Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Victoria Kotowski. Ms. Kotowski is a 26-year-old lacrosse club director and coach from Long Island, New York. She was an extremely successful athlete and student in high school, with an active social life. That changed when she was 18 years old. Suddenly, Ms. Kotowski had pain in her joints, anxiety, migraines, and developed an eating disorder. She had a very isolating Lyme journey, and doctors misdiagnosed her symptoms as being related to various mental health issues. It took 14 years for her to get a Lyme diagnosis. If you would like to learn more about how Ms. Kotowski is using her experience to help and inspire others, then tune in now!

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Christina Colandrea. Ms. Colandrea is a model from Columbia, Maryland. She was only 12 years old when she first started to experience the symptoms of a tick disease. Despite her symptoms, Ms. Colandrea worked as an orthodontic assistant, and was a self-proclaimed gym rat. Unfortunately, she wasn’t diagnosed with Lyme until she was 31 years old. Ms. Colandrea is a huge fan of detoxing, and is currently treating with a new LLMD. If you would like to learn more about Ms. Colandrea’s Lyme journey, then tune in now!

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Courtney Schutze. Ms. Schutze is a 29-year-old blogger from Austin, Texas. She was bitten by a tick in August 2014 while on a cross-country bike ride from Texas to Alaska. For years she experienced memory issues, joint pain, and lost the ability to read. After working long hours trying to fight through her symptoms, Ms. Schutze had to leave her job and move back in with her mom. Then, she was finally diagnosed with Lyme. If you’d like to learn more about Ms. Schutze’s healing journey and her recent move to Austin, Texas, then tune in now!

In this gripping interview, award-winning science writer Kris Newby—author of Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons and senior producer of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Under Our Skin—joins the Tick Boot Camp Podcast to break down the explosive research behind one of the most controversial questions in infectious disease: Could Lyme disease have originated from a Cold War biological weapons program?

Newby shares the personal nightmare that began with a family vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, a tick bite that led to misdiagnosis by 10 doctors, years of disability, and a desperate search for answers. That search led her to the discoverer of the Lyme microbe, Willy Burgdorfer, whose private admissions, lab notebooks, and classified connections ignited a five-year investigation into covert military experiments, missing pathogens, and a disease that behaves like an engineered infection.

This episode is essential listening for anyone seeking clarity on Lyme disease origins, diagnostic failures, chronic illness, bioweapons history, and what patients must know to protect themselves now.

Key Topics Discussed

Kris Newby’s Background

• Raised in a military family; two engineering degrees; tech career at Bell Labs, Convergent Technologies, Apple, and Silicon Valley startups

• Successful science/tech writer at Stanford Medical School

• Life trajectory changed by one tick bite on Martha’s Vineyard

• Months of debilitating illness leading to bankruptcy-level medical costs and dismissal by mainstream doctors

The Medical Odyssey

• 10 doctors, 12 months, $60,000 before receiving an accurate diagnosis

• Positive Lyme tests ignored; Western blot results withheld

• Vaccine-era politics, IDSA guidelines, and insurance pressures preventing proper treatment

• How ILADS clinicians use multi-drug protocols, detoxification, and co-infection testing to treat complex mixed infections

• Her and her husband’s long recovery path, neurological symptoms, relapse cycles, and the role of IV antibiotics

Bitten: The Investigation

• The secretive interview with Willy Burgdorfer—his anger, guilt, and cryptic “I didn’t tell you everything”

• Confirmation that Burgdorfer developed bug-borne biological weapons for the U.S. military

• Groundbreaking evidence that Lyme’s original outbreak involved multiple pathogens, possibly including a rickettsial agent (“Swiss Agent USA”) buried from public knowledge

• Discrepancies between what the public was told vs. what lab notebooks and internal communications reveal

• How Cold War programs weaponized ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes for “stealth” incapacitating warfare

• Open-air biological tests in the U.S. and Cuba, and missing pathogens from military freezers

• Why chronic Lyme may persist: false negatives, ignored co-infections, engineered stealth microbes, and political suppression

The Fallout

• Why the epidemic exploded around Long Island Sound in the late 1960s

• How early containment failed due to scientific suppression

• Why CDC surveillance has underestimated true case counts for decades

• The cost of a half-century cover-up on U.S. public health

Patient Empowerment & Prevention

• What to do immediately after a tick bite

• How to choose a truly experienced Lyme-literate clinician

• Why early, aggressive treatment is critical

• The essential role of detox, gut support, and lifestyle stabilization

• Her call to action for researchers, policymakers, and the medical system

About Kris Newby

Kris Newby is an award-winning science writer and senior producer of the Lyme documentary UNDER OUR SKIN, which premiered at Tribeca and became a 2010 Oscar semifinalist. Her book BITTEN won multiple international awards in investigative reporting and narrative nonfiction. Newby has written for Stanford Medical School, Apple, and leading science magazines, and she holds engineering degrees from the University of Utah and Stanford University.

