Yolanda Foster, formerly of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, has been something of an activist for Lyme disease following her diagnosis in 2012. She’s shared multiple sickbed selfies to social media, she’s tried many alternative treatments and she’s generally raised awareness, with some people questioning the validity of her claims. That’s to be expected with a subjective illness that has no definitive diagnostic test or treatment. It’s sad for victims who often face disbelief from people who tell them their suffering isn’t real. It’s also sad for society in general, although I get why people are skeptical of Foster specifically.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was in a wheelchair for six months more than a decade ago after coming down with a sudden mystery illness which left me dizzy, confused and always tired. I went from being in the best physical shape of my life to being unable to walk or think straight. I never got any answers from doctors (except “stress”) and have since recovered but it’s likely I had Lyme disease. This issue is personal to me, I also have relatives who have active Lyme, however I can’t relate much to Yolanda Foster, nor do I cosign her comparing Lyme disease to HIV. She did it in a roundabout way, comparing a lack of awareness for Lyme to the way the HIV was gradually understood by the public. Yolanda made these comments at a recent event in Australia for a new women’s website launched by channel nine called Honey. It’s not like she was speaking at a Lyme conference when she said this.
“We all pull together so beautifully for HIV,” Hadid said.
“Lyme is three times more prevalent right now, it’s a world-wide epidemic, the first case was diagnosed in 1972… yet we haven’t done anything about it.”
Since its outbreak, HIV-AIDS has killed an estimated 35 million people globally. Around the same number currently live with the disease worldwide.
Fatality rates for Lyme disease are difficult to measure however the Centre For Disease Control in the US analysed health records from 45 states and found 114 deaths between 1999 and 2003.
Sydney GP Dr Brad McKay said Ms Hadid’s comparison was a long bow, with the two not on par.
“If HIV isn’t treated, people die. If Lyme Disease isn’t treated, then people can feel unwell for a very long time,” McKay said.
It was rare for Lyme disease to cause mortality, he said, and it’s “easily treated with antibiotics” if diagnosed early enough.
“If it’s not diagnosed, then it can cause damage to many different parts of the human body.”
Nic Holas, founder of The Institute of Many, a grassroots movement for people living with HIV, said comparisons between diseases were understandable but ultimately unhelpful.
[From News.com.au via Daily Mail]
I don’t think it’s fair to compare Lyme to HIV or AIDS. I somewhat get what she’s saying, that we need to increase public understanding of Lyme and reach a point where sufferers aren’t considered malingerers and fakers, similar to how AIDS patients were shunned at the beginning of the epidemic I guess although that’s a much different disease. This is a shaky argument full of potential landmines. Nothing is like HIV except HIV. I know there’s no perfect advocate and that Yolanda is just sharing her experience but it does seem to be a myopic one.
Epidemic? Really? Gee she is so silly.
You might wanna read up on the subject. She’s just quoting doctors who deal with lyme at the moment.
A good place to start would be the “Under our skin” documentary. I believe it’s available online.
“If HIV isn’t treated, people die. If Lyme Disease isn’t treated, then people can feel unwell”. Die vs. feeling unwell. I would call that a huge difference.
As someone who lost a good few years of my life to undiagnosed lyme disease, I’d honestly rather die than live like that again. I’m good now but it was pure hell. Try living with flu-like symptoms (chills, low-grade fever, sleeping 14 hours a day, no energy) plus brain fog, memory loss and muscle pain for a couple of years while doctors tell you it’s psychosomatic because your basic blood tests are too good for you to have any disease and you might see what I mean.
That said, I do think she’s milking her illness to get in the headlines.
Thank you. So well said. 26 years now. I’ve had two hip replacements, two heart attacks and two strokes. I’m getting my neck fused next month. Lyme Disease accelerates arthritis and circulatory/heart/lung problems. My eyes are also involved. I have a group of trusted doctors. I rest most of the day to have energy in spurts to spend with my loved ones. I was a TV news producer for ABC, now I’m disabled. Much love to you all. Give to Lyme Research and for gawd’s sake, wear bug repellent.
