FDA Commissioner Makary States that Lyme Disease Came from Lab 257 on Plum Island

Reflexive and vociferous cries of "debunked conspiracy theory" raise further suspicion that Dr. Makary is over the target.

During a November 2025 conversation on the PBD Podcast, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary stated that “with a high degree of probability,” Lyme disease came from the U.S. biodefense “Lab 257 on Plum Island just outside of Connecticut.”

Makary elaborated that the pathogenic agent was developed primarily by the German veterinarian and animal virus specialist, Dr. Erich Traub, who previously conducted biological warfare research for Nazi Germany and was brought to the United States after the war as part of Operation Paperclip to acquire German scientific research while denying it to the Soviets.

Dr. Erich Traub

As evidence, Makary cited the published literature on the U.S. bioweapons program to develop insects and arachnids as disease vectors. He specifically mentioned the book, Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons, by Kris Newby.

I was already familiar with the theory that the causative agent of Lyme disease—a spiral-shaped bacteria (spirochetes) from the Borrelia genus, primarily Borrelia burgdorferi—came out of Lab 257 on Plum Island. The bacteria was first isolated and described in 1982 by Wilhelm Burgdorfer, a Swiss-American medical entomologist who worked at NIAD.

The first cluster of Lyme disease cases in humans was identified in 1975 in Old Lyme, Connecticut, after two mothers noticed their children's unusual arthritis symptoms.

I hadn’t given this theory much thought until I saw the reflexive, widespread, and lockstep proclamations that Dr. Makary’s statement is a “debunked conspiracy theory.”

Whenever I hear loud cries that a statement is a “conspiracy theory!” I am inclined to believe that he who is making the statement is on target. He may not know all of the particulars, and he may be wrong about certain details, but he is likely barking up the right tree.

Surveying the literature on the internet and doing an AI search yields a feeble “debunking” of this “conspiracy theory”—namely, that after Borrelia burgdorferi was isolated in 1982, researchers found evidence that the bacteria had been circulating for thousands of years in animals and humans. This argument is so childish and flimsy that only a hack propagandist would write it.

To assert that the bacteria was around long before Dr. Erich Traub served as a consultant at the U.S. biodefense lab on Plum Island in the 1950s in no way debunks the theory. The bacteria readily infects lab monkeys, especially rhesus macaques, which develop symptoms similar to humans, including arthritis, carditis, and neurological issues.

It is therefore a perfectly plausible theory that Traub et al. conducted serial passage experiments of Borrelia burgdorferi on rhesus macaques to make it more virulent to primates.

This is consistent with the OspC type A genotype of Borrelia burgdorferi being linked to more severe inflammation and arthritis in Lyme disease cases. This is the genotype that is prevalent in the Northeast, starting around Connecticut, characterized by specific, conserved amino acid sequences in its variable loop regions, making it a key marker for pathogenic strains.