Kris Newby, science journalist and author of Bitten ( Lyme, the forbidden trail , Resurgence editions ), and Professor Christian Perronne, infectious disease specialist, met in Paris for the launch of the French version of the book.
An explosive interview on the hidden origins of Lyme disease and the institutional denial that has plagued its sufferers for decades.
A personal ordeal that turned into an investigation
It all started with a personal tragedy. Bitten in 2002 on Martha’s Vineyard, Kris Newby and her husband contracted Lyme disease from “invisible ticks”. Ten doctors, $60,000 in expenses, and a diagnosis denied despite a positive test: a senior official from the infectious diseases department at Stanford, whom she would later interview as a journalist, confided that Lyme patients are ignored because “they’re all crazy .”
Willy Burgdorfer’s Hidden Treasure
The investigation leads Kris Newby to Willy Burgdorfer, the scientist who discovered the bacterium responsible for the disease—and who spent nearly twenty years with the American biological weapons program, at the Entomological Warfare Division of Fort Detrick. Before his death, she retrieves files he had hidden in his garage to prevent them from being handed over to the National Institutes of Health. These documents describe chilling experiments: the researchers recount how they “introduced the rabies virus” into ticks, and the deadly “yellow fever“ virus into mosquitoes, with the aim of dropping them on the enemy during the height of the Cold War.
A 25-year struggle that went unheeded
For Professor Perronne, one of the few French advocates for these patients for the past 25 years, the publication of this book is a vindication. Those who dismissed his warnings labeled his work a “hysterical book“ rather than a historical one. He denounces the funding freeze: in 2025, the relevant French institute cut all research funding for the disease, citing “imaginary illnesses.”
Conversely, Professor Perronne welcomes the American shift led by Robert Kennedy Jr., himself a former Lyme patient, who launched a federal investigation dubbed the “war on ticks“ and released one billion dollars of public funds.
Patients silenced, truth suppressed
Professor Perronne recounts having long been subjected to media attacks in France, accused of delusional theories about the military origins of the disease—some even attempting to shadowban his book (a technological method of making the book invisible). Since its publication in French, he says, his detractors, confronted with the facts, have fallen silent: “They are embarrassed.”
A book, a call
Despite the long road ahead, the two speakers invite French readers to immerse themselves in this work, which they consider historical and based, they insist, on verifiable facts and unpublished archives, and not on theories.