Eeeerrr it’s a lot worse than feeling unwell. It can stop you being able to work, to raise your kids actively, it leads to chronic depression and constant feelings of shame because there is “nothing wrong with you’ . It’s so lame that people have to have a visual to understand chronic disease.
NOTHING LIKE HIV. HIV positive people were shunned left and right like cancer. nobody wanted to sit with them, talk with them (thought of catching the disease thru spit), eat, sleep with them.. were seen like sub people. Nurses didn’t want to treat them. They were left to die in many cases.. they were singled out and couldn’t get jobs..even today. have you seen the last episode of How to get away with murder when one of the protagonist had a new love interest until he told him he was HIV positive, well the guy left illico presto. it’s like these people who say Trump nomination as president is like 9/11. NOTHING LIKE IT. I don’t know Yolander Foster but in her need to raise awareness she should use other metaphors that don’t implicate something like sexual transmitted disease, it’s consequences and fall outs. so freaking No. and I have to add that the gay community couldn’t give their blood because they thought there were the one spreading the disease and that they were doing drugs therefore were “obviously” the community that brought the disease. And finally, last week it was reveal that the guy who traveled to Africa wasn’t actually the guy who brought it with him and it was more than likely HIV was already here but not at this extant. So imagine that.. there are countless diseases that need awareness not seen as relevant enough to study or do further researches.
Right. When she said that “we pulled together” it’s very clear she’s having selective amnesia about the early years in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. People were ostracized.
I work for a non profit that emerged out of the hiv/aids epidemic in the 80s and while I cosign everything you said I would only add that those issues still go on. We have a huge legal dept dedicated to helping those positive folks with housing and job discrimination, counseling when their families shun them, groups to navigate dating…there is still so much stigma faced by those folks. I kind of see what yolandas trying to do, but ultimately while HIV is extremery manageable and as long as a person is on proper medication transmission rates are virtually zero the stigma is horrific. I definitely think symptom wise Lyme is much worse (again, assuming someone is properly taking medication for HIV), stigma does kill. There are tons of incidences where people are assaulted and even killed because of the baseless fears around HIV/AIDS. And that’s only for those people in countries that offer proper therapies. In many parts of Africa, eastern Europe and some parts of Asia HIV treatment is unavailable and those folks don’t stand a chance. Or fall prey to scams trying to obtain what is ultimately bad medicine.
Regarding how HIV started, I remembered reading it may have been due to how polio vaccines were developed on africa, that they used blood from a certain species of monkey and that was how the disease spread so rampant after the vaccines were rolled out…not sure how much water there is to yhat…off to google…
Yolanda is passionate about educating people about Lyme disease and I respect her for that, but comparing it to HIV? I have to disagree.
Being diagnosed with HIV can still be considered a death sentence in parts of the world without access to proper medications. People are still shunned socially and in some cases denied housing, jobs in spite of laws preventing such discrimination.
Yolanda moves in social circles of immense wealth and privilege, many living with HIV live in poverty.
I wish her a full recovery, but her comparison is all wrong
What???? I think my uncle would have preferred Lyme disease over HIV. He might have still been here today.
Yeah, I think my dad would have prefered that too… My mum’s colleagues shunned her, refused to touch her desk or use her phone for fear of getting AIDS, even if she was negative but living with someone with HIV. Dad didn’t want to tell me or my sibling for fear we’d stop loving him. And losing my dad at 7 was so much fun!
Seriously, nothing compares with living with HIV, especially in the early days of the epidemic. I understand that undiagnosed Lyme can lead to pretty awfull symptoms, but it’s nothing close to AIDS.
Epidemic?!? Yep I’m sure the millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa were HIV prevalence is sky high, would see Lymes disease as an epidemic. Or the vulnerable groups of people globally that are more at risk to HIV would agree with her statement. I’m not diminishing her illness, suffering and perhaps the stigma she has faced. But HIV related stigma and HIV as an illness, have little to no comparisons to lymes.
