The Lyme vaccine was pulled from the market because, in some people, it
caused an auto-immune response as bad as or worse than Lyme itself.
Unfortunately, in some people, the body's immune response to the Lyme
spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, starts attacking the person's own cells in
the joints and other places, setting up a long-term, mostly untreatable
condition. Some people also responded to the vaccine this way, which caused
the manufacturer, fearing lawsuits, to pull it from the market.

My husband caught Lyme after straying from the path at Chincoteague (lots of
Sika deer + lots of grass and reeds = lots of deer ticks). We pulled three
deer ticks off his leg that evening, and a few days later he came down with
the classic bulls-eye rash. We were lucky that that was enough to convince
his doctor at GW to put him on doxycycline for two weeks. This was over ten
years ago, and he hasn't had any symptom recurrence. 

For links to reliable info on Lyme (or any other health issues, for that
matter), NIH has a great website called MedlinePlus here:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/medlineplus.html

Do a search on "Lyme", and it will give a list of reliable links with info
on diagnosis, treatment, etc. 

Mary LaMarca,
Silver Spring