IAREF – Effectively treat autoimmune diseases and chronic infections Infection and Autoimmunity Research and Education Foundation IAREF sponsored research for The University of WisconsinMadison and Galaxy Diagnostics and published an article in Microbiology Spectrum Antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi and Bartonella species in serum and synovial fluid from people with rheumatic diseases. OUR FOCUS After several years of diagnosing and treating patients our belief is that many autoimmune diseases are driven by an underlying chronic infection. Treating symptoms is the common thing to do in medicine while this is a shortterm fix this does not help address the longterm problems that can develop from not treating the root cause of the disease that will continue to be problematic. To make lasting change for the better the root cause needs to be identified and treated.