House Bill 1326 seeks to protects physicians' rights to determine the most appropriate treatment protocol for their patients.
New Hampshire residents need HB 1326 to safeguard their choice in treatment of Lyme disease.
NH doctors are under pressure from the medical community and insurance companies to treat with very limited antibiotic regimen, according to the Infectious Disease Society of America which denies the existence of chronic Lyme disease.
Hearing Update
Thank you all for sending in your written testimonies and attending the hearing on Thursday, January 28th.
The hearing room was packed - standing room only - three person deep . More than 200 of you attended the hearing and countless testimonies were heard.
Testimony began at 2 PM and ended close to 7 PM. Representative Gary Daniels submitted your testimonies, almost 200 pages of them!
Although the vast majority of the testimony was in favor of the bill there was opposing testimony.
That testimony could greatly affect whether or not the Health and Human Services Committee recommends this bill to the full House of Representatives.
ACTION:
Please call your state representative this weekend and ask them to encourage the HHS Committee to support this very important bill.
We are asking that you don't contact members of the HHS committee directly, as they sat through five hours of testimony and are reviewing 400 other bills at this time. Members of the New Hampshire Lyme Legislation Committee have a strategy for communication with them.
To find your town's representatives, follow this link:
For those not comfortable talking on the phone, their email addresses are also included on this link when you click on each name individually.
Phone calls are preferred, but any help you can offer is appreciated.
SAMPLE SCRIPT FOR CALLING YOUR REPRESENTATIVE:
``I am calling today as a registered voter in _______ county.
I am asking you to personally call members of the Health and Human Services Committee this weekend to request that they give serious consideration to House Bill 1326, which will allow thousands of patients like myself who have been seriously debilitated by Lyme to have access to the full spectrum of care that is available to treat chronic Lyme.
Right now New Hampshire doctors are under pressure from the medical community and insurance companies to treat with very limited antibiotic regimen, according to guidelines from the Infectious Disease Society of America which denies the existence of chronic Lyme disease.
Similar legislation was passed in Connecticut, California and Rhode Island and is being considered in Virgina and Minnesota.
New Hampshire, which has the highest incidence of Lyme Disease per capita in the country, should be at the forefront of fighting this pandemic.
Thank you for your time, and for paying attention to this very important public health issue.''
Thank you for time and effort,
Cathy Kettmann, New Hampshire Lyme Legislation Committee