For those who have already submitted their comments, please remember you are allowed up to 20 submissions, so there may be time to make some additional short comments.
For those who were unable to complete the task in the short time allotted please take this time to share your comments.
TX Lyme Mom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3162
posted
Thank goodness!
And thanks to you, TC, for posting this topic to let us know.
I had wanted very much to participate, but my current lifestyle (with constant interruptions and major distractions) compounded by the IDSA's previous restrictions on downloading their draft document, had made it an utter impossibility for me even to get started.
Kudos to the IDSA for being fairer minded and more receptive to outside input. The IDSA is to be commended for this important gesture, and I intend to make sure that my comments reflect my appreciation.
Posts: 4563 | From TX | Registered: Sep 2002
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TX Lyme Mom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3162
IDSA extends comment time and allows downloads lymedisease.org/idsa-extends-lyme-deadline/ August 10, 2019 Dorothy Kupcha Leland
10 AUG 2019
TOUCHED BY LYME: IDSA extends comment period and allows downloads
IDSA extends comment period
Hours before its self-imposed deadline of August 10, the Infectious Diseases Society has given a brief reprieve to frustrated patients trying to comment on the IDSA Lyme guidelines.
The new deadline is September 9.
Here’s some background on what transpired:
In June, the IDSA released a draft of its new Lyme treatment comments and supposedly invited the patient community to comment by August 10.
I say “supposedly,” because the organization devised a complicated procedure for reading and commenting that seemed designed to discourage people from even trying.
It was like requiring potential commenters to keep one hand tied behind their back while wearing a blindfold.
As Dr. Judy Stone, writing for Forbes.com, noted recently:
The IDSA has made review more difficult by only offering the draft online. It is “protected,” so one cannot even cut and paste lines into a reply or commentary, nor highlight passages for review. Nor can one search the document by keyword. Forbes and I have asked for a pdf that can be annotated, to make review and comment easier, and they have refused. Their refusal makes me feel they really don’t want people to comment on their 81-page draft and 203 page supplement.
And that’s only to READ the document. Submitting comments also requires an onerous process.
At the last minute, on August 7, volunteer Lyme activist Lucy Barnes expressed her frustrations in an email to the IDSA, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). (The three organizations sponsoring the guidelines.)
She called the “daunting task” of reading and commenting “unfair to all interested parties, especially the disabled.”
She also said:
Many patients across the country simply cannot participate in this process and complete the project on time due to the severity of their tick-borne disease related illnesses, their resulting disabilities and/or the effort and energy involved.
It places an undue burden on them, essentially silencing countless voices across the country and even worldwide…. [When copying comments into the IDSA’s required Survey Monkey form] the formatting becomes so jumbled (paragraphs pushed together, no center for titles, spacing problems, etc.) that it would take hours to try to correct it once inserted into the form and even then I am still not sure it will be readable.
My vision is too poor to be able to do this additional work in the tiny space allotted on the form in the small font that automatically appears, and my energy levels are already strained attempting to complete my project on time; therefore, I am not able to use the only option you’ve provided to submit comments.
Lo and behold, on August 9, the IDSA extended the cutoff date for comments–and decided to eliminate the “protections” on the document. An email to Barnes stated:
The deadline to submit comments is now Sept. 9, 2019.
In addition to the deadline extension, the format of the draft guidelines posted on the public comment website has been changed to allow readers to search, download and print the document, ensuring that anyone interested in submitting comments is able to access the draft guidelines and have appropriate time to review and comment.
So, there you go. After weeks of stonewalling anyone who complained about the process, finally the IDSA has agreed to lessen the burden a bit. However, the problematic commenting procedure remains unchanged.
LymeDisease.org and a coalition of partner organizations did submit comments yesterday, a day before the original deadline. Our response totaled some 50 pages—and took the team about three hours to upload via the Survey Monkey form.
We’ll be sharing that document with you, along with related analysis, in the coming days. Stay tuned.
Click here to read Lucy Barnes’ email exchange with the IDSA/AAN/ACR. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page for most recent additions.)
Click here for the IDSA’s portal for Lyme comments.
Posts: 4563 | From TX | Registered: Sep 2002
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