I’m also Australian (*waves*). Did you know that Lyme Disease isn’t recognised as being transmitted locally? Thousands of patients with tick bites and subsequent Lyme-like symptoms, but the Heath Dept says we don’t have the same bacteria strain that causes Lyme in the US, therefore we don’t have Lyme. We might have something extremely similar, but since they haven’t found it yet they can’t test for it. No test means no diagnosis, and no diagnosis means no treatment. And, like CB mentioned, if you’re not properly diagnosed with Lyme, you’re usually told that it’s all in your head (stress).
Too late to edit: I wrote the above before you’d posted below about having relatives with Lyme. With family members suffering, I’m sure you’re aware of the huge problems getting an accurate diagnosis in Australia.
I’ll leave it there though. Just take it as a general public service announcement rather than a comment specifically for you.
Hi thanks for the reply. Again My only point in my comments really is that they are different diseases. Yes Diagnosis and treatment is hard in Australia and they have sort treatment in America. My sister is the president of the Lyme Disease Association of Australia.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/battling-for-recognition-of-disease-20120714-223eu.html
Many of the commenters are severely misinformed. I have members of my family with chronic Lyme disease. It is severely debilitating disease and people die from it. It is hard to diagnose, but possible to diagnose. One needs a Lyme literate doctor for treatment. I think many people are running around with undiagnosed Lyme, and lime can progress and two other neuro-degenerative diseases such as MS and Parkinson’s. It’s a very serious disease
I have two family members that have lymes and one is wheel chair bound. I’m not diminishing the illness but I commented on lymes disease not been a epidemic at present, the nature of HIV and vulnerable groups and HIV related stigma is not the same as Lymes stigma. They are completely different.
+1
Indeed. Lyme is in fact quite a serious epidemic, with the MD’s on the front lines (Lyme literate and educated MDs) reporting that the CLOSER number to the officially reported one is upwards of a million new cases a year. It is in every single country (not just a few states in the USA~it is epidemic in ALL of them) and on every island around the globe, and is~get this~sexually trnasmissable as well as having other still unknown but suspected vectors of transmission besides tick bites. It mimics many other diseases, and is very difficult to prolerly diagnose because of the way it impacts the immune system and the number of “false negatives” The tests are neither sensitive or specific enough, even though Igenix labs in California has the most accurate tests. Check out the ILADS.org website for more, accurate, timely data.
Wow, that’s interesting and scarey stuff. It’s a ticky and deceiving disease to diagnose and I think that’s what makes understanding and support hard for suffers, which I imagine would be isolating.
I’ve never commented here before but I’ve been following the site for a few years.
I’ll preface this by saying I’m a registered nurse and that I don’t watch this woman’s show or follow her whatsoever. I felt inclined to comment because a few things in the article bothered me.
There is a definitive test for Lyme disease.
It is not comparable to HIV.
You can die from Lyme disease.
Pain is subjective. As a nurse, I never, ever judge a patient’s pain rating because I don’t think their condition is “serious enough,” or I think that their pain cannot possibly be a 10/10. People handle pain in different ways and pain presents itself in many different ways, especially in autoimmune disorders such as Lyme disease, lupus, fibromyalgia, etc…
It is disheartening to see so many people with little to no compassion. I work in an ER in a major city on the East Coast. 90% of people who walk in have what would be considered “subjective pain.” I would never considering withholding pain medication because I didn’t think the patient was really in that much pain.
I admit to not knowing a lot about Lyme disease before reading your post but to compare the two diseases is silly simply because of the history of AIDS. The stigma attached to AIDS was unprecedented – families were torn apart and sufferers were ostracized from their communities. It was treated like a plague. This has never been the case with Lyme disease. Also, while Yolanda and some of her kids may suffer it’s ill affects, I think in her being known as someone bringing the disease out into the open, Yolanda comes across as someone who seem to be using Lyme disease for publicity. This is a woman who wants to be the next Kris Jenner IMO what with her somewhat famous Hadid brood.. Maybe if she aligned herself with some Lyme disease experts or maybe shared her experience with the disease in an appropriate setting, she’s have more credibility.
