Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
PLEASE SHARE WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN MARYLAND!
Do we need Lyme disease education for the public and the doctors in Maryland? You bet we do!!!
State Delegate Karen Montgomery, from Montgomery County, has introduced a new bill, House Bill- HB 836. It provides for a Lyme Disease Awareness Campaign in Maryland. It is considered a stepping stone towards bigger and better things to come.
Please call and/or email YOUR Delegate (site below to find them and contact info) UNLESS your Delegate is Delegate Montgomery, as she is already sponsoring the bill.
Tell them to PLEASE support HB 836, the Lyme Disease Awareness Campaign Bill WITH AMENDMENTS!!!!
It is VERY important to say WITH AMENDMENTS!!!! (amendments are listed below in the letter)
The Lyme Disease Education and Support Groups of Maryland have requested a slight change in the wording (amendment) so the bill won't promote the dreaded IDSA Guidelines, and ONLY the IDSA guidelines.
It should take only a minute or two of your time... and we need your support. This MUST be done before Monday 4 PM, March 12, 2007. Please share this with everyone you know in Maryland and ask them to do the same... so we can hopefully take a bite out of Lyme.
The letter we sent to the legislators, WITH AMENDMENTS:
Lyme Disease Education and Support Groups of Maryland
Delegate Karen Montgomery
House Office Building, Room 222 6 Bladen Street, Annapolis, MD
March 8, 2007
Dear Delegate Montgomery,
Thank you for creating a bill designed to educate the public and physicians about the dangers of Lyme and tick borne diseases, which are being detected in increasing numbers in Maryland. Your bill, HB 836, will be an important step in reducing the number of people who will be exposed to a potentially serious and life threatening illness and hopefully provide them with the knowledge and tools necessary so they can be treated promptly and properly.
It will also provide for much needed physician education so that chronically ill patients and their doctors will better understand the disease process and be informed when treating the ongoing infections and subsequent disabling consequences.
We, the Maryland patients, residents, volunteer support groups and group leaders, as well as volunteer patient advocates nationwide, are honored and pleased to announce we support your Public Health- Lyme Disease- Public Awareness Campaign Bill (HB 836) and consider it favorable with the following amendments.
In section A (2) line 15-17, (IV), we kindly request that the existing wording be replaced with the following:
(IV) Develop and disseminate balanced educational materials to health care providers including National Guideline Clearinghouse peer-reviewed guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of early and chronic Lyme disease;
In addition, we respectfully request a specified end point be provided for the Lyme Disease Awareness campaign and it be included in Section 2, following lines 27-28, to read as follows:
SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this act shall take effect October 1, 2007. It shall remain effective for a period of two years and the provisions herein shall be accomplished by October 1, 2009, and with no further action required by the General Assembly, this Act shall be abrogated and of no further force and effect.
We feel without the specified amendments to the bill, there is a possibility that those who have not been previously exposed to the diseases and those who have already personally experienced the devastation of chronic Lyme and tick borne illnesses and their physicians may not be provided an appropriate education or access to a viable standard of care which includes:
1. Allowing doctors to use clinical discretion to develop an appropriate diagnostic and treatment protocol based on updated, comprehensive and unbiased scientific facts and the patient's clinical response.
2. The possibility that tick borne illnesses can be complex and difficult to treat, and can require more than a minimal dose of ``cost-effective'' therapy in certain circumstances.
3. The patients and physicians choice of, and access to, quality testing facilities and tests; use of medications to address early, acute, and/or ongoing chronic infections; alternative treatments; supportive therapy; and reimbursement for associated medical costs.
4. Protection for doctors who treat according to obvious clinical signs and symptoms rather than limiting treatment based solely on unreliable tests, and arbitrary, biased or unsubstantiated theories, studies or guidelines.
5. Input from patients, national and local support groups, volunteer patient advocates, international physicians organizations which specialize in tickborne diseases, and a diverse group of qualified professionals from the medical and scientific community who study and/or actually treat chronically ill patients, rather than only a handful of academic researchers who rarely, if ever, treat chronic cases of Lyme and tick borne coinfections.
With these considerations and the above amendments in place, Maryland residents will be better protected from acquiring tick borne diseases, have access to updated literature and be provided quality care from trained professionals.
Delegate Montgomery and co-sponsors of the bill- we would like you to know patients across the state applaud your efforts and also appreciate that you and your staff have chosen to help those who have had to struggle and have suffered as a result of having little to no help with this matter in the past. Thank you for taking time from your busy schedules to help all of us and for giving us hope.
Sincerely,
Lyme Disease Education and Support Groups of Maryland
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
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