Borrelia or Borrelia burgdorferi is the spirochetal bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Its most commonly transmitted to humans through an infected tick bite. Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans that usually blooms from the bite mark. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Treatment often requires antibiotics. USA CDC Home page for Lyme disease... http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/index.htm

Picture of the Borrelia burgdoferi strain... http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/bburgdorferi_sm.htm

Controversially, some in the medical community believe Borrelia bacterium infections can also occur like other blood borne illnesses, including congenital, transfusion, and sexual. While patients have Borrelia infection-like symptoms, because they are missing the characteristic erythema migrans, many mainstream doctors resist diagnosing as Lyme disease. Common misdiagnoses include depression. Despite credible symptoms, because many blood samples do not grow the borrelia bacterium in a lab culture, some labs use unapproved and unverified assays with mixed results, and because the CDC continues to insist that tick bites are the cause, then mainstream medicine remains skeptical. Some believe that the bacterium exists in a cyst form that can lay dormant for months or years, and is easily missed in typical blood tests, and why normal cultures fail.