Whopper of the Week: Lyme disease is Not a Bioweapon

THIS WEEK'S WHOPPER:

LYME DISEASE IS NOT A BIOWEAPON

IN SUMMARY:

In January 2024, Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy baselessly claimed that Lyme Disease “is highly likely to have been a military weapon,” adding, “we also know they were experimenting with diseases of the kind, like Lyme disease, at that lab [Plum Island], and putting them in ticks and then infecting people, testing them with bird vectors…" At his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2025, Secretary Kennedy admitted that he had called Lyme disease a bioweapon, but then said that he “never believed it”. There is no evidence that Lyme disease was ever a research topic at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, let alone a bioweapon. But the conspiracy theory has been revived recently by MAHA adherents, like Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary who repeated this same false story in a November 2025 interview promoted by MAHA Action.

WHY IS THIS A WHOPPER?

While Lyme disease has plagued humans for a long time, the syndrome and its cause were only identified fifty years ago. In the 1970s, researchers at Yale University investigated a cluster of arthritis patients in Lyme Connecticut who had been bitten by deer ticks. The disease was described as "Lyme arthritis" in 1977. Five years later, the bacteria which caused the disease was identified by Willy Burgdorfer and named in his honor. The bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, has been found in samples of ticks from the 1940s, well before the opening of the Plum Island research center. Genetic studies show that B. burgdorferi has existed in the continental US for as long as 60,000 years. The earliest evidence for human infection by the Borrelia bacteria comes from a 5,300 year-old European mummy found in the Alps. Geneticist Katherine Walter explains that the scientific evidence shows “the bacteria is ancient in North America," which is “not consistent with this conspiracy theory… that it was created in a lab on Plum Island."

The spread of Lyme disease is likely due to ecological changes, from deforestation to climate change, that have vastly expanded the range and population size of tick hosts, including deer. As these ecologic changes continue and human exposure to infected ticks increases, cases of Lyme disease has become more frequent and widespread. The ticks that carry B. burgdorferi are now found in forested areas in the north-eastern, north-central, and mid-Atlantic states, and to a lesser extent in the Pacific Northwest.

Lyme disease would be an extraordinarily inefficient bioweapon. It is typically a mild and short-lived infection. In addition, ticks live in non-urban areas away from most people, and are relatively easy to avoid with proper clothing and tick repellents. People in endemic areas are advised to look for ticks on their bodies and for the characteristic bulls-eye pattern around the bites. Early signs of Lyme disease often include fever, chills, fatigue, headache, muscle aches and/or joint pain which develop in the first month after infection. Most people recover completely with a 2- to 4-week course of oral antibiotics but, without treatment, some people will develop more widespread symptoms affecting the nerves, heart, and or joints. A rare condition called Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome can lead to prolonged symptoms that do not respond to additional antibiotics.

WHY IT MATTERS:

Lyme disease is an area rife with frustration, controversy and fraud. It affects a lot of people, its symptoms are nonspecific, and it can be difficult to diagnose. Many patients have symptoms that overlap with other conditions such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Long COVID, ME/CFS. Treatment of long term symptoms are especially controversial and professional medical guidelines recommend against additional antibiotic therapy in the absence of evidence of specific Lyme infection symptoms like arthritis, meningitis, or neuropathy.

Kennedy is using patient frustration to spread distrust about the Centers for Disease Control, researchers and the public health establishment. In December, Kennedy convened a roundtable on Lyme disease at which he falsely claimed that past administrations have ignored the disease, refused to engage with the Lyme community or even denied that Lyme disease exists. These claims are not supported by any evidence.

The propaganda about the bioweapon “origins” of Lyme disease is a way of distracting attention from the role the government actually plays in developing diagnostics, therapies and vaccines. In 2024, $50 million in grant funding  was dedicated to Lyme disease through the National Institute of Health and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). But under the Trump administration, thousands of grants have been terminated, and the NIAID budget could be cut by over one third in 2026.

Kennedy is trying to bypass experts and evidence-based science to share alternative “treatment experiences” and promoting artificial intelligence to scan and “co-create” treatment guidelines outside of (rather than in partnership with) professional medical organizations. These are pathways that could funnel disaffected patients to health care providers outside the medical mainstream, making them vulnerable to fraud. If Kennedy succeeds in exacerbating distrust and dismantling the existing research and regulatory environment, he will put Lyme patients at risk of both financial and medical harm. 
 

Contributors to this post are: Miriam Rabkin, M.D., Aurora Horstkamp, M.D., Benedicte Callan, Ph.D.