The Wrong Offender

In 2006, the European Union banned antibiotics from animal feed, yet our government continues to sanction healthy animals being fed huge amounts of antibiotics to get fat, while sick Lyme patients are denied antibiotics to get well.

Supporters of the Lyme doctor protection law include respected medical professionals: Connecticut Medical Society, American Academy of American Physicians and Surgeons, and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). The national Lyme Disease Association and its 33 associated organizations nationwide support it.

Opposition comes from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), whose members' vested interests and exclusionary conduct in Lyme guidelines' development were cited by Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal in legal action against IDSA.

The American Lyme Disease Foundation (ALDF), whose current president, Phil Baker, formerly worked as the National Institutes of Health program officer overseeing Lyme grants, can't be perceived as an independent entity in assessing IDSA guidelines. The ALDF, in fact, consists of many of the same individuals and researchers who developed the IDSA guidelines.

Many medical conditions are treated long-term with antibiotics, for example, acne Treatment is sometimes for years - only chronic Lyme is singled out to deny its patients any treatment, except palliative care. IDSA guidelines recommend against all antibiotic treatment for chronic Lyme, against alternative treatments, against supplements, and against doctor discretion in diagnosis - recommendations that seem punitive, not medical in nature.

IDSA hasn't limited its opposition to this bill. It's also lobbied against the federal bill for research monies and against having long-term treating physicians on a Lyme federal advisory committee. IDSA doesn't want patients to have a voice in their disease either, despite the fact that other disease committees permit all stakeholders to participate. IDSA views itself as the ultimate authority on a disease they don't recognize or acknowledge.

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