On 2018 Feb 04, Sin Hang Lee commented:

The medical profession, including medical schools and hospitals, is now a part of the health care industry, and implementation of editorial policies of medical journals is commonly biased in favor of business interests. PubMed Commons has offered the only, albeit constrained, open forum to air dissenting research and opinions in science-based language. Discontinuation of PubMed Commons will silence any questioning of the industry-sponsored promotional publications indexed in PubMed.

On 2017 May 03, Sin Hang Lee commented:

In this Reply, Marks and colleagues did not dispute that 16S rRNA gene sequencing has provided objective evidence regarding the existence of chronic Lyme disease.

Marks and colleagues contended “persistent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positivity for Borrelia burgdorferi does not signify the presence of active infection or bacteremia that merits prolonged antibiotic treatment.” However, neither PCR positivity, nor prolonged antibiotic treatment, was an issue raised in my Letter to Editor. The issue is: Does chronic Lyme disease exist? The answer is "yes". Whether bacteremia needs antibiotic treatment is beyond the scope of this discussion.

If a B burgdorferi 16S rRNA gene is detected in the DNA extraction of the pellet of the centrifuged serum or plasma sample from a patient, the positive test result serves to confirm that there were Lyme disease bacteria, dead or alive, circulating in the patient’s blood at the time when the blood sample was drawn – definition of bacteremia.Dead bacteria are quickly removed by the spleen and macrophages in other organs. Free foreign DNA in the blood of living mammals is known to be degraded or removed in 48 hours [1]. Many infectious diseases are diagnosed by testing the nucleic acid of the causative agents, for example the hepatitis C virus and the human papillomaviruses which are difficult to culture. Some of the bacterial strains causing Lyme borreliosis are not easily cultivated in artificial media. The references cited to dismiss the significance of gene sequencing in the diagnosis of Lyme disease are inappropriate.

Reference: [1] Schubbert R et al. Foreign (M13) DNA ingested by mice reaches peripheral leukocytes, spleen, and liver via the intestinal wall mucosa and can be covalently linked to mouse DNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 1997; 94: 961-6.

Conflicts of Interest: Dr Lee is the director of Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory specialized in developing DNA sequencing-based diagnostic tests.

On 2017 May 03, Sin Hang Lee commented:

In this Reply, Marks and colleagues did not dispute that 16S rRNA gene sequencing has provided objective evidence regarding the existence of chronic Lyme disease.

Marks and colleagues contended “persistent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positivity for Borrelia burgdorferi does not signify the presence of active infection or bacteremia that merits prolonged antibiotic treatment.” However, neither PCR positivity, nor prolonged antibiotic treatment, was an issue raised in my Letter to Editor. The issue is: Does chronic Lyme disease exist? The answer is "yes". Whether bacteremia needs antibiotic treatment is beyond the scope of this discussion.

If a B burgdorferi 16S rRNA gene is detected in the DNA extraction of the pellet of the centrifuged serum or plasma sample from a patient, the positive test result serves to confirm that there were Lyme disease bacteria, dead or alive, circulating in the patient’s blood at the time when the blood sample was drawn – definition of bacteremia.Dead bacteria are quickly removed by the spleen and macrophages in other organs. Free foreign DNA in the blood of living mammals is known to be degraded or removed in 48 hours [1]. Many infectious diseases are diagnosed by testing the nucleic acid of the causative agents, for example the hepatitis C virus and the human papillomaviruses which are difficult to culture. Some of the bacterial strains causing Lyme borreliosis are not easily cultivated in artificial media. The references cited to dismiss the significance of gene sequencing in the diagnosis of Lyme disease are inappropriate.

Reference: [1] Schubbert R et al. Foreign (M13) DNA ingested by mice reaches peripheral leukocytes, spleen, and liver via the intestinal wall mucosa and can be covalently linked to mouse DNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 1997; 94: 961-6.

Conflicts of Interest: Dr Lee is the director of Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory specialized in developing DNA sequencing-based diagnostic tests.

On 2018 Feb 04, Sin Hang Lee commented:

The medical profession, including medical schools and hospitals, is now a part of the health care industry, and implementation of editorial policies of medical journals is commonly biased in favor of business interests. PubMed Commons has offered the only, albeit constrained, open forum to air dissenting research and opinions in science-based language. Discontinuation of PubMed Commons will silence any questioning of the industry-sponsored promotional publications indexed in PubMed.