Selected Awards

• 2024: CASE Gold Award, AAMC Gold Award & Best-of-Show (Stanford Medicine Magazine)

• 2021: Nellie Bly Award, 1st Place, Investigative Journalism — BITTEN

• 2020: International Book Award, Narrative Nonfiction (Gold) — BITTEN

• 2020: Nautilus Book Award, Investigative Reporting (Silver) — BITTEN

• Multiple writing awards from AAMC, CASE, Longreads, and Stanford Medicine Magazine

Why You Need to Hear This Episode

This interview dismantles the mythology around Lyme disease, explains why diagnostic tests fail millions, exposes critical gaps in public health policy, and outlines what patients must do to avoid chronic illness.

It’s also a rare, candid look into the life of the woman whose research shook the medical establishment—and why the U.S. still hasn’t answered the most important question of all:

What exactly is in those ticks?

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Jeremy Scott Foster. Mr. Foster is a 34-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles, California. He was just a teenager when he was bitten by a tick in his backyard in New Hampshire. He experienced extreme brain fog and night sweats, and was lucky to be diagnosed almost right away. He took antibiotics, and began traveling around the world soon after. Then, in September 2015, Mr. Foster either relapsed, or was reinfected. Luckily, he recognized the symptoms he was experiencing, like fatigue, as being related to Lyme and fought to be tested again. If you would like to learn more about Mr. Foster’s Lyme journey and how he hopes to inspire others, then tune in now!

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Melanie Hubert. Ms. Hubert is a 28-year-old personal trainer from Miami, Florida. Ms. Hubert was just 12 years old when she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She was a troublesome child because of issues that stemmed from Lyme. In 2017, Ms. Hubert suffered from an extreme relapse. She was underweight, had severe skin issues, and couldn’t shower or dress herself. She had to move back home. Ms. Hubert then started seeing a holistic medicine doctor and began her Lyme treatment journey. If you would like to learn more about how Ms. Hubert stays so positive despite having had Lyme for more than half of her life, then tune in now!

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Olivia Nicholas. Ms. Nicholas is a 25-year-old mom and real estate administrator from Perth, Australia. She started to experience the symptoms of a tick disease when she was in high school. She had digestive issues, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Ms. Nicholas would not be diagnosed with Lyme until she saw close to 50 doctors. If you would like to learn more about how Ms. Nicholas is helping others so they don’t ever have to feel as lost as she was on her journey, then tune in now!

Joyce Braun is a 43-year-old woman from Ontario, Canada. She was bitten by a tick during a camping trip to a Lyme endemic area in 2015. After the camping trip, she developed severe neck pain. She visited a hospital emergency room and was dismissed by the doctor and accused of seeking drugs. The doctor recommended that she visit a chiropractor for her neck pain. Thereafter her symptoms progressed, and she began to suffer fatigue and chemical sensitivities. In 2018, a series of stressful life events overwhelmed her immune system and she lost the ability to get out of bed. After visiting 5 doctors over 6 years, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease through an IGeneX blood test. The IgeneX test also showed that she tested positive for a German strain of Lyme disease. The results were surprising because Joyce never traveled to Germany. Today, Joyce is treating with Bee Venom Therapy (BVT) and has seen early positive results. If you would like to know more about Joyce Braun managed her Lyme disease related fatigue and chemical sensitivities using Bee Venom Therapy, then tune in now!

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Julia Feygelman. Ms. Feygelman is a 25-year-old community health scientist from Corte Madera, California. She first started to experience the symptoms of a tick disease at just 15-years-old. She went on a volunteer trip to remove weeds, and a week later, she was hospitalized with a persistent high fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes. She googled her own symptoms and knew she had Lyme disease, but since her test came back negative, it was never revisited. Ms. Feygelman fought through her symptoms to earn a B.S. and Master’s Degree from UCLA. It would take almost 10 years for her to be properly diagnosed with Lyme. If you would like to learn more about this brilliant Lyme Warrior who is in the midst of her healing journey, then tune in now!

Tick Boot Camp’s guest today is Abby Lottridge. Ms. Lottridge is a 19-year-old college student from East Lyme, Connecticut. She was only in elementary school when she first started to experience the symptoms of a tick disease. She was tired all the time, and had flu-like symptoms. Ms. Lottridge was diagnosed with Lyme four separate times. She had to quit sports and couldn’t socialize with friends. Thanks to an amazing guidance counselor and high school teachers, Ms. Lottridge was able to graduate from high school on time. She was set to attend UConn on a rowing scholarship, but had to withdraw because the physical demands were too much on her body. If you would like to learn more about how Ms. Lottridge plans to help others throughout the course of her career, and how she is already making an impact in the Lyme community, then tune in now!