22giraffe: “I would never considering withholding pain medication because I didn’t think the patient was really in that much pain.” Can nurses withhold pain medications from patients?
Advanced Nurse Practitioners are able to prescribe medications.
@ladysussex
Yes. Doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners etc are the ones who actually order medication for patients. If I was just blindly following orders without looking at the big picture then I wouldn’t be a very good nurse.
For example – if I have a patient who is complaining of 10/10 pain but their blood pressure is on the low side (100s/50s – 90s/50s) then I would certainly hold that pain medication in fear of dropping that patient’s blood pressure too low. You wouldn’t want to create a new problem by trying to fix another one.
She’s not very bright, is she.
Good for her for advocating about Lyme. People may think her foolish and mock her, they may sneer at her and say she doesn’t have a chronic illness, but I think her brave to expose herself as she does. She doesn’t need to make herself vulnerable or open herself up to ridicule or contempt and the fact that she does, makes me admire her. if she were doing it because she had cancer she would most likely be called a saint. As it is, she’s maligned and that shows the general level of ignorance about Lyme and proves why sufferers like her need to tell their story.
It’s great she’s raising awareness, I think we all know someone who has/had it and it can certainly be brutal.
But comparing it to HIV/AIDS is out of line, when considering the deaths that has caused, as well as the harsh stigma its sufferers have faced.
Watching Real Housewives, she was constantly changing her story about things. She’d say she was bedridden and ‘locked in the house’ for 9 months, she couldn’t read or watch tv, or go for a walk but her instagram was full of photos, etc..She definitely added to confusion (because she would stress it was literal and not an exaggeration) about what Lyme is even if she acts like an advocate. A number of people thought she really had issues because of her leaking implants. She had them removed online and it had spread into her lymph nodes and was quite awful. Combine it with menopause and hormonal issues and it was possibly more that than Lyme.She also was constantly putting things in, taking things out of her body and flying all over the world doing every experimental treatment under the sun–as well as having literally a closet full of meds she took regularly. And I mean literally–they showed it on one episode. That could definitely have an effect on your system. I have an ‘invisible’ disease myself and I totally sympathize but I do wonder if Lyme is really what she has or what was causing the bulk of her issues. Then she said that Bella (it helped caused her DUI) and Anwar both suffer from it as well.
Wasnt that last season painful to watch? Ugggghhh it was not enjoyable. Not at all.
New England has a lot of people with Lyme disease and Ive seen people in all different stages of sick. Lyme, CT is where it started. They say it came from the facilities on Plum Island. A government oopsie. Its a fascinating google adventure is you take a look.
One theory is that it has increased in virulence and spread like it has as a result of a biological weaponization experiment that escaped containment.
In the Northeast, I would say it is an epidemic, but not comparable to HIV, both in terms of fatality and social stigma. But I hate, hate having to be so paranoid with my kids and dogs. So many people I know have had it, and my kids get deer ticks on them all the time.
Side note – does she really get to revert back to her previous married name ? I would think her ex husband would have something to say about it. If her girls weren’t famous, she wouldn’t dream of it. It’s not like she wanted to maintain a Familial name — she did change it to Foster. Ugh.
(The doc in the article called her Ms Hadid… that’s what I’m basing this rant on.)
As I said above, while she may really be trying to clue in the rest of the world about Lyme disease, she sure seems to be using it for personnel publicity. If she’s going by Hadid now, she’s cashing in on her girls’ name recognition. That certainly sounds fishy to me.
What people have a hard time with is Yolanda’s inconsistency and her tendency to rely on “iffy” healthcare practitioners. Lyme itself is freaking terrible, and chronic Lyme is awful. Just because Yolanda is a terrible spokesperson for it doesn’t mean that it’s not a terrible disease.
HIV and Lyme are actually similar: she is right. Both are autoimmune diseases that can mutate and hide in the body, and both are extremely difficult to treat. They are also similar in that they can impact and attack so many disparate systems in the body. No, they are not the same in terms of how they are transmitted, and they are not the same in terms of the stigmatization that HIV people experience, as people don’t even understand Lyme.