyme Epidemic

By Pamela WeintraubSt. Martin’s Griffin Trade Paperback Publication date: October 13, 2009ISBN: 0-312-37813-0; $15.99