As the author of the 2008 #1 best selling international hematology book that is the only blood study guide helping microbiologists and pathology experts to identify babesia, I would like to share some balanced pearls of my seven books and 26 years working with this single-celled parasite.
I was confused that an actively ill patient with multiple tick-borne infections posted publicly that only the IgeneX FISH has worth in diagnosis.
The poster is not a world expert, since they are well known, so when they were reactive, it was best to post here.
The IgeneX FISH is in my “A Laboratory Guide to Human Babesia Hematology Forms” due to the generosity of Dr Shah, the lab director. The black and white and red images are stunning. These are very ill people in these FISH samples. They do not need immediate transfusions like other patients, but have high numbers of red blood cells filled with single-celled parasites–babesia.
When you are killing babesia many ways, such as options in my 2006 definitive babesia textbook, a FISH will become negative in months. Microbiologists can find babesia inside red blood cells, but the FISH will often become negative. Causing some smart lyme doctors to say they are cured of babesia. I end up treating these babesia “cured” patients and find babesia DNA and red cells with some babesia.
One disaster happening constantly with “LL MDs” is ignorance in treating babesia and bartonella. I have published on both before most world physicians, and been wrong on my early trailblazing positions.
So I never feel superior when doctors are making my same or similar errors 17–20 years later. Sadly, they seem too busy to read and latch onto one Soloman. Soloman is long dead thousands of years. There is no single physician or researcher who is master of all knowledge in these diverse infections.
So the next time an expert or chat group “leader” says only a FISH is reliable to diagnose, recall the author of seven babesia books said, “only 1/50 positive babesiab patients have a positive FISH”.