LymeNet Flash: Can you believe the Health Dept...?

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»	LymeNet Flash » Questions and Discussion » General Support » Can you believe the Health Dept...?

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Topic: Can you believe the Health Dept...?

22dreams
LymeNet Contributor
Member # 17846

posted

You will probably say "why, yes I can" in response to this.

I went on my city's Health Dept website and found community health "forms" and fact sheets.

I saw fact sheets for Eastern Equine Encephalitis (very rare) and West Nile (very rare) from the State Health Dept listed.

I also saw a warning/fact sheet for gardeners, warning them at their chances of contracting TETANUS while gardening.

Yet try as I may, I found NOTHING on Lyme and other TBD. Nothing.

Not the equivalent "fact sheet" along with the others that is actually in existence on the state's website.

So, I emailed them, explaining that lyme is the #1 vector-borne disease in the country

(not RARE like EEE and WestNile) and

that we live in a very endemic state (massachusetts), AND

that I am a resident and contracted lyme right OUTSIDE MY DOOR on a city street.

I kindly and strongly encouraged them to post the Lyme Fact Sheet on their website and provided them with the corresponding PDF link.

We'll see what, if anything, happens.

I couldn't (expletive) believe it!
West Nile and EEE by no lyme---a Massachusetts city's Health Department?

I can see why conspiracy theories exist when we seem to encounter this sort of thing at nearly every turn.

Has anyone else encountered this in their city/town?

Posts: 571 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Oct 2008 | IP: Logged |

Tick Tock
Member
Member # 15948

posted

Rhode Island has a little more information, even a brochure that isn't quite accurate, but better than nothing.

I did speak to the head Rhode Island Department of Health, Dr. Gifford. He told me there is no such thing as chronic Lyme and long term antibiotic treatment is dangerous.

If I happened to get better from long term antibiotics that's because I was going to get better anyway and the antibiotics were just coincidental. He also said I don't have Lyme but probably MS, ALS, Parkinson's ... Defintely not Lyme.

He did know of the IDSA/Ilads debate, the Connecticut AG stuff, but he said everything from the IDSA "playbook" on Lyme.

I understand your frustration. It's not just Massachusetts.

Posts: 79 | From Rhode Island | Registered: Jun 2008 | IP: Logged |

22dreams
LymeNet Contributor
Member # 17846

posted

This close-mindedness is really ENTRENCHED.

Suggesting that you have something with No Known

cause, yet anyone worth their salt admits that

infection or virus can be the cause of ALS, MS....

makes me wonder if Gifford thinks that everyone

with those diseases is a psychiatric case.

When I encounter that sort of close-mindedness, from my experience with my family, I instantly FEEL a personality disorder. That is a whole other ball of wax, but they can't get beyond themselves to even fathom something "other". It doesn't matter if it hurts others in the process.

So much for the scientific mind being an open one(not).

Posts: 571 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Oct 2008 | IP: Logged |

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