© KRIS NEWBY/BURGDORFER ARCHIVES
A page from Willy Burgdorfer's archive shows elements of the research process he used to find infectious agents and study their properties. (English translation of the German: “Different Working Branches of Rocky Mountain Laboratories” )
The tick hunter was hopeful he had found the cause of the disabling illness, recently named Lyme disease, that was spreading anxiety through leafy communities east of New York City. At a government lab in Montana, Willy Burgdorfer typed a letter to a colleague, reporting that
blood from Lyme patients showed "very strong reactions" on a test for an obscure, tick-borne bacterium. He called it the "Swiss Agent."
But further studies raised doubts about whether he had the right culprit, and 18 months later, in 1981, Burgdorfer instead pinned Lyme on another microbe. The Swiss Agent test results were forgotten.
Now STAT has obtained those documents, including some discovered in boxes of Burgdorfer's personal papers found in his garage after his death in 2014. The papers — including letters to collaborators, lab records, and blood test results — indicate that t
he Swiss Agent was infecting people in Connecticut and Long Island in the late 1970s.
And scientists who worked with Burgdorfer, and reviewed key portions of the documents at STAT's request, said the bacteria might still be sickening an unknown number of Americans today.
While the evidence is hardly conclusive,
patients and doctors might be mistaking under-the-radar Swiss Agent infections for Lyme, the infectious disease specialists said. Or the bacteria could be co-infecting some Lyme patients, exacerbating symptoms and complicating their treatment — and even stoking a bitter debate about whether Lyme often becomes a persistent and serious illness.
Swiss Agent, now called Rickettsia helvetica, is likely not a major health risk in the United States, in part because such bacteria typically respond to antibiotics. Still, several of Burgdorfer's former colleagues called for infectious disease researchers to mount a search for the bacterium.
Comment: See also: